Axelrod’s spinning won’t convince anyone who has been even half-way paying attention to our feckless President’s attempt to make a decision on Afghanistan. This man has been in office for 10 long, destructive months and he still hasn’t made a decision as to whether or not he will come to the aid of our military forces in the Middle East.
Gov. Romney is right to lambaste Obama for his weak “leadership” on foreign policy.
We are witnessing one of the most compelling stories of the last 30 years unfold before our eyes. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. was another of those stories. The country that menaced America for over 40 years fell by it’s own weight, with a major assist by President Reagan.
Now we see the courageous Iranian people fighting the forces of totalitarianism in the streets. Young men and women, battling well armed later day Gestapo with chunks of concrete and moral authority.
Take a few minutes to view this riveting YouTube video of what may be a developing Iranian Revolution.
What Jimmuh Carter does best is “listen.” What Barack Obama does best is “talk.” What conservatives do best is “work.” I’ll take the workers over the listeners and the talkers every time.
NEVE DANIEL, West Bank — Former President Jimmy Carter, an outspoken critic of Israeli settlements, met Sunday with West Bank settlers in what he described as a chance to “listen” and make his views known.
Carter met with settler leader Shaul Goldstein and others at the pastoral settlement of Neve Daniel, south of Jerusalem. Carter said he was “here to listen” to the settlers, and that he hoped to “make sure they understand my own attitude toward Israel and the Jewish population in the world and toward the Jewish settlers.”
Later, Carter sat in Goldstein’s living room, positioned under five books of the Hebrew Bible on a bookshelf.
“This is our homeland, but we recognize there are other people living next to us,” Goldstein told him, referring to the Palestinians, who view the West Bank as part of a future state.
Jewish settlement in the West Bank is one of the key points of dispute among Israelis and Palestinians. Much of the international community views settlements as an obstacle to a peace deal.
Settlers, and many Israelis, see the West Bank as the Jewish people’s Biblical heartland and say Israel should not cede it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under pressure from President Barack Obama to halt settlement construction, but has so far refused to do so.
Carter, 85, brokered the historic peace deal between Israel and Egypt in 1979. In a controversial 2007 book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” Carter argued that Israel has to choose between ceding the West Bank to the Palestinians in a peace deal or maintaining a system of ethnic inequality similar to that of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Views like that have made Carter unpopular among settlers and their supporters. A group of local settlers circulated an open letter titled, “Jimmy Carter go home,” saying the former president was an “anti-Semite” and “not welcome here.”
“Mr. Carter is an advocate for those seeking to destroy Israel, and the fact that he contributes to that agenda under the guise of a man of good will seeking peace only makes him more dangerous and his efforts more dishonest,” the letter said.
The latest press reports contradict earlier reports. The press is now saying that the tugboat seized by
Somali pirates is US owned and Italian-flagged. 10 of the crewmen aboard are Italian. No details on the nationality of the remaining crewmen.
There are press reports this morning that Somali pirates may have commandeered an American-flagged Italian tugboat with 16 American crewmen off the coast of Aden.
Details are sketchy, but I will have more to say about this dramatically escalating crisis as more information becomes available.
Take a few minutes to watch this YouTube video that shows President Reagan’s response to Col. Gaddafi’s state sponsored terrorism.
This action by Marine and Naval forces happened in 1986 and was the beginning of the end of Gaddafi’s international adventures.
From what I know of the current Somali pirate hostage situation, the feckless Obama administration’s display of weakness has only emboldened the pirates and now they have demanded “safe passage” and a $2 million ransom. Other hijacked ships, with their captive crews, are now heading for the area where the hostage situation is unfolding and what was a contained crisis is now escalating exponentially because we have a poorly advised, rank amateur as Commander-in-chief.
Our prayers on this Good Friday are with the Captain, his family, the military personnel on the scene and with the other hostages held captive by these pirates.
While an American cargo vessel Captain bobs up and down on the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a motley crew of shakedown artists, the mighty USS Bainbridge stands idly by while the FBI negotiates with the Somali pirates for the return of a kidnapped American citizen.
President Obama is the Commander-in-chief of the US military. It’s time for him to earn his pay, make the decision to take out the pirates in the lifeboat and then hit the pirate’s home bases with a force of highly trained and lethal Marine Recon and Navy Seal units.
If this ends in needless tragedy for the American Captain and his family, all because the Community organizer-in-chief is in way over his head, I sincerely hope the electorate will remember this when they enter the voting booths in November of 2010 and again in 2012.
BY: JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
U.S. military commanders have already prepared battle plans for ending the scourge of piracy on the high seas off Somalia if President Obama pulls the trigger, sources told the Daily News Wednesday.
The Navy sent a warship to intercept Somali pirates Wednesday who hijacked a U.S.-flagged freighter, as commanders weighed military options for nailing the brigands’ bases.
Retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley, who was special envoy to Somalia in the 1990s, said U.S. special operations forces have drawn up detailed plans to attack piracy groups where they live on land, but are awaiting orders from the Obama national security team.
“Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up. So far, no one has let them,” Oakley told the Daily News.
The veteran diplomat, who also was ambassador to Pakistan, said teams of Army Delta Force or Navy SEALs “could take care of the pirates in 72 hours” if given the order to strike.
“They have plans on the table but are waiting for the green light,” Oakley said.
A Special Operations Command spokesman at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., declined comment.
A U.S. intelligence official, though dismissive of the pirates having any terrorism links, said “there is a more intense focus” now on these criminal gangs.
America’s stealthiest warriors have been involved in combat operations in the Horn of Africa for years - operating from secret bases in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Manda Bay, Kenya.
The Navy launched an antipiracy command in January, Joint Task Force 151, which includes contingents of SEALs and Marines who specialize in boarding and seizing hijacked ships.
But Somalia-based pirates terrorizing shipping lanes on the high seas have expanded their zone of fear in recent weeks beyond the Gulf of Aden into waters off Somalia, a failed state providing them a lawless sanctuary.
That prompted the commander of the Navy’s Combined Maritime Forces, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, to issue a special maritime advisory this week warning his forces “are unlikely to be close enough to provide support to vessels under attack.”
“The closest military ship could be days away,” he said.
The Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia and Kenya equal an area roughly four times the size of Texas, the Navy pointed out.
Meanwhile, Navy officials said the guided missile destroyer Bainbridge steamed toward the Maersk Alabama - which is owned by a Danish firm but has a 20-man American crew and flies the Stars and Stripes - which was seized 280 miles southeast of Somalia.
As the technology of war and the byzantine complexity of foreign affairs demand an ever more sophisticated and better educated officer corps, Harvard should relent and once again allow the ROTC program back on it’s prestigious campus.
‘ROTC must go because we oppose the policies of the United States and we oppose the military that perpetrates them. The lines are clearly drawn; the time to take sides is now.”
It was the spring of 1969, and the leaders of the Harvard chapter of Students for a Democratic Society were (with the above statement issued to the student newspaper) agitating to cleanse their campus of “imperialist exploitation.” To opponents of the Vietnam War, members of the military — even students in the Reserve Officers Training Corps — embodied the policies they despised.
Forty years ago tomorrow, April 9, 1969, this sentiment culminated in a mob of students storming University Hall. Eager to be at the forefront of radical activism, they turned to violent protest. Arsonists torched a Marine Corps classroom, and the administration buckled. ROTC was purged from campus, symbolically repudiating the Vietnam War.
Today, America congratulates itself for having overcome the knee-jerk radicalism of that era. “Support the troops, oppose the war” is the modern battle cry of the antiwar movement. Americans seem to recognize that those in uniform shouldn’t be blamed for policies set by elected officials.
But not at Harvard, where ROTC remains officially unwelcome.
The students of 1969 have become the faculty of 2009, and today students who wish to participate in ROTC are forced to train at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We are pawns in a political chess game. The issue is no longer Vietnam, but President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bars gays from openly serving in the military. Because of that policy, the university classifies ROTC as a discriminatory organization and has severed all remnants of support.
So Harvard today happily pays for future bankers to take accounting courses at MIT, but refuses to pay for aspiring military officers who take ROTC courses. Since 1994, anonymous donors have generously picked up the tab, providing hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for Harvard’s ROTC students.
Sadly, the number of Harvard students who choose military service has dwindled. Harvard, where ROTC was founded in 1916 and which once boasted over 1,000 participants, is now home to only 29 cadets and midshipmen, spread over four years and four branches of service. Recruitment opportunities are deliberately limited, and the student handbook cautions students against joining ROTC, remarking that the program is “inconsistent with Harvard’s values.” And cadets begin every semester seeking to avoid the professors known to exhibit hostility toward students who wear their uniform to class.
Rather than embracing the mutually beneficial relationship Harvard might share with the military, the faculty prefers to stand in the way of progress, abdicating its responsibility to contribute to one of our nation’s most important institutions. The same Harvard that once produced 10 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and warrior-scholars such as Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, now turns its back on its proud, patriotic history.
But there are reasons to be hopeful that the 40-year exile of ROTC may be drawing to a close. Today, the faculty is out of touch with a student body that is generally supportive of ROTC. The support that both Barack Obama and John McCain expressed during the 2008 presidential campaign for the return of ROTC to elite college campuses showed Harvard’s stance to be far from mainstream.
We are also fortunate that Harvard’s new president, Drew Faust, has privately praised and met with cadets and midshipmen, and publicly stated her hope that the day ROTC returns to campus is not far off. Though she remains bound by Harvard’s discrimination policy, she spoke at last year’s commissioning ceremony and expressed her desire to see our numbers grow.
This is encouraging, but it falls short of the appropriate policy: support for the military and those who serve in it, regardless of federal policies. ROTC should be fully and unequivocally welcomed back to Harvard. Accomplishing this would take leadership and courage from President Faust. Perhaps she will be inspired to show this leadership as she joins Gen. David Petraeus in recognizing the ROTC graduates at our commissioning ceremony in June.
Messrs. Kristol and West, seniors at Harvard University, will be commissioned second lieutenants in the United States Marine Corps in June.
I want to reiterate my position expressed on this site in the past, that my concern over the situation on our Southern border has absolutely nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It has everything to do with crime, illegal drugs coming into the U.S. and wrecking lives, narco-terrorism and, possibly, national security.
Here is a YouTube video done by a courageous reporter, Sarah Carter, in February of 2006. You will notice that not much has changed in three years.
Please take the time to view this piece and you will understand why conservatives are so concerned about this issue.
In closing, I feel that I should point out that this video is concerned about the drug SUPPLY problem. We are guilty of creating the drug DEMAND problem. Anyone who uses illegal drugs or who is tempted to start needs to consider something. Police officers on both sides of the border are sacrificing their lives to help stem the flow of these deadly drugs. Border patrol agents on the U.S. side are in danger every moment of their shifts. Mexican Army personnel are dying in gunfights with these brutal thugs. The next time you are tempted to light up a joint, remember the real cost of that illicit pleasure in terms of the human suffering connected with its cultivation, smuggling and use.
JERUSALEM — A long-range Grad rocket from Gaza landed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday as delegates of the militant Islamic Hamas organization met in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials striving to mediate a long-term truce with Israel.
The rocket was the first of its kind to be fired at the city of 122,000 since informal cease-fires were declared separately by Israel and Hamas two weeks ago at the end of Israel’s bruising three-week-long offensive in Gaza.
No one was injured in Tuesday’s attack, police said.
Israel launched its “Operation Cast Lead” offensive on Dec. 27 to halt near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at Israel targets. Sporadic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has continued, however, prompting tough warnings of reprisal from Israeli leaders.
This is an excerpt from an article written by a young Israeli soldier who saw action during the recent fighting in Gaza. It’s the second account I have read that talks about miracles that were witnessed by the soldiers during the incursion.
DRUDGE REPORT
“I saw cowardice. We listened with concern when Hamas threatened to use snipers and bombs on us, to fight us every step of the way with their fifteen thousand man army, and we watched videos of full brigades parading, waving their weapons and threatening Israel. But as we invaded, they fled. They would attack in small groups, hit us with missiles and sniper fire, and then flee. The ‘warriors’ of Hamas were brave when their rockets fell unanswered on the schools of children and the homes of elderly, but they did not stand when the enemy called them up to answer for their crimes.
I saw miracles. Rockets that blazed past our houses, bullets that scarred the outside of windows we were watching from. A unit near ours that was walking in to Gaza had RPGs pass straight between their ranks without hitting a single soldier. Mines that didn’t explode, mortar rounds that landed next to friends that didn’t explode. RPGs that blazed into the earthen barrier directly in front of our APC, detonating before penetration. The night walk through a neighborhood that wasn’t on the map, that was full of snipers and mines according to reports, that we walked through unawares, by accident, without harm or incident. And that was just what we knew.”
Arizona Daily Star via Scripps Howard News Service
Rising drug violence in Mexico’s border region has prompted Southern Arizona’s largest military installation to issue new restrictions on troop travel and a warning to military families and civilian staffers to stay away.
Now nearly 7,000 troops at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista must get prior approval from the Army post’s top brass to cross the border. Violators would be subject to military discipline.
In addition, 11,000 or so family members, civilian staffers and contractors at the fort are “strongly urged” not to visit Mexican cities such as Naco, Agua Prieta and Nogales, a popular shopping, dining and nightlife destination.
Drug-cartel-fueled violence has reached unprecedented levels this year in the state of Sonora and specifically in Nogales, where official government figures show homicides have tripled in recent years. Nearly 100 killings have occurred so far this year, up from 52 in 2007 and 35 in 2006.
The violence is attributed to an ongoing battle between drug cartels for the corridor — the most desired piece of real estate along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Fort Huachuca’s travel restrictions are less severe than those at Fort Hood in central Texas, the nation’s largest Army post, where soldiers are banned outright from traveling to numerous Mexican border cities, including Nogales.
The Army can’t legally stop family members and civilian workers from visiting Mexico, but it is warning them not to do so for their own safety, said Tanja Linton, a spokeswoman for Fort Huachuca. The post is about 75 miles southeast of Tucson and less than 20 miles from Mexico.
Travel restrictions are set by installation commanders and vary with local conditions, Linton said. Fort Huachuca’s new restrictions could be tightened further or eased if warranted, she said.
In May 2007, for example, Fort Huachuca banned its soldiers from Mexico for a week after violence erupted in the town of Cananea. More recently, the fort has allowed cross-border travel with approval from lower-level commanders.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s campaign to weaken the cartels by putting federal and state police along known drug-smuggling routes and trying to snuff out corruption has added fuel to the fire.
Recent bloodshed has landed Nogales on the U.S. State Department’s Mexico travel alert. The alert — which warns travelers about dangerous situations but doesn’t instruct them not to go — mentions Nogales alongside notoriously dangerous border cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.
One tourism operator said the Army memo likely will fuel public fear of travel to Mexico.
“Anytime you’ve got the government and press telling people it’s unsafe, most Americans are going to err on the side of caution,” said Mike Huhn, owner of Desert Divers, which leads scuba-diving and snorkeling excursions to San Carlos, Sonora, every other week year-round.
Longtime visitors to Mexico still come, he said, but first-timers are being scared off by the bad press.
Sonora tourism already was declining due to the economic slump in the United States, he said. Now “the hotels are empty. The restaurants are empty.”
Epifanio Salido Pavlovich, director of the Sonora Office of Tourism, called the Army memo worrisome and takes exception to the notion that tourists are in danger. The killings are occurring between drug cartels and law enforcement, Salido said. Plus, he said, officials have amped up patrols on state highways to keep everyone safe during the holidays.
“Not one single tourist has had problems in the state of Sonora,” Salido said in Spanish. “And we are going to great efforts to make sure no one is affected.”
The U.S. State Department’s most recent travel alert for Mexico mentions Nogales twice.
The section on border violence notes that: “Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nogales are among the cities which have recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues. Criminals have followed and harassed U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles in border areas including Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Tijuana and along Route 15 between Nogales and Hermosillo.”
According to Wikipedia, below is a list of the members of the 111th Congress’ Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You may have seen the reports yesterday that commented on the empty chairs at the meeting. I don’t know who was there amongst the Republican members other than Richard Lugar, who spoke to Queen Hillary in reverential tones.
It is a sad state of affairs when a woman as ethically challenged as Hillary Clinton, married to a scandal plagued ex-President who accepts contributions from other ethically challenged foreign sources, can get the red carpet treatment from our “watch dogs” in Congress.
If you see one of your home state Republican Senators on this list, I’d encourage you to write and call their office, to let them know you will work to sweep them from office the next time they are up for election, unless they immediately start to perform their duties as your elected representative.
~~John Cronin~~
Majority
Member State
John Kerry, Chairman Massachusetts
Joe Biden
Delaware
Christopher Dodd
Connecticut
Russ Feingold
Wisconsin
Barbara Boxer
California
Bill Nelson
Florida
Bob Menendez
New Jersey
Ben Cardin
Maryland
Bob Casey, Jr.
Pennsylvania
Jim Webb
Virginia
Vacant
Minority
Member State
Richard Lugar, Ranking Member Indiana
As you all know, Sen. McCain delivered a major speech on Thursday, May 15, where he outlined his TIMETABLE FOR THE WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ!
This is the same man who used that very point to attack Mitt Romney during the last days of the Florida primary! Wait, I’m confused. Timetables for an Iraq withdrawal are bad, right? No, now they’re good.
McCain said that Gov. Romney should not have taken a nuanced approach to timetables in a debate question when he said that their should be private timetables used to gauge the Iraqi government’s progress toward certain benchmarks. He (Romney) said he would not be in favor of publicly releasing any timetables that could be used to the advantage of the insurgents. I thought that was an intelligent response to a complicated set of problems and the correct policy approach.
Sen. McCain had different ideas back then. After all that was three months ago. He lectured Gov. Romney that his response should have been “No.” McCain’s current answer is “Yes.”
Unbelievable folks, just unbelievable. Not only does McCain have timetables, but he delivers them in a major speech that traveled around the world within minutes of it’s conclusion. All Al Queda has to do now is lay low for four years, use the time to recruit and train new thugs, raise money to buy ammunition and IED’s from Iran and get ready for the “big push” in 2013.
