re: "State Spreads Obama Book Plague Worldwide"

Jack Cashill at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") noted a State Department procurement.

Money quote(s):

"(W)e learn that out State Department will be spending $70,000 we don't have to stock "key libraries" around the world with copies of Barack Obama's books, most notably his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.

There are problems with this scenario beyond the fact that we will have to borrow the money from the People's Republic to pay for them. For one, Obama gets a cut out of that action. This has to violate some law, if not lots of them."

Not being an attorney, CAA can't comment on the legality of the thing.

CAA would note having seen, as the Washington Times article described, copies of one or another of the president's books being given as gratuities (i.e., gifts).

That sort of thing makes me cringe at least as much as hearing otherwise sober and thoughtful diplomats blather on about global warming, &tc.

10/26

re: "'Back door amnesty' a cynical political ploy by Obama"

Rick Moran at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") criticized the "back door amnesty" of letting illegal immigrants receive waivers of their visa ineligibilities while illegally in the U.S.

Money quote(s):

"This destroys the entire purpose of the hardship waiver. It was meant to prevent penalizing legal immigrants and US citizens who had married an illegal and whose deportation would impoverish the family. By rewarding illegal immigration, the administration will only encourage more of it."

1/7

re: "The Rebirth of Birthers?"

William Sullivan at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") considered this news from Arizona.

Money quote(s):

"Two years, three months, and seven days after his inauguration, Barack Obama finally offered evidence to prove his eligibility for the presidency. On the White House website, officials posted an electronic document purported to be a scan of Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate. It was a grand "I told you so" moment for the media and the left, which had worked feverishly to marginalize "birthers" as the radical counterpart of the zany "truther."

Of course, there was never really any parity. Truthers constructed silly conspiracy theories about George W. Bush being an international super-criminal that orchestrated impossibly complex measures to frame al-Qaeda on 9/11. Birthers, on the other hand, merely demanded that the president, who is required by the Constitution to be a natural born American citizen, show proof of his eligibility. And in reality, that is an entirely reasonable expectation, albeit unprecedented." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Sherriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, at the behest of a petition presented by the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party organization, organized a "cold case posse" and completed a six-month examination of the released birth certificate in order to determine its authenticity. The results are in, Joe says, and they point to the document being a fake."

&

"Lord Christopher Monckton, who has experience investigating high-level fraud as a policy adviser under Margaret Thatcher, has given the claim added veracity.

According to World Net Daily, Monckton said that "it appears that the document was cobbled together in layers, pointing to evidence that three date stamps and a registrar's stamp were superimposed on it from another document." If there were a single, original document to verify the president's Hawaiian birth, why "go to all that trouble, he reasoned."

Monckton's conclusion? "My assessment is that they are right to be worried... That document is not genuine." "

CAA's expertise, however limited, in estimating the genuine-ness of vital documents such as birth certificates and travel documents (i.e., passports and visas) does not extend to digital photographs of said documents.

"Anyone calling Obama's birth certificate into question will have to entertain the notion that perhaps the forgery was made because the president does not have legal proof of his American birth. And anyone carrying that message will have the stink of "right-wing birther" on him, and he will be swiftly devoured by the attack dogs in the media and marginalized. So in a way, I don't blame conservative lawmakers and pundits for treading lightly around the issue."

&

"Reasonably, it should never have been incumbent upon Americans to prove that Obama is not a natural born citizen, but rather it should have always been incumbent upon Obama to prove to the American people, verifiably and indisputably, that he was born in the United States."

Anyone with actual proof of someone having committed passport or citizenship fraud should get in touch with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Criminal Investigative Division.

4/6

re: "Silent Scream: The Sudan Ethnically Cleanses Its Christians"

Rob Miller at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") described the traditional next phase after partition: ethnic cleansing.

Money quote(s):

"The government of the predominantly Muslim nation of Sudan has stripped its 500,000 to 700,000 Christians of citizenship and has put them on notice that they have one week to leave the country. Even sub-Jim Crow dhimmi status is to be denied them."

This sort of thing happens whenever a multi-ethnic, multi-confession country partitions into two (or more) states.

That doesn't make it right, but it does make it pretty predictable.

"(T)he government of Sudan has declared that all whose "parents, grandparents or great grandparents [were] born in the South Sudan or [who] belong to any southern ethnic group" are no longer citizens of Sudan and must leave by April 8...or else."

&

"The Sudan has always been a borderland between Arab and black African, between slavemaster and slave. And increasingly, between Muslim and Christian. During the decades-long jihad by the Sudan between the early 1980s and today against the black Africans to the east in Darfur and in the south, conservative estimates put the death toll at over 2 million. Al-Bashir has already been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, something the Arab League has thumbed their noses at, with al-Bashir able to freely attend meetings and travel all over the region without fear of arrest. The charges he was indicted for -- the mass rapes, the slavetaking, the wanton murders -- make what's going on now in Syria look like a particularly sedate bridge party.

In July 2011, the jihad officially ended when the largely Christian South Sudan achieved independence, although sporadic attacks by al-Bashir's military and aircraft still continue in places like the Nuba Mountains and along the South Sudan borders.

Due to the discord caused by the breakaway, al-Bashir is under pressure to turn the Sudan into a extremist fundamentalist, Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Islamist state." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

One of the critical issues still outstanding between Sudan and South Sudan are that the border between the two states has never been officially demarcated.

"The Iranians already have an arms factory in the Sudan to supply Hamas and their allies in Somalia, Yemen, and Central Africa. If my sources are correct, they also maintain training camps staffed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezb'allah members, some of whom have been killed by Israeli air strikes on arms convoys headed north in the desert towards Sinai and Gaza.

What al-Turabi and his allies want from Bashir is a full-on Muslim Brotherhood-ruled sharia state, comparable to Iran, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan under the Taliban.

After South Sudan seceded, the Islamists demanded that Bashir implement this, and they have pledged to drive him from power if he doesn't. They formed a party headed by al-Turabi known as the Islamic Constitution Front and drafted a sharia-based constitution that the imam of Khartoum's Grand Mosque endorsed, saying Bashir must "either rule by Islam or go." "

&

"The ethnic cleansing of over half a million Christians is only a first step.

What's notable about this is the hideous silence. There's little or nothing being reported in the media on this. For all the noise about the new Responsibility to Protect Doctrine that was evoked on Libya, the United Nations has nothing to say about what's happening in the Sudan, even though it violates the organization's own charter.

No one is talking about a no-fly zone to protect black Christians under air attack in South Sudan by the Bashir regime, even though our huge air base in Djibouti is within flying distance. The infamously misnamed U.N. Human Rights Commission is preoccupied with Israel to the point of derangement, and the Muslim countries running it will see to it that it stays that way."

&

"For all the demonization of Western Imperialism so popular these days, it was those hated imperialists who largely destroyed the slave trade in the 1870s and brought a measure of peace, civil order, and decency to the country for a brief time. It is our supposedly more modern and compassionate societies that have seen the horror that has gone on in Darfur and in the South Sudan and done nothing...except react with silence.

That silence comes from fear of offending Islam, no matter how egregious and hateful the actions of a significant number of its followers become and no matter how deeply those actions offend our civilized norms."

&

"It reminds me of nothing so much as the 1930s, when the appeasers in Britain and here in our own country reacted with the same indifference while Hitler armed his legions for conquest and ethnically cleansed Germany's Jews."

4/4

re: "Reclaiming State Department Clarity on Jihad and Sharia"

Andrew G. Bostom at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") had harsh criticism for the State Department.

Money quote(s):

"Islam's defining doctrine of jihad war against non-Muslims, and resultant 14 centuries of sanguinary imperialism, and accompanying acts of terrorism, through the present, notwithstanding, ad nauseum contemporary State Department pronouncements re-affirm what Muslim propagandists insist--that the creed is an enlightened pacifism.

Glaring examples of this corrosive State Department apologetic on Islam have been provided by the two most recent Secretaries of State, Condoleeza Rice, and the current Secretary, Hillary Clinton." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Mr. Bostom provided some examples before continuing.

"(O)bsequious pandering to Islam--despite the daily confirmed, abject failure of these efforts to provide any strategic benefit to the US--was not always enshrined State Department "policy."

Edward A. Van Dyck, then US Consular Clerk at Cairo, Egypt, prepared a detailed report in August 1880 on the history of the treaty arrangements (so-called "capitulations") between the Muslim Ottoman Empire, European nations, and the much briefer US-Ottoman experience. Van Dyck's report--written specifically as a tool for State Department diplomats--opens with an informed, pellucid, and remarkably compendious explanation of jihad and Islamic law (Sharia):

In all the many works on Mohammedan law no teaching is met with that even hints at those principles of political intercourse between nations, that have been so long known to the peoples of Europe, and which are so universally recognized by them. "Fiqh," as the science of Moslem jurisprudence is called, knows only one category of relation between those who recognize the apostleship of Mohammed and all others who do not, namely Djehad [jihad[; that is to say, strife, or holy war. Inasmuch as the propagation of Islam was to be the aim of all Moslems, perpetual warfare against the unbelievers, in order to convert them, or subject them to the payment of tribute, came to be held by Moslem doctors [legists] as the most sacred duty of the believer. This right to wage war is the only principle of international law which is taught by Mohammedan jurists; ...with the Arabs the term harby [harbi] (warrior) expresses not only an unbeliever but also an enemy; and jehady [jihadi] (striver, warrior) means the believer-militant. From the Moslem point of view, the whole world is divided into two parts--"the House of Islam," and the House of War;" out of this division has arisen the other popular dictum of the Mohammednas (sic) that "all kinds of unbelievers from but one people." "

Jihad and Islam aren't something new, after all. Pres. Jefferson found it necessary to educate himself as to the facts due to the depredations of the Barbary pirates against U.S. shipping (and naval vessels).

"We are in desperate need of a strong new Secretary of State willing to purge the State Department of all those dogmatically inculcating such counterfactual, delusive Islamophilia. Diplomats possessed of--or at least receptive to learning--Van Dyck's unapologetic wisdom, must be recruited and installed if we are to survive the violent and non-violent jihad being waged against the US. America employed such informed, clear-eyed patriotic diplomats in the past; we need them now more than ever before."

Sec. Clinton has indicated at least once that she intends her tenure to last no longer than the current president's first term. So regardless of the electoral results this November, we can expect a new secstate sometime within the next 12 months, give or take.

5/12

re: "The Poor Palestinians"

Ted Belman at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considers the plight of the Palestinians without irony or insult.

Money quote(s):

""Palestinian" is a name given to Arabs after the '67 War, who lived or did live in the area known as Palestine during the Palestine Mandate and afterwards right up to the present, and includes their descendants, even if such descendants never set foot in the area known as Palestine."

Oddly, the name "Palestinian" as used after the '67 War, excludes all non-Arab inhabitants of the same geographic area, most notably (but not solely) the Israelis to whom it previously had applied to exclusively.

"United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency, providing education, health care, social services and emergency aid to 5 million Palestine refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. UNRWA was specifically created to maintain the refugee status, not to end it." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"The Arab League has instructed its members to deny citizenship to Palestinian Arab refugees (or their descendants) "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland." "

Fortunately, implementation of this instruction has not been universal.

"In Jordan, less than 20% of the refugees live in camps. This is because when Jordan purported to annex the West Bank after the '48 War, it granted all the Palestinians living there and in Jordan proper, citizenship. After the '67 War in which Israel regained Judea and Samaria, many more Palestinians fled to Jordan and over the years since, many Palestinians from the West Bank emigrated there. It is estimated today that the number of Palestinians in Jordan total in excess of 5,000,000 of which only about 2 million are registered refugees. They constitute about ¾ of the total population of Jordan. Given this fact and the fact that the West Bank has approximately 1.5 million Palestinians, one might rightfully argue that Jordan is the Palestinian homeland." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Perhaps the Hashemite dynasty might ought consider re-branding itself as protectors of the Palestinian people.

(Or not.)

"The Arab Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have the right to form a government and govern themselves within the confines of the Oslo Accords. Their government known as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has full autonomy in all matters save for a limitation on matters of security affecting Israel. How they govern themselves is up to them. In effect the Palestinians elect Palestinians to govern them. Whereas in Jordan, the Palestinians are severely underrepresented in the Chamber of Deputies where the minority Bedouin hold sway. If that weren't bad enough, all executive power is vested in the King.

It can safely be said that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are the authors of their own misfortune. In their past elections, they choose parties, whether Fatah or Hamas, that are wedded to the "resistance" which is a euphemism for terrorism. The result of this "resistance," whether in the form of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into civilian areas in Israel or the deployment of suicide bombers by Fatah in Jerusalem and Israel generally, Israel has placed restrictions on them such as a legal blockade of Gaza and travel restrictions in the West Bank. These restrictions are for security purposes only and not intended as punishment. Nevertheless, in the last three years, Israel has been easing these restrictions, and as a result, the Palestinian economy in the West Bank is experiencing an astounding 7% growth rate."

"(T)he Palestinians living in Jordan who have citizenship have no say in their present condition or in their destiny. Their fate is dependent on what the PA chooses to do yet they have no vote in PA elections. Nor do they have a say equivalent to their numbers in Jordan due to the gerrymandering above noted."

2/12

re: "There Was Never a Country Called Palestine"

Jerrold L. Sobel at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") examined the historical question of Palestine in a quantitative fashion.

Money quote(s):

"There is no Palestinian land, plain and simple. If there were, when would it have been founded, and by whom? What would its borders have been, and what about the name of its capital? What would its major cities have been? What would have constituted the basis of its economy? What form of government would it have lived under?

Was Palestine ever recognized as an entity by another country? By whom? What was the language of the country called Palestine? What was Palestine's religion? What was the name of its currency? Since there is no such country today, what caused her demise?"

I got nothin'.

"Pose these same questions regarding Israel and Jewish connection to this land, and except for the willfully blind and delusional -- of which, admittedly, there are many, each can be factually answered.

At no time in history has there ever been a nation called Palestine. During the Ottoman Empire, which lasted from 1299-1922 CE, the land dubbed by the Romans as Palestine was controlled by the Turks; there was never an outcry for a Palestinian State then. During the illegal annexation of Judea and Samaria by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan subsequent to the 1949 Armistice and prior to 1967, there was never talk of "occupied territory" or a Palestinian State."

Still, the list of "nations" which have never had their own states is not a particularly short one. A further question would be under what conditions may (or should) such groups acquire their own nation-state?

2/12

re: "Palestine, Back to the Future"

Ted Belman at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") sidestepped the issue of mythological nationhood and lunges for a solution.

Money quote(s):

"There was a time when the lands now known as Israel (including Judea and Samaria and Gaza) and Jordan were called "Palestine." In fact, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 declared that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

There followed considerable cooperation between the Jews, represented by Chaim Weizmann, and the Arabs living in Mespotamia, now Iraq and Jordan, represented by Emir Feisal. As a result, the Feisal-Weizman Agreement was signed in January 1919, in which it was agreed that the Jews would get the lands lying west of the Jordan River watershed to the Mediterranean."

Fast forward to the end of World War I and Allied disposition of the Ottoman Empire's non-Turkish possessions.

"What remained was for the League of Nations to draw up the Palestine Mandate. Originally, the boundaries of Palestine included what is now Jordan, but a few months prior to the Palestine Mandate being passed by the League of Nations in September 1922, the Jews were told that they must consent to the removal of Jordan from the Jewish homeland if they wished the Mandate to be passed. And so they did, under duress."

Consider this slice one of a salami-slice strategy.

"Britain severed all lands lying east of the Jordan River from the Palestine Mandate and gave the lands to the Hashemites. It was first renamed Transjordan and then just Jordan."

So an Arab homeland was salami-sliced off of overall-Palestine, leaving a Jewish homeland.

(From which additional future Arab homelands may be sliced.)

"There followed many resolutions, wars, and peace processes, all designed to erode Jewish rights to the land described in the Palestine Mandate, and all to no avail. For all intents and purposes, the peace process is dead, and Abu Mazen, otherwise known as Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the PA, has refused to negotiate for the last three years.

This futile effort has resulted in a search for alternate solutions. Newt Gingrich went public with his newsworthy statement that "[w]e've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community." Gov Romney did him one better and said, "It's the Palestinians who don't want a two-state solution; they want to eliminate the State of Israel." Didn't they know that in our PC world, one is not supposed to declare that the emperor has no clothes? The fiction underlying the failed peace process is more important than the truth."

It's truly remarkable to see such prominent politicians depart from the popular narrative in this manner.

"The "Jordan is Palestine" solution has been mooted for decades. It is now gaining traction due in part to the Arab Spring, which began a year ago. Jordan now is feeling the tremors. The majority of Palestinian leaders in Jordan favor Jordan becoming a democratic/secular state. They have watched in dismay as similar forces in Egypt were overwhelmed by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. They are determined not to share Egypt's fate. They are led by Mudar Zahran, the author of "Jordan's King and the Muslim Brotherhood: An Unholy Marriage." "

Consider that the majority of people in Jordan are indistinguishable from "Palestinian" Arabs in any appreciable fashion. And that's not counting the ones who are descended from those who left the Jewish homeland or the "Occupied Territories" of the West Bank and Gaza.

"The rationality and achievability of this solution need no elucidation. The solution itself needs only for the U.S. to get behind it. While such an initiative by the U.S. would be a departure from the position it has held since the founding of the State of Israel, it would not be a departure from her original position."

1/29

re: "Origins of the Palestinian Identity"

Dangerous Company at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") examined the roots of the Palestine question.

Money quote(s):

"No one denies that the Palestinians are a "people." The Israeli government, the United Nations, and the European Union have all recognized the Palestinians as a people with national aspirations.

The question is whether these aspirations evolved organically, or else they were inspired by greater influence from the former Soviet Union and late Arab republics."

It must seem odd, to those who came of age after the First Cold War (i.e., World War III) ended, to learn (or re-learn) just how much of the world's geopolitical landscape was formed (or re-formed) in the manner of an ice age's continent-wide glacial ice sheets, by the late, great Soviet Union and its proxies.

"(T)the Jordanian government remained firm in its position toward Palestine. For nearly thirty years, the West Bank was considered sovereign Jordanian territory. Jordan unilaterally annexed the land, granted all Arab residents citizenship, and conquered East Jerusalem. Unrecognized by the international community, but not challenged. Not the Arab League, the U.N., Israel, nor the Palestinians themselves considered the land "occupied" Palestinian territory. The Palestinian movement delegated all authority to the reigning Arab nations.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Palestinian leadership initiated a campaign to reframe the conflict and invent a local narrative. Riding on the coattails of globalized media, the Palestinians became a post-Soviet Union third-world victim. The alliances the Palestinians made with nations not interested in the creation of a unique Palestinian state were washed from history. Within the halls of the United Nations General Assembly, inflammatory rhetoric comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and South Africa became a defining activity of the organization. The U.N. General Assembly has since passed more resolutions against Israel than all other nations combined.

Though the Palestinian Authority no longer has to smuggle drugs, extort businesses, and engage in blatant theft to support their leaders' wealthy lifestyle, the manners remain the same."

Resistance, revolutionary, or independence movements have this pitfall they can fall into. To raise funds, they undertake illegal activities such as robbing banks (e.g., Stalin's 1907 Tiflis bank robbery), then graduate to protection rackets, smuggling (and not just guns and ammunition), drugs, and prostitution. This is the IRA's fragmented legacy today and it's how the Mafia got its start as well.

"It is easy to simply write off the Palestinians as an invented people, because as far as the facts are considered, their singular purpose is to act as force against Israel. There is no evidence to suggest that the Palestinian government is making meaningful, good-faith attempts to negotiate a state according to realistic conditions. And assuming that they actually did, the Palestinian Authority is so dysfunctional and fractured that any agreement with Israel could not possibly be enforced."

There are, in fact, at least two PAs, each sworn enemies of the other. So they've got that going for them.

"The argument should not be if the Palestinians are an "invented" people. The reality is that their representatives are descendants of terrorists, gangsters, and warlords. The Palestinians of today were never invented. Their identity has yet to be defined. The only defining feature of the Palestinian people is their singular purpose to destroy Israel.

Newt Gingrich should have clarified his views. He should have explained why the Palestinians are an "invented people." The image of the Palestinians is invented. It has been shaped, written, and carved by foreign benefactors. The Jews of Israel do not base their identity on opposition to non-Jewish self-determination. Place the state of Israel anywhere on planet Earth, and it would remain the same. But in the absence of Israel, the Palestinian identity would fall apart." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

12/23

re: "Palestinians are an Invented People"

Michael Curtis* at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") applies an historian's skills to the Palestinian question.

Money quote(s):

"(W)hatever one's views of the sagacity or judgment of Mr. Gingrich on other issues, or one's opinions on the more general issue of the desirability and character of a Palestinian state existing alongside the state of Israel, the accuracy of his statement cannot be denied.

The conclusion stems from two factors. One is that Arabs living in the area now known as Palestine were regarded, both historically and in contemporary times, not as a separate entity but as part of the general Arab people. This has been recognized by Arab spokesmen, by scholars, and by objective international official reports. The second is that no independent Palestinian state has ever existed, let alone one that manifested a "Palestinian identity." " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Until now, that is; the PA: for values of "independent" and "state."

"That "Arab nation" never included a state known as "Palestine." Indeed, the inhabitants of the general Palestinian area were subjects, not of an Arab nation, but of the Ottoman Empire which ruled the area and lasted from 1516 until the end of World War 1. This was the last generally recognized sovereign power in the area. The area of Palestine was a district of the Empire, officially a vilayet (province), not a political entity. No independent Palestinian state has ever been established, nor was there a single administrative or cultural unit of Palestinians. Arabs in the area were not different in any way from other Arabs in the Middle East area. . Nor was Israel established on the ashes of any state other than that of the Ottoman Empire.

The first official naming of "Palestine" as a distinct, defined territorial area came with the decision of the League of Nations , dealing with areas of the former Ottoman Empire, to create a Mandate for Palestine. This was accorded to Great Britain which ruled the area, from the Mediterranean Sea to west of the Jordan River, from 1922 until May 1948.

All people living in that area were regarded as "Palestinians" without any ethnic connotations. Ironically, the name was used not by Arabs but only by Jews in the area, as in The Palestinian (now the Jerusalem) Post, and the Palestine Symphony (now Israel Philharmonic) Orchestra. Only after the state of Israel was established in May 1948 did the term "Palestinian" become exclusively used in referring to Arabs in the area.

It is now clear that a concept of Palestinian identity and nationalism has emerged and become a political factor."

It's curious how the very word Palestine (and Palestinian) itself was co-opted from the Israelis as soon as they had finished with it.

"The essential problem is not simply a terminological one, a refusal to acknowledge that the category of Palestinian identity is a recent invention. Rather, the insistence on a presumed time honored right of a Palestinian people to the disputed land is being used as a weapon against the right of Israel to exist. Such an insistence is a handicap to a peaceful negotiated agreement between Palestinians and Israel."

12/13

* Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Rutgers University

re: "General Fuller's Career-Ending Message for Americans"

Fred J. Eckert at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considered the message and the messenger.

Money quote(s):

"Major General Peter Fuller's career-destroying offense was to publicly criticize Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for saying during an October 22nd interview with Pakistani news media that if the U.S. and Pakistan got into a war, he and Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in fighting against the United States."

You've got to figure that a three-star general has had plenty of experience in considering, and rejecting, the impulse to make career-destroying public statements. Any officer (military or otherwise) has to develop a facility for picking ones battles. Is this the hill I want to (figuratively) die on? Is this the sword I want (my career) to fall upon?

Some issues are going to be worth it. For someone in MG Fuller's position, he must have judged it was.

"General Fuller also referred to Karzai's being "erratic," expressed hope that Afghanistan's next leader will be more "articulate," said he thought Afghan government leaders are "isolated from reality" in their expectations of what America should expend in that country, and said those Afghan leaders "don't appreciate" the sacrifice that the United States is making in "blood and treasure" for the people of their country."

Retiring as a major general whose last official act was to speak the uncomfortable truth in response to a politician's dishonorable speech isn't exactly the worst way to go out.

"Everything General Fuller said that got him fired is true and needs to be understood by the public and by the media. Bear in mind that General Fuller, a man who has served our country as a U.S. Army officer for more than 30 years, was the deputy commander charged with turning Afghan's military into an effective fighting force. Knowing this, there is something lacking in anyone's sense of patriotism who does not understand and share the general's annoyance and frustration about Karzai's revealing that he would have no qualms about ordering Afghan soldiers trained by Americans to fight and kill Americans.

And yet...it is not the place of General Fuller to presume without authorization to make and conduct U.S. foreign policy. Clearly he crossed the line. Thus, it is beside the point and matters not one bit that what he said in public is true and very likely echoes what the superior officer who fired him and just about every other American military official in Afghanistan says in private." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Yes. And yet....

"The firing of General Fuller raises a much larger unanswered question, the question that should have been raised and discussed in the media all along from the very moment that Hamid Karzai publicly made his inappropriate, insulting remarks at which General Fuller and every other clear thinking American rightly takes great offense: what should U.S. leaders say and do when a foreign leader who owes his country's freedom, and perhaps even his own life, to American goodness acts towards America as one would act towards an enemy?"

Politics, and diplomacy, is the "art of the possible." Higher pay grades than MG Fuller's have decided to overlook (or swallow) the insult.

"When NATO and American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, explained that he was firing General Peter Fuller because of "inappropriate public comments," he may not have caught the irony. General Fuller's "inappropriate public comments" were a reaction to Karzai's wildly "inappropriate public comments" that insulted our country and are an affront to any and every American who has aided the people of Afghanistan."

11/8

re: "A Humanitarian Catastrophe at Ashraf Spells Political Catastrophe for the White House"

Henrick Hermansson at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") outlined the problem.

Money quote(s):

"U.S. troops are set to completely withdraw from Iraq on the 31st of December. That is also the date for another more ominous deadline: al-Maliki's government has ordered what looks to be a bloody attack on innocent political refugees on that very same day, despite strong condemnations from human rights groups, parliamentarians, and journalists from around the world. Maliki's order to empty Camp Ashraf, which will no doubt lead to a massacre, came after his meeting with the Iranian leader Khamenei. Dispersion of the camp residents no doubt will resemble what happened to the Jewish community during the Second World War.

The attack will target the 3,400 residents of Ashraf, or "Camp New Iraq," who are Iranian political dissidents hated by Iraq's powerful neighbor. The camp has been attacked by Iraqi forces twice before, once in April this year and once in 2009, and in total more than 47 of the civilian residents were killed -- either shot or run over by armored vehicles. At present the camp is inhumanely blockaded by Iraqi troops who prevent medical and other vital supplies, journalists, human rights groups, and parliamentarians from entering."

The deadline has obviously passed, without (yet) tragic results for Camp Ashraf's inhabitants.

Sec. Clinton has deputized Amb. Daniel Fried to lead U.S. efforts on resolving this issue and in a U.N.-brokered compromise with the al-Maliki government, the residents of Camp Ashraf will be moved to the former Camp Liberty, where their situation can be monitored by both UNHCR and U.S. Embassy personnel.

See Amb. Fried's presser here.

"The residents of the camp have a complicated history. They fled Iran after tens of thousands of political dissidents were executed by the Khomeini regime in the eighties. They were welcomed in Iraq, which, with the support of Western governments, was at war with Iran. Most of the residents have lived in or near Ashraf now for a quarter-century and have built lives, schools, and a beautiful mosque there. They were also integral in revealing the Iranian secret nuclear facilities. As a source of inspiration, they are important to the "Persian Spring." All in all, this is more than enough to put them on the regime's death list.

The residents also have a complicated history with the U.S. In 1997, as a gesture of goodwill to the "moderate" Khatami government in Iran, the U.S. put the residents (or rather the organization many of them belong to) on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations, without any factual basis. In the EU and Britain, courts have declared terror designations of this organization "perverse" and removed them. Despite a federal court ruling ordering the designation to be reviewed, the removal process is being stalled for political reasons in the U.S. by the State Department. At the same time, the residents of Ashraf have been protected by and had very good relationships with U.S. troops, been designated as protected persons by the U.S. under the fourth Geneva Convention, and have been declared U.S. allies by chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, FBI directors, and other prominent members of the intelligence community."

With all due respect to Mr. Hermansson, some of the above isn't exactly the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

1. "They fled Iran after tens of thousands of political dissidents were executed by the Khomeini regime in the eighties." They fled Iran after the Revolution (which they participated in as allies of Khomeini, including, possibly, the U.S. embassy takeover) and the mullahs started purifying the new regime (as one does). They may even have started the fighting between the Khomeini regime and their particular faction, being rather fond of explosive and other violent forms of assassinations at the time.

2. "They were welcomed in Iraq, which, with the support of Western governments, was at war with Iran." They were welcomed by Saddam Hussein's regime, which used them as loyal shock troops to put down revolts by, among others, the Kurds. With Saddam gone, they don't have a lot of friends left in Iraq.

3. "As a source of inspiration, they are important to the "Persian Spring." " That's wish-fulfillment fantasy talk. There was never any indication that the protesters who filled the streets took any inspiration from the PMOI/MEK. If anything, the mullahcracy seems to have been successful in painting the PMOI/MEK as traitors to Iran, due mostly to the PMOI/MEK's own actions in fighting against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War.

4. "In 1997, as a gesture of goodwill to the "moderate" Khatami government in Iran, the U.S. put the residents (or rather the organization many of them belong to) on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations, without any factual basis." While CAA takes a backseat to none in questioning the timing of the decision to list the PMOI/MEK, they have done what they have done, fully meriting their place on said list.

5. "Despite a federal court ruling ordering the designation to be reviewed, the removal process is being stalled for political reasons in the U.S. by the State Department." Placement, and removal, of an organization on the State Department's terrorist organizations list follows a protocol, subject to periodic review. CAA had a chat, last year, with one of the people who had previously been charged with conducting that review and didn't come away thinking that the process had been politicized.

6. "At the same time, the residents of Ashraf have been protected by and had very good relationships with U.S. troops, been designated as protected persons by the U.S. under the fourth Geneva Convention, and have been declared U.S. allies by chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, FBI directors, and other prominent members of the intelligence community." Camp Ashraf's PMOI/MEK inhabitants took great care and pains with what we used to call their "charm offensive" to ingratiate themselves to the U.S. troops assigned to their protection. This doesn't by itself make them bad people (assassinating U.S. personnel in Iran before the Revolution will suffice on the organizational level to earn that classification), nor does, necessarily, being enemies of America's enemies (i.e., the "evil mullah regime" in Iran) make them good people. Their entitlement, based upon my own close reading of the Laws of Land Warfare, to Protected status doesn't hinge upon them good or bad people. Lastly, the JCS, FBI, and the IC don't get to decide who are U.S. allies (or not).

"The residents of Ashraf enjoy as wide bipartisan support as any issue in Washington today."

True enough. And CAA would view them much more sympathetically, given how long ago the PMOI/MEK's anti-U.S. violance took place, if they'd simply own up to it (at long last) and stop with the denials.

12/18

re: "Will There Be War?"

Adam Yoshida at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") thinks about the unthinkable (somebody should).


Money quote(s):


"An American credit downgrade. Europe in turmoil. Israel menaced by an Iran with nuclear ambitions. Mexican drug cartels run amok. Chinese ghost cities. With each passing day the news gets worse. To my amateur historian's eye, we seem to be drowning under the greatest flood of crisis, both international and domestic, since the 1930s. We all know how that ended. Will it be possible, in terrible 2010s, to resolve the world's problems without war? I'm not so certain."

The American credit downgrade, among other economic faltering, continues without much (non-OWS related) turmoil just yet. The Eurozone is breaking trail where no currency union has gone before, but that's been true all along; it's very existance is unprecedented.

Still, at least some folks in the consular racket are a little concerned. I hope our folks in CA and EUR bureau are leaning forward with their contingency planning.

"(E)ven a decade ago, it was clear to some that we were headed towards some sort of cataclysm. Nations all over the world have made promises that, because they have been undermined by demographic change, cannot possibly be kept. It was always clear that, eventually, the laws of fixed numbers would catch up with us and that there would be a day of judgement. It's just that, until very recently, it had always appeared that it would be in a further future and that maybe -- just maybe -- the white heat of technological advance would propel us faster than the danger."

The possibility that technology will let us cheat the hangman isn't completely closed out just yet, but each day's headlines make it increasingly unlikely.

"The world's problems are so entrenched and so far-reaching that it seems doubtful that they will be resolved without the resort by some to the expedient of war. Worse, it now seems possible that a cascade of conflict will wash over the entire world as it did some seven decades ago."

The "rational actor" fallacy keeps a lot of folks from seeing just how likely some national leaders are to resort to warfare as solutions to their domestic problems.

"The worst-case scenarios all share a common root cause: the failure of our politicians to recognize that, in the words of the late Enoch Powell, "the supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils." "


8/10

re: "American Denial"

Steve McCann at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") shared a little doom-saying to brighten our days.

Money quote(s):

"Many of us who immigrated to the United States from either war-ravaged or totalitarian countries, where freedom was either unknown or the quintessence of daydreams, find ourselves baffled by a trait common to the majority of Americans: the belief, consciously or subconsciously, that the worst cannot happen here. That somehow the demoralizing images and disturbing experiences of those elsewhere are confined to those poor souls and will never find their way to American shores."

Oddly, we import by the tens of thousands (as refugees) the very people whose folkways and cultures make this more likely.

"Is this mindset a by-product of 66 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity? Is there something unique in the American character that revels in denial? Is there over-confidence that Americans can accomplish anything? Is this outlook the end-product of a lack of education and appreciation of how the success of the United States is extraordinary and of the fact that since modern man took his first tentative step on the plains of Africa 200,000 years ago until the present less than 9% of all humanity has ever experienced true freedom?"

Yes and no. There's nothing uniquely American about denial. But there are uniqueties about the American character, however it might currently be alloyed.

"The United States is unique among nations because of its founding principles, geography and mix of cultures and races. Those factors enabled the country to overcome a myriad of tribulations in its early years and develop an atmosphere conducive to an overwhelming barrage of creativity, ingenuity and individual advancement."

The "mix of cultures and races" part actually something of a recent development. For most of the four centuries of America's modern history, America's non-indigenous cultures and races were a fairly homogenous blend of Western Europeans; Indians and Blacks were outsiders to it.

"The American populace is no longer taught the basics of the the founding the United States and how it was able to achieve the peace and prosperity that is the hallmark of the present day. Nor are they aware that the annals of history are littered with the refuse of once invincible cultures whose citizenry never thought the worst would ever happen to them. All succumbed to greed, complacency and hubris; traits which have also begun to dominate American society.

While some Americans are waking up to the potential economic and security disasters that loom over the horizon, the vast majority are not. There still exists, deep in the recesses of the American mindset, the entrenched thought that none of this will really happen. That somehow, because this is the United States, there will be an easy and painless way to offset the potential problems -- that is if these dilemmas really are genuine.

Those of us who have first-hand experience from other nations of what the worst can be, say with great assurance that it can happen in the United States and it will unless Americans, and in particular the governing class, awaken from their self-induced stupor and honestly face that reality."

Words of warning indeed.

_____

Hat tip to Col. B. Bunny at Eternity Road.

re: "President Obama Goes to War - Without Congress"

Wesley Clark, MD, at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considers the Constitutionalities and legalities.

Just read the whole thing.

_____

Hat tip to KG at Crusader Rabbit ("FOR LIBERTY").

re: "You Might Not Be A Republican"

Randall Hoven at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") had an absolutely BRILLIANT essay.

Money quote(s):

"If you supported, endorsed and voted for the Democrat for President, you might not be a Republican."

"If you refused to vote for the Republican, a war hero and former POW who had 26 years experience in Congress and one of the more liberal voting records among Republicans in the Senate , because he was too conservative, you might not be a Republican."

&

"If you think a Republican with published SAT scores that imply an IQ of 125-130, or smarter than 95% of the population and in the range of Lincoln, Rousseau and Thackeray, and who graduated from Yale and then earned an MBA from Harvard is stupid, but a Democrat who has not released any of his education records is the smartest President ever, you might not be a Republican. "

re: "Illegal immigration, Liberal Elites, and Obama"

David Paulin at American Thinker ("devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") discusses how American communities cope with illegal immigration.

Money quote(s):

"Millions of Hispanics, mostly poor and uneducated, have immigrated to America illegally since the early 1990s. Most are Mexicans and most of them are high school dropouts. Compared to what they might have had in a slum or impoverished rural area of Mexico or Central America, these immigrants have done well here."

"Most middle-class Americans are fed up with illegal immigration. They get no sympathy from liberal elites, however, including the open-borders elites at that lofty bastion of American journalism, the agenda-setting New York Times. "

&

"On his recent visit to Mexico, President Obama spent much time hobnobbing with that country's elites. He also should talk with ordinary middle-class people in Latin America, outside of Mexico, to get their opinion on illegal immigration. Most have no sympathy for gate-crashing Mexicans and other illegal Hispanic immigrants.

The President will have no trouble finding these folks who are solidly middle-class. They form long lines starting early in the morning outside the gates of U.S. Embassies across Latin America. They're eyes are pensive as they clutch carefully prepared applications for visas and work permits. They wait patently in the hot sun. Most will be disappointed by the decision of the Embassy official behind the glass window. But those whom I've met vow to try their luck again some other day.

To them, America is about more than economic opportunities and social programs. They admire America's culture: believe it's a place with a rule of law that applies to everybody, whether you're Kenneth Lay or Martha Stewart. And they believe it's a place in which ordinary people obey little social courtesies, like going to the back of a line at a bank, rather than bribing a security guard to let them go to the front; that's how it's done in parts of Latin America I've visited.

In America, you stop your car at a red light, even when no cops are around; that's the sort of civic culture that foreigners admire who are from dysfunctional countries without a civic culture. Accordingly, gate-crashing Mexicans who are deported get little sympathy from them."