US Should Stay Out of Syrian Mess

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

There is every indication the Obama is about to order the US military to take some sort of action against Syria.

It is more of the UN’s policy, which is often referred to as “The Responsibility to Protect.”  And it is taxing America’s treasury and America’s already over-extended military.

Look.  Syria is just another Muslim country that seems never to be quite happy unless it is bleeding -- or causing someone else to bleed. THIS, dear reader is what happens when a people insist on living in the 12th century while the remainder of the world is 9 centuries ahead.

The US does not need another entanglement in the Middle East.  Believe me, we are headed for a regional conflagration in the area that will most certainly involve Syria, anyway.  There’s no point in wasting America’s military resources on another tinhorn dictator – at the moment.

Soon, Israel will take the reins in its teeth and attack Iran and the whole Middle East will blow up – including Syria. 

But, I don’t think the US President is receptive to folks who offer common sense.  There is way too much evidenced to the contrary.  So, it is, I believe, only a matter of weeks before US aircraft will be flying missions over Syria.

  

Consider this from YnetNews.com:

US to announce aerial blockade on Syria'

“The Pentagon is readying for the possibility of intervention in Syria, aiming to halt Syrian President Bashsar Assad's violent crackdown on protesters, the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday, citing a US military offical.

 According to the official, the intervention scenario calls for the establishment of a buffer zone on the Turkish border, in order to receive Syrian refugees. The Red Cross would then provide the civilians humanitarian aid, before NATO crews would arrive from Turkey and join the efforts.”

 The measure would pave the way for the US to declare an aerial blockade on Syria.  (SOURCE)

 So, here we go again!

 You would think, by now, the eggheads in Washington and the elite universities would have realized there is no way to save Muslim countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, and Syria from themselves. It simply cannot be done.  They made their choice hundreds of years ago to wallow in their backwards-tribal ways and their “woe-is-me” self-pity and their seething hatred for their fellow humans on this planet who chose to move forward and improve their lot in this life.

 I heard a noted journalist ask a question recently in reference to the rioting and killing in Afghanistan.  She asked if this was the thanks the US got for nation building in Afghanistan?  It was intended – I THINK—as a rhetorical question.  I hope so, because the answer is obvious for the entire world to see. 

 It doesn’t matter a whit if the US stays in the Middle East, rescuing one Muslim country after the other for a hundred years, we will receive NO THANKS, we will continue to be despised and hated -- and they will still slit our throats (or behead us) at every opportunity afforded them.

Obama, it seems, believes he can save them.  It is his messiah complex, don’t you see. 
Why, the man is just so darned intelligent that he simple cannot see that he is being made a fool of by a bunch of wily desert and mountain tribesmen who quickly learned how to play him like a violin.

 You would think he would be embarrassed – but you would be wrong.  It’s that “messiah” thing, you see.

 In the meantime, Mr. Assad of Syria had better get his binoculars polished up and begin watching the skies for Obama’s drones.  On the home front, Americans can be prepared to foot the bills for another American military intervention they neither want nor can afford.

 J. D. Longstreet

The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier ... Alan Caruba

The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier

By Alan Caruba

The Talmud, a record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish law, says “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed the entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved the entire world.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

Every Israeli soldier knows that, if captured, his nation will move mountains to secure his return. It’s not just a slogan. It’s a reality.

Since 1982 Israel has engaged in eight such swaps, the latest being the release of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped five years ago and denied the most basic rights as defined by international law. Hamas even refused to permit visits by representatives of the Red Cross.

Since 1982, more than 10,000 Palestinians serving prison sentences for terrorist and other hostile actions have been released. In 1983, more than 4,500 Palestinians prisoners were swapped for six Israeli soldiers being held in southern Lebanon. In 1985, 1,150 prisoners were exchanged for three Israelis.

The value that Israeli places on its soldiers includes even casualties of war. In 2008, it released Samir Kuntar, convicted of murdering four Israelis in 1979, plus four Hezbollah fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized during a cross-border raid.

The swap for Shalit, also the victim of a cross-border raid, demonstrates a fundamental difference between the Israelis and their enemies. They believe that each of their soldiers is more valuable than those who war against them.

Naturally, the most recent swap evoked a wide range of views. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum welcomed Shalit’s reunion with his family as did thousands of Israelis, but said that “joy is tempered by the bitter realities of statecraft” calling the Israeli policy “the sentimentalization of strategy.” He thought the swap “poison(ed) the future” for Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu disagreed. “As a leader who sends IDF soldiers every day to defend Israeli citizens, I believe that mutual responsibility is not just a slogan, but one of the foundations of our existence here.”

Netanyahu knows that Arabs have been kidnapping and ransoming people for the whole of Islam’s 1400 years and that it was standard practice among the desert tribes where the religion first took root. Islam is based on the promise of paradise for its adherents when they die; particularly its jihadist warriors.

Hamas and Fatah indoctrinate Palestinian children to want to be suicide bombers, but Judaism is based on the premise that life is God’s greatest gift and is to be valued above all else. Former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Bill Levinson, writing about the swap, had perhaps the best interpretation of what occurred. He referred to the famous Chinese tract, Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, suggesting that “Hamas might have played squarely into the hands of the Mossad and/or Shin Bet”, Israel’s highly effective and feared intelligence agencies.

“Israel might have just planted 50, 100, or even more double agents among the Palestinians who will cooperate, for example, in setting up Hamas terrorists to be killed or locating Palestinian rocket batteries for destruction whenever Israel considers this necessary.”

Sun Tzu wrote, “The enemy’s spies who have come to spy upon us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.”

Had the Israelis merely released one or a few prisoners their return would evoke suspicion, but with more than a thousand such prisoners it will prove impossible for Hamas to know which among them are double agents.

No people survive more than three thousand years against the greatest of odds and a multitude of enemies without learning a few lessons along the way. Hamas will pay the price in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

President Cliche ... Alan Caruba

President Cliche

By Alan Caruba

“Peace is more than just the absence of war.”

“So let there be no doubt…”

“We stand at a crossroads of history.”

“There is no excuse for inaction.”

Fewer people at home and around the world are paying any attention when Barack Obama speaks. He has become President Cliché. We were all told what a great speech-maker he was and now nobody wants to listen anymore.

Ironically, in his speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, September 21, he actually said some interesting things. Too bad none of the other leaders of nations care what he has to say. At home, his popularity and approval ratings in the polls continue to plummet to new depths and to set new records for the lack thereof.

In truth, this is not good for the world or the nation. The job of President is all about leadership coupled to effective policies that address problems. In fairness, Obama arrived in the Oval Office with some of the worst problems any president has faced in the modern era. Like his predecessor, on whom he blamed everything, he continued to throw money at the financial crisis, managing to run up the nation’s debt to a historic level. Obama's economic advisors dusted off the failed policies of the New Deal and tried again. They have not worked.

The problems not only did not go away, they got worse.

The Middle East has seen the “Arab spring” in which a number of dictators were overthrown and that seems hopeful except for the fact that radical Islam is the solution that many of those same nations are likely to embrace. It doesn’t help that the U.S. President has famously demonstrated a “tilt” toward Islam as it continues to foment conflict.

The United Nations speech was a long wish list, pasted together with a lot of platitudes about how the UN has played a role in warding off World War Three. That was largely avoided because the U.S. has a couple of warehouses full of nuclear weapons and had maintained the greatest military the world had ever seen. We’re still here. The Soviet Union isn’t. Most U.S. presidents since the end of World War Two wanted to see the world abandon nuclear weapons. It didn’t. The club just kept getting bigger with China, North Korea, Pakistan, and India. Now Iran wants them as well.

The Soviet leaders weren't crazy. The Iranian ayatollahs and mullahs are.

Obama cited the UN founding Charter that called on nations to “unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.” In reality, it has always been the United States who did the heavy lifting. We fought the North Koreans and Chinese to protect South Korea. We sent arms to Israel when it was repeatedly attacked. We detoured into Vietnam and took a shellacking. After 9/11 we drove the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and we organized allies to remove Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein. Most recently, we got NATO to put an end to Gaddaffi’s reign of terror.

The problem Obama has discovered is that the United Nations is composed of many of the worst dictatorships and oppressive regimes on Earth. It is an utterly corrupt institution. It will not prevent World War Three if the U.S. leaves and a large number of Americans want us to leave.

“Peace is hard. Peace is hard. Progress can be reversed. Prosperity comes slowly. Societies can split apart.” Aside from the yawning banality of this pronouncement, the President’s learning curve about the reality of life on planet Earth has been a tough one. Still, he did condemn Syria’s dictator who has been killing that nation’s people, but could not resist showing off his Islamic credentials by saying many of the victims occurred "during the holy time of Ramadan.”

Obama has discovered what presidents since the days of Harry Truman have discovered. That Palestine is not a nation and the Palestinians are a horrid group of people who refuse to live in peace with Israel. “The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own,” said the President. Guess what? The Israelis agree, but cannot get their Mamoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to actually agree that Israel has a right to exist. Or Hamas to stop lobbing rockets into southern Israel.

In case anyone was actually listening, Obama repeated what every prior President has said, “America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. Our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring”. After spending the last two and a half years demonstrating his contempt for Israel, this comes as a real surprise and further proof that Obama will say anything to get reelected.

And then he ruined it all by saying, “To preserve our planet, we must not put off action that climate change demands. We have to tap the power of science to save those resources that are scarce. And together we must continue our work to build on the progress made in Copenhagen and Cancun.”

The major fuels of the modern world are not scarce. We live above an ocean of oil. There is enough coal in America alone to keep the lights on here for centuries. Tapping the sun and wind has proved to be a huge waste of money for two of the least productive ways to provide energy. Copenhagen and Cancun, the site of two UN climate change conferences were total failures.

President Cliché closed out saying—again—“Peace is hard, but we know it is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our hopes and not our fears.”

Our fears are what sustain peace. It is why every nation is armed to the teeth.

Obama is a national embarrassment. And he wants four more years in office.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Conservative's Wishful Thinking ... Alan Caruba

Israel's Next War Begins
By Alan Caruba
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As this is being written, the news is about an Israeli effort to interdict a “humanitarian” flotilla of ships that refused to dock at its port of Ashdod to have its passengers and cargo checked. When Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship in international waters on Sunday they were met with violent resistance that led to casualties. The Israeli navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tons of supplies toward the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

I don’t know what the flotilla was delivering, but it is likely that among its passengers were Hamas terrorists and that there are weapons hidden among its cargo. That is why they refused orders to proceed to the Israeli port where tons of cargo routinely docks before making its way to Gaza. The flotilla was a deliberate provocation. Naturally, much of the world will blame Israel.

Having been in a state of war since its founding, Israel routinely has interdicted shipments of weapons to the PLO and Hamas. One of the most notable was in January 2002 when the Karine-A, a Palestinian ship, was found to have more than fifty tons of Iranian weapons and explosives.

Largely unreported are the fierce battles Egyptian Special Forces are waging in central Sinai with Bedouin tribesman smuggling weapons and fighters into Gaza on behalf of al Qaeda. As always, the Middle East is an asylum for the insane who, when not trying to kill Israelis, stay busy killing one another. I believe that war will come again soon and will originate in Lebanon.

In the end, the decision will be Iran’s, not Syria’s, its sock puppet and stalking horse. Syria has reportedly provided the Lebanon-based Hezbollah an estimated 1,000 Iranian-made rockets and missiles, all aimed at Israel. The last time the Israelis had to deal with Hezbollah aggression from Lebanon was in 2006. The conflict lasted 34 days. It is widely agreed that the Israeli Defense Force performed poorly and, not surprisingly, the most criticism came from the Israelis themselves.

Part of the problem at the time was an indecisive Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who has since been replaced by Benyamin Netanyahu. If “Bibi” gets any intelligence regarding a pending attack, he will not wait around for it to start. On word of the confrontation with the flotilla, he cancelled a June 1 meeting with President Obama and returned to Israel.You may recall that in March Barack Obama accorded Netanyahu one of the nastiest receptions ever given an Israeli Prime Minister. Only the Dalai Lama fared worse, being ushered out the White House back door.

One might reasonably assume that the president is no fan of Jews after having spent twenty years in the Chicago pews of the Trinity United Church of Christ listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright say hateful things about them and about America. Obama has many close ties with black nationalists and anti-Semites such as Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan. One of his longtime associates is Palestinian apologist Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor.

There is ample reason to believe another attack on Israel is likely. The Syrians have reportedly moved the number of their army units to the Israeli border and have been supplying arms to Hezbollah ever since the last war.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been saying ever more crazy things of late. He even lectured the United Nations on the coming of the Twelfth Imam, a Shiite spook whose return will require massive worldwide death and destruction. More recently Mahmoud got into a fight with the Russians over the proposed UN sanctions. Iran is running out of friends even if its oil is not.The Israelis have been practicing war games that include long distance flights, the purpose of which may have something to do with dropping some very big bombs on places with Persian names.

While all this is going on, the United States is significantly building up its fighting strength in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf regions. Carrier Strike Group 10, led by the USS Harry S. Truman, pulled up anchor on May 21st and headed to the Middle East. That will put two carrier groups in the area. More vessels, including guided-missile cruisers and destroyers will be there as well.

No matter how it plays out, the Middle East is going to turn into a shooting gallery again. The Iranians, Syrians, and Palestinians in Hezbollah and Hamas are living testimony to why all those people demanding that Israel make peace with them are clueless or worse.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.