RUTHFULLY YOURS

I have grown increasingly tired of so called news programs. Years ago one read newspapers and saw “newsreels” before double features in movies. Now news has become show business. One watches it accompanied by the chatter and blather of the anchors who are not journalists. They are news readers who pepper their blather with bias, ignorance and bad grammar.

This goes for all programs- liberal and conservative. The ladies – even formerly comely Megyn Kelly cackle at their own jokes and look like dominatrices while they flash industrial size false eyelashes.

The men range from pompous asses (Charlie Rose and O’Reilly clones) to oh so mild mannered and boring (Anderson and Blitzer) to outright and predicable dopes (Hannity and Chris Matthews)

Their so called “political”coverage has given a mountebank like Trump a free ride and ignored the duplicity and mega-scandals of Hillary Clinton.

Bring back news reels that cover everything – stories about immigration, homeland security, foreign policy, elections, profiles of the candidates, terrorism etc. without the opinion of tyros. Then, I can relax and watch “Dancing with the Stars”….rsk

After a recent surge in threatening behavior by Iran and reports that it may soon be given access to the U.S. financial system, the House Intelligence Committee opened an investigation into whether Obama officials misled Congress about the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive plan of Action, or JCPOA). The “historic” deal, they said, would help bring Iran into the “community of nations” and lead to improved relations between Iran and the United States.

While this congressional investigation is a welcome development, it is too little and too late to reverse the Obama administration’s policy of offering any and all concessions — including over $100 billion in sanctions relief — to get a nuclear agreement with Iran. Most members of Congress thought the JCPOA was a bad deal; the majority of them voted against it last fall. But many now realize that this agreement is in fact an enormous fraud that is undermining Middle East and international security.

As I have explained here on National Review Online, in “Obama’s Iran Deal Is the Opposite of What He Promised the American People,” the negotiations that produced the JCPOA were an endless series of fallacies and deceptions. To get Iran to the negotiating table, the Obama administration foolishly agreed that the mullahs could continue to enrich uranium and develop advanced enrichment centrifuges. This means that the timeline for an Iranian nuclear weapon will shorten when the JCPOA is in effect, because Iran will all the while be improving its capability to produce nuclear fuel.

Obama officials made several misleading statements about the JCPOA last July that have come back to haunt them. These will be the focus of the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation.

One of the most controversial of these statements was President Obama’s and Secretary Kerry’s assertion that under this agreement, Iran agreed to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions barring missile tests for eight years. But there is no language barring missile tests in the JCPOA; this provision is buried in a U.N. Security Council resolution (Resolution 2231) that merely endorsed the JCPOA.

Last week, French president Francois Hollande met President Obama in Washington to discuss joint strategies for stopping the sort of radical Islamic terrorists who have killed dozens of innocents in Brussels, Paris, and San Bernardino in recent months. Hollande at one point explicitly referred to the violence as “Islamist terrorism.”

The White House initially deleted that phrase from the audio translation of the official video of the Hollande-Obama meeting, only to restore it when questioned. Did the Obama administration assume that if the public could not hear the translation of the French president saying “Islamist terrorism,” then perhaps Hollande did not really say it — and therefore perhaps Islamist terrorism does not really exist?

The Obama administration must be aware that in the 1930s, the Soviet Union wiped clean all photos, recordings, and films of Leon Trotsky on orders from Josef Stalin. Trotsky was deemed politically incorrect, and therefore his thoughts and photos simply vanished.

The Library of Congress, under pressure from Dartmouth College students, recently banned not just the term “illegal alien” in subject headings for literature about immigration, but “alien” as well. Will changing the vocabulary mean that from now on, foreign nationals who choose to enter and reside in the United States without being naturalized will not be in violation of the law and will no longer be considered citizens of their homeland?

Did the Library of Congress ever read the work of the Greek historian Thucydides, who warned some 2,500 years ago that in times of social upheaval, partisans would make words “change their ordinary meaning and . . . take that which was now given them.”

The Iranian firing of a missile within 1500 yards of U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman in December, and the kidnapping and photographing of a U.S. Navy ship and crew (the photographs were a violation of the Geneva Convention) were test cases. Other than an apparent temper tantrum by Secretary Kerry, there was no American response. Oh, actually, there was. Mr. Kerry absolved his friend Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of responsibility.

The Iranians were confident that the Americans could be counted on not to collapse the whole discussion over violations along the edges. Their model was American behavior in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” The Palestinians violate agreements and understandings with impunity because they know the Administration is more firmly wedded to the process than the specific issues on the table.

Supporters of President Obama’s Iran deal (JCPOA) are starting to worry — but that is because they believed him when his lips moved. They heard “snapback sanctions” and pretended those were an actual “thing.” They are not, and never were. They heard Treasury Secretary Jack Lew say the U.S. would never allow Iran access to dollar trading because of the corruption of the Iranian banking system and Iranian support for terrorism — and they wanted to believe him. And sanctions? The administration said that sanctions related to non-nuclear Iranian behavior — support for terrorism, ballistic missile development, and more — would be retained.

Supporters believed Secretary Kerry when he said sanctions on Iran would be lifted only by a “tiny portion,” which would be “very limited, temporary and reversible… So believe me, when I say this relief is limited and reversible, I mean it.” They all but heard him stamp his loafer.

The mistake was not just listening to the administration say whatever it was Democrats in Congress wanted to hear, while knowing full well that once the train left the station it would never, ever come back. The bigger mistake was not listening to Iran. The Iranians have been clear and consistent about their understanding of the JCPOA.

Days before Congress failed to block the JCPOA, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, outlined Iran’s red lines.

To block “infiltration” of “Iran’s defense and security affairs under the pretext of nuclear supervision and inspection… Iranian military officials are not allowed to let the foreigners go through the country’s security-defense shield and fence.”
“Iran’s military officials are not at all allowed to stop the country’s defense development and progress on the pretext of supervision and inspection and the country’s defense development and capabilities should not be harmed in the talks.”
“Our support for our brothers in the resistance [Hezbollah, Assad, Yemeni Houthis, Hamas, Shiites in Iraq] in different places should not be undermined.”
A final deal should be a “comprehensive one envisaging the right for Iran to rapidly reverse its measures in case the opposite side refrains from holding up its end of the bargain.”
“Iran’s national security necessitates guaranteed irreversibility of the sanctions removal and this is no issue for bargaining, trade, or compromise.”
“Implementation… should totally depend on the approval of the country’s legal and official authorities and the start time for the implementation of undertakings should first be approved by the relevant bodies.”
Iran would not be limited in transferring its nuclear know-how to other countries of its choosing.

The Iranians deliberately and openly conflated what the Administration claimed would be limited sanctions relief related to specific Iranian actions on the nuclear program with the larger issues of sanctions for other Iranian behavior. The Iranians were confident that the Americans could be counted on not to collapse the whole discussion over violations along the edges. Their model was American behavior in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” The Palestinians violate agreements and understandings with impunity because they know the Administration is more firmly wedded to the process than the specific issues on the table.

Two years have passed since the Obama administration was tasked by Congress to develop cyber countermeasure policies. But in response to Sen. Joe McCain (R-AZ) question “Is it correct that these are policy-decision that have not been made?” U.S. Cyber Command Commander Adm. Michael S. Rogers responded: “The way I would describe it is, we clearly still are focused more on” an “event-by-event” approach to cyber incidents,”

If one follows the Obama administration has been dragging its feet when it comes to cyber threats that increasingly threaten the U.S. defense capabilities and the country’s economy, it is not difficult to see that even more than other national security related matters, the administration has adopted a slow-knee-jerk policy.

Rogers’ testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as his responses to questions from the members, revealed that the U.S. military cyber defense, deterrence, and offense capabilities are also lacking, as is the staffing of Cybercommand. He urged to “accelerate debate on how to balance security and privacy in the ever-changing digital realm.” Otherwise,Rogers warned, “an enemy could change and manipulate data — rather than enter a computer system and steal — that action would be a threat to national security.

Rogers repeated previous warnings that Russia’s cyber capabilities presented the biggest threat to the U.S. China is not far behind.

Not long ago, I jokingly pointed out that Obama’s secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, who in his holy quest to give his liege lord, Barack, the rainbow-hued, unicorn-mounted force the narcissist-in-chief so desires, has, in naval jargon, run aground.

The problem according to Mabus and his chief enlisted naval adviser is that, try as they might, their naval social justice retitling team can’t seem to come up with a satisfactory gender-neutral replacement for the Navy’s traditional title for a clerk, which, as it has been since the birth of the United States Navy, is yeoman. I kid you not, folks: with all the problems our military faces in this very dangerous world, our secretary of the Navy has his top chief petty officer, Master Chief of the Navy Michael D. Stevens, busy changing the titles of the countless combat specialty ratings in that force, which includes the United States Marine Corps. This quixotic quest is necessitated by the relentless insistence of the Obama administration that women be allowed to serve in all combat units and positions regardless of continuing demonstrations that this is a clearly foolish program with coming deadly consequences.

While my recent piece drew many humorous suggestions for a replacement title for yeoman, one commenter soberly noted that this is no laughing matter when it comes to the Navy’s real budget needs. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have taken an accounting axe to our military forces, demanding drastic reductions everywhere, across every fleet and every force. In the Navy, that means not only fewer ships, but also fewer sailors to man and support those ships remaining. Because of Obama’s budgets, naval aviators aren’t allowed to fly sufficient training missions to retain their flying proficiency. Even special naval helicopter units that fly SEAL missions are being shut down, with their mission being shifted onto the Army. Point is, money’s tight, and the budget constraints are affecting mission training and performance.

After World War II, the U.S. abandoned the concepts of total and hard war and adopted a more politically correct view of war.

Western civilization is immolating itself on the sword of political correctness. Our leaders fail to recognize the existential threat that we now face and are unwilling to take the decisive actions necessary to combat the threat of radical jihadist Islamists.

Leadership on both sides of the political spectrum refuse to identify how we might counter this threat. This is not necessarily a new type of threat that we have not experienced before. However, what is new is our refusal to properly utilize the tools at our disposal to combat this threat.

We often hear our leadership say that it is against our values as Americans to use some of these ruthless but effective tools. Gen. George S. Patton once said, “War is cruel, ruthless and brutal and it takes a cruel, ruthless and brutal man to fight it!” It was the implementation of this approach that ultimately secured victory in 1945.

Unfortunately, our nation does not presently possess Patton’s “cruel, ruthless and brutal man” in any senior leadership position in our government or military. Politicians and generals alike often state that it is against our long-held American values to target civilians or torture prisoners. However, our country’s history is replete with examples of our leadership doing what is necessary to win. We can only logically extrapolate that those who would refuse to fight hard war would be willing to sacrifice our lives and freedom on the altar of the absurd fallacies of American values crowd.

During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington hanged spies and executed deserters. During the Mexican-American War, Gen. Winfield Scott ordered the execution of fifty members of the St. Patrick’s Battalion in 1847. Many members of this unit were determined to be deserters from the U.S. Army who joined forces with the Mexican army under Santa Ana. Both Union and Confederate generals during the Civil War executed prisoners in retaliation for executions by their counterparts. Gen. William Sherman during his famous march from Atlanta to the sea issued General Order V which stated,

Army Corps commanders alone are entrusted with the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: in districts in neighborhoods where the Army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

Asked about the fight against ISIS today, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter stressed “we need to get this over with.”

Carter was taking questions after a talk on preparing the Defense Department for the future today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Beyond terrorism, we also potentially face future nation-state adversaries with widening geographic reach but also widening exposure, something we may want to take into account in order to de-escalate a crisis and to deter aggression. In other cases, we may have to respond to multiple threats across the globe in overlapping time frames,” Carter said during his speech.

“…We’re not postured to be as agile as we could be. Accordingly, we need to clarify the role and authority of the Chairman, and in some cases the Joint Chiefs and the Joint Staff.”

In the Q&A, Carter said of ISIS, “We have got to get these guys beaten as soon as possible, which is basically where I’m coming from.”

“We are looking for every opportunity we can take to do that. Of course, our overall strategic approach is not only to defeat ISIL, but to keep them defeated. That means you also have to look ahead to the next stage and who is going to keep the peace afterwards, which is why we try to work with local forces where they can be made capable and motivated, which is difficult in some places but that is a necessary part of the strategy,” he said.

Last week, a fresh political scandal erupted on Capitol Hill over Iran. At issue was a new plan being considered by the Obama administration to provide Iran’s ayatollahs with limited access to the U.S. financial system as a sweetener for their continued compliance with their government’s 2015 nuclear deal with the nations of the P5+1.

Doing so would have effectively reneged on promises made by the White House last summer in selling the nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) to a skeptical Congress. Back in July, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew waved away congressional worries over the prospects of Iran’s regime being unjustly enriched as a result of the JCPOA. Lew pledged that — irrespective of the provisions of the new nuclear deal — Iran would “continue to be denied access to the world’s largest financial and commercial market.”

The plan would also have been a potential violation of federal law, since under the provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act the White House is required to “block and prohibit” Iranian assets if those funds “come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person.” (Similarly, the administration’s proposal would have fundamentally undermined one of the central pillars of post-9/11 counterterrorism law, the USA PATRIOT Act, by allowing Iran’s tainted money to permeate U.S. financial institutions.)

News of the new initiative drew outraged responses from key lawmakers, who promised — among other things — to penalize U.S. companies who used the opportunity to expand their business with the Islamic Republic. The pushback worked, and by the weekend the administration had walked back the dog on its proposed idea. “The administration has not been and is not planning to grant Iran access to the U.S. financial system,” a spokesperson deployed by the Treasury Department insisted to reporters on April 1.

That, however, isn’t the end of the story. While the White House may have stopped short of giving Iran direct access to the American financial system, it still appears to be mulling workarounds that would nonetheless allow the Islamic Republic to take advantage of the U.S. dollar.