RUTHFULLY YOURS

Deterrence is lost through lax foreign policy, an erosion of military readiness, and failed supreme command — often insidiously, over time, rather than dramatically, at once. The following random events over the seven years that Barack Obama has been in office have led to the idea abroad that the U.S. is no longer the world’s leader and that regional hegemonies have a golden opportunity to redraw regional maps and spheres of influence — to the disadvantage of the West — in the ten months remaining before the next president is inaugurated.

The otherwise disparate Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, and San Bernardino Islamist bombers had three things in common: First, the killers had all communicated on social media with radical jihadists, or had come to the attention of both U.S. and foreign intelligence, or had expressed jihadist beliefs. Second, their attacks were followed by administration warnings about not embracing Islamophobia, as Obama doubled down on his administration’s taboo against the use of terms such as “jihadist,” “radical Islamist,” and “Islamic terrorist.” Third, after each of these incidents, there was no stepped-up administration vigilance; instead, there was a flurry of sermons about not blaming Islam for inciting such killers. The greatest check on ISIS terrorism may lie in the hands of ISIS itself: If its operatives continue to cull the Western herd by a few dozen murders every few months, the U.S. will likely continue to do little. If they get greedy and seek a repeat of something on the scale of 9/11, then the American public will force this administration to act. Unfortunately, ISIS may not be so much energized by anger over supposed Islamophobia as buoyed by the administration’s inability to say “radical Islam.”

The Bowe Bergdahl swap for five Taliban terrorists — and National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s praise of the deserter Bergdahl’s service — reinforced the global message that the Obama administration did not necessarily see Taliban killers as killers or American deserters as deserters, apparently because such definitions are anachronistically absolute concepts. After all, who would willingly swap five killers for one deserter? Apparently everything is negotiable and political, given that the U.S. does not feel deeply about either terrorist killers or those who have renounced their duty to thwart them.

On March 30, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected Western pressure for Iran to stop testing ballistic missiles and a statement by a former Iranian president favoring negotiations instead of the missile program by warning in a speech: “People say that tomorrow’s world is a world of negotiations and not a world of missiles.” Khamenei added, “If they say this thoughtlessly, it shows that they are thoughtless. However, if this is intentional, then this is treachery.”

Khamenei’s defiant comments came in the midst of growing international concerns about Iran’s missile program. Iran tested two ballistic missiles last fall and several over the last month. Written on the sides of two missiles recently tested by Iran reportedly were the words “Israel should be wiped from the pages of history.” Iran is expected to soon launch a space-launch rocket that most experts believe will be a test to develop an ICBM capable of firing nuclear warheads against Europe and the United States.

Iran has the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East and is the only nation in history to develop missiles with ranges of 2,000 km or more without having a nuclear weapons capability. Although Iran claims its missiles are not intended to carry nuclear warheads, most experts believe they are being developed as a nuclear weapons delivery system. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany said in a joint letter sent this week to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Iran’s recent missile launches were “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

The White House said today that interdiction of an Iranian vessel shipping arms to Yemen showed that they’re not ignoring Iran aggression after implementation of the P5+1 nuclear deal.

According to the U.S. Navy, the Cyclone-class patrol craft USS Sirocco first spotted a dhow in the Persian Gulf that was packed with weapons. With the help of the guided missile destroyer USS Gravely, American forces seized cargo including 1,500 AK-47s, 200 RPG launchers and 21 .50 caliber machine guns.

The U.S. 5th Fleet said it was the third time since late February that ships originating in Iran were caught smuggling weapons across the water with Houthi rebels being the “likely” recipient.

On Feb. 27, the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Darwin intercepted a dhow with nearly 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 49 PKM general purpose machine guns, 39 PKM spare barrels and 20 60mm mortar tubes.

On March 20, the French Navy destroyer FS Provence seized nearly 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 64 Dragunov sniper rifles, nine anti-tank missiles and “other associated equipment.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked at the daily briefing if this was “an example of the Iranians following the letter of the agreement, but not necessarily the spirit of it” or “a violation.”

Once upon a time there were people who naively fantasized about how all the incompatible cultures of the world were going to magically blend, weaving a beautiful tapestry of colors and variations. They called this “Multiculturalism”. Increasingly, the tapestry is made up of glass shards and human remains. At what point do we begin to tally the lives ruined or taken by members of all the “guest” cultures from members of all the host cultures? Pretty soon, I hope, since that seems to be a recurring element of multiculturalism. Wherever you see one, you see the other.

Cultures are either consciously abandoned, or consciously enforced. The theory of multiculturalism has always been a tonic for simpletons, since it celebrates the perpetuation and imposition of an incompatible culture, still being practiced by those who carry it, upon a host culture with which it is mutually exclusive. Multiculturalism is entirely subversive. It is intended to force one or more cultures upon the hosts who do not want or need them. Since both cultures cannot successfully coexist within the host, which has its own successful working culture, the purpose of the exercise has always been fraudulent. The “melting pot” concept worked not because of the concept of multiculturalism, but as testament against it. Those who came here in our parents’ and grandparents’ generation consciously chose to abandon the cultures they left in favor of the American culture. They became Americans, embracing one culture.

If one was being less generous than to call multiculturalism a tonic for simpletons, it would be more accurate to say that modern leftist multiculturalism is actually a weapon. Its purpose is not to enhance the host, but to consume it. If the host’s culture is peaceful, it has no use for malcontents who insist upon the dominance of their native culture. Malcontents, in the form of angry and entitled guests, foment chaos and disorder. And yet, the leftists insist that we demonstrate our cultural superiority by abandoning the superiority of our own culture and importing incompatible languages, traditions, practices, and morals.

Iran and North Korea exposed its hollowness weeks before our president convened it.

Hours before President Obama convened a fifty-nation summit on nuclear weapons last Thursday, he celebrated himself in a Washington Post op-ed. He began the article by reminding us that nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons are the greatest dangers facing the world, saying that was why he committed us, seven years ago, to stopping the spread of such weapons and seeking a world without them.

Obama went on to praise his nuclear weapons deal with Iran, saying that it closed every single one of Iran’s paths to the bomb. (He omitted to mention those that remain open, such as the agreement’s risible inspections regime which guarantees Iranian cheating by allowing it to self-inspect some of its key nuclear sites. And the one that allows it, after fifteen years, to enrich as much uranium to weapons grade as it likes, ensuring it can produce nuclear weapons then whenever it likes.)

Unsurprisingly, neither is there anything to learn from nor anything accomplished at Obama’s summit. There’s much more to learn and dissect in the actions and pronouncements of Iran and North Korea before the summit.

On March 8 and 9, Iran launched ballistic missiles in tests of weapons that have at least the range to hit Israel. According to the Iranian FARS news agency, the missiles were painted with the slogan, “Israel must be wiped off the Earth” in Hebrew. UN Security Council resolutions are supposed to be stopping Iran from testing such missiles, but those resolutions are having the same effect they usually have, which is exactly none.

On March 30, the day before Obama’s summit, Iran’s “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors.”

By now, last summer’s nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries, including the United States, is widely understood to have been a windfall for the clerical regime in Tehran. The agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), netted the Islamic Republic some $100 billion in previously escrowed oil revenue, a sum roughly equivalent to a quarter of Iran’s annual economy.

That, however, now appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. Recent days have brought new revelations that the Obama administration is planning still more economic concessions to Iran’s ayatollahs. Specifically, the White House appears to be mulling the possibility of allowing Iran limited access to the U.S. financial system, as a sweetener for its continued compliance with the terms of the JCPOA.

That plan effectively reneges on promises made by the White House last summer in selling the nuclear deal to a skeptical Congress. Back in July, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Treasury secretary Jack Lew waved away congressional worries that Iran’s regime might be unjustly enriched as a result of the JCPOA. Lew pledged that, regardless of the provisions of the new nuclear deal, the administration was committed to keeping existing, and extensive, trade restrictions in place.

“Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks,” Lew promised. “Iran, in other words, will continue to be denied access to the world’s largest financial and commercial market.”

Now, however, the secretary and his colleagues are singing a decidedly different tune. “Since Iran has kept its end of the deal, it is our responsibility to uphold ours, in both letter and spirit,” Lew told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington last week. The message was abundantly clear: For the administration, allowing Iran access to the U.S. market has become an article of good faith.

Former Secretary of Defense under George Bush and Barack Obama Robert Gates feels “double-crossed” by Obama over his promise not to gut the defense budget.

The Hill:

When asked by Fox whether Obama kept to his word, Gates replied, “Well I think that began to fray. ‘Fray’ may be too gentle a word.”

According to the report, Gates was told to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget after already having slashed it.

“I guess I’d have to say I felt double-crossed,” Gates said. “After all those years in Washington, I was naïve.”

The former defense secretary added that he advised Obama to slow the cuts to the military because it would endanger U.S. troops.

“I think he acknowledged that what I was pitching at a minimum was, ‘The world doesn’t seem to be getting better. Before you head down a path of deep cuts in defense, why don’t you take it kind of slow,’ ” he said. “You know it was one of those things where I lost the argument.”

Fox also spoke with former Gen. Michael Flynn, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama.

“Frankly, the United States of America is in a less strong position today because of the readiness and the size of our armed forces,” Flynn said.

Douglas Murray, Associate Director of The Henry Jackson Society, in The Telegraph: ‘We Must Stop Blaming Ourselves for Islamist Extremism’

“The problem of Islamic extremism is caused – astonishingly enough – by Islamic extremism. As France, Belgium and many other societies can now attest, the larger your Muslim population, the larger your Islamic extremism problem. Not because most Muslims are terrorists. Obviously not. But because that “small minority” we always hear about grows proportionally bigger the larger the community is. What matters is the numbers, the density (thus their ability to hide and be hidden) and the type of Islam that is followed.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/03/25/we-must-stop-blaming-ourselves-for-islamist-terrorism/

Charles (Chuck) Brooks serves as the vice president for government relations & marketing for Sutherland Government Solutions. He served at the Department of Homeland Security as the first director of legislative affairs for the Science & Technology Directorate.

In response to the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said there is “no credible or specific intelligence regarding a similar plot that has been uncovered” in the U.S.

Regardless, the Brussels attacks have certainly brought a new focus by DHS, the intelligence community and law enforcement to mitigate future threats to soft targets.

Security is based on increased vigilance and layering elements of intelligence, surveillance technologies and trained personnel to guard vulnerabilities. The real challenge has always been deciding how much security to allocate to what, where and when.

Democratic societies by their nature are open and accessible, which poses a difficult challenge to secure all soft targets in public places such as airports, trains, buses, malls, schools, stadiums and hospitals. Or, for that matter, to secure any place where many people like to socially or commercially gather. The emergence of new capabilities could enable DHS to address these vulnerability issues, and there are protocols and systems that can make a difference.

DHS is exploring futuristic checkpoints that integrate the intelligent fusion of sensor components. The set-up could consist of behavioral sensors that try to measure hostile intent with micro facial and auditory sensors. Other physiological sensors could monitor respiratory, cardio, thermal and iris reactions of passengers who may mean harm.

These checkpoints could be combined with high-definition thermal cameras equipped with facial recognition software that feeds into real-time databases of suspected terrorists. The checkpoints could also use millimeter wave or 3-D imaging with stand-off abilities to detect bombs at a distance.

Last July, when the Administration had been intent on closing a nuclear deal with Iran and selling it to a skeptical American Congress and public, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, emphatically stating that after the deal, Iran will continue to be denied access to the American banking system. “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks,” he said.

And while testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in September, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin said, “No Iranian banks can access the U.S. financial system; not to open an account, not to purchase a security, and not even to execute a dollarized transaction‎ where a split seconds worth of business is done in a New York clearing bank.”

There are a multitude of reasons why this is an excellent idea. For starters: Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and launders money to be sent all around the world to their terrorist network and terror proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq , Bahrain, Yemen and Gaza.

Allowing Iran to participate in the US banking system will only add more dollars into their coffers to be transferred to their destabilizing and terrorist proxies. In February, the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body which is established to protect the international financial system from threats to its integrity, issued a public statement that “reaffirms its call on members and urges all jurisdictions to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian companies and financial institutions.”