ΓΙΑ ΤΟΥΣ ΚΑΛΟΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΠΙΜΕΛΕΙΣ… ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΤΕΣ, ΧΡΗΣΙΜΕΣ ΚΑΙ ΚΡΙΣΙΜΕΣ ΑΝΑΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΕΙΣ!

Φίλοι μου

– Για όσους, κυρίως(!), μας παρακολουθείτε από την… εποχή του χαμένου ΑΡΧΑΓΓΕΛΟΥ ακόμα, (www.ellinikosthrilos.wordpress.com), (και έτσι έχετε την ορθή σειρά των όσων “εδώ” έχουν γραφεί και γράφονται, αφού υπάρχει λογική ακολουθία, πέραν της σειράς, όλων των γραφέντων άρθρων μεταξύ τους), σας “περνάω”, όπως θα έχετε διαπιστώσει, “από καιρού, εις καιρόν”, μερικά χρήσιμα για την κρίση σας άρθρα “τρίτων”, ως αναδημοσιεύσεις, στην προσπάθειά μου να βοηθήσω, μέσω της διεύρυνσης της γνώσης και της πληροφόρησής σας, την ήδη αναφερθείσα  κρίση σας, καθώς και την πιθανή εξαγωγή συμπερασμάτων, στα όποια -κάθε φορά- διαλαμβανόμενα!..

– Αυτό κάνω λοιπόν και πάλι, σήμερα! Όσοι… πιστοί!..

ΚΑΛΗ ΜΕΛΕΤΗ“!

 ω2 

1. THE BOOK ON HILLARY

Uncovering the corruption inherent in the system.

What Happened was Hillary Rodham Clinton, so readers need only glimpse the cover to explain Hillary’s loss in the 2016 election. On the other hand, Clinton’s current book tour, including a stop on C-SPAN, is another story. The loser still may think she has a shot at winning, as long as special counsel Robert Mueller is on the job.

Former FBI boss Mueller is a longtime pal of former FBI boss James Comey, a friend of the Clintons from way back. As a U.S. Attorney, Comey closed out the New Square clemency case, a gift to the Clintons, and he also gave them a pass on the investigation of Marc Rich.

In July 2016, just before the Democratic National Convention, James Comey also gave candidate Clinton a pass on the 30,000 missing emails, the private unsecured server, the mishandling of classified information and other criminal conduct. “It was, all in all,” wrote David Horowitz, “the most breathtaking fix in American history.”

As Byron York notes, Comey and Mueller have been “brothers in arms” for some fifteen years. After 9/11, the two men became “close partners and close allies throughout the years ahead.”

With that record, Mueller is not exactly the right man to spearhead the Russia investigation, but he duly got the nod. The Comey-Mueller axis clearly works in Clinton’s favor.

Allegedly a man of great integrity, Mueller has brought aboard at least seven lawyers who have donated to Democratic candidates, and five of those were donors to Hillary Clinton. If that is not a conflict of interest, it is hard to know what to call it.

If they search long enough, this snoop squad is bound to find something to crow about. Loser Hillary is banking on that, and What Happened conveniently keeps her in the public eye.

In that book, the former First Lady and Secretary of State blames Vladimir Putin, the 44th president, Bernie Sanders, sexism, the FBI, the New York Times, Facebook, Netflix and Facebook, all the way down to content farms in Macedonia. Her interviewers seem to sense it’s all a crock but prefer to let her rattle on.

Nobody in the old-line establishment media (OEM) wonders why the book fails to explain what happened to the 30,000 emails, the unsecured server and other gear Clinton’s team destroyed. And nobody in the OEM pressed her hard for answers.

Likewise, nobody brought up the revelations in Clinton Cash, about the Clinton Foundation. Wasn’t that, as one wag put it, a kind of bribery clearance center?

The book also failed to explain what happened in Benghazi on Secretary of State Clinton’s watch. Nobody in the OEM pressed her to clarify who made the call on the video story, instead of calling it terrorism.

No alleged investigative journalist urged Clinton to explain what, at that point, did it matter that four Americans had been killed. And how might that have affected her loss in 2016? For the most part, the book tour was a Clinton monologue.

The former First Lady thus proves that even the worst “progressive” candidate can lose a presidential election, claim that her terrible record had nothing to do with the loss, and the old-line establishment media will give her a pass.

Future candidates of the left will find that encouraging. They might also note that the OEM tends to ignore stories such as Pakistani IT spies and the unmasking of Americans by Samantha Power and others during the previous administration.

The entertainment media, meanwhile, have also given the Clintons a pass, despite a backlog of highly dramatic material.  The Benghazi affair, for example, could use a movie treatment with the detail of, say, All the President’s Men, and major stars in the cast.

Consider also the Clintons’ Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster, whose mysterious death recalls the suicide in A Few Good Men, a movie Foster had recently watched. Was Foster another man who knew too much?

Instead of a predictable sore-loser book, Hillary Clinton might deploy her inside knowledge and write something for the stage, maybe about her husband Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. As Monica worked her magic, Bill could be on the phone with the Joint Chiefs. Then the intrepid Hillary finds out, and takes her libidinous husband to task in the most colorful terms.

Unlike the fictitious What Happened, this true-life tale would be highly adaptable to film. Hillary could call it Oval Office, and even star in the production. That would keep her in the public eye, and give millennials a sense of history.

Right now, loser Hillary is hoping Robert Mueller might be able to get her in through the back door. After all, didn’t she win the popular vote, and shouldn’t the Electoral College be abolished?

Yes, it’s a long shot, a Hail Mary.  On the other hand, one never knows what will happen in Washington these days.

2. U.S.-ISRAEL INTELLIGENCE BONDS REMAIN STRONG & UNBREAKABLE

Despite malevolent efforts by Valerie Plame and her Jew-hating cohorts.

September 27, 2017

Ari Lieberman

In the Pre-dawn hours of January 3, 2002, Israeli naval commandos boarded the Karine A, a Palestinian Authority cargo ship laden with 50 tons of military equipment destined for Yassir Arafat’s terrorist gangs.  The ship was boarded in the Red Sea some 500 km from Israel’s shoreline. It was a complex and daring operation that required precise intelligence and perfect execution for successful completion and the Israelis pulled it off in textbook fashion.

During the course of the operation, Israeli intelligence officials elicited the assistance of the United States Central Intelligence Agency because Israel’s own intelligence services lost track of the ship. The CIA delivered. On December 17, 2001 a senior CIA official informed Israeli naval intelligence of the ship’s whereabouts and assured the Israelis that they would continue to monitor the ship’s movements.

The seizure of the Karine A, with its deadly cargo was a military and political triumph for Israel but represented a severe setback for Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Aside from the seizure of badly needed weapons, Arafat had been exposed to the world as a congenital liar. He was talking peace but at the same time, importing weapons banned under the Oslo Accords. Moreover, the seizure of the Karine A revealed a shadowy nexus between Arafat and the Islamic Republic of Iran as the weapons came directly from Iranian stocks. Arafat was instantly transformed into a political pariah.

The Karine A affair resulted in triumph for Israel but could have just as easily ended in failure. The CIA’s involvement was instrumental in the operation’s successful outcome and also reveals the close nature of cooperation existing between Israeli and American intelligence services. This mutually beneficial level of cooperation is spurred by a confluence of strategic interests and shared values.

Despite excellent relations, there are rogue elements within the CIA and other branches of government that wish to inflict harm on the U.S.-Israel alliance. Much of their animus toward Israel is driven by deep-seated anti-Semitism. Often, their writings are featured in neo-Nazi or pro-Palestinian blogs where conspiracy theories abound.

One such rancid individual is Valerie Plame-Wilson, an ex-CIA operative who revealed her true feelings by posting a virulently anti-Semitic canard on Twitter on the Jewish New Year no less! She claimed that Jews were driving America’s wars and then linked her post to an article authored by ex-CIA case officer and rabid Jew-hater, Philip Giraldi. The article was liberally laced with typical anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories reminiscent of Goebbels-style propaganda. Indeed, Giraldi’s articles and views are frequently featured on neo-Nazi websites and Iranian propaganda outlets.

But while Giraldi is a somewhat obscure character regulated to the marginal fringes, Plame is a minor celebrity of sorts. In 2003, her CIA cover was ironically blown by anti-war columnist Robert Novak. Following her departure from the CIA, she authored a best-selling memoir titled, “Fair Game.” A flattering Hollywood movie adaptation by the same name followed soon after. Meanwhile, the left deified her for her criticism of the Bush administration and opposition to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Plame’s tweet met with instant negative backlash. Recognizing her error, she first offered a rather half-hearted apology in which she still attempted to defend Giraldi’s drivel. Plame’s initial awkward response sent her sinking further into the abyss. After continued negative coverage, she finally acknowledged her error and issued unreserved apology but by then, it was too little, too late; the damage had already been done and was irreversible. Plame instantly transformed herself from hero to zero. She resigned (more likely asked to leave) from Ploughshares Fund, where she served as a board member. The Ploughshares Fund had strongly advocated for Obama’s Iran deal.

Plame’s final apology should be viewed warily, and not exclusively due to its halting and belated nature. According to New York Magazine/HuffPost Contributor Yashar Ali, Plame linked to articles from the same anti-Semitic website on no less than eight occasions. One of those articles contained 9-11 truther overtones and implied Israeli involvement in the attacks while another was titled, “Why I Dislike Israel.”

If Plame is genuinely sorry, it’s only because she was caught red handed, her xenophobia exposed for the world to see. More troubling than Plame’s bald-faced anti-Semitism however, is the fact that the left was all too willing to embrace her despite her rancid, conspiracy-laced views, which based on her public twitter feed, were well known.

Plame’s sordid story is not unlike Michael Scheuer’s, another ex-CIA case officer who rose to stardom in 2004 but whose career, overtaken by his extreme hatred of Jews, tanked. By 2014, he was toxic. Like Plame, Scheuer was highly critical of the Bush administration and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and like Plame that was sufficient for him to become the darling of the left. But Scheuer began to obsessively direct his criticism toward Israel, the “neo-cons” and ultimately, the Jews, claiming not unlike Plame, that they were driving America’s wars and maintained dual loyalties. Scheuer has thankfully been regulated to the marginal fringes where his drivel now appears on conspiracy sites and hopefully, the same just fate awaits Plame.

Irrespective of the efforts of marginal and unhinged racist characters like Plame, Scheuer and Giraldi, the bonds between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services remain excellent. The two nations share the same strategic threats and core values. On everything from the Islamic Republic to ISIS, Israel’s and America’s views are aligned. The Trump administration’s appointment of Mike Pompeo – who has a strong and solid record on Israel – as CIA director ensures that intelligence ties between the United States and Israel will continue to remain strong and broaden

3. VALERIE PLAME: AGENT OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Tweet blaming Jews for wars follows her effort to block Trump from Twitter for “hate speech”.

September 26, 2017

Joseph Klein

Valerie Plame, who was outed in a press leak as an undercover CIA operative during former President George W. Bush’s administration, soon became a darling of the Left for her anti-Bush stance. She was able to successfully portray herself as the victim of neo-conservatives’ payback for what her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, did in publicly challenging the Bush administration’s explanation for invading Iraq. Ms. Plame has not dropped out of sight. She campaigned for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election cycle and recently spearheaded an effort to purchase control of Twitter in order to ban President Trump from using the social media platform to communicate his messages. There is no room on Twitter for “hate,” she said. Like many on the Left, however, when it comes to anti-Semitism, Ms. Plame seems to have a blind spot. She used Twitter on the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year to re-tweet a blatantly anti-Semitic article entitled “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars.” Only after Ms. Plame’s re-tweet began to cause her a major public relations problem did she seek to recant with some lame explanations and false apologies. She also resigned from the board of the Ploughshares Fund, which had condemned her original re-tweet of the article.

The article Ms. Plame re-tweeted last week was written by Phil Giraldi, a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who has written other articles attacking American Jews for their support of Israel in the past. In this article, Giraldi reprised anti-Semitic stereotypes reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors control politicians, the media, and the entertainment industries, he wrote. Giraldi added that some American Jews go beyond “dual loyalty” and “only have real loyalty to Israel.” He attributed much of the criticism of Iran and of the nuclear deal former President Obama negotiated with Iran to “American Jews” who are fueling “the war engine” against Iran. He went after the neo-conservatives in particular, many of whom are Jewish.

Giraldi’s “solution” is the equivalent of bringing back the forced wearing of the yellow Jewish star to let everyone know you are a Jew. The media should be required, he wrote, “to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is ‘Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.’ That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as ‘ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.’”

In short, Giraldi’s article compared the opinion of a Jew on a matter of national security that affects the United States as well as Israel to “rat poison.” And Ms. Plame, who detests neo-conservatives for allegedly leaking her identity as a CIA operative to the press, sought fit to retweet a link to this hate-filled trope to her followers. When faced with criticism for her action, Ms. Plame at first blamed her critics for overreacting. “First of all, calm down,” she tweeted.  She was not necessarily endorsing Giraldi’s article by re-tweeting it, she wrote, before going on to describe the article as “very provocative, but thoughtful.”

“Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish,” Plame declared. She counseled her Twitter followers to “read the entire article and try, just for a moment, to put aside your biases and think clearly.”

When Valerie Plame realized that she was digging a deep hole for herself, she backtracked and shamelessly claimed that she had only “skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest.” Considering the title of the article, “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars,” and the article’s juxtaposition of its references to neo-conservatives and American Jews in an unfavorable light, Plame’s explanation is disingenuous on its face.

Finally, Ms. Plame came out with a fatuous apology for what she called a “doozy” of a mistake. However, far from being a mistake for which she felt sincerely sorry, Ms. Plame’s initial re-tweet of Giraldi’s anti-Semitic article was deliberate and represented her true beliefs. As Alan Dershowitz observed on “Fox and Friends,” “The interesting thing about Twitter, you do it so quickly, it often reflects your real, genuine beliefs. Then you realize what you’ve said and you say, ‘Uh oh. I’m sorry’…”

Ms. Plame has a pattern of re-tweeting Giraldi’s anti-Semitic articles. For example, she re-tweeted and commented favorably on another Giraldi article entitled “Why I Still Dislike Israel.” In that article, written in December 2014, Giraldi claimed there were “good historic reasons to dislike Israel.” Note that he did not limit his “dislike” to specific Israeli government policies. He wrote that he disliked the Jewish state itself, which he called “a racist apartheid style state.” Ms. Plame retweeted this article with the comment, “Well put, Mr. Giraldi.” She also re-tweeted yet another Giraldi article, this one full of conspiracy theories purporting to link Israel to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America’s homeland.

Valerie Plame has plenty of company on the Left when it comes to harboring an anti-Israel bias that calls into question the patriotism of American Jews who support Israel. Leftists deride those whom they refer to as “Israel Firsters,” a slur that originated from far Right anti-Semitic sources and has since been popularized on the Left by such progressive outlets as Media Matters. Not surprisingly, some of these haters on the Left who throw around the term “Israeli Firsters” to impugn the patriotism of Jewish supporters of Israel are themselves anything but patriotic. Repeatedly condemning President Trump’s embrace of the principle of “America First,” they hate America as much as they hate Israel.

4. WHY OBAMA REALLY SPIED ON TRUMP

Obama had to spy on Trump to protect himself.

September 20, 2017

Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

Last week, CNN revealed (and excused) one phase of the Obama spying operation on Trump. After lying about it on MSNBC, Susan Rice admitted unmasking the identities of Trump officials to Congress.

Rice was unmasking the names of Trump officials a month before leaving office. The targets may have included her own successor, General Flynn, who was forced out of office using leaked surveillance.

While Rice’s targets weren’t named, the CNN story listed a meeting with Flynn, Bannon and Kushner.

Bannon was Trump’s former campaign chief executive and a senior adviser. Kushner is a senior adviser. Those are exactly the people you spy on to get an insight into what your political opponents plan to do.

Now the latest CNN spin piece informs us that secret FISA orders were used to spy on the conversations of Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.  The surveillance was discontinued for lack of evidence and then renewed under a new warrant. This is part of a pattern of FISA abuses by Obama Inc. which never allowed minor matters like lack of evidence to dissuade them from new FISA requests.

Desperate Obama cronies had figured out that they could bypass many of the limitations on the conventional investigations of their political opponents by ‘laundering’ them through national security.

If any of Trump’s people were talking to non-Americans, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) could be used to spy on them. And then the redacted names of the Americans could be unmasked by Susan Rice, Samantha Power and other Obama allies. It was a technically legal Watergate.

If both CNN stories hold up, then Obama Inc. had spied on two Trump campaign leaders.

Furthermore the Obama espionage operation closely tracked Trump’s political progress. The first FISA request targeting Trump happened the month after he received the GOP nomination.  The second one came through in October: the traditional month of political surprises meant to upend an election.

The spying ramped up after Trump’s win when the results could no longer be used to engineer a Hillary victory, but would instead have to be used to cripple and bring down President Trump. Headed out the door, Rice was still unmasking the names of Trump’s people while Obama was making it easier to pass around raw eavesdropped data to other agencies.

Obama had switched from spying on a political opponent to win an election, to spying on his successor to undo the results of the election. Abuse of power by a sitting government had become subversion of the government by an outgoing administration. Domestic spying on opponents had become a coup.

The Democrat scandals of the past few administrations have hinged on gross violations of political norms, elementary ethics and the rule of law that, out of context, were not technically illegal.

But it’s the pattern that makes the crime. It’s the context that shows the motive.

Obama Inc. compartmentalized its espionage operation in individual acts of surveillance and unmasking, and general policies implemented to aid both, that may have been individually legal, in the purely technical sense, in order to commit the major crime of eavesdropping on the political opposition.

When the individual acts of surveillance are described as legal, that’s irrelevant. It’s the collective pattern of surveillance of the political opposition that exposes the criminal motive for them.

If Obama spied on two of Trump’s campaign leaders, that’s not a coincidence. It’s a pattern.

A criminal motive can be spotted by a consistent pattern of actions disguised by different pretexts. A dirty cop may lose two pieces of evidence from the same defendant while giving two different excuses. A shady accountant may explain two otherwise identical losses in two different ways. Both excuses are technically plausible. But it’s the pattern that makes the crime.

Manafort was spied on under the Russia pretext. Bannon may have been spied on over the UAE. That’s two different countries, two different people and two different pretexts.

But one single target. President Trump.

It’s the pattern that exposes the motive.

When we learn the whole truth (if we ever do), we will likely discover that Obama Inc. assembled a motley collection of different technically legal pretexts to spy on Trump’s team.

Each individual pretext might be technically defensible. But together they add up to the crime of the century.

Obama’s gamble was that the illegal surveillance would justify itself. If you spy on a bunch of people long enough, especially people in politics and business, some sort of illegality, actual or technical, is bound to turn up. That’s the same gamble anyone engaged in illegal surveillance makes.

Businessmen illegally tape conversations with former partners hoping that they’ll say something damning enough to justify the risk. That was what Obama and his allies were doing with Trump.

It’s a crime. And you can’t justify committing a crime by discovering a crime.

If everyone were being spied on all the time, many crimes could be exposed every second. But that’s not how our system works. That’s why we have a Fourth Amendment.

Nor was Obama Inc. trying to expose crimes for their own sake, but to bring down the opposition.

That’s why it doesn’t matter what results the Obama surveillance turned up. The surveillance was a crime. Anything turned up by it is the fruit of a poisonous tree. It’s inherently illegitimate.

The first and foremost agenda must be to assemble a list of Trump officials who were spied on and the pretexts under which they were spied upon. The pattern will show the crime. And that’s what Obama and his allies are terrified of. It’s why Flynn was forced out using illegal surveillance and leaks. It’s why McMaster is protecting Susan Rice and the Obama holdovers while purging Trump loyalists at the NSC.

The left’s gamble was that the Mueller investigation or some other illegitimate spawn of the Obama eavesdropping would produce an indictment and then the procedural questions wouldn’t matter.

It’s the dirty cop using illegal eavesdropping to generate leads for a “clean” case against his target while betting that no one will look too closely or care how the case was generated. If one of the Mueller targets is intimidated into making a deal, the question of how the case was generated won’t matter.

Mueller will have a cooperative witness. And the Democrats can begin their coup in earnest. It will eventually turn out that there is no “there” there. But by then, it’ll be time for President Booker.

There’s just one problem.

If the gamble fails, if no criminal case that amounts to anything more than the usual investigational gimmick charges like perjury (the Federal equivalent of ‘resisting arrest’ for a beat cop) develops, then Obama and his allies are on the hook for the domestic surveillance of their political opponents.

With nothing to show for it and no way to distract from it.

That’s the race against the clock that is happening right now. Either the investigation gets results. Or its perpetrators are left hanging in the wind. If McMaster is fired, which on purely statistical grounds he probably will be, and a Trump loyalist who wasn’t targeted by the surveillance operation becomes the next National Security Adviser and brings in Trump loyalists, as Flynn tried to do, then it’s over.

And the Dems finally get their Watergate. Except the star won’t be Trump, it will be Obama. Rice, Power, Lynch and the rest of the gang will be the new Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell.

Once Obama and his allies launched their domestic surveillance operation, they crossed the Rubicon. And there was no way back. They had to destroy President Trump or risk going to jail.

The more crimes they committed by spying on the opposition, the more urgently they needed to bring down Trump. The consequences of each crime that they had committed spurred them on to commit worse crimes to save themselves from going to jail. It’s the same old story when it comes to criminals.

Each act of illegal surveillance became more blatant. And when illegal surveillance couldn’t stop Trump’s victory, they had to double down on the illegal surveillance for a coup.

The more Obama spied on Trump, the more he had to keep doing it. This time it was bound to pay off.

Obama and his allies had violated the norms so often for their policy goals that they couldn’t afford to be replaced by anyone but one of their own. The more Obama relied on the imperial presidency of executive orders, the less he could afford to be replaced by anyone who would undo them.  The more his staffers lied and broke the law on everything from the government shutdown to the Iran nuke sellout, the more desperately they needed to pull out all the stops to keep Trump out of office. And the more they did it, the more they couldn’t afford not to do it. Abuse of power locks you into the loop familiar to all dictators. You can’t stop riding the tiger. Once you start, you can’t afford to stop.

If you want to understand why Samantha Power was unmasking names, that’s why. The hysterical obsession with destroying Trump comes from the top down. It’s not just ideology. It’s wealthy and powerful men and women who ran the country and are terrified that their crimes will be exposed.

It’s why the media increasingly sounds like the propaganda organs of a Communist country. Why there are street riots and why the internet is being censored by Google and Facebook’s “fact checking” allies.

It’s not just ideology. It’s raw fear.

The left is sitting on the biggest crime committed by a sitting president. The only way to cover it up is to destroy his Republican successor.

A turning point in history is here.

If Obama goes down, the left will go down with him. If his coup succeeds, then America ends.

5. PROTECTING AMERICAN SEAPOWER

Why Congress should give President Trump the Navy he needs to keep America safe.

September 21, 2017

Lloyd Billingsley

Seth Cropsey served as Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and now directs the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. Cropsey’s new book, Seablindness: How Political Neglect is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It, targets policy makers at the highest level, and in the early going the former Naval Reserve officer clears up any misunderstanding about the title.

Seablindness is a condition of “amnesia of strategic befuddlement” about the oceanic anchor of commerce and security for the United States and her allies. Seablindness is also the “dangerous condition of depleted seapower that existed as an administration elected in 2008 transferred power to the one that Americans chose in 2016.”

Cropsey hopes the dangerous condition will not endure but there’s no denying the current reality. The U.S. fleet of 276 ships is the smallest since before World War I, more than a century ago. Modernization and momentum are in decline and the nation has lost its technical edge. A hollow military, as Leon Panetta noted, weakens our ability to respond to the threats in the world.

The administration elected in 2008, headed by the President Formerly Known as Barry Soetoro, wanted it that way, all part of leading from behind. That destructive plan was to continue under Hillary Clinton, and judging by her disastrous career as Secretary of State, she would have hollowed out the military even more. For his part, winning candidate Donald Trump touted a 350-ship goal for the Navy, and Cropsey explains why that is a good idea.

Oceans cover some 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, so as Cropsey shows from history, sea power has always been vital. The first priority of the U.S. military is to turn back existential threats, and to that end, the nuclear submarine George Washington launched its first deterrence patrol in 1960. The U.S. Navy was vital during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Navy blockade limited the options of the Soviets, who did not give up on their colony in the Americas.

By 1980, Soviet military aid to Cuba was ten times U.S. aid to all South and Central America.

In similar style, Russian forces in regions that abut Eastern Europe are at least twenty times the size of U.S. ground forces, and equipped with modern, effective weapons. Nobody will learn that from CNN, and much of this book will be valuable to the general reader, as well as policy makers and the president.

In one of the book’s realistic conflict scenarios, Russia invades NATO member Estonia. The battle would be on land but sea power would be crucial to the conflict, and also to wars in the Middle East. Those could quite possibly involve Iran, which the previous administration empowered and enriched. In the Pacific, the main adversary is the People’s Republic of China, still a one-party totalitarian dictatorship.

“Owing to its proximity to the Asian continent, it is very convenient for the U.S. Air Force and warships of the U.S. Navy to launch” from Guam, explains an analysis from China’s People’s Liberation Army. As it happens, Kim Jong-un’s North Korean regime shows keen interest in Guam as a target for its nuclear missiles. So perhaps the president should include North Korea in his “One China” policy.

PLAN, the People’s Liberation Army Navy, has more submarines than the United States Navy and the Communist nation deploys the DF-21 missile, known as the “carrier killer,” which can be fired from a truck and maneuvered in flight. China tested this missile on a carrier-sized target in the Gobi Desert.

China is an expansionist power seeking much more than the Asian littoral. Cropsey also shows how China is collaborating with Pakistan on naval operations and that both nations are “united by enmity for democratic India.”

To counter threats from such heavy-hitting adversaries, the United States must build the right kind of ships, with the latest technology. Cropsey cites several examples, such as the Gerald R. Ford-class supercarrier with an electromagnetic catapult replacing the old steam-powered rigs, and reactors generating three times more power than the previous Nimitz-class ships. Likewise, the new Zumwalt-class destroyer is a stealth ship capable of firing guided land-attack shells.

To build and deploy such ships is costly, and Cropsey does not neglect the men and women of the Navy, who deserve much more than they are getting. A strong Marine Corps is also vital in the restoration of U.S. sea power, currently in a downgraded condition. As the previous administration ended, the Marine aircraft wing was in in a state of crisis, with damaged airframes cannibalized for spare parts, something candidate Trump also pointed out.

Cropsey also recalls that in 2013 the sequestration forced cancelation of five ship deployments, including guided-missile frigates USS Rentz and Kaufmann, the attack submarine USS Jefferson City, salvage and rescue ship USNS Grasp and the hospital ship USNS Comfort.

Key U.S. allies had also been neglected, and as Cropsey notes, “relations between US and Israel declined precipitously in Obama administration.” In similar style, the budget cuts of that administration, “due to their long-lasting effects, will take years from which to recover.”

On the other hand, Seablindness is a lot more than Obama damage assessment.

Cropsey faults the “sum of decisions by policy makers of both parties in both executive and legislative branches.” He might have noted the Democrats’ preference for the perpetual “war on poverty,” an expensive and counterproductive loser, and Republicans’ propensity to fund the Democrats’ statist schemes. Fortunately, the author is well aware of the dynamics now playing out across the nation, particularly on campus.

“We are in a cold civil war,” Cropsey says, “where even the need for security is open to question.” And as they attack conservative speakers, and free speech itself, the fascist Antifa chants: “no Trump, no wall, no USA at all.” So they want the same thing as America’s adversaries.

According to Cropsey, “we are morally bound to defend ourselves.” To survive in this dangerous world, we need a modern Navy that can avoid escalation, defend allies and end conflicts by choking the adversary’s economy.

Toward the end of Seablindness, the author cites Donald Rumsfeld that “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want or wish to have at a later time.” Ships, airplanes, artillery, small arms, intelligence and cyber-warfare capabilities, everything should be the best. As George Will observed, going into battle with the second-best military is like playing poker with the second-best hand. You have two choices: bluff or fold.

President Trump knows that neither is acceptable. Congress should fund the modern 350-ship Navy that will play a major role in keeping the nation safe. The Navy, in turn, must keep those ships safe.

On October 12, 2000, during the second Clinton administration, al Qaeda terrorists bombed the USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer, killing 17 sailors, wounding 39, and causing $250 million in damage to the $1 billion ship. To prevent such attacks, the Navy should be under standing orders to blow out of the water any unidentified craft that approaches a U.S. warship and ignores the order to halt. As President Trump knows, the US Navy should bomb terrorists, not the other way around.

6. TRUMP IS RIGHT: PAKISTAN IS NO ALLY

A sham alliance the U.S. would be better off without.

September 21, 2017

Robert Spencer

Financial Times reported last week that “the Trump administration is considering dropping Pakistan as an ally as it examines tough measures to quell more than 20 terrorist groups it says are based in the country.” Here again, the President who is daily derided and ridiculed by foreign policy “experts” is right, and they are wrong: Pakistan is no ally, and has not been for years. This is a rupture that is much needed and long overdue.

President Trump has accused the Pakistani government of “housing the very terrorists that we are fighting. And it’s true, with the most notorious of these being Osama bin Laden himself. Journalist Carlotta Gall, who reported from Afghanistan for the New York Times for twelve years, reported in March 2014 that

soon after the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden’s house, a Pakistani official told me that the United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. The information came from a senior United States official, and I guessed that the Americans had intercepted a phone call of Pasha’s or one about him in the days after the raid. ‘He knew of Osama’s whereabouts, yes,’ the Pakistani official told me. The official was surprised to learn this and said the Americans were even more so.

He shouldn’t have been. It had been obvious for years at that point, and remains obvious, that the Pakistanis had been aiding the same jihadists that the U.S. government has been giving them billions of dollars to fight. The New York Times reported on that at length back in 2008. Not only did Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of the Pakistani government’s spy service, know the whereabouts of Osama, but so did many other top officials in the Pakistani government.

Those who are genuinely surprised by this news probably also think that Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists. After all, this is the country where the jihad terror leader Hafiz Saeed, on whom the U.S. has placed a $10 million bounty, lives openly and comfortably. International Business Times three years ago reported in that Saeed “lives as a free man in Lahore,” even though he is “chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JUD), a parent organisation of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET). The organization was implicated in the 2008 attacks on Mumbai in India, which claimed 166 lives.” Not only that, but “Pakistan had twice placed Saeed under house arrest since 2001, but had let him go under suspicious circumstances.” And today, “JUD operates quite visibly in parts of Pakistan, with its own website and a twitter page.” None of this has changed in the intervening period.

The Pakistani government, meanwhile, is getting U.S. money to fight terrorists. This is what they’re using it for: Sky News reported in January 2014 that “Pakistani officials have reportedly used a secret counter-terrorism fund to buy wedding gifts, luxury carpets and gold jewellery for relatives of ministers and visiting dignitaries.” This is better than funneling to the terrorists themselves the money that the Pakistani government received from the U.S. to fight terror, but it shows how seriously the Pakistani authorities have taken their role in the “war on terror”: not seriously at all. Three years have passed since these facts were revealed; the Obama administration, of course, did nothing. Trump’s apparent willingness to grasp this nettle is greatly to his credit.

For even as there was an immense political shift in the U.S. with the election of Trump, Pakistan has been, if anything, consistent. In November 2013, after Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike, the Pakistani government was furious, and summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest. The Pakistani foreign minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said the killing of Mehsud was “not just the killing of one person, it’s the death of all peace efforts” and warned that “every aspect” of Pakistan’s relationship with Washington would be reexamined.

And in the summer of 2013, Pakistan’s Abbottabad Commission, which was an investigation into the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden, denounced the United States as “arrogant” and said that the killing of bin Laden was the “greatest humiliation” that Pakistan had suffered since the 1971 declaration of independence by East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

For far too many years now, the U.S. government has been suffering from a strange addiction: an addiction to shoveling huge amounts of money to old Cold War allies that aren’t really allies at all. The end of this farce with Pakistan should have come long ago; we can only hope that Trump will follow through on his remarkably clear-sighted view of this sham ally.

7.CRUCIAL COMPLIANCE DATE APPROACHES ON IRAN NUKE DEAL

How will the Trump administration respond?

September 19, 2017

Joseph Puder

U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to be true to the promises he made during the 2016 presidential campaign.  As a candidate, Trump called the Iran deal “the worst deal ever,” and he pledged to tear it down if elected president.  Since then, as president of the U.S., he has moderated his tone.  Yet, last month he said that Iran “is not in compliance with the agreement,” and added that he did not believe that he would again declare Iran to be abiding by the deal, come October.

Last May, the U.S. Treasury issued new sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, more specific in scope, targeting senior Iranian defense officials, and suppliers of missile equipment.  This was in retaliation for the recent missile test Iran conducted and its support of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad.  At the same time however, the White House renewed the waivers on more widespread sanctions, which are not permanent, and were due to expire.  Trump has reluctantly renewed the agreement signed by former President Obama before he left office.

President Trump, according to the BBC, “has consistently warned Iran over its missile activity, and has criticized the terms of the nuclear deal made by Obama – at one point claiming his ‘number one priority’ if elected would be to dismantle the disastrous deal.”  Yet, the Trump administration has continued to certify to Congress that Iran is upholding its part of the deal, which the administration must do every 90 days.  In April, President Trump ordered a wider review of the nuclear deal, and Secretary Rex Tillerson announced that Iran “remains a leading state sponsor of terror, through many platforms and methods.”

President Trump is now considering a more aggressive approach toward Iran. His senior aides however, are pressuring him not to walk away from the nuclear deal.  According to Reuters, the same senior aides claimed that U.S. allies, Israel, and Saudi Arabia would rather the pact (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) remain intact, while expressing certain reservations about the nuclear deal.

While on a state visit to Argentina this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to reports by U.S. administration officials claiming that Israel and Saudi Arabia do not wish to scrap the Iran nuclear deal.  He stated, according to The Times of Israel (September 12, 2017) “In the case of Iran, there have been some news stories about Israel’s purported position on the nuclear deal with Iran.  So let me take this opportunity and clarify: Our position is straightforward.  This is a bad deal. Either fix it – or cancel it. This is Israel’s position.”

Attempting to fulfill the promises he made in dealing with Iran, President Trump is considering a strategy that would allow for a more aggressive response against Iranian forces in Syria and Iraq, including dealing with Iran’s proxies, its Shiite-Muslim supported militias in both states.  Sources close to the president suggested that a draft proposal recently prepared by Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security Council advisor Gen. Herbert McMaster, was shown to the president.  It is said to be in variance with Obama’s outline on U.S. foreign policy conduct.  President Trump is expected to outline broad strategic goals for American policy in the Middle East, and enable U.S. military commanders and top diplomats to carry out these policies.

A senior administration official pointed out that the new draft policy guidelines are meant to increase pressure on Iran to cut down its ballistic missiles program, and its support for armed groups such as the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza.  It is a wider scoped strategy to counter the destructive and destabilizing behavior of Iran, especially in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as Iran’s financial support to terrorist groups.  The purported new guidelines would also target Iran’s cyber espionage, and its possible spread of its nuclear material. “Whatever we end up with, we want to implement with allies to the greatest extent possible,” the senior official added.

The Trump administration is debating a new stance on the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, sealed by Obama.  The draft urges consideration of tougher economic sanctions if Iran violates the 2015 agreement.  The proposed draft includes more aggressive U.S. interceptions of Iranian arms shipments to Houthi rebels in Yemen, Palestinian groups in Gaza, and Egypt’s Sinai.  Additionally, U.S. naval forces would be permitted to react more forcefully when harassed by armed speed boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

In the recent past, U.S. ships have fired flares and warning shots to drive off IRGC boats that made threatening approaches toward U.S. naval ships.  The Iranians refused to heed radio warnings in the shipping corridor where 35 percent of the world’s petroleum exports pass through.  U.S. commanders, until now, were only permitted to open fire when they thought their vessels and the lives of the crew members were endangered.

To the senior administration’s foreign policy and national security advisors including James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and Rex Tillerson, Iran is not the primary threat to the U.S.  The Islamic State (IS) is considered as such, and it is the primary target of U.S. efforts in the region.  U.S. commanders in the field have been instructed not to tangle with IRGC forces or its proxies: Hezbollah, and the Iraqi and Afghani Shiite-Muslim militias.  U.S. military advisors attached to Kurdish fighters in Syria are in a quandary as to how to react to provocations from forces under Iranian control.  Recently, U.S. planes were forced to shoot down Iranian based drones targeting American and allied fighters.

President Trump, unlike his advisors, may instinctively understand that Iran is a greater threat to the U.S. than the Sunni-Muslim terror groups, IS and al-Qaeda.  Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah in particular, have killed U.S. troops in Iraq, Saudi Arabia (Khobar Towers-1996), and at the U.S. Marines peacekeeping compound in Beirut, where 241 U.S. Marines were murdered in 1983.

The difference between the Sunni terror groups, and the Iranian-sponsored Shiite terror groups, especially Hezbollah, is that a modern state (Iran) is supporting it, and Iran is capable of producing weapons of mass destruction (over 100,000 missiles possessed by Hezbollah according to Israeli sources).  More importantly, Hezbollah reportedly has terror cells in the U.S. awaiting a signal from Tehran.  The U.S. State Department had designated Hezbollah as the A-team of international terror.  Lastly, in 2011, Iranian agents attempted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington D.C.

Echoing PM Netanyahu’s repeated charges that Iran is more dangerous than IS, Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s Minister of the National Infrastructure, Energy and Water, told the Jerusalem Post “We have two challenges in Syria.  One is ISIS and one is Iran.  The greater threat is coming from Iran, and not just from its nuclear program.  The most immediate and urgent threat is the Iranian plan to transform Syria, after this horrible, brutal civil war is over, into some kind of extension of Iran.”

President Trump is determined to act more aggressively toward Iran despite his advisors cautious approach. He is strongly supported in this by his U.N. Ambassador, Nikki Haley, who laid out before U.S. Congress the case for declaring Iran in violation of the nuclear deal.  She said that Trump was on solid ground if he decides against certifying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal.  The next compliance certification is due on October 15.  We will know then how the struggle has been resolved.

Ιράν Πυρηνικά Φωτο

8.ISRAEL AND THE AMERICAN JEWISH CRISIS

The demographic decline of American Jewry is disastrous — and so is the state of communal leadership.

September 20, 2017

Caroline Glick

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

As the New Year 5778 begins, 88% of Israeli Jews say that they are happy and satisfied with their lives. This makes sense. Israel’s relative security, its prosperity, freedom and spiritual blossoming make Israeli Jews the most successful Jewish community in 3,500 years of Jewish history.

The same cannot be said for the Jews of the Diaspora. In Western Europe, Jewish communities that just a generation ago were considered safe and prosperous are now besieged. Synagogues and Jewish schools look like army barracks. And the severe security cordons Jews need to pass through to pray and study are entirely justified. For where they are absent, as they were at the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015, assailants strike.

Western European Jewry’s crisis is exogenous to the Jewish communities. It isn’t the Jews who caused the crisis, which may in time cause the wholesale exodus of the Jews from Europe. The crisis is a function of growing levels of popular antisemitism spurred by mass immigration from the Islamic world and the resurgence of indigenous European Jew-hatred, particularly on the far Left.

This is not the situation among American Jewry, which at the dawn of 5778 also finds itself steeped in an ever deepening crisis. And while antisemitism is a growing problem in America, particularly on university campuses, unlike their European counterparts, American Jews could mount and win a battle against the growing anti-Jewish forces. But in large part, they have chosen not to. And they have chosen not to fight the anti-Semites because they are in the midst of a self-induced identity crisis.

First, there is the problem of demographic collapse.

According to the Pew Research Center’s 2013 study of American Jewry, nearly 60% of American Jews intermarry. Based on the Pew data, the Jewish People Policy Institute published a report in June that noted that not only are 60% of American Jews who get married marrying non-Jews, only half of American Jews are getting married at all. And among those who are getting married, less than a third are raising their children as Jewish in some way.

Earlier this month, a study of American Jews was published by the Public Religion Research Institute. It found that not only hasn’t the situation improved since the Pew survey was published, the trend toward assimilation and loss of Jewish identity among American Jews has accelerated.

In 2013, 32% of American Jews under 30 said that they were not Jews by religion. Today the proportion of Jews under 30 who say they have no relation to the Jewish faith has ballooned to 47%.

Not surprisingly, the wholesale abandonment of Jewish faith by nearly half of young American Jews has taken a toll on the two liberal streams of American Judaism. According to the study, the percentage of American Jews who identify as Reform or Conservative Jews is in free fall.

Whereas in 2013, 35% of American Jews identified as Reform, today, a mere four years later, only 28% identify as Reform. The situation among Conservatives is even worse. In 2013, 18% of American Jews identified as Conservatives. Today, only 14% do. Among Jews under 30 the situation is even starker. Only 20% of American Jews under 30 identify as Reform. Only 8% identify as Conservative.

To be sure, the trend toward secularism and assimilation among US Jewry is not new. And over the years, Reform and Conservative leaders have adopted varying strategies to deal with it.

In 1999 the Reform movement tried to deal with the problem by strengthening the movement’s religious practices. Although the effort failed, the impulse that drove the strategy was rational. American Jews who seek spiritual and religious meaning likely want more than a sermon about tikkun olam.

The problem is that they also want more than a rabbi donning a kippa and a synagogue choosing to keep kosher.

This is why, as the number of Reform and Conservative Jews is contracting, the number of American Jews who associate with the Orthodox movement is growing. Between 2013 and 2017, the proportion of young American Jews who identify as Orthodox grew from 10% to 15%.

Moreover, more and more American Jews are finding their spiritual home with Chabad. Today there are more Chabad houses in the US than Reform synagogues.

Unable to compete for Jews seeking religious fulfillment, the Reform and Conservative movements have struck out for new means of rallying their bases and attracting members. Over the past year, two new strategies are dominating the public actions of both movements.

First, there is a selective fight against antisemitism. While antisemitism is experiencing a growth spurt in the US progressive movement, and antisemitism is becoming increasingly overt in US Muslim communities, neither the Reform nor Conservative movements has taken significant institutional steps to fight them.

Instead, both movements, and a large swath of the Jewish institutional world, led in large part by Reform and Conservative Jews, have either turned a blind eye to this antisemitism or supported it.

Take for instance the case of Davis, California, imam Amman Shahin.

On July 21 Shahin gave a sermon calling for the Jewish people to be annihilated. His Jewish neighbors in the progressive Jewish communities of Davis and Sacramento didn’t call the police and demand that he be investigated for terrorist ties. They didn’t demand that his mosque fire him.

Instead, led by the Oakland Jewish Federation, local rabbi Seth Castleman and the JCRC, they embraced Shahin. They appeared with him at a public “apology” ceremony, where he failed to apologize for calling for his Jewish colleagues, and every other Jew, to be murdered.

All Shahin did was express regret that his call for genocide caused offense.

On the other hand, the same leaders stand as one against allegations of antisemitic violence stemming from the political Right. In the face of an utter lack of evidence, when Jewish institutions were subjected to a rash of bomb threats last winter, Reform and Conservative leaders led the charge insisting that far-right antisemites were behind them and insinuated that the perpetrators supported President Donald Trump. When it worked out that all of the threats were carried out by a mentally ill Israeli Jew, they never issued an apology.

So, too, the Reform and Conservative movements, like the rest of the American Jewish community, treated the Charlottesville riot last month like a new Reichstag fire. They entirely ignored the violence of the far-left, antisemitic Antifa protesters and behaved as though tomorrow neo-Nazis would take control of the federal government. They jumped on the bandwagon insisting that Trump’s initial condemnation of both groups was proof that he has a soft spot for neo-Nazis.

The problem with the strategy of selective outrage over antisemitism is that it isn’t at all clear who the target audience is. Survey data shows that the more active Jews are in the synagogue, the less politically radical they are and the more devoted to Jewish causes they are. So it is hard to see how turning a blind eye to leftist and Muslim antisemitism will rally their current membership more than they already have been rallied. Moreover, the more radicalized Jews become politically, the more outlets they have for their political activism both as Jews and as leftists. No matter how anti-Trump Conservative and Reform leaders become, they can never rival the progressive forces in the Democratic Party.

Prospects for success of the second strategy are arguably even lower. The second strategy involves cultivating animosity toward Israel over the issue of egalitarian prayer at the Kotel.

Last June, the government overturned an earlier decision to build a passageway connecting the Western Wall Plaza with Robinson’s Arch, along the Southern Wall, where egalitarian prayer services are held. The government also rescinded a previous decision to have representatives of the Conservative and Reform movements receive membership in the committee that manages the Western Wall Plaza.

The government’s first decision was non-political. The Antiquities Authority nixed the construction of the passage due to the adverse impact construction would have on the antiquities below the surface.

As to the second decision, it is far from a matter of life and death. The committee has no power to influence egalitarian prayers for better or for worse.

And yet, rather than acknowledge that the decision was a setback but it didn’t harm the status of egalitarian prayer at the Wall, the Reform and Conservative movements declared war against the government and dragged much of the organized Jewish establishment behind them.

The Reform leadership canceled a scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Jewish Agency Board followed suit.

Six hundred Conservative rabbis signed a letter to Netanyahu accusing him of betraying Diaspora Jewry and announcing they would be forced to reconsider their support for Israel.

Ambassador David Friedman, who had just taken residence in Israel a month before the explosion, used his first public remarks as ambassador to call his fellow American Jews to order.

Friedman said, “Yesterday, I heard something that I thought I’d never hear before. And I understand the source of the frustration and the source of the anger. But I heard a major Jewish organization say that they needed to rethink their support for the State of Israel.

“That’s something unthinkable in my lifetime, up until yesterday. We have to do better. We must do better,” he said.

But in the intervening months, the Conservative and Reform movements have not relented in their attacks. They have ratcheted them up.

The thinking appears to be that if they can make this problem look like a life or death struggle between Israel and progressive Jewry, they can both keep their dwindling bases engaged and attract members of the increasingly anti-Israel Jewish far Left.

The problem with this is that just as they cannot outdo the Democratic Party in their hostility toward Trump, so the Conservative and Reform movements cannot be more anti-Israel than Jewish Voices for Peace and other anti-Israel Jewish groups.

The question for Israelis is what this failure of the mainstream American Jewish leadership means for the future of Israel’s relationship with American Jewry. Jewish survival and continuity through the ages has been predicated and dependent on our ability as Jews to uphold the commandment of the sages that all Jews are responsible for one another. As the most successful Jewish community in history, Israel has a special responsibility for our brethren in the Diaspora.

The first step toward fulfilling our duty is to recognize the basic fact that while it is true that the American Jewish community is in crisis, the leaders of that community are in an even deeper crisis. And the key to strengthening and supporting the community is to bypass its failed leadership and speak and interact directly with American Jews.

9. ISRAEL TO ARM APACHE HELICOPTERS WITH ITS OWN SPIKE MISSILES

How Obama’s betrayal during the 2014 Gaza War made it possible.

September 21, 2017

Ari Lieberman

Following Israel’s lightning Six-Day War victory over the Arabs, Israel’s military leaders determined that the time was ripe for the acquisition of a new tank to meet the challenges of the modern battlefield. The Soviets had begun supplying the Arabs with more modern T-62 tanks and Israel needed to maintain its qualitative edge.

After conducting extensive tests and trials and examining alternatives, the Israelis determined that the British Chieftain tank, Britain’s own successor to the venerable Centurion, would be best suited for Israel’s needs. In 1968 Britain’s Ministry of Defense agreed to the sale but the following year, the British Foreign Office, which had always maintained hostility toward the Jewish State, nixed the deal.

Israel was outraged and its prime minister, Golda Meir, personally visited London to persuade Prime Minister Harold Wilson to change his mind, but to no avail. The Foreign Office was to have the last word on the matter. To add insult to injury, the British had agreed to sell Chieftain tanks to Israel’s enemies, including Libya!

Britain’s perfidious conduct turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for it planted the seeds for the development of the Merkava tank, Israel’s own indigenously designed creation. In 1978, the Merkava was unveiled to the world and has undergone continuous improvements since that time. It is currently the mainstay of Israel’s vaunted armored corps, and is rated to be among the finest tanks in the world.

Throughout its history, Israel has had to endure similar betrayals. For example, up until 1967, France had been Israel’s principle supplier of jet fighters but just prior to the Six-Day War, it imposed an arms embargo on Israel. Israel had already placed an order for 50 Mirage V fighters, which it had paid for in full but the French refused to deliver them and like the British, ended up selling them to Israel’s enemies. That betrayal planted the seeds for the development of Israel’s indigenous Kfir fighter bomber, which saw combat during Operation Peace for Galilee and saw service with the U.S. Navy, and the air forces of Columbia and Sri Lanka.

In the summer of 2014, Israel was forced to go to war yet again, this time with the genocidal Arab terrorist group, Hamas. Hamas has deliberately placed its military infrastructure adjacent to civilian areas, cynically exploiting Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. In some instances, Hamas appallingly used UNRWA schools to store weapons and as a platform to fire rockets and mortars at Israel. Israel quickly identified the sources of fire and retaliated in measured fashion with precision guided munitions, neutralizing the threats.

Barack Obama, who had always harbored deep-seated hostility and resentment toward Israel, tried to force Israel into accepting a lopsided ceasefire agreement brokered by the pro-terrorist regimes of Qatar and Turkey. To facilitate this goal, he adopted a series of measures aimed at pressuring Israel. He ordered the State Department to issue a travel advisory against Israel. The following day, his Federal Aviation Administration issued a directiveprohibiting U.S. carriers from flying to or from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport after a rocket launched by Hamas fell harmlessly about a mile south of Tel Aviv airport. These directives were insidiously designed to inflict economic harm on Israel.

But Obama did not stop there. While Hamas was firing rockets at Israeli cities and digging tunnels for the ghoulish purpose of kidnapping kindergarten-aged children, he ordered the Department of Defense to withhold shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel. Israeli Apache attack helicopters utilized the Hellfire missile in support of ground operations and where pinpoint precision was required.

It was an unprecedented move. While Israel was at war with a genocidal enemy committed to its destruction, Obama decided to withhold vital military equipment in an effort to place Israel at a military disadvantage.

Despite his best efforts to harm Israel, the Israelis decidedly won the 2014 Gaza War and taught Hamas a lesson it would soon not forget but Israel drew lessons of its own. It realized that Obama was at best, an unreliable ally and Israel could potentially be held hostage to the irrational whims of an unfriendly administration in times of war.

Following the Gaza War, the Israeli company Rafael, maker of the battle-tested and proven Spike precision missile, was asked by the government to modify the Spike so that it could be integrated with the Apache platform. Rafael obliged and soon after, Israeli Apaches were photographed equipped with the NLOS (Non-Line Of Sight) variant of the Spike.

Both the Spike and the Hellfire are precision guided but the Spike possesses capabilities lacking in the Hellfire. It has a range of up to 25 km, surpassing the Hellfire’s and renders the Apache less vulnerable to anti-aircraft defenses. The Non-Line Of Sight option means the target can be hit without the operator actually seeing the target and the missile can be guided via a laser designator or real-time wireless data link. The operator can also abort the mission after launch or change targets. This is an important feature that enables the operator to limit collateral damage should civilians suddenly appear or alternatively, to direct the missile toward a more valuable or dangerous target. The dynamic and fluid nature of the modern battlefield makes this feature invaluable.

During his tenure, Obama’s relationship with the Mideast’s only democracy was at best, acrimonious, and often times marred by petty feuds initiated by Obama or his shills, who took their cues from their boss. But Israel owes Obama a debt of gratitude for it was his misguided petulance during the Gaza conflict that produced the successful marriage between the Apache and the Spike NLOS, thus providing Israel with an even greater qualitative edge over its enemies.

missile

10. Είδηση ΒΟΜΒΑ!Οι ΑΛΒΑΝΟΙ πίσω από τους ΕΜΠΡΗΣΜΟΥΣ στην ΕΛΛΑΔΑ…

15 Σεπ. 2017

Ένας 48χρονος αλλοδαπός, υπήκοος Αλβανίας συνελήφθη σε δασική περιοχή του Δήμου Πρεσπών και κατηγορείται για εμπρησμό σε παραμεθόρια δασική έκταση στη Φλώρινα.

Σε δασική έκταση στην περιοχή Ψαράδων στο δήμο Πρεσπών έγινε αντιληπτό από τις διωκτικές αρχές πως εκδηλώθηκαν σε ελάχιστο χρονικό διάστημα 3 εστίες φωτιάς.

Προσέγγισαν τις εστίες και με τη συνδρομή αστυνομικού σκύλου εντόπισαν επιμελώς καλυμμένο σε πυκνή θαμνώδη βλάστηση, κοντά στις φωτιές τον 48χρονο αλλοδαπό.

Στην κατοχή του που εισήλθε παράνομα στη χώρα, βρέθηκαν δύο αναπτήρες οι οποίοι και κατασχέθηκαν, ως μέσο τέλεσης εμπρησμού.

Η πυρκαγιά κατασβέστηκε από δυνάμεις της Πυροσβεστικής Υπηρεσίας Φλώρινας με τη συνδρομή των αστυνομικών.

Θυμίζουμε πως και στη Ζάκυνθο είχε συλληφθεί τέλη Αυγούστου Αλβανός υπήκοος με την κατηγορία του εμπρησμού.

ΑΠΙΣΤΕΥΤΟ! ΠΡΟΣΩΠΙΚΑ ΔΕΝ ΠΙΣΤΕΥΩ ΟΤΙ ΑΛΒΑΝΟΙ ΕΚΑΝΑΝ ΤΕΤΟΙΑ ΠΡΑΓΜΑΤΑ!.. Αχαχαχαχαχαχαχαχα

ΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ“!

ΕΛΛΗΝΑΣ

ω3

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