RUTHFULLY YOURS

I remember a lot of people speculating about what would have happened in the world if Jimmy Carter had been elected to a second term. Many believed that the Soviets would have taken advantage of Carter’s weakness and confusion to confront NATO, believing that the U.S. would be paralyzed into inaction.

Something similar could happen today, according to some analysts. Vladimir Putin’s saber-rattling at Turkey could become more than bluster if the Russian strongman doesn’t think that the U.S. and NATO would go to war if Moscow attacked Turkey.

The Russians are beginning military exercises in the region immediately adjacent to their border with Turkey. The exercises are a threat because Russian troops will be on the highest level of alert short of war. And Russian rhetoric aimed at Turkey has become more bellicose as events in the Syrian city of Aleppo may force Turkey to try and intervene in the conflict. With Russian jets pounding rebel positions in and around Aleppo and Syrian and Iranian proxy troops surrounding the city, Turkey may feel it has no choice but to lift the siege of Syria’s largest city.

One of Russia’s most knowledgable and respected defense analysts – a critic of Putin and Russian military policy – offered some insight into what’s going on in Moscow:

Today Pavel Felgenhauer published his analysis under the alarming title, “Russia has begun preparations for a major war,” and he marshals a convincing case that the snap exercises in the country’s southwest are really a cover for a shooting war with Turkey—and therefore with NATO too, if Ankara is perceived as defending itself and can assert its right to Article 5, collective self-defense, which obligates all members of the Atlantic Alliance to come to Turkey’s aid.

Barack Obama’s foreign policy – and by extension Hillary Clinton’s – received a stinging rebuke this week…from Obama’s own intelligence chiefs. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave Congress an assessment of threats around the globe that amounted to a direct indictment of Obama’s failed foreign policies.

Clapper called the dangers currently facing the United States “a litany of doom.” He told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “In my fifty-plus years in the intelligence business, I cannot recall a more diverse array of challenges and crises that we confront as we do today.”

Where have Obama’s policies failed? You might as well put on a blindfold and throw a dart at a map of the world.

On the nuclear accord with Iran, which Obama seems to think is his crowning foreign policy accomplishment, Clapper said that Iran could begin construction of a nuclear weapons program at any time. “Iran probably views the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as a means to remove sanctions while preserving some of its nuclear capabilities, as well as the option to eventually expand its nuclear infrastructure.”

Tom is a black belt basher of Israel who would gladly blame the Zika virus on the Jewish state. He is also a sniveling coward by his own admission. In his dreadful book “From Beirut to Jerusalem” in 1989 he states:
“There was not a single reporter in West Beirut who did not feel intimidated…no one had any illusions that [the factions] would tolerate much serious reporting.” When an Araft spokesman warned that he was not “friendly”enough to the PLO cause he “lay awake in my bed the whole night worrying that someone was going to burst in and blow my brains all over the wall.” He further states:“the truth is, the Western press coddled the PLO and never judged it with anywhere near the scrutiny that it judged Israeli, Phalangist, or American behavior.” ….. “For any Beirut-based correspondent, the name of the game was keeping on good terms with the PLO, because without it,you would not get the interview with Arafat you wanted when your foreign editor came to town.”

And he is still going strong: An e-pal Mike M, sent me his latest spoor from February 2016: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/the-many-mideast-solutions.html and his comment:

“As usual Friedman blames Israel for the work of the Palestinians. it is not “lack of imagination” that leads all rational people to the idea that withdrawal from Gaza led to the creation of the terrorist base of Hamastan, so further withdrawal will probably lead to further terrorism.Only a coward makes his nasty points in the guise of “questions. ”

Friedman: “Was it the fanatical Jewish settlers determined to keep expanding their footprint in the West Bank and able to sabotage any Israeli politician or army officer who opposed them? Was it right-wing Jewish billionaires, like Sheldon Adelson, who used their influence to blunt any U.S. congressional criticism of Bibi Netanyahu? Or was it Netanyahu, whose lust to hold onto his seat of power is only surpassed by his lack of imagination to find a secure way to separate from the Palestinians?”

p.s. spoor is defined as “1 : a track, a trail, a scent, or droppings especially of a wild animal. rsk

Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It, the autobiographical book by former Egyptian would-be jihadist Tawfik Hamid, has recently appeared in a revised 2015 edition. This critically important, tremendously insightful insider analysis of Islam, its various threats, and reform possibilities is no less relevant now than the first edition seven years ago.

“A literal interpretation of the Quran, along with mainstream teachings of Islam today, can easily be used to justify” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) explains Hamid in detail. Around the world “Denialists,” as he terms them, “typically and stubbornly promote the view that Islam is a peaceful religion,” but “violent injunctions of Sharia are not bizarre, extremist or anachronistic Islamic interpretations.” “Excusing ISIS as being ‘un-Islamic’ is absurd.”

Hamid justifies his judgments with the experience of an individual born 1961 into a highly-educated “secular Muslim family in Cairo,” Egypt, who turned to religion as a medical student. His uniquely interesting autobiography documents how the son of a privately atheist doctor participated in the Egyptian Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya (JI) from 1979-1982 before a spiritual transformation turned the younger Hamid away from violence. In JI he was “prepared to train with jihadists in Afghanistan-to fight and kill the Russian invaders in the name of Allah.”

“Medical students are often more attracted to religion because they see the power of God in nature on a regular basis,” writes Hamid while noting that his life story is no exception. “Westerners are often astonished to observe highly accomplished Muslim doctors in the terrorist ranks,” he notes while citing the example of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian surgeon currently leading al-Qaeda. “Dr. Ayman,” as he was known through his involvement in various Islamist groups to Hamid and his colleagues, “came from a wealthy, well-known and well-educated family and was a top postgraduate student.” Zawahiri exemplifies for Hamid that, among Islamist leaders, “many if not most emerged from the upper socioeconomic classes,” contrary to “naïve and unrealistic” socioeconomic explanations for jihad such as poverty

JeruZalem

Directed by the Paz Brothers

After 14, most of us aren’t big fans of horror films. But as often gauche as JeruZalem is in parts, it benefits from a quirky POV as the protagonist female uses Google Glass for all the proceedings. Despite some obvious genre tropes – infected friend dragging along instead of being shot, screams where no one would want to make a sound, a supposedly lost brother coming back to convenient view, a creepy “rescue” scene in a Jerusalem insane asylum (we have all seen that building exterior, and pray the insides are not what is depicted here) – the film has some idiosyncratic charms, chief of which are many scenes of lesser familiarity in the catacombs, areas not often seen by tourists to this incredible country. The facial recognition data identifying known, acceptable people versus unacceptable appearing onscreen throughout is a nice touch.

Two grain-fed millennial girls from Corntown, USA visit the land of milk and honey. They meet two men and immediately swan around with them, though one is skeevy and up to no good, and the other is a bland drip. Premonitions of doom follow almost immediately. Run for your souls!

The basis for the grotty threat is from Jeremiah 19, in the Talmud: There are three gates to hell: One is in the desert, one supposedly in the ocean … and the last one is in Jerusalem.

Though not all audiences like this film – some guys got really annoyed as the film proceeded, and their view was not grace-noted and hosannas – it is actually kind of more unexpected viewability than you get from most horror films, and there’s all that terrific footage of out of the way sites in the ancient capital city. There’s less slashing and bleeding than the norm, and there’s a lot of biblical gobbledygook, but in the end, if you stick it out, it is sort of an apocalyptic take on a gloomy genre. There are unlikely giant monsters, random demons and zombie-ish creatures, even the manly few IDF regulars, who act in ways the IDF doesn’t and wouldn’t – and explanations are nowhere to be found. In terms of on-screen nightmares, a good rule of thumb is less is definitely more. But kudos, at least, to the directors for utilizing the holy city for more than sanctimony.

Today, a respected columnist referred to Clinton as a “crone” and Sanders as a “museum piece.”

A crone is defined as “an old woman who is thin and ugly.” And a “museum piece” is usually a fossil.

I would not vote for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, however, criticizing their age in those terms is a cheap shot. Maybe it cuts close to my bone, but being superannuated is not what I dislike about them. There is enough to tarnish them in policies, biographies, agenda, morality, etc. without stooping to nasty allusions to their age.

Our only hope of defeating Islamic terrorism is Islam. That’s our whole counterterrorism strategy.

But Islamic terrorism is not a separate component of Islam that can be cut off from it. Not only is it not un-Islamic, but it expresses Islamic religious imperatives. Muslim religious leaders have occasionally issued fatwas against terrorism, but terrorism for Muslim clerics, like sex for Bill Clinton, is a matter of definition. The tactics of terrorism, including suicide bombing and the murder of civilians, have been approved by fatwas from many of the same Islamic religious leaders that our establishment deems moderate. And the objective of terrorism, the subjugation of non-Muslims, has been the most fundamental Islamic imperative for the expansionistic religion since the days of Mohammed.

Our strategy, in Europe and America, under Bush and under Obama, has been to artificially subdivide a Good Islam from a Bad Islam and to declare that Bad Islam is not really Islam. Bad Islam, as Obama claims, “hijacked” a peaceful religion. Secretary of State Kerry calls Bad Islam’s followers, “apostates”. ISIS speaks for no religion. It has no religion. Which means the Islamic State must be a bunch of atheists.

Our diplomats and politicians don’t verbally acknowledge the existence of a Bad Islam. Even its name is one of those names that must not be named. There is only Good Islam. Bad Islam doesn’t even exist.

“Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) returned from the campaign trail to vote for the bill. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) were absent for the vote.”

The Senate approved new sanctions on North Korea 96-0 while the White House remained mum about its thoughts on the legislation, which is opposed by China.

“Four nuclear tests, three Kims, two violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions and one attempt by North Korea to transfer nuclear technology to Syria later — it is clearly time for the United States to start taking the North Korea challenge seriously,” said co-sponsor Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a top Dem on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the panel’s former chairman.

“With today’s overwhelming bipartisan vote, we have taken a major step forward in creating a new policy framework that combines effective sanctions and effective military countermeasures that can stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and bring some sanity back to the political calculus,” Menendez said. “This new framework leaves no doubt about our determination to neutralize any threat North Korea may present – with robust, realistic diplomacy toward the clear goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”

Hey, Sanders kids, relax. The fix is in.

Politico reports the delegate count arising out of the New Hampshire vote.

Among the 712 superdelegates, Hillary had a 45-to-1 margin a few months ago, in the 80% the Associated Press was able to reach to survey.

There’s a cloud of malaise worthy of Jimmy Carter that has settled over the nation’s military. The man who should be able to clear away the cloud, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, won’t be able to do anything about it.

The causes of this malaise are plainly evident, lying by the side of the political road like burned-out cars. They are the accumulated wreckage of seven years of failed policies, indecision and inaction.

Begin with President Obama’s strategy that called for American troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by now. Later, it was supposed to be by the end of 2016. As of two weeks ago, our military leaders had reportedly given up on Mr. Obama’s strategy to pull out of Afghanistan and were predicting that we would have to have troops there indefinitely — for decades to come at least — if the Kabul government was to have any chance of surviving rapid overthrow by the Taliban.

The military has no appetite for more decades of nation-building wars, nor should it. Having compounded President George W. Bush’s mistakes in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama evidently intends to kick that can down the road so that his successor will have to deal with it. Which leaves the military — from the grunts on the ground to the generals in the Pentagon — wondering what their mission in Afghanistan is and whether anyone cares if they succeed. The same is true for Syria and Iraq.

On Jan. 20, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joe Dunford said that Russian airstrikes have stabilized the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. What that means is that Russia — and its ally, Iran — have won the war in Syria. Those two nations have struck out at the anti-Assad forces, not the Islamic State, or ISIS. The accompanying failures of desultory U.S. airstrikes to destroy ISIS and Saudi and other Arab forces to evict Mr. Assad combine to leave our military wondering what they are trying to accomplish and how anyone plans for them to succeed.