In ancient times watchman would mount the city walls in times of stress to survey the scene outside the fortifications. He was situated on a spot from which he could monitor the approaches to the town. If a threat appeared, he would sound a warning and the town would shut its gates and prepare for battle.
In response to the execution-style murder of Harris County Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth, who was shot multiple times at a gas station in Cypress, Texas, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. strongly criticized what he called the “black lies matter” movement and stressed that President Barack Obama himself had “started this war on police.”
On Fox’s “Justice With Judge Jeanine” on Aug. 29, the host asked Sheriff Clarke, “Is it open season on law enforcement in this country?”
Sheriff Clarke said, “Judge, I am too pissed off tonight to be diplomatic about what’s going on and I’m not going to stick my head in the sand about it.”
According to his lawyer, Sgt Bowe Bergdahl is being charged with desertion and misbehavior, a finding that dramatically clashes with the Obama administration's description of Bergdahl and the circumstances of his capture when the controversial swap was first announced.
Majority of Americans disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy handling
Approval for Barack Obama’s foreign policy has dropped to an all-time low, with just 40 percent of Americans backing the president’s handling of international affairs, while 52 percent disagree with his performance on the global stage, a new poll reveals.
The survey, released by Quinnipiac University on Thursday, shows that overall assessments of Obama’s foreign policy are equally bleak when broken down on an issue-by-issue basis.
Only 33 percent of Americans support Obama’s proposed path on dealing with Syria, with the majority opposed to intervention.
Among those polled, only 27 percent of registered voters believe US involvement in Syria serves the national interest, while the same number Americans support the president’s plan of providing arms and military supplies to forces fighting to topple the government of President Bashar Assad.
Meanwhile, 59 percent of Americans remain opposed to providing material support to Syrian rebels, with the overall lack of support cutting across party lines.
DEBKAfileSpecial Report Jun 24, 2013, 1:03 PM (IDT)
Egypt is lurching toward a “low intensity civil war.” Law and order is breaking down as armed gangs attack governors and burn emblems of government, and the ruling Muslim Brotherhood uses armed men to strike back. Neither the police nor the army has interfered to date. Army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi promised Sunday, June 23, to preserve “the will of the people” from attack, without defining which side was “the people.” The opposition plans to launch Egypt’s third revolution in three years in massive June 30 demonstrations against President Morsi.
[This article is very timely and thought-provoking]
Here at American Thinker last week, my friend Herb Meyer wrote a piecethat's getting a lot of attention. He noted that as the Obama administration erupts into scandal, we look everywhere for a smoking gun leading back to the president. Don't bother, cautions Meyer. If you study history, you'll realize few such documents ever materialize.
The example he cited has gotten much attention: "Very few people are aware of this, but there is no document -- not one -- linking Adolf Hitler to the Holocaust. Why not? Because Hitler didn't need to sign a document ordering the slaughter of six million Jews." All that Hitler needed to do, notes Meyer, was demonize his enemies and then hire thugs like Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, and Josef Goebbels to do the rest. They knew what he wanted, and then they handled the details.
I would like to pick up the analogy, because Meyer is indeed on to something that should worry us greatly, especially given the political psychology of American liberals.
A book came out in 1996 called Hitler's Willing Executioners, by Daniel Goldhagen. The book remains controversial with (rightly so) plenty of detractors. But Goldhagen's principal argument has merit -- namely, that Adolf Hitler himself never killed a single Jew; rather, it took countless thousands and millions of ordinary Germans to carry out -- to execute -- Hitler's plan. In this, Goldhagen was exactly right, and his observation ties back to Meyer's thesis and, more so, what I've long feared is happening with the American Left.
What Hitler and his minions did was thoroughly demonize their enemies, convincing the German masses that Jews and other despised groups were subhuman, untermenschen. A major factor in Hitler's political advancement was his amazing ability to fabricate an assortment of handy scapegoats for the nation's ills. He got away with blaming anyone but himself for whatever calamity or misfortune. As he did, his followers assented, nodding their heads and bleating like sheep.
What the American Left has done to its enemies is not entirely dissimilar, even while certainly not approaching the crass, deadly level of the Nazis. But whether it's Obama himself, or his campaign, or Media Matters or MoveOn.org or any number of left-wing groups and websites and publications and media outlets, the American Left has been merciless in thoroughly demonizing opponents. Liberals don't just politely disagree, or agree that people can disagree; no -- too often they caricature those who disagree as vile reprobates with no possible good intentions or reasoning for their positions. It's a very illiberal thing to do.
Take the Tea Party, for starters. Once they saw the Tea Party's effectiveness, especially after the 2010 midterm elections, liberals/"progressives" went on a rampage, smearing the wide swath of Tea Party members (whom they probably never met) as recalcitrant racists. It was a charge totally unfair and ludicrous. I know people in the Tea Party. I watched the group develop. They are absolutely not racists; they were driven completely by the fiscal madness of Obama and the Pelosi Democratic Congress in the first six months of Obama's presidency. But once liberals starting ramping up their crude caricature, with congressmen and NPR executives and respected left-wing journals of opinion like the New York Times leading the way, the liberal mob responded in kind. Tea Party members were labeled as the worst kind of "extremists."
The result was shocking to behold. Like wildfire, liberals/progressives everywhere were swept up, fuming with anger and fanning the flames. They mimicked the party line without any question whatsoever. They whipped themselves into an emotional frenzy, convinced with absolute righteousness that this insidious group of racists was trying to undermine the saintly, kindly Obama for no reason other than the color of his skin.
As conservatives, we saw from the outset that this was pure politics -- actually, pure political demagoguery. Conservative talk-shows played clips from select liberals (such as Chuck Schumer) admitting as much. We saw right through it. But liberals don't think that way. They aren't wired that way. They're incredibly emotional people who can be easily prodded by their party/ideological elite, especially with the spontaneity and instant communication of social media -- the new mother's milk of the liberal mob. They really are prone to fads and fashions and mass behavior in ways that conservatives plainly aren't. I've seen it again and again. Conservatives aren't perfect, and have their own quirks and vices, but they don't tend toward this kind of group thinking and collective action. For conservatives, the ability to think logically and independently, based upon beliefs and values deeper and timeless, and to not be seduced by what Pope Benedict XVI calls the "anonymous power" of the latest fads and fashions, is what makes them conservative to begin with.
And so, when word was out among the Left that the Tea Party was comprised of genuine evildoers, the wider liberal masses, whether at blogs and nonprofits and Facebook or working for the IRS not only responded; they retaliated. They acted naturally. They didn't need Obama to tell them what to do. Exactly as Herb Meyer says, there was never any need for a printed order from Obama.
When an Oregon couple, a baker and his wife, declined to make a wedding cake for two members of the same sex, the apostles of tolerance and diversity went screaming mad, attacking the couple with profanities and threatening lawsuits -- with no respect at all for the couples' freedom. "You stupid bible thumping, hypocritical [expletive]," wrote one loving liberal in an email. "I hope your kids get really, really, sick and you go out of business." Another champion of compassion added: "Here's hoping you go out of business, you bigot. Enjoy hell."
Organizations trying to stop gay marriage -- that is, trying to stop the redefinition of marriage, and believe that children need a mom and a dad -- are being derided as "hate groups."
A near-tragic example happened with the Family Research Council, which was labeled a "hate group." I know people at the Family Research Council. They are good-hearted, classic social conservatives. Their social positions aren't different from where the Democratic Party stood for over a century.
But once an organization of "civil rights" liberals labeled the Family Research Council a "hate group," the charge went viral, and then, one fateful day last August, an enraged homosexual activist headed for the group's offices with an arsenal of bullets and weapons poorly concealed in Chick-fil-A bags. He was stopped only by an alert security guard, who was shot and injured.
This left-wing gay activist, convinced that the Family Research Council was promulgating "hate," was prompted to an act of attempted mass murder.
This example should be widely known. It isn't. Why not? Because the mainstream media hasn't made it a national issue. If this had been a conservative shooter targeting a liberal organization, with a conservative president in the White House, all of conservatism would be held complicit, and the media would demand the president condemn the action. There would be a national media campaign against "conservative extremism."
Speaking of Chick-fil-A, it, too, has been a target of leftist rage: boycotts, protests, pickets, mayors of big cities trying to ban the restaurant and describing its product as "hate chicken." Why? Simply because the CEO is against gay marriage, which not long ago was the position of Bill and Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic Party.
And then there's the hideous charge that Republicans who oppose mandatory taxpayer funding of abortion somehow thus favor a "war on women." Sandra Fluke has become a liberal heroine for that cultural/political obscenity.
Enough said. On and on it goes. I could give countless examples, some of them personal. We all can. Any conservative can.
In sum, these leftists are Obama's and (more widely) liberalism's willing executioners. They obviously aren't literally executing people -- although that was indeed the literal intent of the Family Research Council gunman -- but they are executing what they believe is a glorious plan for the fundamental transformation of America. They are willingly executing Obama's agenda and their agenda. Any opponents are isolated as enemies and maligned in the most demeaning way.
Unfortunately, my warning will fall on deaf ears. Being driven by emotion to begin with, and then easily whipped into hysteria, liberals will reject my warning out of hand. After all, in their view, I'm defending the indefensible: vile racists and haters who are loathsome, have no dignity, and deserve to be ruined. On top of that, I'll be lucky if a hundred liberals even read this article and take it seriously.
In short, this country is in really bad shape. The America we knew is gone; it is over. This new breed of leftist is ascendant and angry, and changing the country and the culture in the process. The results are not pretty. Things are only going to get worse.
As reports continue to flood in about President Obama’s massive surveillance state, media powerhouse Glenn Beck says, “There wouldn’t be a Jew alive on the planet today if Hitler had this technology.”
Beck made the statement Friday on his radio program while interviewing NSA whistleblower William Binney.
Binney worked at the National Security Agency for nearly four decades, and said the secret surveillance of Americans began in October 2001.
He believes the NSA is storing information on 3 billion phone calls every day.
“I’m telling you, America,” Beck cautioned, “If we don’t stop this right now, we will be remembered as the most evil nation in history of the world. We will dwarf what Germany did. And I’d say that if Mitt Romney were in office and this were happening. I would be saying exactly the same thing.”
Presidents Obama and Xi in first face to face meeting
DEBKAfile June 8, 2013, 5:22 AM (GMT+02:00)
The US and Chinese presidents, Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, started their two-day summit Friday at the Rancho Mirage estate at Sunnylands, California. "Sunnylands is close to the Pacific Ocean, and China is just on the other side of the ocean," Xi said. "Today I meet here with President Obama to map out a blueprint for the development of China-U.S. relations and conduct cooperation across the Pacific Ocean."
*Obama Calls Surveillance Programs Legal and Limited -- New York Times* WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday offered a robust defense of the government surveillance programs revealed this week, and sought to reassure the public that his administration has not become a Big Brother with eyes and ears throughout the world of online communications. “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,” Mr. Obama said, delivering a 14-minute answer to two questions about the surveillance programs at an event that was initially supposed to be devoted to the health care law. “That’s not what...more »
Amid international unease over an imminent missile launch from Pyongyang, North Korea warned foreigners in the South to evacuate to avoid military contact yesterday.
“We do not wish harm on foreigners in South Korea, should there be a war,” stated the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, the North’s state organ that deals with noncommunist countries and inter-Korean affairs, through the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The committee requested all foreigners, including tourists and foreign institutions and enterprises “to take measures for shelter and evacuation in advance for their safety” in a statement yesterday.
The Blue House responded yesterday that such psychological warfare will not shake the foreign community and Koreans in the South.
“North Korea’s psychological warfare using foreigners in Korea will not work here and agitate us at all because Koreans, of course, and foreigners residing in Korea, have great trust and faith in our army and [South Korea],” stated Blue House spokeswoman Kim Haing in response to the North’s statement.
group of leading scientists – including a Nobel Prize winner - has proclaimed that it is “ethically and morally” wrong to alter the deadly H5N1 virus to make it more contagious for research purposes, and have asked President Obama to ban it.
“The accidental release of an artificial, laboratory-generated, human-transmissible H5N1 virus into the community has the potential to cause a global pandemic of epic proportions that would dwarf the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed over 50 million people,” read a letter to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
The petition was drafted by the Foundation for Vaccine Research (FVR), a scientific advocacy group, and numbered world-leading biologists among the 17 signatories, including Lord May, the former chief science advisor to the UK government, and Sir Richard Roberts, the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine, for genetics research.
Late in 2011, two groups of scientists courted controversy, when they prepared to publish studies showing a modified version of the avian flu virus that could be passed through the air between mammals. In its current form, the virus, which has killed 60 percent of those it infects, is not easily caught by people from birds, and is even more difficult to transmit from one human to another.
American President Barack Obama confirms the US is committed to creating two independent states, Israel and Palestine, whatever time it takes to reach the goal. Obama stressed direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis is the only way to do so.
Obama spoke at a news conference in the West Bank with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
He confirmed the US is committed to creating two independent states, Israel and Palestine, however long it takes. Obama stressed direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis is the only way to reach the goal.
He says Palestinians should not have to confront the daily indignities that come with occupation.
Obama says the US needs a “viable and contiguous” Palestinian state co-existing alongside the state of Israel.
The US president condemned construction of new Israeli settlements on Palestinian territories.
"I told Mr. Netanyahu that it has been US policy not to consider settlement activity to be constructive, appropriate or advance the cause of peace,” criticized Obama.
Phil Bronstein spent more than a year researching a piece published Monday in Esquire on the life of the Navy SEAL who allegedly killed Osama bin Laden. He formed a friendship with the man, whom he refers to only as “the Shooter” throughout the piece for safety reasons, learning new details about the famous raid and — more shockingly — the Shooter’s life post-retirement.
Apparently, in the same boat as many of America’s other veterans.
(Photo: White House)
This is a man who recalls the Osama bin Laden raid not from images on a television, but from a first-person perspective. He related grisly new details in his first-ever interview, even sharing what he was thinking at the time:
[Bin Laden] looked confused. And way taller than I was expecting. He had a cap on and didn’t appear to be hit…
For me, it was a snapshot of a target ID, definitely him. Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory. That’s him, boom, done.
[...]
In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.
And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I’ve ever done, or the worst thing I’ve ever done? This is real and that’s him. Holy shit.
[...]
His forehead was gruesome. It was split open in the shape of a V. I could see his brains spilling out over his face. The American public doesn’t want to know what that looks like. [Emphasis added]
A Pakistani woman and a girl walk through a path in a field next to the demolished house where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 29, 2012. (Photo: AP)
“No one who fights for this country overseas should ever have to fight for a job,” Barack Obama said last Veterans’ Day, “or a roof over their head, or the care that they have earned when they come home.”
But the Shooter will discover soon enough that when he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation:
Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family.
Since Abbottabad, he has trained his children to hide in their bathtub at the first sign of a problem as the safest, most fortified place in their house. His wife is familiar enough with the shotgun on their armoire to use it. She knows to sit on the bed, the weapon’s butt braced against the wall, and precisely what angle to shoot out through the bedroom door, if necessary. A knife is also on the dresser should she need a backup.
Then there is the “bolt” bag of clothes, food, and other provisions for the family meant to last them two weeks in hiding.
“Personally,” his wife told me recently, “I feel more threatened by a potential retaliatory terror attack on our community than I did eight years ago,” when her husband joined ST6.
When the White House identified SEAL Team 6 as those responsible, camera crews swarmed into their Virginia Beach neighborhood, taking shots of the SEALs’ homes. [Emphasis added]
School students supporting Pakistani political and Islamic party Jammat-e-Islami (JI), march during an anti-US protest rally in Karachi on December 19, 2011. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
The Shooter and his wife are actually separated, but still live in the same house to save money. The $60,000 a year he made with extra bonuses for different activities has dried up, and they haven’t yet found a way to replace it.
“We’re actually looking into changing my name,” she explained. “Changing the kids’ names, taking my husband’s name off the house, paying off our cars. Essentially deleting him from our lives, but for safety reasons. We still love each other.”
According to Bronstein, the only assistance The Shooter was offered was a witness-protection like program where the national hero would be “driving a beer truck in Milwaukee.” The family would have to sever all connections to their former life.
A former SEAL and mentor to the Shooter noted: “These guys have millions of dollars’ worth of knowledge and training in their heads…All sorts of executive function skills. That shouldn’t go to waste.”
Retired Marine major general Mike Myatt added: “It’s criminal to me that these guys walk out the door naked…They’re the greatest of their generation; they know how to get things done. If I were a Fortune 500 company, I’d try to get my hands on any one of them.”
This image released by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency shows a scale model of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was killed. (Photo: AP)
“I left SEALs on Friday,” [the Shooter] said the next time I saw him. It was a little more than thirty-six months before the official retirement requirement of twenty years of service. “My health care for me and my family stopped at midnight Friday night. I asked if there was some transition from my Tricare to Blue Cross Blue Shield. They said no. You’re out of the service, your coverage is over. Thanks for your sixteen years. Go [f--k] yourself.”
The Esquire article concludes with the Shooter’s perception of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, the author adding that a line from the film has been haunting him.
The tactics “sucked,” the Shooter said, and “the mission in the damn movie took way too long,” but other than that he said he was largely pleased.
But the real-life risks and ramifications were summed up by the actor playing the CIA station chief, who warned: “Once you’re on their list, you never get off.”
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama has said all along he isn't done raising taxes on wealthy Americans, and he said it again in an interview that aired on CBS during the Super Bowl.
A month after signing a bill that raised tax rates on families making $450,000 or more (and individuals making $400,000-plus), the president said he now wants to close "loopholes."
'I don't think the issue right now is raising rates," Obama said. The goal now is to find "smart spending cuts," "reduce health care costs," and "close loopholes and deductions."
"If you combine those things together, then we can not only reduce our deficit, but we can continue to invest in things like education and reserach and development that are going to help us grow," Obama told CBS's Scott Pelley.
"There is no dobut we need additional revenue coupled with smart spending reductions in order to bring down our deficit. And we can do it in a gradual way so that it doesn't have a huge impact," he added.
Obama twice drew distinctions between "average Americans" and rich people who "take advantage" of perfectly legal tax rules.
The president said he wants to close loopholes for "folks who are well connected and have a lot of accountants and lawyers...so they end up paying lower rates than, you know, a bus driver or a cop."
A short time later, Obama again set the "average person" against those who are "able to take advantage."
"When you look at some of these deductions that certain folks are able to take advantage of, the average person can't take advantage of. The average person doesn't have access to Cayman Island accounts, the average person doesn't have access to carried interest income, where they end up paying a much lower rate on billions of dollars that they earned. So we just want to make sure that the whole system is fair, that it's transparent, that we're reducing our deficit in a way that doesn't hamper growth...."
In closing "loopholes" and raising revenue, Obama has the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Reid told ABC's "This Week" that any deal to avoid the sequester (deep, automatic spending cuts to defense and non-defense budgets) "without question" would have to include new revenue (more taxes).
Host George Stephanopoulos pressed Reid on that point: "So your position on lifting the sequester, on avoiding a government shutdown, on extending the debt limit beyond August is any one of those deals must include new revenues?"
"Yes," Reid replied. "The answer is definitely yes. And I've got a pretty good fan base for that, the American people: Republicans, Democrats and independents."
Moscow announced that it has terminated an agreement with Washington to cooperate in law and drug enforcement, continuing the trend of deteriorating diplomatic relations.
“Russia is reforming its relationship with the US. We have terminated the third agreement with the U.S. in the last six months,” Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Lower House, commented on Twitter.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to terminate the bilateral deal, the government said in a statement on its official website on Wednesday. The agreement, formalized between Russia and the US on September 25, 2002, was declared “out of touch with today’s realities and has exhausted its potential,” the statement read.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has been instructed to notify Washington of the decision.
As part of the now-defunct bilateral deal, the US agreed to provide financial assistance to relevant Russian entities for anti-crime measures, among other activities. Such philanthropy, however, has raised eyebrows in Russia and prompted questions over the real motive behind Washington’s efforts.
It was largely due to these suspicions that Moscow informed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in September that its services in Russia were no longer wanted or needed.
In a recent interview with NPR, outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on Russia’s decision to shut down the USAID office: “We can take our aid money and go elsewhere and help people who welcome us.” Clinton’s comment goes far towards explaining the rift in Russia-US relations: Russia has largely escaped from the clutches of its post-Soviet depression, and is now has a dynamic economy with a growing middle class and huge natural resources, which no longer needs handouts from Washington.
The Foreign Ministry said that Russian civil society has become fully mature, and did not need any "external direction" from USAID, which was also blamed for attempting to manipulate Russia’s internal political processes.
Is Washington, feeling a bit like a jaded partner in a tumultuous relationship, seeking to break off the honeymoon in dramatic fashion?
Last year, the decision by a group of US legislators to implement the so-called ‘Magnitsky Act’ against specific Russian officials – who the US Senators believe should be held accountable in the death of Sergey Magnitsky, an accountant with Hermitage Capital who died in prison in 2009 amidst a tax evasion investigation – has triggered a diplomatic domino effect between the two countries.
Shortly after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Dima Yakovlev bill, which bans American citizens from adopting Russian orphans.
In an interview with US media, Prime Minister Medvedev emphasized that Russia’s decision to introduce the adoption legislation had no connection with US legislation against Russian citizens.
“This law expresses concerns of the Russian parliament, the Russian State Duma and the Federal Council over destiny of our children… Therefore, despite the fact that many saw it as targeting individual American citizens who want to adopt Russian children, that’s certainly not the case,” Medvedev told CNN.
The US also recently said it would end its cooperation in the Russian-American Bilateral Presidential Commission on Civil Society.
This ongoing atmosphere of animosity between the two former Cold War rivals shows that relations between Moscow and Washington have entered a cooling period. It also shows that Russia is less willing to depend on the United States for services that it can afford on its own.
Meanwhile, Russian experts say that relations between Moscow and Washington have entered a dangerous tit-for-tat stage and warned against further escalation.
Honorary chairman of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, Sergey Karaganov told RIA Novosti news agency that in his view Russia and US have put themselves on a path that is very difficult to step off. At the same time, the analyst noted that the so called ‘reset’ had not created any solid foundation for better relations between the two countries.
Karaganov added that he hoped that the leaders of the two nations would be wise enough not to allow further deterioration in relations.
Viktor Kuvaldin of the Gorbachev Foundation also urged the leaders of Russia and the United States to put an end to the standoff as soon as possible. “Unfortunately, when a spiral starts unwinding it acquires its own logic. People tend to forget who started what and resort to the ‘eye for an eye tooth for a tooth’ policy, Kuvaldin said.
Russian authorities should stop the process and reach an agreement with their US partners so that they (Washington) would follow suit.
Gov. Rick Perry released the following statement regarding President Obama's executive actions:"The Vice President's committee was appointed in response to the tragedy at Newtown, but very few of his recommendations have anything to do with what happened there.
"Guns require a finger to pull the trigger. The sad young man who did that in Newtown was clearly haunted by demons and no gun law could have saved the children in Sandy Hook Elementary from his terror.
"There is evil prowling in the world - it shows up in our movies, video games and online fascinations, and finds its way into vulnerable hearts and minds. As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children.
"In fact, the piling on by the political left, and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally. The second amendment to the Constitution is a basic right of free people and cannot be nor will it be abridged by the executive power of this or any other president."
UK foreign secretary calls on Obama to launch renewed peace drive of type not seen since 1993 Oslo accords
The British foreign secretary warned of the
dire consequences of letting the current turmoil in the Middle East
continue unabated Thursday, calling on the US to lead a renewed drive
for peace of the type not seen in decades.
“2013 will be a crucial year in the Middle
East,” William Hague said at the Menzies Research Centre in Sydney,
where he delivered the John Howard lecture. “We could see a perfect
storm of crises converging if the conflict in Syria continues, the
Middle East peace process remains stalled, and if Iran will not enter
into meaningful negotiations over its nuclear program.”
Hague said US President Barack Obama should
take charge and launch an intense drive for peace matching that of the
last major Israeli Palestinian breakthrough in 1993.
“Before long, a two-state solution could be made impossible by facts on the ground,” Hague said.
“We recognize the immense obstacles to the peace process, not least of
all the role of Hamas in Gaza. But still, we believe that it must be a
priority for President Obama’s re-elected administration to launch a new
effort to start the peace process, greater in intensity than anything
seen since the Oslo Accords.”
“This is a tall order, but the situation is urgent and the consequences of failure extremely grave,” he added.
Hague also said the international community should be prepared to step up its response in Syria, including providing “life-saving help and assistance to the Syrian opposition”"
“2013 cannot be the year in which another 60,000 Syrian civilians perish,” he said.
Media watchdog group
MEMRI published Thursday
additional statements made by Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi before
entering office, in which he accused US President Barack Obama of lying
in his 2009 Cairo speech and urged Muslims “to nurse our children and
grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews.”
“One American president after another – and
most recently, that Obama – talks about American guarantees for the
safety of the Zionists in Palestine. [Obama] was very clear when he
uttered his empty words on the land of Egypt. He uttered many lies, of
which he couldn’t have fulfilled a single word, even if he were sincere –
which he is not,” said Morsi referring to Obama’s “A New Beginning”
speech, which he delivered on June 9, 2009, in Cairo University and in
which he called for improved understanding and relations between the
Muslim world and the West and for peace between Israel the Palestinians.
Morsi’s remarks came from a speech he made in
2010 when he was a leading Muslim Brotherhood figure. The remarks were
revived when an Egyptian TV show aired them last week to highlight and
mock Morsi’s current policies.
In the same address, Morsi said: “Dear
brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on
hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them.
They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.”
The new quotes found, translated, reposted and transcribed by
the Middle East Media Research Institute, came out hours after the
Obama administration issued a statement saying the Egyptian presidency’s
clarification over past anti-Jewish and anti-Israel comments is welcome
but not enough to ease the White house’s concerns.
The statement by President Morsi’s office
rejected discrimination and incitement to violence based on religion.
The State Department called it “an important first step” but said the US
continues to look for Morsi and other Egyptian leaders to demonstrate a
commitment to religious tolerance and Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.
The US has said Morsi’s 2010 remarks
— in which he urged hatred of Jews and called Zionists “pigs” and
“bloodsuckers” while he was a leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — are
“deeply offensive” and need to be repudiated.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
would not say if Washington is demanding that Morsi personally repudiate
the remarks, but she made clear the US needs to see more than the
statement from his office to be convinced he no longer holds to the
earlier views.
“From our perspective, that statement was an
important first step to make clear that the type of offensive rhetoric
that we saw in 2010 is not acceptable, not productive and shouldn’t be
part of a democratic Egypt,” she told reporters. “That said, we look to
President Morsi and Egyptian leaders to demonstrate in both word and in
deed their commitment to religious tolerance and to upholding all of
Egypt’s international obligations.”
On Wednesday, Morsi sought to defuse
Washington’s anger over his past remarks, telling a group of visiting
U.S. senators that his comments were taken out of context and were a
denunciation of Israeli policies and not Israel itself or the Jewish
people, according to a spokesman. The spokesman said Morsi told the
lawmakers that a distinction must be made between the two.
Later Wednesday, after the State Department
declined to comment on the spokesman’s explanation, Morsi’s office went
further by releasing an English-language statement that said “the
president strongly believes that we must respect and indeed celebrate
our common humanity and does not accept or condone derogatory statements
regarding any religious or ethnic group.”
Nuland said Thursday that her comments applied to that statement and not the spokesman’s remarks.
The flap is a new twist in Morsi’s attempts to
reconcile his background as a veteran of the Muslim Brotherhood — a
vehemently anti-Israel and anti-US group — and the requirements of his
role as head of state, which include keeping the strategic relationship
with Washington, which wants Egypt to continue to honor its 1979 peace
deal with Israel.
Morsi has promised to abide by Egypt’s 1979
peace treaty with Israel and has continued security cooperation with
Israel over the volatile Sinai Peninsula and their border. In November,
Morsi brokered a truce between the Jewish state and Gaza’s Hamas rulers
in November, a feat that won him warm praise from the Americans.
