RUTHFULLY YOURS

The opaqueness that marks both the Obama administration and Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime, makes it difficult to know how many unfrozen billions of dollars are going to the coffers of the Islamic Republic following the lifting of the sanctions. The Obama administration puts the figure between $50 billion to $100 billion. But according to Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghaddam, a leading member of the Majles Plan and Budget Commission, who served as the governor of the Iran’s Central Bank, the total figure is $130 billion.

Whatever the amount, it will allow the 76 years old sickly Khamenei, to immediately upturn Iranian hostilities in the Middle East and beyond.
The lifting of the sanctions came after international monitors concluded – based on Iran’s self-reporting – that it complied with the conditions set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Yet, Obama and Kerry are lauding this farce as a victory of diplomacy over war.

A little essay about the evils of Tabula Rosa–the idea that all people are born alike and can be easily molded by government. This is a truly toxic idea that is behind the current refugee crisis in Europe. Germany will not be able to digest Muslim immigrants no matter how hard they try and the evidence is everywhere. Just consider blacks in the US and gypsies in Europe. Lots of other examples, too. R.W.

Ideas have consequences but these can be deadly. Think the millions killed in seemingly endless religious strife and the carnage fueled by Marxism and Nazism. But less obvious is the damage inflicted by barely acknowledged bad ideas. The parallel might be death by carbon monoxide—scarcely noticed and almost painless but in the long run no less destructive than terrorism.

In today’s political landscape, the doctrine of human nature as a blank slate illustrates this carbon monoxide-like harm. Indeed, this culprit is so imperceptible that it barely makes any list of threats and those who embrace it often are actually celebrated for their hopeful views.

The blank slate view, frequently called by its Latin name Tabula Rasa basically holds that all humans are born without any mental content so, for better or worse, they are creatures of the environment. The opposite is that many human traits are hard-wired genetically and thus impervious to environmental manipulation. Going one step further, as a result of evolutionary divergence people sharing similar physical traits, for example, members of various racial or ethnic groups, differ at birth in terms of propensity for violence, intellectual ability, and multiple other readily measureable (and often obvious) dispositions. Current unspeakable popular stereotypes reflect this reality—the hard-working orderly German or the loquacious Irish. Note well—no psychologist who studies this subject claims that innate group differences are totally determinative. There will always be some lazy Germans or tongue-tied Irishmen.

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Josh Earnest, January 19, 2016:

MR. EARNEST: “…the release of five Americans who are being unjustly detained inside of Iran…What we saw was that essentially was a humanitarian gesture that was offered up by the Iranians. We made a reciprocal humanitarian gesture by releasing seven individuals…”
“QUESTION: …the Department of State announced this payment of $1.7 billion to the government of Iran just before the plane carrying the freed Americans landed in Geneva. You’re really telling me that this is an absolute coincidence?…
MR. EARNEST: I think we’ve made pretty clear that this is not a coincidence. The fact is, these kinds of diplomatic opportunities…
QUESTION: …Paul Ryan has suggested this was a ransom payment…
MR. EARNEST: What I’m suggesting is that the successful resolution of our concerns about Iran’s nuclear program created a series of diplomatic opportunities…”

UN Secretary-General’s Remarks (January 15, 2016) at General Assembly Presentation of the Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism (January 7, 2016):

“Definitions of “terrorism” and “violent extremism” are the prerogative of Member States…”

For more human rights and United Nations coverage see www.HumanRightsVoices.org.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military has spent five years developing advanced cyberweapon and digital capabilities and is likely to deploy them more publicly soon, the head of the Pentagon’s U.S. Cyber Command said Thursday.

Adm. Mike Rogers, who is also director of the National Security Agency, said U.S. policy makers have largely agreed on rules of engagement for when cyberweapons can be used for defense.

There is still an open discussion, however, about when cyberweapons should be used for “offense,” such as carrying out attacks against a group or foreign country.

“You can tell we are at the tipping point now,” Adm. Rogers said. “The capacity and the capability are starting to come online [and] really starting to pay off in some really tangible capabilities that you will start to see us apply in a broader and broader way.”

Still, Adm. Rogers stopped short of specifying how exactly these cyberpowers could be deployed in coming months.

The definition of this colloquialism is: ” one should not presume to know the outcome of an event which is still in progress. More specifically, the phrase is used when a situation is (or appears to be) nearing its conclusion.”

Her pac and friends are still humming“Now it’s time for us to stand up with Hillary.” Well, she can’t wash Bernie Sanders or the FBI right out of her hair…

Hmmmm…perhaps she should learn the lyrics to “This Nearly Was Mine” from South Pacific…

Earlier this week, the big breaking news was the release of five Americans that had been held hostage in Iran, just days after I ran a column in this space asking why the administration wasn’t doing more to release them. That led the Village Voice to slam me for not understanding how hostage negotiations really work — and for daring to suggest that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry weren’t doing enough to handle the problem.

Then, bit by bit, the truth began to come out. Now we know Obama and Kerry weren’t up to the job, and instead have managed to — once again — make us foolish in the eyes of the Iranians, and everyone else involved.

We’ve learned that in exchange for the release of the five Americans, the administration agreed to drop all charges against seven Iranians accused of helping Tehran dodge sanctions on its military and nuclear-weapons program — the same program Iran isn’t supposed to have anymore.

The administration also included a sweetener in the form for a $1.7 billion settlement on claims relating to the sale of military equipment to Iran before the 1979 revolution — that is, in the days of the hated Shah. That’s in addition to the $100 billion in unfrozen assets Tehran has access to, now that sanctions are lifted — lifted the same day, as it happens, as the prisoners were released.

The release Saturday during a prisoner swap of four Americans held by Iran, including the reporter Jason Rezaian and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, is certainly welcome news. But the details of this deal, arranged after a year of secret negotiations, are troubling.

In exchange the U.S. freed seven Iranian men, six with dual American citizenship—though they seem to have decided against returning to Iran. Most were charged with export violations: in other words, smuggling goods and technology, including those with military applications, from the U.S. to Iran. By making this deal, which traded law-abiding U.S. citizens for Iranian defendants charged with or convicted of federal crimes that jeopardize U.S. national security, the administration has stooped to Iran’s level. That’s a high price to pay, and it sets a dangerous precedent for federal law enforcement.

I served as an assistant U.S. attorney for 23 years, working with counter-proliferation agents from Homeland Security Investigations to investigate and prosecute unlawful arms procurement by Iran. The reason for our focus on Iran was its sustained effort over decades to obtain munitions from the U.S.
One of the defendants I helped to prosecute was Amir Ardebili, an agent operating from Shiraz, Iran, who attempted to buy weapons components from American companies. Starting in 2004 Mr. Ardebili dealt with Cross International, a Pennsylvania-based front company run by undercover agents. Among the components he agreed to buy from Cross were microchips used in phased-array radar (for missile tracking and target acquisition) and a digital air-data computer for the F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft.

Both men are excellent legislators and deserve support from New Yorkers with Republican values…..stay tuned…rsk

John Faso, a former Republican leader in the State Assembly will run for Congress.Faso will seek the seat in the 19th District being vacated by Rep. Chris Gibson. Both men come from Kinderhook, and Faso was an early supporter of Gibson’s first run for office in 2010.

Congressman Chris Gibson is retiring from Congress to run for Governor. He has an impressive record….. MPA and PhD in government from Cornell University and author of “Securing the State,” a book on national security decision-making published in 2008.

Over the course of his 24 year Army career, Chris rose to the rank of Colonel and deployed seven times. This included four combat tours to Iraq, and separate deployments to Kosovo, the Southwestern US for a counter-drug operation, and most recently – just prior to his retirement – Haiti where he commanded the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) during the opening month of that humanitarian relief operation. The Secretary of the Army awarded the BCT the Superior Unit Award for their actions in Haiti.

Chris earned two Legions of Merit, four Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge with Star, the Master Parachutist Badge and the Ranger Tab. For their actions in Mosul in support of the first national election in the new Iraq, his Battalion Task Force earned the Valorous Unit Award. For their actions in Tal Afar during the 2nd and 3rd national elections in Iraq his Battalion and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment were recognized for excellence by President George W. Bush and earned a 2nd Valorous Unit Award.

Other key assignments included tours teaching American Politics at the United States Military Academy at West Point, serving as a Congressional Fellow with US Representative Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and completing a Hoover National Security Affairs Fellowship at Stanford University. Chris was also the Distinguished Honor Graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College.

As American talking heads continue to express their “moral outrage” at Donald Trump’s call “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” perhaps they should first consider what the official position of foreign Muslim governments is on Americans—beginning with U.S. “friends and allies.”

As it happens, jihadi hate for non-Muslim “infidels” is not limited to the Islamic State, which U.S. leadership dismisses as neither a real state nor representative of Islam. Rather, it’s the official position of, among others, Saudi Arabia — a very real state, birthplace of Islam, and, of course, “friend and ally” of America.

Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas[1]—which issues religious decrees that become law—issued a fatwa, or decree, titled, “Duty to Hate Jews, Polytheists, and Other Infidels.” Written by Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1999), former grand mufti and highest religious authority in the government, it still appears on the website.

According to this governmentally-supported fatwa, Muslims—that is, the entire Saudi citizenry—must “oppose and hate whomever Allah commands us to oppose and hate, including the Jews, the Christians, and other mushrikin [non-Muslims], until they believe in Allah alone and abide by his laws, which he sent down to his Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him.”

Obama and his political allies seek normalization with Iran. They are unconcerned with Iran’s nuclear weapons programs or its support for terrorism and they are willing to provide fig leaves for these and other threats by the Shiite terror state to the United States and to the rest of the free world.

Iran, however, is looking to escalate its conflict with the United States. Perversely, normalization is the best strategy for escalating a conflict with the United States while extracting maximum benefit from it.

Without normalization, Iran has few options for escalating its conflict with America. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals are fanatics, but they know that they cannot win a major military conflict with the United States. Instead, the IRGC terror hub seeks to carry out attacks that hurt the United States, but in ways that fall short of summoning up a full American military reprisal.

Under Obama, Iran has more options than ever because the United States is now willing to tolerate what it would not have tolerated in the past. But excessive escalation would still risk a scenario in which even a pro-Iranian administration would be left with no choice but to strike back at Iran. And Iran remembers the lessons of Operation Praying Mantis all too well. It has nothing to gain by losing billions in precious military equipment while the United States demonstrates its superior firepower.