To Obama, Israel is the real problem in the Mid East

You know something is fundamentally wrong when the United States is playing hardball with its only ally in the Mid-East (outside of Iraq -- thank you, George Bush!) -- while giving Iran a veritable pass in its on-going efforts to build nuclear weapons. Why is the U.S. giving Israel a hard time? Because it had the temerity this past week to announce that it was going to pursue more construction in its capital city (Jerusalem) that was beyond the artificial "green line" border that marks the boundary left over from the 1967 war. Israel is, of course, a sovereign nation and this is (of course) an internal decision that is (frankly) none of the United States' business. Right?

Well, not exactly. You see, the Obama Administration sees Israel as the evil-doer in the region, and believes that if it weren't for Israel settlements and Israeli aggression, peace would be at hand. As Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Magazine writes, the "Obami's" (as she calls them) have now left it up to political Chicago players David Axelrod to go on national TV to chide the Israelis for having the gumption to defy "The Messiah's" wishes that Israel lie prostrate in front of Hamas and the Palestinians and beg for their lives:

The White House is, as this report suggests, upping the ante with continued criticism of Israel. Taking to the morning talk shows, David Axelrod — a political operative who now seems at the center of foreign-policy formulation (more on this later) — went on the Fox, ABC, and NBC Sunday talk shows to repeat how insulted the Obami were over Israeli building in Jerusalem and what an affront this was to them.

The reaction of the Obami is even more startling considering the location and strategic importance of Ramat Shlomo. But this administration doesn’t make such fine distinctions and is not like past ones, we are learning. It might have something to do with the fact that Axelrod and the Chicago pols are running foreign policy. It’s attack, attack, attack — just as they do any domestic critic (even the Supreme Court Chief Justice). It’s about bullying and discrediting, trying to force the opponent into a corner. And in this case, their opponent is plainly the Israeli government. For that is the party the Obami is now demanding make further concessions to… well, to what end is not clear. Perhaps we are back to regime change — an effort to topple the duly elected government of Israel to obtain a negotiating partner more willing to yield to American bullying.

The language the Obami employ – ”personal,” “insulting,” and “affront” – suggests an unusual degree of personal peevishness and hostility toward an ally. That, I suppose, is the mentality of Chicago pols and of those who regard Israel not as a valued friend but as an irritant. And it is the language not of negotiators but of intimidators.

Does this strike anyone other than me to be the height of hubris? The notion that Obama would be personally affronted by the actions of an democratic ally in a region that has nothing but monarchs, despots and terrorists? It also again reinforces that there is a strong anti-Israel lobby within the Obama Administration -- which is not surprising, since the liberal intelligentsia (oxymoron) and academic infrastructure that animates the Obama White House and foreign policy establishment is generally unsympathetic to Israel, if not down right hostile. The truth is that conservatives and Republicans have always been a better friend to Israel than has the left -- even as Jews vote for Democrats over Republicans by a 90-10 margin. Makes no sense -- but that's the deal!

In any event, the irony that Obama would be beating up Israel while the Mullahs in Iran continue their "centrifuge party" in Tehran is quite amazing. We have an Islamic revolutionary state that is trying to wage war against its neighbors while oppressing democracy at home and what is Obama excited about? Israel builing a few more homes in Jerusalem? Are you serious?

Here's a quote from Rubin's piece that sums this up nicely. From Illinois Rep Mark Kirk (now a Senate candidate):

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, making it official United States policy that Jerusalem should remain the undivided capital of Israel,” Congressman Kirk said. “As a staff member, I helped draft this historic legislation; as a Congressman I continue to urge its enforcement. History teaches us that a divided Jerusalem leads to conflict while a unified Jerusalem protects the rights of all faiths. I urge the Administration to spend more time working to stop Iran from building nuclear bombs and less time concerned with zoning issues in Jerusalem. As Iran accelerates its uranium enrichment, we should not be condemning one of America’s strongest democratic allies in the Middle East.

Couldn't have said it any better myself. The reality here is that Obama still believes that a lasting peace is possible with the Palestinians and their terrorist leaders, and the if only Israel would concede and appease, progress would be made.

Wait a minute: haven't we seen this play before? Didn't Ehud Barak offer up to Arafat a two-state solution with virtually every concession that Arafat (supposedly) wanted? And what happened? Did the Palestinians choose peace?

Up is down and down is up and through a looking glass we go (again and again)!

Dems still not listening

Senator Michael Bennet has acknowledged that the Massachusetts voters' choice of Scott Brown signals their justified demand to be heard. (Denver Post, "Deciphering Voter Message," 1/21/2010) While claiming that Colorado legislators do listen to us, however, Bennet demonstrated just the opposite. He's still not listening. Massachusetts voters did indeed vigorously proclaim that governments all governments, at all levels work for us, not the other way around. That's what "representative government" means.

Missed, though, was the rest of the message. Massachusetts voters also signaled their massive rejection of the liberal agenda. Bennet didn't hear that part or chose to ignore it. Obama and all his liberal pack, including both of Colorado's senators and most our state officials, apparently are in denial.

Through op/ed letters, polls and public rallies, American voters have declared again and again that we cherish our freedoms and our open economy. We deplore excessive government spending, anti-business interference and nannyism.

At a grass-roots rally early this week a Coloradan aptly expressed his disgust, "We don't want handouts. We want hands off."

So, start really listening. Or prepare for Colorado voters' judgment in November.

Get off the couch

This great country -- and I do mean EXCEPTIONAL -- is in the grips of a domestic enemy. Let's leave aside the politically correct platitudes and politeness for a moment and be honest. The left is the enemy to traditional American values of individual freedom, personal liberty and entrepreneurship.

They want to create a Nanny State, where the government runs your life. Health care is a big piece of this puzzle. Next will come the kind of car you drive, the light bulbs you use and which colleges you can go to. They want to tax and control every breath you take.

And make no mistake about it: the left is now firmly and fully in charge of the U.S. government. There is not a single (as in ONE) moderate or conservative Democrat in the U.S. Senate, and very few in the House. The White House is inhabited by Marxist revolutionaries -- and that includes the guy in the Oval Office.

We are being led by radicals.

That's the truth. And Democrats and Independents (and many so-called "Republicans") who voted for "Hope and Change" may feel hoodwinked, but the reality was there for all to see. The President of the United States is a Saul Alinksy operative with radical friends. That doesn't happen by accident.  Americans liked the cut of the guys jib and the fact that decades of race-guilt could be slayed in a single pull of the voting lever, and so the nation took a leap into the great unknown.

Off a precipice, and into an abyss.

And then insult got added to the injury by putting the likes of Al Franken (hey Minnesota -- politics is not really a JOKE!) in the Senate, giving the left a massive majority and the 60 votes needed to ram home big-time change on a purely partisan basis.

And that's really the main message here: this is a President and a Congress that thinks that a straight party-line vote is democracy in action. There was no pretense of bipartisan accommodation or compromise, only a "shove it down your throat" Chicago-style politics. The left is so certain they are right that they simply don't care what YOU think.

Nice, huh?

We are in for a very rough ride. But it isn't hopeless. We can take back the House in 2010 and put Nancy Pelosi out to pasture. We can defeat Harry Reid in Nevada and give him the good old Tom Daschle treatment.

We can change this in 11 months.

But to do so, you have to get OFF THE COUCH.

You have to start giving -- in money, time and energy -- to Republican candidates.  Money is the life's blood of politics, and to win in 2010, conservatives need to raise cash.   And if you can't contribute money, then volunteer for a candidate.  Stuff envelopes. Walk precincts. Host voter meetings in your living room.

We can't be passive. The enemy is organized, zealous and unbelievably vicious.  We must parry their every thrust.

We can't afford to lose this country for another generation. Please do WHATEVER you can. I am working with a Republican Congressional candidate here in Colorado -- Diggs Brown.  He's a very good man and a solid conservative.

Find someone -- anyone -- who you can support running for Congress in a swing district.  That's the way we can change this -- by putting solid conservatives in office in 2010.

We must do more than complain. We must ACT!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Let's make 2010 the year we TAKE BACK THIS GREAT COUNTRY!!

Whose side is Obama on?

What do you get when you cross a leftist presidential administration with a modern media complex intent on furthering its politically-correct vision of America? You get lots of incomprehensible, illogical stupidity.

But, as Charles Krauthammer recently wrote, much of this is not benign stupidity. Much of it is downright dangerous. Like making a decision to close Guantanamo for no good reason -- and without an alternative place to put many of the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Or choosing to re-investigate the CIA for interrogations that were legally sanctioned by the Justice Department at the time they were carried out. Or creating a new and chilling environment that allows a radical Islamist at Fort Hood to contact Al Qaeda and make threatening presentations to other Army doctors without meaningful response. These nonsensical moves -- all in the name of political correctness and left-wing politics -- have already killed people.

How many more will die in the future?

Sadly, I believe it may be many. Now Attorney General Eric Holder has made the incomprehensible decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other al Qaeda planners of 9/11 in a civilian court in lower Manhattan -- near the very site where they perpetrated their act of war against America. Holder's decision came at the same time that he also ruled that the detainee responsible for the USS Cole bombing would face a military commission instead of a civilian trial. If it is good for the Cole bomber, why isn't it good enough for the perpetrators of 9/11?

And herein is the main issue: Obama and Holder don't see the 9/11 attack as an act of war. This reflects the Administration's belief that the kind of terrorism that led to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were essentially law enforcement issues, and should be handled in the normal system of justice that is available to every American -- and with all the rights and protections that go along with it. This is grist, of course, for the ACLU and other left-wing interest groups who want to see the U.S. cease and desist its aggressive tactics against the poor Islamic victims of U.S. imperialism. Holder has just given them a big fat bone: the final death blow to the "war on terror".

As the Wall Street Journal opines today:

Please spare us talk of the "rule of law." If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal "enemy combatants" captured since 9/11.

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren't a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday's decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

Oh, if only it were 1942 again -- when Obama's hero, Franklin Roosevelt, was able to move against America's enemies without the glare of the media covering every move. Roosevelt ordered Attorney General Biddle to carry out a swift form of justice at a time when America was at war -- a simple, effective process that protected America. The Germans were caught, tried and hung. No hand-wringing about their treatment as detainees. We understood a central fact: they were the enemy.

So Eric Holder, with the approval of President Obama, has chosen to return the 9/11 terrorists to the site of their crime, and with all the pomp and circumstance that will go with a show trial. F. Lee Bailey might even come out of retirement for this one. Can you imagine the spectacle? The opportunity for a legion of fame-seeking defense attorneys to gum up the works on this for years -- all the while parading this mass murderer in and out of court on a daily basis? How long before the sympathy factor sets in for this poor Muslim fundamentalist who was abused by his father and grew up in a world of American imperialist oppression?

The greater danger, of course, is the chance that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his cohorts are set free on procedural grounds for lack of evidence -- or because the defense lawyers put America and its interrogation techniques on trial.

This is a very real possibility -- and one I suspect that the Obama Administration understands well. So why would they take the risk? Is it because it is an opportunity to put a final nail in the coffin of the Bush Administration's "war on terror"? Wouldn't an acquittal on the basis of water-boarding be the ultimate victory for the anti-war left?

And the Journal concludes:

One certain outcome is that an open civilian trial will provide valuable information to terrorists across the world about American methods and intelligence. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissable, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the "blind cleric" Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan.

Terrorists also love a big stage, and none come bigger than New York. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, made his civilian trial a spectacle. Not even the best judge can entirely stop KSM and others from doing the same. And Mr. Holder has invited grave and needless security risks by tempting jihadists the world over to strike Manhattan while the trial is in session.

Just whose side is Obama on?

For Obama, Afghanistan is a bridge too far

There has been no doubt for weeks now in my mind that President Obama has been planning a retreat from Afghanistan. All the dithering and hand-wringing over the elections, Harmad Karzai and the corrupt Afghan government was just a way to put distance between himself and the "decision" -- or series of decisions -- to create plausible blame on someone else for abandoning the Afghan mission. For those who understand Obama's true goals, this decision was made months ago, and the "high level" discussions within the administration have been nothing but air cover (no pun intended) for the abandonment of the erstwhile war "of necessity". Obama is a craven opportunist, and he sees nothing but messiness in Afghanistan in the years ahead. It will get in the way of his massive goals to restructure America to his liking -- and that's a bridge too far. The reality is that Obama doesn't see the Islamic terrorist threat as particularly significant, in in that vein he has much company among the left-wing intelligentsia (a contradiction in terms, I know.) This is a president who can't bring himself to call the Fort Hood massacre a "terrorist attack". Indeed, this is president who can't bear to even utter the word "terrorism". He doesn't seem to want to deal with the realities of the world we live in, preferring instead to craft a world of platitudes where our words can somehow influence their deeds. Afghanistan, it turns out, is just another "Bush" legacy that threatens to give America a black eye and derail Obama's need to "fix" us in a way that makes us a kinder, fairer place. The redistributionist goals here at home mean we can't really be bothered to fight abroad -- why waste all that energy and money when we can use it to make payments to the Democratic base?

Afghanistan has thus joined Iraq as a "war of choice" and Obama is choosing to bail. According to Jules Crittendon this morning:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

So Obama will temporize and pick a "middle ground" that rejects General McChrystal's recommendations in favor of a choice that reduces the American footprint and allows us to "retreat with honor". Of course, we've seen this movie before -- we tried retreat with honor in Vietnam and it failed miserably. But past is never prelude with this president, and in his desire to protect his domestic agenda, Obama will make moves that will forestall the fall of Kabul long enough to make it appear that it is someone else's fault.

The script has been written -- now its just a matter of playing out the act. Lots of serious debate, a sober decision. And a strategic retreat.

Of course, this doesn't change the fact that Afghanistan is the crucible of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and will again become a working base for attacks against the West. Perhaps the president figures he can manage this as a "law enforcement" exercise rather than a war, and send drones and cruise missiles in to try and make life difficult for the enemy. But the reality is that leaving Afghanistan will result in a more dangerous world for America.

And what's the point of health care reform in a nation where 9/11-scale attacks -- perhaps with WMD -- are occuring on a regular basis?