Pigs fly: Obama says 'Islamist jihadist'
In a Tuesday meeting with Congressional leaders on cybersecurity, President Hussein Obama used the term '
Islamist jihadist.'
“With the Sony attack that took place, with the Twitter account that was
hacked by Islamist jihadist sympathizers yesterday, it just goes to
show how much more work we need to do, both public and private sector,
to strengthen our cybersecurity,” the president said at the outset of a
meeting with congressional leaders at the White House.
He's referring to the hacking of the US Central Command's Twitters account on Monday.
Change? Or
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, cyberwar, hope and change, Islamic terrorism, jihadist
Morons: US troops deployed to 'fight' Ebola not being issued Hazmat suits
It sounds like the Obama administration really wants to bring Ebola to the United States. American troops being deployed to 'fight' Ebola are not being issued Hazmat (protective hazardous materials) suits. What might be even worse, in the event that the troops are infected with Ebola, they will be
brought back to the United States for treatment, rather than treating them on a desert island off the African coast where they cannot infect anyone else.
Troops
from the 101st Airborne Division leading the military response to Ebola
in West Africa will only need gloves and masks to protect themselves
from the deadly virus, so said Gen. David Rodriguez at a Pentagon
briefing Wednesday.
“They
don’t need the whole suit – as such – because they’re not going to be
in contact with any of the people,” the commander of U.S. troops in
Africa said.
Soldiers
from the 101st Airborne will primarily be building hospitals,
ultimately leading what could be a contingent of 4,000 American service
members. They’ll be housed either in tent cities at military airfields
or in Liberian Ministry of Defense facilities, Rodriguez said.
Soldiers’
health will be monitored through surveys and taking their temperature
on their way in and out of camps. If a service member does get sick,
Rodriguez said they will be flown home immediately for treatment.
Obama's not up for reelection anyway, so what difference does it make? /sarc Maybe he has a death wish for the country because most of his program for 'change' has been rejected.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Ebola, hope and change, US Army
Change for the worse
Wow!
A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe Obama's first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.
The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under Obama's leadership and present a major challenge for the incumbent Democrat as he seeks reelection this fall.
Conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, the poll comes in the wake of last month's Supreme Court decision that upheld the primary elements of Obama's signature healthcare legislation.
It found 68 percent of likely voters - regardless of whether they approve or disapprove of Obama - believe the president has substantially transformed the country since his 2009 inauguration.
The feeling that Obama has changed the country for the worse is strongest among Republicans, at 91 percent, compared to 71 percent of Democrats who support Obama's brand of change.
Strikingly, 1-in-5 Democrats say they feel Obama has changed the United States for the worse.
Compared to the sentiment about Obama's impact, fewer people see presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney as a candidate who will change the country dramatically if elected.
Still, 50 percent of people think Romney will bring a "significant" level of change - a finding that may reflect the desire among anti-Obama voters for a reversal of the president's policies.
I wonder what the numbers are for Obama outside the US. My guess is that in Israel, and even in Europe, they are worse.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, hope and change
Hope and change, 'Palestinian' style
'Moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen is introducing his own version of
hope and change for the Middle East.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a senior advisor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, warned that if Israel does not stop settlement construction and if the Quartet is unable to restart the peace process, the Palestinian Authority will take a decision that "will change the face of the region and the entire Middle East," Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported, citing an interview with BBC radio.
Abu Rudeineh did not expand on what steps the PA would implement but called them "serious and substantial," according to the report.
Also Thursday, an unnamed Egyptian official told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that threats by Abbas to resign and dismantle the PA are not a maneuver but rather the product of frustration over lack of any movement in the peace process
Abbas is unlikely to surprise Arab states with his resignation, the Egyptian official said, but conceded that the decision to resign is the PA president's alone.
Regarding the option of dissolving the Palestinian Authority, a move which has been floated in recent months, the Egyptian official said that doing so would be complex, not easy and would have consequences.
Late last month, Abbas told a Fatah meeting that he planned to discuss the future of the PA with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal during their meeting set to take place in November.
So when is anyone outside the Israeli Right going to acknowledge that there is no difference between Hamas and Fatah? They both share the same goal: To destroy the State of Israel. And now they will join together to prove it.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Fatah, Hamas, hope and change, Palestinian Authority
Obama making last ditch effort to persuade 'Palestinians' to put off UN bid
The New York Times reports that President Obama is making a
last ditch effort to persuade the 'Palestinians' to put off their 'statehood vote' at the United Nations.
The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks with the Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to abandon the bid for recognition at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly beginning Sept. 20.
The administration has made it clear to Mr. Abbas that it will veto any request presented to the United Nations Security Council to make a Palestinian state a new member outright.
But the United States does not have enough support to block a vote by the General Assembly to elevate the status of the Palestinians’ nonvoting observer “entity” to that of a nonvoting observer state. The change would pave the way for the Palestinians to join dozens of United Nations bodies and conventions, and it could strengthen their ability to pursue cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a veto but also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that would leave the United States and only a handful of other nations in the opposition. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a wave of anger could sweep the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world at a time when the region is already in tumult. President Obama would be put in the position of threatening to veto recognition of the aspirations of most Palestinians or risk alienating Israel and its political supporters in the United States.
The carrot being dangled in front of the 'Palestinians' is a new set of 'negotiations,' but it's not clear that's what the 'Palestinians' want. In fact, if anything, it is clear that the 'Palestinians' don't want 'negotiations' until and unless Israel first capitulates to the 'Palestinians' demands.
Diplomats are laboring to formulate language that would bridge stubborn differences over how to treat Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and over Israel’s demand for recognition of its status as a Jewish state. A statement by the Quartet would be more than a symbolic gesture. It would outline a series of meetings and actions to resume talks to create a Palestinian state.
The Quartet’s members are divided over the proposal’s terms and continue to negotiate them among themselves, and with the Palestinians and Israelis.
Among the issues still on the table are how explicitly to account for the growing settlements in the West Bank. The question of Israel’s status is also opposed by Russia and viewed warily by some European countries. The Palestinians have never acceded to a formal recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, in deference at least in part to the Palestinians who live in Israel.
The Quartet’s envoy, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, visited Jerusalem on Tuesday to negotiate the terms of the proposal with the Israelis. He is expected to discuss it with the Palestinians soon.
The Israelis have so far responded positively to the draft, but the Palestinian position remains unclear.
Two administration officials said that Mr. Abbas had recently indicated that he would forgo a United Nations vote in favor of real talks. But a senior Palestinian official, Nabil Shaath, angrily dismissed the American proposal as inadequate and said a vote would go ahead regardless.
“Whoever wrote this thought we are so weak that we cannot even wiggle or that we are stupid,” he said in a telephone interview from Ramallah in the West Bank. He added, “Whatever is to be offered, it is too late.”
Read the whole thing.
I would guess that the 'Palestinians' are being offered another carrot: An absolute deadline by which the US will support a bid for 'Palestinian' statehood in the United Nations. I don't believe that will be publicly disclosed - it would be political suicide for Obama. But I believe that there will be an absolute deadline of the 2013 General Assembly.
If Obama is not the Democratic nominee for any reason, or if it is clear that he will lose the elections anyway, the US will support a 'Palestinian' bid for 'statehood' at the 2012 General Assembly. Otherwise, if God forbid Obama remains President in 2013 (an event which can only be said to be more likely if he finds a way out of this crisis), the US will support a 'Palestinian statehood' bid at the 2013 General Assembly, when Obama cannot be hurt by it domestically anymore.
This would be in keeping with Obama's reelection message, which asks that his supporters be patient, and that there will be '
change that we can believe in' tomorrow.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, hope and change, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
A damning indictment of Obama's 'strategic thinking'
Newsweek's Niall Ferguson has a
damning indictment of President Obama's 'strategic thinking' in the Middle East (although he attributes a major portion of the blame to former National Security Adviser James Jones).
The contrast between the foreign policy of the Nixon-Ford years and that of President Jimmy Carter is a stark reminder of how easily foreign policy can founder when there is a failure of strategic thinking. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, which took the Carter administration wholly by surprise, was a catastrophe far greater than the loss of South Vietnam.
Remind you of anything? “This is what happens when you get caught by surprise,” an anonymous American official told The New York Times last week. “We’ve had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt moves from stability to turmoil? None.”
I can think of no more damning indictment of the administration’s strategic thinking than this: it never once considered a scenario in which Mubarak faced a popular revolt. Yet the very essence of rigorous strategic thinking is to devise such a scenario and to think through the best responses to them, preferably two or three moves ahead of actual or potential adversaries. It is only by doing these things—ranking priorities and gaming scenarios—that a coherent foreign policy can be made. The Israelis have been hard at work doing this. All the president and his NSC team seem to have done is to draft touchy-feely speeches like the one he delivered in Cairo early in his presidency.
These were his words back in June 2009:
America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.
Those lines will come back to haunt Obama if, as cannot be ruled out, the ultimate beneficiary of his bungling in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood, which remains by far the best organized opposition force in the country—and wholly committed to the restoration of the caliphate and the strict application of Sharia. Would such an outcome advance “tolerance and the dignity of all human beings” in Egypt? Somehow, I don’t think so.
Grand strategy is all about the necessity of choice. Today, it means choosing between a daunting list of objectives: to resist the spread of radical Islam, to limit Iran’s ambition to become dominant in the Middle East, to contain the rise of China as an economic rival, to guard against a Russian “reconquista” of Eastern Europe—and so on. The defining characteristic of Obama’s foreign policy has been not just a failure to prioritize, but also a failure to recognize the need to do so. A succession of speeches saying, in essence, “I am not George W. Bush” is no substitute for a strategy.
Note one objective that Ferguson doesn't list: Settling the Israeli-'Palestinian' dispute. It's a curious omission, because, as I have written dozens of times over the last three years, the establishment of a 'Palestinian state' is the one foreign policy goal that genuinely seems to interest Obama.
Imagine if over the last two years, even a fraction of the effort that has been put into a 'Palestinian state' had been put into edging Egypt toward democracy or pushing out Iran's fascist government (which beat demonstrators on Monday). The world would be a different place. Instead, the world seems to be quickly moving backward toward its Middle Ages domination by Islam.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Arab democracy, Barack Obama, Egyptian regime change, hope and change, Hosni Mubarak, James Jones, Palestinian state
