Obama’s Syria Non-Strategy is Imploding : Fred Fleitz

Secretary of State John Kerry got the headline he was looking for last week when the press reported that the United States and Russia agreed on a cease-fire in Syria that would allow the delivery of food and humanitarian aid.

Kerry actually said a “cessation of hostilities” had been agreed to, not a cease-fire. Kerry also referred to this development as a “pause” in hostilities that would begin in one week “after consultations with Syrian parties.”

Kerry’s careful wording reflected the reality that the Syrian government and Syrian rebels have yet to accept this agreement. Kerry also omitted another glaring problem with this so-called cessation of hostilities: it will not apply to Russian air strikes.

The reason for this is that the agreement excludes attacks on ISIS and the al Qaeda-backed al-Nusra Front because they are terrorist groups. Russia is using this exception to justify continuing its bombing of other Syrian rebel groups by falsely claiming they are terrorists.

President Obama objected to Russia’s position by issuing a statement on Sunday calling on Moscow to cease “its air campaign against moderate opposition forces in Syria.”

The cease-fire agreement was the latest in a series of diplomatic initiatives by the Obama administration to make it appear that it is doing something about the Syria crisis. The agreement was in response to the stalled peace process begun by Kerry last fall that produced a vague outline for peace talks. This outline called for a peace process that would lead to “credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance, followed by a new constitution and elections” to be administered under UN supervision.” It also was agreed that formal peace talks under UN auspices would begin on January 1st.

The peace talks outline left several major issues unresolved. There was no agreement on a cease-fire or the political future of Syrian President Assad. There also were disagreements over which groups would be designated terrorists and disallowed from attending the talks.

Instead of moving toward a peaceful resolution after the November peace outline, Russia and Syria intensified hostilities. Aided by Russian bombers and Iranian fighters, the Syrian army last month began an assault on the rebel stronghold of Aleppo, causing an exodus of 50,000 refugees. The residents of several rebel towns are facing starvation because of a new Syrian army strategy called “surround and starve.”

The Dangerous Hope of Two-Staters by Barry Shaw

I am in bewilderment of those who have made a fifty year career, costing billions of dollars, in pursuit of an elusive Two-State Solution.

Personal disclosure. I was a member of this cult until the harsh reality of truth hit my hometown of Netanya in the form of post-Oslo Accord, Arafat-inspired, Palestinian terrorism.

I was fortunate. I was hit with a psychological smack in the head. I got off easily. Too many of our citizens were killed or badly injured by the incessant suicide bombings, car bombs and shootings that only stopped by Operation Defensive Shield which targeted the terrorist cells under Palestinian control.

It is shocking how persistent people are to pursue this Two-State Solution as if it is the only oasis in a barren, arid, desert. But this fifty year trek toward a shimmering distant mirage draws sloggers toward an unreachable goal. Had they looked left or right they may have discovered alternative routes to peace, rather than doggedly plod toward a fantasy.

Way back in January 1988, a New York Times article stated that “Gaza could be the Singapore of the Middle East.” So it could if Gazan Arabs weren’t so passionately and religiously bound to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The twisted tribal code of Arab honor leaves them with a sense of shame and inferiority when Israeli cooperation and assistance is offered to them. Rather than benefit and prosper they grudgingly accept largesse while plotting to chop off the hand extended to them in peace. The resentment can be seen in the ‘anti-normalization’ campaigning of BDS activists encouraged by a large segment of the Palestinian leadership.

Truth be told, the signs were there for all to see decades ago. Resear

The president doesn’t deserve an EZ-pass in replacing Scalia by Betsy McCaughey

Democrats are giddy over the prospect of President Obama replacing conservative Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal.

But Republicans are equally adamant about blocking Obama’s lame-duck appointment. “This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

It’s rare that a president makes a Supreme Court appointment during his last months in office. But timing’s not the critical issue. The real outrage is the Democrats’ baseless claim that Obama’s promised nominee should have an automatic green light to the bench.

Party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz urged the Senate to move quickly, “as our founders intended,” and not be “twisted by politics.”

Hillary Clinton says any obstruction would “dishonor our Constitution.” Sorry, that’s not what the Constitution says.

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders also insists it would be wrong to delay Obama’s court pick for “overtly political reasons.”

All these politicians need a history lesson. Claiming the Senate’s duty is to rubber stamp any “qualified” nominee is pure fiction.

Whaddya Know: Trump Did Support Invading Iraq By Stephen Kruiser

Surprise! Or not.

For months, Donald Trump has claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before the invasion began — as an example of his great judgment on foreign policy issues.

But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion.

In the interview, which took place on Sept. 11, 2002, Stern asked Trump directly if he was for invading Iraq.

“Yeah I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he was against the Iraq War before it began, despite no evidence of him publicly stating this position. On Meet the Press, Trump said there weren’t many articles about his opposition because he wasn’t a politician at the time.

“Well, I did it in 2003, I said it before that,” Trump said of his opposition to invading Iraq. “Don’t forget, I wasn’t a politician. So people didn’t write everything I said. I was a businessperson. I was, as they say, a world-class businessperson. I built a great company, I employed thousands of people. So I’m not a politician. But if you look at 2003, there are articles. If you look in 2004, there are articles.”

Trump’s comments on Stern are more in line with what he wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, where he advocated for a “principled and tough” policy toward “outlaw” states like Iraq.

Suicidal Overcompensation in Germany By James Lewis

Back in the days when Garrison Keillor was still funny, he told stories about the pioneering settlers who founded Lake Woebegon, Minnesota in the 19th century. In the story, Norwegian immigrants settled in the coldest part of Minnesota because it reminded them of home – and then, when winter came, they remembered why they had left there in the first place. German Catholics wandered into Lake Woebegon by mistake, “but they refused to admit it.”

So they stayed.

Today, Angela Merkel’s Germany is making another suicidal gesture by opening the borders to tens of thousands of predatory, war-indoctrinated jihadis – young men of military age, who have been taught to despise, hate, and beat up anybody outside their own Muslim sect. They are indoctrinated in war theology – the last major war theology on Earth. Merkel and the EU have drifted into this suicidal fiasco by mistake – but they still refuse to admit it.

It’s the German Catholics and Lake Woebegon again. Sweden and Germany (especially Prussia) have a long folk reputation for getting completely stuck in whatever the current absolutist ideology happens to be. This kind of fanatical belief led to centuries of bloody warfare between German-speaking Lutherans and Catholics. Then it was Prussian imperialism with Frederick the Great and later Bismarck, who turned the independent provinces of Germany into one unified and self-glorifying Reich. Prussian egomania turned into Karl Marx’s “philosophy” and Richard Wagner’s ideology in 1848; Marx preached revolutionary terror, and Wagner led directly to Hitler. But the absolutist pathology over there was still the same. Only the slogans changed.

Today Angela Merkel and the EU preach peace, peace, but they stupidly let in 50 million easily indoctrinated Muslims – so there will be no peace. Isaiah (48:22) was right again. The Swedes, Germans, and French still yearn for that Napoleonic absolutism, and the EU is always frantically denying that it plans to become another Roman Empire.

Tony Thomas Neutering the Army’s ‘Warrior Culture’

De-gendering society inspires shrieking enthusiasm in womyn’s studies classrooms, where academic notions of equality make minimal contact with the real world. In a foxhole things are different, which explains why the feminist push to “reform” the armed forces is so very worrying
In an epochal change in late 2011, Labor’s Defence Minister Stephen Smith announced that virtually all remaining military restrictions on women in combat would be lifted before 2016. Women in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) are now available to kill or be killed at the bleeding edge

This followed the ADF’s own announcement in April, 2011, to the same effect. Those signing off on it were General David Hurley, Chief of the Defence Force; Navy chief Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs; Army chief Lt-Gen David Morrison (current Australian of the Year); Air Force chief Air Marshall Geoff Brown; and Major-General Gerard Fogarty, Head, People Capability. Hurley began it:

After thirty-five years in the Infantry, I know the rigours of life as an infantryman. My decision to support the opening of combat positions in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to women comes from experience and knowledge … A robust and agile ADF relies on every member having the opportunity to contribute fully and equally to Defence operations and capability.

We all share the responsibility to work towards a fair, just and inclusive ADF. After all, gender equality is the whole community’s responsibility.

The statement was emphatic that standards would not be lowered for women’s entry. It was accompanied by a “Risk Management Plan” of high formality but little substance (maybe the nitty-gritty details are for military-eyes only). Meanwhile, Defence got a new employee, a “permanent full-time cultural change manager to assist with implementing cultural change within Army.”

Kevin Donnelly An Education You Can’t Buy

If there is anything more predictable than the sun rising of a morning it is Big Chalk’s immediate response to any and all discussions of standards. ‘Give us more money,’ unions and lobbyists demand, thereby demonstrating either a gross failure of comprehension or a willingness to mislead
The Australian Education Union and the Labor Party, when justifying the additional billions of dollars needed to fully fund the Gonski Report’s school funding model, argue that Australia’s education system is inequitable. Government school advocate Trevor Cobbold from Save Our Schools is also in no doubt that Australia’s education system is inequitable when he argues, “Clearly, Australia is at the bottom end of OECD countries in terms of equality in education outcomes”. Alan Reid, from the University of South Australia, in a report commissioned by the Australian Government Primary Principals Association argues in a similar vein when he says, “Australia is near the bottom of OECD countries in terms of equity and education”.

All argue that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, the majority of whom are in government schools, consistently underperform as a result of being disadvantaged and only increased funding will improve outcomes and raise standards. Based on their belief that Australia’s education system is unfair and that government school students are the most adversely affected, both Cobbold and Reid go on to argue that governments must redirect funding from so-called privileged Catholic and Independent schools to government schools.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that Australian schools do not reinforce disadvantage and, based on research carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, our education system is ‘high-equity’.

France’s Relentless Hostility to the Jewish State by Guy Millière

France today is one of the main enemies of Israel — maybe its main enemy — in the Western world. France’s disregard of the threats faced by Israel is more than simple willful blindness. It is complicity.

At a time when Mahmoud Abbas constantly encourages terror and hatred against Israel, and when murders of Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arabs occur on a daily basis, France’s anti-Israel relentlessness can only be seen as the latest extension of France’s centuries-old anti-Semitism.

France’s “Arab policy” has gone hand-in-hand with a massive wave of Muslim immigration. France has quickly become the main Muslim country in Europe. More than six million Muslims live in France, and make up approximately 10% of the population. The Muslim vote is now an important factor in French politicians’ decisions; the risk of Muslim riots is taken into account.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran — a regime that denies the fact that the Holocaust occurred and does not hide its intention to commit another holocaust — arrived in Paris for an official visit.

Two days earlier, Rouhani had been in Rome, where the Italian authorities, in a gesture of submission, covered up the nude statues of Rome’s Capitoline Museum.

Rouhani thanked Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for his “hospitality”. He did not thank President François Hollande for having hosted him on January 27.

Denmark Criminalizes Free Speech – Selectively by Judith Bergman

According to the court decision, pointing out the totalitarian and cruel aspects of Islam itself is now a criminal offense, considered “insulting and demeaning” to Muslims in Denmark and therefore constituting “racism.” In effect, this means that the court is conflating what might possibly constitute blasphemy with racism.

Conversely, when a Danish imam called Jews “the offspring of apes and pigs,” he was officially reported to the police for breaching § 266b, but no legal charges were ever filed against him.

In Denmark, apparently, it is a crime to criticize Islam and “Islamists,” but calling Jews the “offspring of apes and pigs” and inciting their murder in a packed mosque (and calling non-Muslims in general “animals”) can be done with impunity.

Last week, a Danish district court ruled that what a Danish citizen had written on Facebook in November 2013 violated the Danish criminal code.

In response to a debate about the local activities of a radical Islamic organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which works for the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate, he wrote: “The ideology of Islam is as loathsome, disgusting, oppressive and as misanthropic as Nazism. The massive immigration of Islamists into Denmark is the most devastating thing to happen to Danish society in recent history.”

According to § 266b of Denmark’s criminal code, it is prohibited and punishable by fine or prison publicly to threaten, insult or demean a group of persons because of their race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation.

‘Cease-fire’ in Russian, Arabic and Farsi Ruthie Blum

As the ostensible cease-fire deal agreed upon during a security conference in Munich last week was supposed to take effect in Syria a few days from now, some 50 civilians were killed Monday in Russian airstrikes on two medical facilities.

This kind of deadly paradox is par for the course in the Middle East, particularly when none of the parties involved actually signed any agreement about what European brokers called a “cessation of hostilities.”

Russia, for example, which has been fighting ferociously to rescue the regime of Syrian dictator President Bashar Assad, announced that such a “cessation” would not apply to its bombing of opposition targets.

Assad echoed this in a televised address on Monday, saying that a cease-fire would not include a halt to the use of weapons by the warring parties. No, he explained, the real aim of a “cessation of hostilities” would be to prevent his enemies “from strengthening their positions. Movement of weapons, equipment or terrorists, or fortification of positions, will not be allowed.”