BOMB THE OIL FIELDS...NOW!

The way to stop ISIS is financial more than anything else.  When ISIS first began their initiative to essentially take over the Middle East and create a new Islamic Caliphate, were almost totally dependent on outside money: from Saudi Arabia (indirectly), Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen and sources in Turkey.  The Saudis are now actually blocking funding to ISIS actively.

Their key source of revenue is oil.  There are 8 or 9 oil fields in Iraq that they seized and currently control.  With the revenue from these oil fields, ISIS is bringing in over a million dollars a day (some days as much as three million dollars per day depending on their ability to move it).  As they fortify themselves and become more efficient in their work, this could go up to $10 million to $15 million per a day considering they were selling the 150,000 barrels a day those oil fields are capable of producing.

The point being; if we cut off their funding, we seriously cripple them.  They use the money made from black market oil sales (Turkey) to buy weapons, vehicles, food, medical supplies, pay soldiers and to build training camps for militants.  They also rely on this money for the two of the most important things they do: recruiting and bribery. 

We must bomb the oil fields.  Now. Bomb the oil fields and the roads and the trucks. (There is no pipeline.)

We can put ISIS right out of business.  Some argue that we need to recapture the oil fields.  Naturally, this would require putting our troops right there, on the ground.  That is not going to happen readily at this juncture.  But the loss of those oil fields is virtually negligible.  Iraq in total produces nearly 3 million barrels of oil a day.  The rest of the world produces nearly 100 million a day.  150,000 barrels won’t even be a noticeable loss.

They are using this cash to pay off Sunnis in the region for cooperation.  These people are mercenaries, some of whom used to be paid by the US for their cooperation.  Most of the ISIS army is a paid force, and many are not the run-of-the-mill, off-the-deep-end wacko Islamo-fundamentalists. They’re just in it because they’re disenfranchised scumbags who want to be a part of something, have an adventure, blow stuff up, rape some women and kill for sport. Cut the money off and we end this a lot sooner.  All of those losers will have to go back into the holes they crawled out of.

Bombing oil fields does temporarily create a messy sky with a lot of particulate matter but the reality is that, much the way Saddam burned the Kuwaiti oil fields, once ISIS is in retreat at a later date, they’ll probably set them on fire anyway.  That retreat could take years at this point.  Why waste human life; the innocents being slaughtered and subjugated, our troops, and the troops from coalition countries, as well as enormous resources fighting and “managing” ISIS, when we can so greatly handicap these lunatics by running two 15 minute sorties over the oil fields?

The Pentagon and CIA have certainly recommended this as a strategy.  The Joint Chiefs have definitely floated this as a necessary step to defeat ISIS. Why hasn’t it been executed?  What is the dawdling about over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

What is it?  Does our duly elected leader just need more time to think about it?  Is it the deep “thinking” again?

I’m going to sleep.  Wake me up when we have a President.

BLINDSIDED

"The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think it's accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (in response to a reporter's question about the flag of Al Qaeda being raised in Fallujah, Iraq by the terror group ISIS).

- Barack Obama, January 2014

"I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now.  To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us to would be dangerous _ for Iraq, for the region and for the United States.  It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda.  It would mean that we would risk mass killings on a horrific scale.  It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.  It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to face an enemy that was even more dangerous."

- George W. Bush, July 12, 2007

This week, a former Pentagon official confirmed that highly detailed, specific intelligence information about the rise and ongoing activities of ISIS was included in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) for at least a year before the terror group seized massive pieces of territory in Syria and Iraq beginning in the late spring of 2014.

According to the Pentagon official, the data and analysis provided to the President was solid and "granular" in its detail.  A policy maker who also was privy to the information contained in the briefings commented that they "....could not come away with any other impression: This is getting bad."

With suggestions being floated by the administration that they were blindsided by the rise of ISIS and that poor intelligence was to blame, the former Pentagon official replied, saying that some of the intelligence was considered so good that it was described as "exquisite."

The official added that the President was not known to come back to the intelligence community with further questions or "taskings".  When asked about the frequency with which this happened, the former Pentagon official answered "not generally."

The Pentagon source also added the following: "We were ready to fire on a moment's notice, on a couple hundred targets," but no order was given.  In some cases, targets were tracked for a "long period of time" but slipped away.

We are in trouble.

US POLICY, OUR FUTURE & WHO WE ARE AS A NATION

In discussing the subject of policy agendas with those “in-the-know”, it is difficult, and some might say impossible, to summarize U.S. policy on any issue we are currently facing.  The point of this discussion is not an open criticism of the President and his Administration, but a realistic examination of where we are, how we are perceived by the rest of the world and how our international and domestic policies affect the future of the country regardless of our conservative or liberal positions as Americans.

In the end, what really matters is that our country survives as the beacon of Democracy it set out to be and that America can continue on as a nation of truly free individuals, with equal opportunity to prosper under the protections of the U.S. Constitution.  Party affiliations aside, liberals, conservatives and everyone in between will all agree that the fundamental tenets this country was founded upon - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - must be protected, and that future generations should hopefully live fruitful lives supported by a solid education, a welcoming economy and a fair shake at achieving the American dream.  Whether red, blue or some shade of purple, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who rejects these ideals that are cornerstone to the American way of life.

Right now, that way of life is unraveling and it is unraveling in different ways for all kinds of people in this country.  I hear many speak of the income disparity between the haves and have-nots being a key issue.  It is true, the middle class is steadily being squeezed.  But the primary root of the problem, the steady transfer of labor overseas increasing over the last twenty-five years, is not being addressed.  The fact is that, in one more generation, the majority of those who now enjoy wealth and financial security will not see their offspring in such a position.  When the middle class gets squeezed dry, the problem moves both up and down the ladder.  There will be fewer and fewer “wealthy” individuals as we move on and the definition of “rich” will begin to mean anyone who is essentially not poor.

How are we dealing with a shrinking economy, a stalled manufacturing base and unemployment that, in truth, sits somewhere north of where it was during the Great Depression?  The answer is: we’re not.  Labor statistics show that since the year 2000, the number of native-born Americans who are working has not increased.  Jobs are being shipped overseas in growing numbers each year as corporations continue massive layoffs here at home.  In that span of fourteen years, median income has remained the same as the cost of living has increased as much as 36% for Americans.

We persist in entertaining obviously phony numbers about job growth and tell ourselves “things are getting better.”  We now have 101,770,000 working age people not participating in the labor force.  52% of those people have stopped looking for jobs because they have been out of work and searching for so long.  In 20% of American families, no one is working. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released statistics that revealed there are 77 million Americans currently in collections for debt that has been on the books long enough that has been written off by creditors.  This constitutes the personal financial status of more that one third of the entire adult population. 

When comparing employment versus population we see that the percentage of working age Americans who have a full time job is below 59% (US Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 - 2014).  That means more than 41% of working age Americans do not have full time work.  If you know anyone who believes that “unemployment” is at 6.2% as touted last month by the White House, I kindly advise you to check them into the psychiatric division of the nearest hospital, if, that is, they have health care coverage. 

The second part of this problem is the vast number of Americans receiving entitlements. We are at a point where 69% of the Federal budget goes to welfare spending and entitlement payments.  The number of Americans receiving money or benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.  The Census Bureau reports that there are 109,631,000 Americans on welfare based on the most recent available statistics - over one third of the entire population: 35.4% to be exact.

How do we, as a people, plan to tackle this spiraling dilemma?

________________ 

Equally pressing are some other issues you may be well aware of that are a great cause of concern.

We have a very serious problem in terms of our southern border.  Again, a lot of people will say “What’s the big deal?...Let these poor immigrants in....The country was built on immigrants coming over...Let them stay...”

Yes, in concept, I have to agree with most of that.  But the problem is this:  We are overloaded.  We are broke.  We are letting in swaths of criminals from Mexico, Central and South America with no papers and no identification.  We are allowing in cartel members, gang members, rapists, murderers and frankly, a great number of people who are going to drown us in more welfare and medicaid costs.  This is the wrong approach to immigration and incredibly bad timing.  A significant number of these “immigrants” have already been thrown out of the U.S. after having committed multiple felonies.  But, there is no real, enforceable policy on this issue, is there?  

We are also facing the obvious inevitability of Al Queda and ISIS terrorists walking right across the border, undeterred.  It is only a matter of time before a suicide bomber blows himself up at a mall in Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Tucson or San Diego.  It is going to happen and we are doing nothing to stem the possibilities.  At this point it really is almost as if we are inviting it.  

The political class is clearly using immigration as a dangerous ploy to maintain power.  With the media virtually silent on the realities of this important issue and the majority of Americans remaining uninformed and disengaged, we are facing the deterioration of our sovereignty, a massive breakdown in National Security and an enormous stress on our already broken economy.

Who will lead us in formulating a viable policy and an honest directive to stop this foolish strategy?

________________ 

Next, as a nation, through the apparent indifference of our leaders, we are doing as little as we possibly can to stop the terror fanatic group ISIS from slaughtering tens of thousands of innocents across the Middle East.  If ever there was an anemic response in the face of such atrocious barbarism, it is our response to this episode.  After months of dithering and “thinking” about what to do, the President finally authorized limited airstrikes against these savages who are raping and murdering and kidnapping their way across Iraq unchecked.  Backed by the empty rhetoric of several members of Congress, the Administration touted the success of dropping bottled water to those fleeing the carnage and how we were helping prevent genocide with our humanitarian efforts.  Such meaningless comments are pathetically political and morally unacceptable.  

While sending our Air Force to destroy a few ISIS targets here and there, and dropping food and water to those stranded by the ensuing genocide, our Administration and thus, our country, sent continued messages of weakness and reluctance about how limited our involvement would be.  ISIS stands with an army of over 10,000 fighters, including jihadists and Sunni sympathizers carrying advanced weapons seized from stockpiles in conquered provinces.  They come with tanks, surface-to-air missiles and rocket propelled grenades.  They are out in the open about their activities, financing themselves from known Saudi, Qatari and Turkish sources, looting banks, taxing subjugated individuals and trafficking young girls as sex slaves.  Their daily rituals of brutality include summary executions, beheadings, abductions, crucifixions and burying people alive.  No one is spared.  Women.  Children.  No matter.  They kill for sport and demented ideology that seems to justify anything they are in the mood for that day.  Lebanon has already been targeted.  Next is Jordan and finally, a coordinated attack on Israel.

U.S. and foreign intelligence services clearly and repeatedly warned of the potential threat of ISIS (now referred to as ISIL) over the last two years only to be ignored by the White House. When Fallujah fell several months ago, our Administration did nothing other than mildly increase military aid to the Iraqis.  We saw it coming and we sat on it.  All of this death and destruction could have easily been prevented with a few brief reality checks and some preemptive airstrikes. 

The more frightening piece to all of this is that the United States, led by detached bureaucrats, is failing to heed the blaring, red-flashing warning alarm indicating that ISIS is part of a larger global jihadist threat that sees America as its ultimate and most prized target.  This is not a regional conflict as the Administration et al continues to tell us.  This is a world problem cascading out of control.  When ISIS members say they intend to see the black flag of the Islamic Caliphate fly over the White House, convert or kill us and “drown all of (us) in blood”, they mean it.  And if anyone believes ISIS won’t get their hands on a nuke and use it, they are absolutely kidding themselves.  

As I write this, the news of the beheading of American journalist James Foley at the hands of ISIS terrorists passes across the ticker tape for the second day.  Our President , currently on an extended vacation, is silent.  No response at all.  Not even so much as a Twitter comment.  Don’t we demand more from our leaders? 

This is a disaster and we are sitting out the early innings, sending the message that we don’t intend to respond.  Who will turn the tide and face the danger with decisive action?

________________ 

The fourth installment in the examination of policy is the situation between Russia and Ukraine.  We are in replay mode.  No, Putin is not Hitler, but the board game employs the same kinds of pieces.  We let him have Crimea without any kind of fight.  Russian separatists recently murdered 298 innocent people in July by shooting down Malaysia Air Flight 17 over Ukraine using a Russian-supplied Buk-M1 surface to air missile.  There was no recourse.  Our Administration said stunningly little in the aftermath and showed no leadership whatsoever among the international community in repudiating Putin, Russia and the separatists.

Putin knows that we no longer stand behind our Eastern European allies, having withdrawn our missile defense shield, and he views the President as feckless, the United States as marginalized.  We are merely observers at this point.  We already defeated Russia in the Cold War and now we are in stand-down mode in dealing with the rising threat of blatant aggression, broken treaties and incursions into U.S. air space  The only reason Putin hasn’t fully invaded Ukraine is that he’s laughing so hard at us, he can’t get the words out to give the order.

If we do not acknowledge the gravity of this escalation, how can we expect to survive as a nation among nations and a leader in standing for Democracy worldwide?

________________ 

Finally, and of no less importance to our national identity, is the situation in Israel.  The Israelis are one of our two true, consistent allies on planet earth.  They have the only functioning democracy in the Middle East and the only sovereign nation in that hemisphere where civil liberties are treated as sacred, like the United States.  

In response to the most recent round of terrorist attacks and targeting of innocent civilians we have again vacillated between a tepid non-response and one that subtly,  yet clearly, condemns Israel for defending itself against an enemy whose sole intent is to wipe every Jew off the planet, even if it means sacrificing its own children in the process.  Israel seeks only to quell the terrorist threat to its existence so it can live in peace and we chime in by telling Israel to “show restraint” while cutting off arms shipments, all the while making dangerous statements that suggest Hamas is a legitimate political entity.    

So, in looking at all these issues, my question is; how does our response to each speak to who we are as a nation?

• Our unraveling economy amidst a disenfranchised society and workforce with no signs of a shift in the right direction...
• Our open border allowing tens of thousands to enter the country unabated...
• Our astounding apathy and denial in the face of the slaughter in Iraq and Syria and the long-term spillover which is a clear and present danger for America...
• Turning away as an aggressive world power sets about overthrowing neighboring governments, threatening our allies, stealing natural resources and preparing for a new world order...
• Isolation of our strongest ally in the hour they are attacked by bloodthirsty terrorists...

Have we become a nation of non-response; a nation that no longer looks at both history and current realities in order to form a better future?  Have we become a nation merely of observers, consumers and voyeurs?  Are we so transfixed by hyperbole, digital distraction and instant gratification that we no longer have the will to stand for the ideals that gave us this country?  Where is the discipline to reason and thus, the discipline to act?  

We urgently need to ask:  

“Who are we as a people if these are our positions as a nation?”  

Ultimately, the world at large, a future generation of Americans and the universe itself will call out and ask the opposite: 

“What is left of the nation if this is what you have wrought as a people?”  

Regardless of where you stand politically, please ask yourself; 

How will we answer them?

CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL

No matter how they phrase it, or skew the facts (or invent them), the result is the same and the root cause of the positions are derived, more or less, from the same place.

There is a near-constant, aggressive attempt by the left and the majority of the world media to draw an equivalent between what Hamas (or whatever terror group du jour) is doing and what Israel is doing.  The headlines and the rhetoric are geared toward a moral examination of Israel’s behavior and a whitewashing of Hamas’ behavior.

Hamas is fighting Israel in the media and the media is helping them do it.  There are often photographs of suffering children in hospitals in Gaza who have been the victims of some sort of violence but there is no analysis or context to explain; “these children were in a UN run school that was being used as a weapons cache and from which Hamas was launching rockets at major Israeli populations.  This is what happens when Hamas uses children as human shields in asymmetrical warfare...”

That doesn’t happen.  We see crying.  We see blood.  We see the pain on their faces and blown out buildings.  We hear about 1,000 dead, 2,000 dead but receive no confirmation of those numbers or verification of the sources.  

We don’t see dead Hamas militants who make up a significant number of the dead.  We don’t see footage of Hamas death squads sneaking through the tunnels on their way to kill innocent people.  We don’t see or hear about how Hamas went out and executed their own tunnel diggers who they had originally forced to dig the tunnels in the first place by threatening them and their families with death for non-compliance.  We hear nothing of the enormous amount of funding given to the Palestinians that is all squandered on more weapons and paramilitary training instead of hospitals, food and needed infrastructure.  The news does not cover their barbarism and the savage, abject violence of their culture or the ongoing, demonic indoctrination of their children in the schools we fund with our tax dollars.  

Where is the deeper understanding?  Where is the historical context based on ACTUAL history as opposed to the invented and always changing history?  Ignored.

Israel is fighting to survive as it always has.  Hamas is fighting for world opinion and political leverage in order to achieve their long term goal of weakening Israel and inevitably wiping her off the planet.  They do not even attempt to hide this end goal.  It is in the Hamas Charter.  It is a function of their government.  They repeat this publicly and the left acts as if they are holding out an olive branch with a golden unicorn swinging from the end.

The concept of drawing a moral equivalent between Israel and Hamas is the saddest part of all this.  Israel has been called “arrogant” in its power.  Any of the land gains Israel made since inception were acquired, not by Israel attacking her enemies, but by the enemy neighbors attacking and losing.  And every single time Israel gave the land back, they were attacked again.   

People want restraint?  Israel has been the most restrained superpower in the history of mankind.  My beloved United States of America would have completely destroyed an enemy behaving the way Israel’s enemies have a long time ago.  Wiped out.  Blown to kingdom come.  Any capable government power or people would respond this way.  Israel has always had the power to do this but has held back because the civilian casualties would be far too widespread.  Too many innocents would perish.  And those who have the highest regard for human life show restraint.

It comes down to this:  

If Hamas put down their weapons and stopped fighting, we would have peace.

If Israel put down her weapons; genocide, destruction.  There would be no more Israel.

There’s the moral equation in its most elementary form.

Why won’t the left, our academia and the media discuss these points?  Why won’t they criticize Hamas’ brutality when the scenario contains such obvious evidence and moral clarity?  Islamic Fundamentalists are killing, raping, butchering and beheading their way across the Middle East and the world protests over Israel defending itself from rocket bombardment and underground incursion but perhaps not showing enough restraint?

Anti-Semitism is the underlying thread.  They can call it “political” and they can say it’s “complicated” and they can alter the history as many times as they see fit to make their argument stick, but, in the end, what we have is a replay of the same story.  The only difference now is that the media is even easier to manipulate.  The propaganda spreads farther and wider, faster and more effectively.  The falsehoods are harder to retract once they hit the internet.  Deep down, the Jews will always be wrong, no matter how right.

OUR PRESIDENT IS AN ANTI SEMITE

I don’t care what anyone says; Obama is no friend of the Jews.  I will even go so far as to say that he and his administration have clearly shown their bias by taking measures to undermine Israel and by consistently making statements that greatly jeopardize the sanctity of Israel's geopolitical position as our ally.  In her 2003 book, The New Anti Semitism, Phyllis Chesler described how anti Semitism was once again becoming an institution.  Well, now it has become a mandate.

The BDS movement; Boycott, Divest & Sanction, is an anti Israel, and politically active anti Semitic group that calls for isolation of Israel and claims the country is guilty of war crimes on an ongoing basis.  Obama has joined their cause.  Barack Obama sees Israel as a colonial world power and is siding with Hamas.

In the most recent conflagration our administration is merely pretending to be a friend of Israel and using all the right phraseology in terms of naming Israel as an ally.  But this is just talk from the side of the mouth that reaches the six o'clock news.  Last week, when Secretary of State John Kerry got to Cairo amidst an attempt to broker a cease-fire agreement, the first thing he did was proclaim that the U.S. was giving a $47 million aid package to Gaza, which we all know gets funneled directly to Hamas.  When the U.S. gives money to Gaza or to the United Nations for Gaza, a significant portion of the funds go to Hamas to buy weapons and the rest of it goes to Hamas officials who are unfailingly corrupt.  We know this.  It is common knowledge among military and political leaders worldwide, aid workers and anyone in global media who isn’t blind or deaf. None of the funds actually go to the people of the Gaza strip.  We are merely financing more rockets, more tunnels: more terror.

Last week’s sudden “safety concerns” announced by the FAA, were the cause for our planes not being allowed to fly to Israel.  In order to believe this was not political, one must have absolutely no knowledge of the airline industry, military weaponry and geopolitics.  Hamas does not have the capability to shoot down planes at commercial cruising altitude (35,000 ft.), nor would they want to.  That would run counter to their playing-the-victim strategy. Killing Jews on Israeli soil is one thing.  Taking a plane out of the sky loaded with families from all over the world in quite another thing.  All of the power of their transparent propaganda would be washed away with one shot.  Hamas may be savages but they are not fools in the public relations arena.

The rocket fire from Hamas is the same as it always was.  No more dangerous to commercial air travel than before.  And Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense is working nearly perfectly.  There is no need for an FAA ban on flights to Israel for “safety”.

What is more eye opening is that we are still allowing planes to land in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar (who is funding Hamas), Yemen and even Kiev after a plane was actually just shot down over the Ukraine countryside.   But, not Israel.  We cannot fly to Israel, our ally.

Israel cannot sustain itself without tourism.  It is a major part of the country’s economy.  Business travel to Israel is also a vital part of the growth of its economy.  Obama just shut them down.  This is political through and through.  It is also personal.  He sees Israel as he has learned to see other world powers past and present; through his deeply ideological, hard left, socialist lens.  He is essentially “community organizing” against a country and a people he does not like.  Now, he is seizing this opportunity, not to stand firmly behind our ally, but to punish them while taking sides with a no-holds-barred terror organization and fund their surreptitious activities.

This is clear and present anti Semitism and you are seeing it become an ever-growing part of the New Left’s geopolitical strategy.

Here are some examples.

In 2011, as the United States rejected yet another in the endless stream of nonsensical anti-Israel UN resolutions, then-UN Ambassador Rice gave us a soliloquy on the evils of Israeli settlement activity, reframing the decision on the resolution:

“Opposition to the resolution before this council today should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity.  On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace.”

It’s Israel’s fault. Of course.  One must wonder what Israel did to earn Arab animosity between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria.  Rice is a moron.  When the savages chant “from the river to the sea” they aren’t talking about the little crappy settlements on the West Bank.  They are talking about wiping all of Israel OFF THE MAP!

Hillary Clinton was very open about her feelings regarding what she referred to as a lack of Israeli empathy. In December 2012, Hillary told the 2012 Saban Forum on US-Israel Relations that Israel didn’t care enough about the Palestinians.  She said: “I’m not making excuses for the missed opportunities of the Israelis, or the lack of generosity, the lack of empathy that I think goes hand-in-hand with the suspicion. So, yes, there is more that the Israelis need to do to really demonstrate that they do understand the pain of an oppressed people in their minds, and they want to figure out, within the bounds of security and a Jewish democratic state, what can be accomplished.”

That statement is outrageous.  Lack of empathy?  Lack of generosity?  Suspicion?  Failing to understand the pain of an oppressed people?  And she won’t make excuses for the Israelis’ missed opportunities?!  Israel has made one concession after another to a ruthless, uncompromising and unappeasable enemy only to have the olive branch torched time and again.  The people who are oppressed ELECTED their oppressors.  Her own husband was one of the instrumental players in what may have been the most flagrant and shocking rejection of a peace accord in the history of mankind by Yasser Arafat, less than 20 years earlier.  This rhetoric is sickening.  And, rhetoric is dangerous.

Obama’s first phone call upon taking office was to Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas. (Today he is still funneling aid to the PA, even after their peace agreement with Hamas.)

Later in 2009, Obama stated that he wanted to put “daylight” between the US and Israel.

In a March 2014 interview Obama mirrored a previous John Kerry comment stating:

“If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction — and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time…If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”

This statement clearly shows Obama’s belief that it is solely upon the Israelis to make peace.  There was no call out to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to put an end to the terror training, the rockets, and the evil indoctrination of its young. No, it is just those pesky Jewish settlers building homes in the West Bank.

And for a Palestinian State to be “contiguous” we would have to cut Israel in half to connect Gaza with the West Bank – meaning an end to Israel.  That suggestion is ludicrous but eye-opening as to his real position on the survival of Israel.

We have been repeatedly subjected to Obama’s empty prating on about the dangers of the “rising tide” of anti Semitism, everywhere in the world but the Arab nations.  When invited by Steven Spielberg to speak at the Shoah Foundation this last May 2014, he was quick to describe incidents in the Western world, but strangely, not the Middle East.  He is far too close a friend to the Arabs to do so.  Arab anti Semitism is THE most intense, consistent and obvious on the planet, yet he carefully chose to talk about small, isolated incidents perpetrated by fringe nut jobs in Overland Park, Kansas and skinheads in the Ukraine.  Arab obsession with, and propagation of The Protocols of Elders of Zion and blatant Arab support for the mission of cleansing the earth of Israel and the Jews was left out of the conversation. 

Last November, Kerry stated that Israel would face a “third Intifada” if it did not make concessions to the Palestinians. In January, he stated that Israel would face delegitimization and boycott which has recently come via the FAA (keeping Obama’s hands clean).  Now Kerry is on his way back from the Middle East, after brokering a pointless cease-fire and passing out cash to the terrorists. 

The entire attitude of the current administration is one of marginalization of Israel.  The directive, coming from our executive office, is one derived of anti Semitic ingredients.  Obama has shown us that he is on the wrong side of this equation; that he places the onus on Israel to concede to impossible demands; and that he is quietly, but surely, an anti Semite.

THE LINGERING STENCH (PART 2)

(If you missed Part 1, please scroll down)

Why is the media, for the most part, looking the other way on this?  There are a number of reasons.  First; they don’t want egg on their faces for dropping the ball in terms of reporting and researching on this story since September 2012 so, for the most part, they are treating this as if there was no real story there to begin with.  Second, there is the natural bias to under-report any bad news about Obama et al.  They pumped this guy up as the savior of the United States, the healer of the world and a gift to mankind.  It takes guts to point out they were completely wrong. 

In a recent press conference, Representative Trey Gowdy of North Carolina, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, asked some pointed questions of the Administration that any American with a pulse would want answers to.  Gowdy asked the following:

"Can you tell me why Chris Stevens was in Benghazi the night that he was killed? Do you know? Does it bother you whether or not you know why Chris Stevens was in Benghazi?"

"Do you know why we were the last flag flying in Benghazi after the British had left and the Red Cross had been bombed? Do you know why requests for additional security were denied? Do you know why an ambassador asking for more security days and weeks before he was murdered and those requests went unheeded?"

"Do you know the answer to why those requests went unheeded? Do you know why no assets were deployed during the siege? And I've heard the explanation -- which defies logic, frankly -- that we couldn't have gotten there in time, but you know, they didn't know when it was going to end. So how can you possibly cite that as an excuse?"

"Do you know whether the president called any of our allies and said, "Can you help? We have men under attack." Can you answer that?"

"Do any of you know why Susan Rice was picked? The secretary of state did not go. She says she doesn't like Sunday talk shows. That's the only media venue she does not like, if that's true. Why was Susan Rice on the five Sunday talk shows?"

"Do you know the origin of this mythology that it was spawned as a spontaneous reaction to a video? Do you know where that started? Do you know how we got from no evidence of that to that being the official position of the administration?"

There have been a number of hearings and committees on Benghazi but it has come in bits and pieces with redacted memos, classified documents, hidden facts and stonewalling during testimony.  It is abundantly clear at this point that there has been an intentional and systemic attempt by the Administration to hide information from Congress.  For the “most transparent” Administration of all time this certainly requires a good vetting.

In mid May, reluctant Democrats were persuaded to join Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating Benghazi, primarily to protect Hillary Clinton’s reputation as well as Obama's.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed five of her colleagues to the panel while dismissing the need for it altogether. “The Republican obsession with Benghazi has not been about the victims, the families or the country,” she insisted, adding that it is “not necessary” to participate in a “partisan exercise once again.”  This is nonsense of course; more rhetoric to try to move public opinion.  If anyone is pure partisan and pure politick, it’s Pelosi.  Finding the truth amidst an ongoing fog of lies and deception is not partisan.  It’s as American and righteous as one can get.  Her buffoonery would be funny if it were not so deeply pathetic coming from an elected official and former House Speaker.

According to inside sources within the Administration, Hillary Clinton informed several House Democrats and aides that she preferred that they participate rather than leave her open to unanswered “enemy fire” from House Republicans. Naturally, many House Democrats are calling the Select Committee a “witch hunt”.

According to Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA): "Republicans are trying to make a scandal where there is none.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) noted that “even a kangaroo court would be better off with a defense attorney,” and panel member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) claimed he believes “Republicans will attack Hillary Clinton by any means necessary.”

Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, insisted he decided to participate because we’ve “seen firsthand how abusive the Republicans have been during this investigation” and because Congress owes it to the families of the victims “to bring some minimal level of balance to this process and check false claims wherever they may arise.”

Pelosi even went so far as to claim that family members of the slain Americans asked her not to launch another investigation. “Two of their families have called us and said, ‘Please don’t take us down this path again,’” Pelosi said during a press conference. “It’s really hard for them. It’s very sad.” Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) office also insisted that a family member from the maternal side of Tyrone Woods’ family ostensibly agreed with Pelosi. Tellingly, none of the family members were named.  Could this be true?  Would family members of the dead call one of the main figures standing in the way of them finding out what happened to their loved ones and beg them to please stop Congress from getting to the bottom of it?  Nancy Pelosi, you are a national disgrace and you should be ashamed of yourself for your actions. 

On the other side of the equation, Pat Smith, and Charles Woods, parents of slain diplomat Sean Smith and Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, both expressed a clear desire to get to the truth behind the murder of their sons.

Democrats and their media allies have made sure that their participation will be characterized as an effort to blunt Republican hyper-partisanship, even as they willfully ignore the reality that while the Obama administration’s disinformation campaign has been thoroughly taken apart, not a single individual has been held accountable. Their other tactic consists of focusing, not on what happened in Benghazi, but how to prevent a reprise of that atrocity. “We hope that we can shine a light on where our focus should be, preventing tragedy like Benghazi from ever happening again.”  Well, how do you do that if you can't begin to explain how it happened in the first place?

Sorry, no dice. The focus should be on the details of what happened, how it unfolded and how it was covered up. And if this is the “witch hunt” Democrats say it is, no doubt they will be more than willing to hear from the 20-30 Benghazi survivors. I’m sure they must at least be curious as to what was in the redacted and, until now, omitted Appendix B from the intelligence report that no one even knew about until just a few weeks ago. It’s been almost a year since CNN reported that frequent, even monthly polygraph tests were being employed to keep the survivors from talking to the public or Congress. Why? Moreover, it’s utterly absurd that anyone could insist all Benghazi questions have been asked and answered when the Commander-in-Chief himself has yet to account for his whereabouts that night. Former Secretary of State Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified that they spoke to Obama only once during the attack, and Clinton testified she spoke with him at 10 p.m. EST. 

Shortly after that phone call the State Department issued the following statement: 

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.

We know that this assertion was based on no intelligence whatsoever.  And we now the President was wholly absent from the action that evening.  We have also come to learn that there is a possibility Ambassador Stevens was sent to Benghazi, not to foster good will with the Libyans, but to oversee the movement of arms from Libyan stockpiles into the hands of Syrian rebels; something Congress was not aware of.  If this is true, it would constitute a major violation by Obama, his Administration and the State Department.  This is very serious business - a highly illegal flouting of Congress.  It makes Watergate look like passing notes in class.

So much of this has been left open-ended to this day.  The American people are well aware that there are so many questions that must be answered that have nothing whatsoever to do with politics and it is glaringly obvious that members of the Administration, as well as a number of high-ranking Democrats, are very uncomfortable about answering those questions.  Regardless of party affiliation, this has to make one highly curious.

Please stay tuned in America.

THE LINGERING STENCH OF BENGHAZI

The events in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 are still very much with us and a part of the national psyche.   No matter how hard the current Administration tries to use stall tactics, executive privilege and its own brand of Febreeze to cover up the smell, it's there.  The American people don’t understand what happened or the process of how it was handled and, even though some of the pressure seemed to dissipate over time, there is a renewed sense of interest and a demand for real answers.

We have recently come to find that there were CIA talking points on the attack as well as White House talking points, developed separately and containing very different information.  We didn’t know about the White House talking points until last week (early May 2014).  Those were the talking points sent from White House staffer Ben Rhodes (now Deputy National Security Advisor), to Susan Rice, UN Ambassador.  It took a Judicial Watch subpoena, a law suit and a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to force the Administration to release Rhodes’ memo to Rice, which indicated she should blame the attacks on the video when she appeared on national television.  These are clearly political talking points, not based on information gathered from  the intelligence community, and they were developed and signed off on by the Obama Administration. 

Since the attacks over a year and a half ago and prior to this recent release of information, we were all focused on the CIA talking points which, although watered down in terms of detail, did not mention the video as a factor, whatsoever.

Former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell has already testified before Congress that the talking points were watered down for security reasons but that there was no mention of a video as the cause.  Morrell was surprised when he heard the White House narrative back in September 2012.  In addition, the Libyans were telling us that it was an orchestrated terrorist attack from the very beginning.  The White House never consulted with the CIA on the talking points and ignored the facts on the ground. We have now come to find that, among the newly released documents were redacted versions of emails. Why the blackouts?  These emails were originally unclassified.  They became classified on February 5, 2014, long after a FOIA request and separate subpoena from Congress. The freshly "classified" emails are currently scheduled to be released without the redactions years after Obama leaves office; some in 2019, others in 2027, and others as far off as the year 2037. 

Obama has stuck to his original claim that he was just going off the information he received from the intelligence community.  This is a flat lie.  The CIA never indicated in any way that the attacks were related to a conflagration that arose from protests over a video.  We have recently come to learn that an analysis from the Defense Intelligence Agency produced for the White House a day before Rhodes sent his email to Rice assigned blame for the attacks to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al Sharia Libya. The DIA analysis never mentioned a video.  Just after the attacks took place, our top intelligence official in Libya, as well as the head of intelligence for AFRICOM repeatedly told officials in Washington that the Benghazi attacks were part of a planned assault by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.  Yet, in Rhode's email to Rice ahead of her Sunday talk show appearances, he instructed Rice to "convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad; to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy; to show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests; to reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges."

The Administration was so eager for justice that they sent the FBI to Libya to investigate...three and a half weeks later.  And we know they weren't doing "everything" that we could.  We didn't respond at all with military reinforcements and have never seriously sought out the culprits in the attack.

The daily Presidential intelligence briefings need to be revealed and we all know they won't be. Those briefings would conclusively show that Obama knew he and Hillary were so clearly inventing a narrative.

The CIA was not the source. 

The DIA was not the source. 

Our intelligence officials in Libya were not the source. 

So, where did the info come from?  Thin air.  They invented it.  Obama lied about receiving intelligence and the ensuing cover up is now beginning to come to light.

It was very much in the political interest of the Administration to lead with the video protest story.  Both Hillary and Obama benefited.  At the time, Obama had an election coming up in 6 weeks.  He had to be able to continue with his tale that he slayed the terror threat with the death of Bin Laden.  It had to be anything other than terrorism or Al Queda, but whoever was indeed responsible was going to be brought to justice.  Right.

Hillary had to cover for herself after cutting Embassy security in half just prior to the attacks in spite of repeated warnings and she needed to look clean as Secretary of State after an inexcusable lapse.  It was widely understood within the State Department that there were increasing security concerns at that Embassy and in Libya in general.   Then we had to be subjected to Hillary waxing lyrical about how disgusted she was by the "offensive" video only to later go in front of Congress and say "...the fact is, we had four dead Americans.  Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd go kill some Americans?  What difference at this point does it make?" (Senate Foreign Relations hearing, January 23, 2013).  Well Mrs. Clinton, it makes a very big difference because you went with a story you knew wasn't true about how four brave Americans were killed at one of the Embassies under your command and did so for sheer political expediency. That's kind of important.

The facts are surfacing as we also find out evermore about Obama's dereliction of duty the evening of the attacks.  He was absent from the action for all intents and purposes and chose not to send in our military to help.  (We still don't know where he was or what he was doing to monitor the events because he won't disclose that information.  We do know he was not in the Situation Room, nor was he in contact with then Secretary of Defense Panetta.)  The Administration's response to this vicious attack was to not respond, to downplay it as much as possible, and to then act as if this was something they could never have conceived happening because it was so incredibly spontaneous.  

• Basic security protocols were not followed in the face of a clear and present danger. 
• There was zero response upon learning of the attack.
• The President and Secretary of State remained uninvolved during a national crisis.
• The politics clearly took precedence over justice or accountability.
• The aftermath has been a combination of transparent lies, excuses and stonewalling.

This is a massive cover up.