Gates & Russia Both Need Better Intel On Iranian Missile Threat

This is an excellent update on missile defense regarding Iranian capabilities and also Russian concern about deployment of the missile defense system in Poland.
Rees

from Closing Velocity
by John McKittrick
June 10, 2009

A couple of months ago, the Russian ambassador to the United States asserted:

Iran poses no threat to the United States, Russia said Tuesday, rebuffing a key argument of President Barack Obama on whether to go ahead with a European missile shield bitterly opposed by Moscow.

"I don't see any threat to the United States coming from Iran anytime soon," Kislyak told a conference of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Weeks after this confident proclamation, Iran test fired a new ballistic missile that can reach the majority of European capital cities. Including Moscow, Comrade Ambassador.

Rightly on the congressional hot seat for his Obama-directed gutting of the missile defense budget, Secretary of Defense Gates says the Russians are full of it:

Gates recounted a meeting he had with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during which the then-president "basically dismissed the idea that the Iranians would have a missile that would have the range to reach much of western Europe and much of Russia before 2020 or so."

"And he showed me a map that his intelligence guys had prepared," Gates told a Senate Appropriations panel. "I told him he needed a new intelligence service."

As I've stated many times, there is only one reason the Russians fear US missile defense bases in Eastern Europe .... and it has nothing to do with "missile defense" and everything to do with "US bases in Eastern Europe":



Click to read the comments and other great articles at Closing Velocity

Hey Obama, Match This Rhetoric - Kim Jong-il isn't afraid of you

image by rees

North Korea would use nuclear weapons in a 'merciless offensive'

from The Independent
via the Associated Press
9 June 2009

North Korea today said it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive" if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast.

The tensions emanating from Pyongyang are beginning to hit nascent business ties with the South: a Seoul-based fur manufacturer became the first South Korean company to announce Monday it was pulling out of an industrial complex in the North's border town of Kaesong.

The complex, which opened in 2004, is a key symbol of rapprochement between the two Koreas but the goodwill is evaporating quickly in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test on May 25 and subsequent missile tests.

Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper today.

"Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means...as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country's dignity and sovereignty even a bit," said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It appeared to be the first time that North Korea referred to its nuclear arsenal as "offensive" in nature. Pyongyang has long claimed that its nuclear weapons program is a deterrent and only for self-defense against what it calls US attempts to invade it.

The tough talk came as South Korea and the US lead an effort at the UN Security Council to have the North punished for its nuclear test with tough sanctions.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported today that South Korea had doubled the number of naval ships around the disputed sea border with the North amid concern the communist neighbor could provoke an armed clash there — the scene of skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to confirm the report, but said the North has not shown any unusual military moves.

Relations between the two Koreas have significantly worsened since a pro-US, conservative government took office in Seoul last year, advocating a tougher policy on the North. Since then, reconciliation talks have been cut off and all key joint projects except the factory park in Kaesong have been suspended.

Some 40,000 North Koreans are employed at the zone, making everything from electronics and watches to shoes and utensils, providing a major source of revenue for the cash-strapped North. The park combines South Korean technology and management expertise with cheap North Korean labor.

A total of 106 South Korean companies operate in the park. That number will go down by the end of the month when Skinnet, the fur-maker, completes its pullout.

A Skinnet company official said the decision was primarily over "security concerns" for its employees, and also because of a decline in orders from clients concerned over possible disruptions to operations amid the soaring tensions.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with reporters.

The industrial park's fate has been in doubt since last month when North Korea threatened to scrap all contracts on running the joint complex and said it would write new rules of its own and the South must accept them or pull out of the zone.

The companies have also been concerned by the detention of a South Korean man working at the complex by North Korean authorities since late March for allegedly denouncing the regime's political system.

The two sides are to hold talks on the fate of the park Thursday.

Intensifying its confrontation with the US, North Korea handed down 12-year prison terms to two detained American journalists on Monday.

Click to read the article and the comments

Obama bluffing about interdicting N.Korean shipments - He doesn't dare to

from The Mercury News
By David E. Sanger
of the New York Times
June 8, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China's help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.

The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush's decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The reference to interdictions — either at ports or airfields in countries like China or riskier confrontations on the high seas — was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was the administration's highest-ranking official to talk publicly about such a potentially provocative step as a response to North Korea's second nuclear test, conducted two weeks ago.

While she did not specifically mention assistance from China, other administration officials have been pressing Beijing to take such action under China's own laws.

Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Clinton said that the United States feared that if the test and other recent actions by North Korea did not lead to "strong action," there was a risk of "an arms race in Northeast Asia," an oblique reference to the concern that Japan would reverse its long-held ban against developing nuclear weapons.

So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go in aiding the United States in stopping North Korea's profitable trade in arms, the isolated country's most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Bill Clinton and Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

President Barack Obama, aides say, has decided that he will not offer North Korea new incentives to dismantle the nuclear complex at Yongbyon that the North previously promised to abandon. "I'm tired of buying the same horse twice," Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week, while touring an anti-missile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States.

While Obama was in the Middle East and Europe, several senior officials said the president's national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the Communist country is willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government.

Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea's second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions — that Pyongyang's top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons, and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.

"This entirely changes the dynamic of how you deal with them," a senior national security aide said. While Obama is willing to reopen the six-party talks that Bush began — the other participants are Japan, South Korea, Russia and China — he has no intention, aides say, of offering new incentives to get the North to fulfill agreements from 1994, 2005 and 2008, all of which were recently renounced.

In conducting any interdictions, the United States could risk open confrontation with North Korea. That prospect — and the likelihood of escalating conflict if the North resists an inspection — is why China has balked at American proposals for a U.N. Security Council Resolution that would explicitly allow interceptions at sea.

A previous Security Council resolution, passed after the North's first nuclear test in 2006, allowed interdictions "consistent with international law." But that term was never defined, and few of the provisions were enforced by the Bush administration, its Asian allies or the Chinese.

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

N.Korea sentences 2 U.S. Journalists to 12 years in a labor camp

Photoshop credit: Red Hot Phones

from Michelle Malkin.com
By Michelle Malkin
June 8, 2009

Please pick up the red courtesy phone

I blogged back in March about the plight of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American journalists working for Al Gore’s Current TV who were seized by NoKo soldiers after crossing the border illegally into the country from China while on assignment.

The Yonhap news agency just published an urgent bulletin tonight that the two reporters have been sentenced to 12 years in labor camp. AP says Ling and Lee were sentenced for committing an unspecified “grave crime” in addition to the illegal border-crossing. They are pawns in a much bigger chess game, of course.

How’s that “Smart Power” working out, Hillary?

North Korea threatened on Monday to retaliate with “extreme” measures if the United Nations punished it for last month’s nuclear test, with Washington saying it may put Pyongyang back on its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday North Korea’s recent activities were being scrutinized for evidence of “support for international terrorism,” a designation that could subject the impoverished state to more financial sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council may adopt a new resolution as early as this week, but there is clear division among some members over how tough the measures against the reclusive state should be.

“Our response would be to consider sanctions against us as a declaration of war and answer it with extreme hardline measures,” the North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.

An increasingly aggressive North indicated it was gearing up for fresh moves, issuing a no-sail warning off its east coast up to 260 km (160 miles) off the Wonsan area from where it launched a missile in May and a barrage of short-range missiles in 2006.

All together now: Gird your loins.

Click to read the comments and other great articles at Michelle Malkin.com

Hey Hillary: You're Not Israel's Mommy!

Clinton shreds Bush-Israel settlement understandings, fuels US-Israel row
from the DEBKAfile
Special Analysis

Gloves off, no more legalistic quibbling

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton roughly rejected any secret Bush agreements with Israel on expanding settlements. Her intention was to have the last word and to shut down the Obama administration's argument with Israel over a West Bank settlement freeze. But she only threw fresh fuel on the fire when she stated emphatically on Friday, June 5, that according to the negotiating record which Bush officials turned over to the Obama administration, "There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements."

Israel officials have protested that Barack Obama's demand for a total freeze on settlement expansion contradicts a series of understandings – some written, some oral – with Bush officials which permitted expansion under certain conditions. This argument was put forward by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his wide-ranging talks with the US president on May 18 and reaffirmed by Israeli officials when they met US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London ten days later.

This key understanding referred to was reached in 2004: It provided for Israel's voluntary evacuation of the Gaza Strip and the northern tip of the West Bank (which took place the following year) would be counter-balanced by Washington's acceptance of the need for continuing construction in the large population blocks in other parts of West Bank territory to meet natural growth needs.

This understanding was reached by Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley and his deputy Elliott Abrams in talks with Israeli officials.

At their London meeting of May 28, Mike Herzog, defense minister Ehud Barak's chief of staff, bore witness to Mitchell that he had led the Israeli team at the 2004 talks and that those talks had indeed ended with the two US NSC heads' endorsement on behalf of the Bush administration of continued Israeli settlement construction to keep pace with the natural growth of those communities.

Elliott Abrams is quoted Friday by the Washington Post as acknowledging last week that there had been unwritten understandings between Washington and Jerusalem, as Brig. Herzog affirmed.

By repudiating any such understandings – written and spoken - Clinton has dragged US-Israeli relations into a new trough. It is now a straight issue of word against word, Washington versus Jerusalem's. This is a dark point for restarting any peace process between Israel and Palestinians or other Arab governments for an accord on substantial issues which have defeated every past peace effort.

The "settlements" referred to by Obama in his demand for an end to all construction apply to five Israeli urban centers: its capital, Jerusalem, which the US does not recognize with or without its post-1967 extensions (although successive administrations have pledged to locate its embassy there), Maaleh Adummim just east of Jerusalem, Efrat to the south, Ariel to the north and Modiin Ilit, southeast of Tel Aviv.

Their total population is estimated between 250,000 and 300,000, plus isolated communities which are home to another approximate 180,000 Jewish inhabitants.

These figures do not include the unauthorized outposts over whose removal Israel is not arguing.
Abrams in an article he published on April 8 hinted that the passage in the 2004 Bush letter to Ariel Sharon - "It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities" - was an indirect recognition of demographic "changes" (in the Israeli and Palestinian populations over 42 years) and understanding for the "realities" applying to the large settlement blocks, meaning that Israel was entitled to continue their development.

However, DEBKAfile's Washington sources stress, Eliott Abrams has no standing in the new administration. Obama and his team will adopt or dump the understandings reached by his White House predecessors not according to archival evidence but according to whether or not they suit his new international policy directions over which Jerusalem is getting badly worried.

The Netanyahu government is now facing its first real test. In Washington, the gloves are off. If the prime minister holds to his defensive, accommodating posture toward on the settlement issue and fails to punch back with demands that the other side - and the United States itself stand by former accords and commitments - he will find himself inexorably forced back step by step on other vital security interests, including Iran's accelerated nuclear weapons program.

Legalistic quibbling over dead letters will not avail - as Israeli officials will discover when confronted with new pressures for concessions from US envoy Mitchell next week.
Click to read the rest of the article

Hillary the lying little messenger girl...

"A Clinton lying is like a dog chewing on a bone, its what they do."
Andrew - canada (06/06/2009 04:36)

from Joshua Pundit
Friday, June 05, 2009

Hillary Clinton: 'Israel, Bush administration had no agreement over settlements'

US Secretary of State Hillary confirmed something that's become all too obvious. While the Obama Administration is insisting that the current Israeli government keep its prior committments,even committments the Israeli cabinet never signed on to, it has no intention whatsoever of honoring its own to Israel.

When Israel first accepted the US Roadmap during the Bush Administration in 2003, Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Knesset accepted it conditionally, appending it with a letter to President Bush that outlined 14 additional reservations and conditions.

President Bush later acknowledged those reservations by promising in a letter written to Sharon on April 14th, 2004 that the US would recognize existing demographic realities and understood that Israel would retain the large blocs of Jewish communities near Jerusalem and in the Jordan Valley as part of any final settlement.This was supposed to be a quid pro quo to Sharon in exchange for pushing the Jews of Gaza out of their homes.

Even more telling, President Bush assured Sharon that the US would only support the Road Map and no other plan, since it was in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, not the Saudi 'peace' ultimatum Obama is so thrilled about. The US also guaranteed Sharon that they would see to it that Gaza did not become a security risk for Israel.

When Secretary Clinton says there was 'never any agreement', she's simply lying . As a matter of fact, Elliot Abrams, who actually was in the Bush Administration as deputy National Security Advisor confirmed that in the Washington Post.

Clinton, of course, is just passing on a message from her new boss. She has no power at State and has been reduced to being a messenger girl.

Based on this blatant dishonesty, the Israelis would be justified in pulling out of the Roadmap entirely, but they're apparently keeping their powder dry for now.

However, this should put them on notice that any agreements they make with Obama are subject to hope n' change without notice. And not worth a damn.
Click to read the article and the comments

Laura Ling and Euna Lee stood trial today

Just like I mentioned in the previous post about the stand off between the North and South Korean navies, isn't it also a coincidence that Kim Jong Il would have the trial on the two journalists the exact same day that Obama gives his big speech in Cairo? Kim Jong Il is doing everything he can to push Obama's button, and in this case to try and divert attention from his speech to this trial and the naval confrontation. It's only the beginning.
Rees

from The Korea Times
06-04-2009

2 US Journalists Stand Trial in NK

Two American journalists stood trial Thursday in North Korea on charges of illegal entry and
``hostile acts'' in a case that could send them to a labor camp for 10 years, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media venture, were arrested March 17 near the North Korean border while on a reporting trip to China.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch earlier Thursday that the trial would begin at 3 p.m. (Korean time), AP said.

The trial was taking place at a time of mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the regime's provocative nuclear test last week.

As discussions continued at the United Nations and in Washington on how to punish the regime for its defiance, there were fears the women could become political pawns in any negotiations North Korea undertakes.

AP quoted analyst Choi Eun-suk, a professor of North Korean law at Kyungnam University, as saying the court could convict and sentence the women to labor, and then use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S.

``The North is likely to release and deport them to the U.S. ― if negotiations with the U.S. go well,'' Choi was quoted as saying.

``One explanation of North Korea's behavior is that Pyongyang is trying to catch Washington's attention. It believes the Obama administration has not made North Korea a priority,'' David Straub of Stanford University's Korean studies program was quoted as saying.

Back home, the reporters' families pleaded for clemency.

``All we can do is hope the North Korean government will show leniency,'' Ling's sister, TV journalist Lisa Ling, was quoted as saying in an emotional plea at a California vigil Wednesday night. ``If at any point they committed a transgression, then our families are deeply, deeply sorry. We know the girls are sorry as well.''

N.Korean Patrol Boat in standoff with S.Korean Navy

Wow, what a coincidence that something like this would happen on the exact same day that Obama gives his big speech in Cairo.
Rees

from The Korea Times
06-04-2009 18:12

NK Boat Returns After Standoff in West Sea

A North Korean patrol boat intruded over the South Korean side of their western sea border Thursday, but retreated after a standoff that lasted nearly an hour, an official here said.

The intrusion took place at 2:47 p.m. about 12 km off the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, near which deadly naval battles erupted between the divided states in 1999 and 2002, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said.

The boat returned at 3:38 p.m. after repeated warnings by South Korean naval forces guarding the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

The standoff came amid high tension in the Yellow Sea after North Korea warned last week against the safety of U.S. and South Korean vessels operating near the maritime border.

North Korea says the NLL ― drawn by a U.S. commander at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce ― should be drawn farther south.

"The North Korean boat reached 1.6 kilometers into the South Korean side," the official said. "It appears the boat trespassed over the border while chasing Chinese fishing boats that were illegally operating."

But the official did not rule out the possibility that North Korea had deliberately sent the vessel to further raise tension in the Yellow Sea.

South Korea radioed a warning message to the boat once before and twice after it trespassed, he said, adding the incident marks the third time North Korea has breached the maritime border this year.

N.Korea's ICBM is on the launch Pad

from Closing Velocity

North Korea set to fire long-range missile, news report says
from The Los Angeles Times
By John M. Glionna
June 2, 2009

Reporting from Seoul -- North Korea has positioned its most sophisticated long-range ballistic missile at a launch site for a test that could come within weeks, a newspaper here reported Monday.

The regime, which conducted a nuclear test in May, raising tensions worldwide, could fire its missile June 16, when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is to meet with President Obama in Washington, according to the report.

In recent days, North Korea has ordered all shipping traffic out of waters off its west coast, a ban it said would be in effect through July.

The moves come as the U.N. Security Council contemplates new sanctions against North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test and launching five short-range missiles last month.

The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper in Seoul reported that the new missile was set for launch from the Dongchang-ni launch site on North Korea's west coast and could be a version of the Taepodong-2 fired in April. The report, citing unnamed sources, said the missile had a range of up to 4,000 miles and could reach Alaska.

Both South Korea and Japan said Monday that a new test could come within weeks.

"Given that North Korea has carried out a nuclear test, we can't deny the possibility that they will further test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said at a news conference in Tokyo.

Without mentioning the new missile, South Korea's President Lee said in a radio address that Seoul would not tolerate further provocations.

The North's "second nuclear test last week brought great disappointment and shock not only to our people, but the entire world," Lee said. He echoed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' assertion that the world would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.

During a news conference Monday in Manila, where he was meeting with Filipino military officials, Gates confirmed that Pyongyang appeared to be readying a long-range missile. But "at this point, it's not clear what they're going to do."

Gates later left for Alaska, where he viewed a key part of the U.S. missile defense system, the ground-based interceptor silos.

Speaking after his tour of the silos, Gates said the North's test had solidified support for missile defense and that the program should be a "source of comfort" for the U.S. public.

"If there were a launch from a rogue state such as North Korea, I have good confidence that we would be able to deal with it," Gates said.

In the 2010 budget, he proposed cutting more than $1 billion from missile defense, halting the planned expansion of the interceptors from 30 to 44.

After the North Korean test, some experts have suggested rethinking those cuts. But Gates told reporters, "The 30 interceptors we have are adequate for years to come to deal with the North Korean threat as we see it developing."

He said North Korea would not be able to deploy a significant number of long-range missiles in a short period. If it decides to expand its capabilities, the U.S. will have "ample time" to add interceptors, he said.

South Korean newspapers have reported that a train carrying a long-range missile arrived at the base, 120 miles northwest of Pyongyang, where a launch pad has been set up. The reports speculated that leader Kim Jong Il might visit the site soon.

On Friday, Pyongyang's state-run news agency said the nation had "a right to conduct as many nuclear tests or missile launches as it wants in the event that the supreme interests of the state are infringed upon."

Analysts say Pyongyang may be looking to disrupt the summit between Lee and Obama, who will discuss the ongoing crisis on the peninsula. Pyongyang's last rocket launch, in April, was timed to coincide with an international summit in Europe.

Choi Choon-heum, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, said an ICBM launch is the next step in the North's goal to become a formidable power. "North Korea gained confidence from mid-range missiles," he said. "Now it is moving on to the long one."

Other analysts agreed that a missile launch appeared certain if the United Nations lays out new sanctions.

"North Korea has said that if the U.N. Security Council agrees on sanctions, it would stage a nuclear test or missile test," said Paik Hak-soon, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at Sejong Institute near Seoul.

"They think this is their chance to test-fire an ICBM. They're thinking: Let's get a status of a nuclear state. And besides that, we can achieve a capability for the ICBM."

http://www.blogger.com/john.glionna@latimes.com

Times staff writer Julian E. Barnes in Manila and Alaska and Ju-min Park of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Caution: Bloody Century Ahead - A Disturbing Prediction

from Pajamas Media
June 1, 2009
by Matt Patterson

The West, which invented and maintains the political and economic institutions that underpin the modern global system, is experiencing demographic, economic, spiritual, and military contraction. The result may be a bloody 21st century.

Consider first demographics: As Mark Steyn and others have extensively documented, European birth rates have plummeted. Playgrounds and day cares are ominously empty all over the Continent. Many countries, like Italy and Spain, have entered the demographic point of no return and are now unable to replace their populations. (The United States is in much better demographic shape. It assimilates its immigrants better and generally holds a birth rate slightly above the replacement level, which is roughly 2.1 children per woman.)

But plunging birth rates are only the beginning of Europe’s troubles. Brussels, Paris, London, and cities all across the Continent teem with large, resentful, entirely unassimilated immigrant communities, some of whom occasionally riot and set fire to entire towns. Europe is in a deadly catch-22; it needs these immigrants to fund their lavish welfare states, yet refuses to assimilate them out of cultural cowardice.

As the West wastes away demographically, it also languishes spiritually, largely as a result of crushing nanny states which deliver comfort at the expense of liberty and self-reliance. The United States was once the sole hold-out against this Western trend — no more. President Barack Obama, openly and with popular support, has pledged to move America towards the welfare statism favored in Europe.

Economically, the entire West is on the precipice. Militarily, Europe is a eunuch, with only token forces meagerly and ineptly deployed. The U.S. military still strides the globe — for now. But how our armed forces will fare in the face of Obama’s multi-trillion dollar deficits is not hard to predict. Something will have to give way for the president to pay for his promised universal health care, and the Defense Department will prove an irresistible temptation for him, as it always does for Democratic presidents.

These symptoms of Western ill health, of course, intertwine and reinforce each other: welfare state economic policies drug populations into submissive languor, and drain resources from defense budgets; plummeting birth rates deepen economic woes by depriving governments of tax revenues, etc.

Our adversaries have taken note of this Western contraction and are hastening to fill the power vacuum. Russia invades Georgia with no consequence whatsoever and bullies and threatens other neighbors with equal impunity. North Korea fires ballistic missiles over Japan (a U.S. protectorate) and now, God help us, has openly tested a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and the Taliban regroup in Western Pakistan, and Iran plows forward in its nuclear ambitions and claims to have recently test-fired a long range surface to surface missile.

Given these trends, the following scenarios are not hard to imagine. Some are likely, others certain, but all are possible in the coming decades:

1) The mad mullahs of Iran gain a nuclear weapon and follow through on their threat to erase the Jewish state from the map. The Iranians see weakness in the West and foresee minimal retaliation. Perhaps they are wrong in this calculus; either way, seven million souls vanish from the planet and the West is complicit in another Holocaust.

2) Russia, seeing no push back from its invasion of Georgia and seeing the United States all but renounce its missile defenses, begins to swallow its former slave states — Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, et al — one by one. It shuts off fuel supplies to Western Europe and blackmails them into accepting this Soviet-light expansionism.

3) European society, no longer under any credible American protection and threatened from without by the encroaching Russia and from within by its increasingly violent immigrant population, crumbles. As has happened so often in the past, a dictator steps in to restore order.

4) Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, segments of the American population resist the sudden and convulsive socialization of their republic — peacefully first, then more forcefully. China refuses to buy any more of our debt, and trillion dollar deficits finally overwhelm the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen. The U.S. economy fails, dragging the entire world down into depression, sparking global violence and chaos. China moves on Taiwan and the North Koreans push south, both confident that the United States is in no position to stop them.

Do these scenarios seem far-fetched? Since the first draft of this column was written and submitted, North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the 1953 armistice which ended the Korean War and threatened to attack United States and South Korean vessels, while Iran brazenly deploys warships into international waters.

Buckle up. Bloody century ahead.

Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Crisis nears as U.S. slams Israeli settlement policy

June 1, 2009
from Haaretz
By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya

Tensions between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu's government are nearing crisis levels after senior American officials harshly criticized the prime minister and his policies yesterday.

"The Israelis apparently wanted to check if we are serious on settlements, and they found out that we are," a senior official told Haaretz. "This has nothing to do with the speech in Cairo, and it's going to be our position after the speech in Cairo, because we believe it's in Israel's long-term security interests."

Last night Defense Minister Ehud Barak met in New York with the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. The American told Barak that the U.S. was no longer willing to return to the understandings between the Sharon and Olmert governments and the Bush administration, which allowed continued settlement construction.
Advertisement

Mitchell said the administration was particularly unhappy about the Netanyahu government's unwillingness to recognize the principle of two states for two peoples.

Mitchell also emphasized that the U.S. does not accept the concept of "natural growth" for the settlements.

"We did not hear from the Bush administration about any of these so-called understandings with Israel on the settlements - all of which were supposedly oral understandings between different people every time," said one senior American official. "But we've never heard a thing about them - they certainly weren't formal agreements between our governments. "The Israelis want us to commit to oral understandings we have never heard about, but at the same time they are not willing to commit to written agreements their government has signed, like the road map and commitment to the two-state solution."

The disagreement over the understandings concerning the settlements produced an embarrassing encounter in London last week during a meeting between Mitchell, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor and a number of Netanyahu's advisers.

At the meeting, the Israelis claimed there was a letter between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon stating that the settlement blocs would remain in Israeli hands, so construction is permitted there. Mitchell showed the Israelis that one of the letter's sections discusses the principle of two states for two peoples. "That is also written in the letter - do you agree to that?" he asked.

Despite the growing American pressure, which also came out in the leak to the New York Times that the U.S. intended to end its support for Israel in UN debates, Netanyahu continues to say he will not agree to a total freeze of construction in the settlements.

In a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday, Netanyahu said that "we will agree not to take any new territory, but we will not agree to freeze life in the settlements."
Click to read the article and the comments

Obama Is Destroying Our Relationship With Israel

Obama’s Foreign Policy Experiment Goes Up In Smoke - again

Abbas’s Three No’s
from Commentary Magazine
Eric Trager

Three months after Syria, Jordan, and Egypt lost substantial territory during the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab League convened in Khartoum and issued its infamous “three no’s”: no peace with Israel; no recognition of Israel; and no negotiations with Israel. Yesterday in Cairo, an uncharacteristically defiant Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered an updated version of these no’s: “No amending the Arab peace plan; No normalization without withdrawal; and no to the Jewishness of the Israeli state.”

You may wonder where a feckless, powerless, and unpopular leader of a non-state entity gets off setting the ground rules for future negotiations with the elected government of a regional power. As Jonathan has pointed out, the Obama White House has thrown its support so strongly behind Abbas - and issued such a strong condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion - that the Palestinian leader can hardly contain his newfound confidence.

Let this be a lesson to those who insist that a more “even-handed” approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would produce faster peace dividends. If anything, Abbas’s sudden bravado indicates that tilting against Israel makes its adversaries less compromising and makes peace prospects more hopeless. Consider for a moment that two of Abbas’s three no’s - his refusal to amend the Arab peace plan and vocal opposition to Israel’s Jewish character - can be collapsed into one: an insistence on Palestinians’ “right of return” to Israel proper. This is a stipulation that no Israeli government would ever accept, while Obama rejected the “right of return” explicitly as “not an option” during his presidential campaign.

In short, chalk up another failure for President Obama’s ongoing experimentation with American foreign policy.
Click to go to the article and read the comments

Obama rallies the World against Israel

Saudis to push Obama to get tough with Israel
Jun 01, 2009 at 16:06

Saudi Arabia will seek assurances that Washington is ready to get tough with Israel in Middle East peace talks when U.S. President Barack Obama makes his first visit to the Muslim kingdom on Wednesday.

After working since January to revive its 2002 Arab peace initiative, Riyadh wants to confirm that Obama is willing - unlike former president George W. Bush - to put muscle into efforts toward a two-state peace pact between the Israelis and Palestinians, analysts said.

"The only thing that can move the Israelis is the Americans," said Mansour al-Mansour, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Riyadh.

"If the U.S. is determined to do it, with a strong president, they can do it," he told the news agency AFP.

The Saudis say they are hopeful of sealing a budding partnership with Obama's administration after what some call the "lost years" of Bush.

"Obama and his team are coming with a lot of credibility," said a Saudi government policy advisor. "We are on the same wavelength."

But the way ahead for the world's leading superpower and a leader of the Arab bloc remains fraught with challenges.

The United States has to wrestle with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to accept the two-state solution or halt expansions of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

And Obama is likely to press Saudi King Abdullah to make diplomatic overtures toward Israel and to add juice to efforts to pull rival Palestinian factions together, diplomats and experts in Riyadh said.

While strongly backing peace efforts, the Saudis have been weak at on-the-ground follow-through, such as uniting Palestinian factions in talks, a task which has been left to Egyptian mediators.

On the regional front, both the Americans and Saudis are struggling to come up with a workable strategy to deal with Iran, Riyadh's Gulf rival which is suspected of seeking nuclear weapons.

Both sides agree, though, that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians is a keystone to hemming in Tehran, the policy advisor said.

Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for discussions and a meal with Abdullah, before heading to Cairo for a long-promised major address to the world's Muslims.

The Saudis have warmed to Obama after relations became strained with Bush over the U.S. "war on terror" and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

They have been impressed with Obama's appointment of former Northern Ireland peace negotiator George Mitchell, who has made two "listening visits" to Riyadh so far this year, as a special envoy for Middle East peace.

Abdullah has actively sought to be certain he can trust Obama, even making a point of asking visiting Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva about the U.S. leader's character at a May 17 meeting, a Lula aide said.

Riyadh expects the Cairo speech will reiterate U.S. backing for the two-state solution set out in the Arab peace initiative, for which the Arab League renewed its commitment at a March summit.

The initiative offers blanket Arab recognition of Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders, with both sides sharing Jerusalem for their capitals.

Saudi foreign ministry spokesman Osama Nugali said it is too early to get excited about a possible peace deal, given Netanyahu's defiance during his meeting with Obama last month in Washington.

"What we have been seeing is negative statements coming out of Israel, which are of great concern for the whole peace of the region," Nugali said.

Obama and the king are also expected to address security issues, as well as Saudi-Iraqi relations, Pakistan, oil prices and the more than 200 remaining Guantanamo detainees.

Washington, which aims to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, has been perturbed by Abdullah's refusal to embrace Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and to open an embassy in Baghdad, diplomats said.

Riyadh worries that Maliki is too close to Iran, and that when U.S. troops withdraw the two countries could become a powerful Shi'ite Muslim bloc in the majority Sunni region.

"We don't believe that Iraq is viable without a substantial American presence," said the Saudi government advisor.

Obama is also expected to urge Abdullah to accept some of the roughly 100 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo into the Saudi rehabilitation programme for Islamist militants.

Officials of the programme have been reluctant, stressing that its success in turning former militants into productive citizens is deeply rooted in Saudi family culture.

"It's a bad idea, because they didn't grow up there," said Christopher Boucek, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington who has studied the programme.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

Obama discussing ways to PUNISH Israel - Ye must obey Obama!

image by rees

article from The Lid
Monday, June 1, 2009
Obama Discussing Ways To PUNISH Israel

The other shoe is about to drop, President Obama "great friend of Israel" is having discussion on the best way to screw Israel. Based on their discussions two weeks ago, Barack Obama and his fellow democrats want Jews living in the West Bank and Gaza to stop having babies so they can freeze the size of existing settlements.

At the same time Obama is making demands on the Palestinian side:

- like recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, no that's not it,
- renouncing their call for violent overthrow of the entire state of Israel, wait he didn't do that either,
- oh I got it no Palestinian Jay-walking and no stealing their neighbor's cable TV signal.

Among the ways that Obama is looking to punish Israel and endear himself to the Muslim word is not vetoing anti-Israel UN Security resolutions and to publicly denounce Israel.

More below:

U.S. Weighs Tactics on Israeli Settlement
By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.

Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”

Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.

But, the official added, “Israel is a critical United States ally, and no one in this administration expects that not to continue.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

White House officials said Mr. Obama would not make the Cairo speech entirely about the Arab-Israeli conflict, but would instead seek to engage Muslims on the panoply of issues facing Islam and the West, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

But the core issue, administration officials said, is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “I want to use the occasion to deliver a broader message about how the United States can change for the better its relationship with the Muslim world,” Mr. Obama told reporters last week. “But certainly, the issue of Middle East peace is something that is going to need to be addressed. It is a critical factor in the minds of many Arabs in countries throughout the region and beyond the region.”

The trip, stemming from a visit scheduled to commemorate trans-Atlantic ties — Mr. Obama plans to walk the beaches of Normandy with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and visit the site of the concentration camp that his great-uncle helped liberate at Buchenwald in Germany — will also now offer Mr. Obama an opportunity to define how he plans to navigate America’s relationship with the Muslim world.

He will begin the Middle East leg of the trip in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he will take King Abdullah a wish list from not just himself, but from Israeli and Palestinian officials as well. Officials said Mr. Obama was hoping that King Abdullah would agree to make an overture to Israel that could, in turn, get Israel to move more quickly on a peace process.

Israeli officials would love to see Saudi Arabia open an interests section in Tel Aviv (Saudi Arabia would never put one in Jerusalem because Palestinians see the city as the site of their future capital), or issue a few symbolic tourist visas for Israelis, or agree to hold open meetings with Israeli counterparts. These would be a tall order for the Arab kingdom, which has, thus far, eschewed taking much of a role that could be seen as acknowledging Israel.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials want Mr. Obama to prod King Abdullah to provide more aid for the Palestinian Authority, which the Saudis have largely set aside in recent months as the Palestinian political system has become increasingly fractured.

White House officials said they wanted greater Arab acceptance of Mr. Obama’s peace plans. But past American presidents — particularly George W. Bush — had sought the same without much luck.

“Now that Obama has raised the pressure on the Israelis when it comes to settlement freeze, it’s time to start raising pressure on the Arab states for something in return,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former negotiator for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. “Saudi is the key to unlocking the rest of the Arab world.”

Saudi Arabia may also be part of the key to addressing the morass in Pakistan. Obama administration officials are hoping to get Saudi Arabia to use its influence with the Pakistani opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, to figure out a way to bring some stability to Pakistan’s tumultuous politics as President Asif Ali Zardari becomes increasingly unpopular.

In addition, Mr. Obama will probably touch on his outreach to Iran, and his withdrawal plans for Iraq. He will talk about his decision to shut down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and refer in his speech to the contributions of Muslims to American society and the world as a whole, aides said.

But Mr. Obama’s remarks in Egypt, though aimed at the Muslim world, will also be carefully parsed in Israel, foreign policy experts said. The president will be walking a fine line between reassuring Israel that America will remain a guarantor of Israeli security and between sounding a warning that he is getting impatient with the slow movement toward Palestinian statehood.

When asked on Thursday what he would do if Mr. Netanyahu continued to balk at a settlement freeze, Mr. Obama said he was not yet ready to offer an “or else.” “In my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements; to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts; to work with the Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce,” Mr. Obama said. “That conversation only took place last week.”
Click to read the article and the comments

Obama's "King of the Middle East" title in jeopardy

image by rees

Israeli Rejection of Settlement Freeze: Trouble for Obama
from Time Magazine
By Tim McGirk / Jerusalem
Monday, Jun. 01, 2009

If President Barack Obama thought he could deliver the promise of a few Israeli concessions during his upcoming Cairo speech to the Muslim world, he was sorely mistaken.

Far more than his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama has been leaning hard on Israel to halt its expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and to declare its readiness to accept a "two-state solution," meaning an Israeli and a Palestinian state living side by side. But the mood in Jerusalem is defensive. At a Sunday cabinet meeting, Israeli ministers openly defied the U.S. demands. Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio, "I want to make it clear that the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria (The West Bank)."

In response to Washington's pressure, the rightwing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had thought it might earn a little breathing space with the Obama Administration by destroying a few illegal settlers' outposts. But even that has gone badly. No sooner did the army bulldozers plow under a few hilltop outposts — usually nothing more than a few trailers and shacks built on private Palestinian land — then the settlers were back with renewed zeal, along with nails and concrete to re-build their smashed homes. As one settler, Ariyeh Davis told the Israeli Internet news agency Ynet, "Our answer is 'expansion against expulsion'." He added: "God willing, we'll build new places, and from 300,000 residents in Judea and Samaria (the Biblical name for the West Bank), we'll become 600,000."

Obama's Cairo speech is supposed to set a new course for U.S. policy in the turbulent Middle East; the key to its success is to promote the image that his Administration is taking a more even-handed approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict than did his predecessor. But this has not gone down well with Netanyahu's hawkish cabinet, which is grumbling in the Israeli press that Obama has gone too far the other way, supposedly granting concessions to Palestinians that are "unfair" to Israelis. The Israeli press made much of the fact that Obama's meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington last week seemed much more cordial than his strained encounter earlier with Netanyahu. A cartoon in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth showed Obama and Abbas laughing chummily while throwing darts at Netanyahu's portrait.

At the core of the dispute between the two allies is Washington's insistence that Israel honor its past accords and halt all construction within the West Bank settlements, whose expansion is seen as an obstacle to peace. The Palestinians say that the settlements, with their road networks and military security cordons, are chopping and dicing the territory into so many pieces that its own state could never be viable.

The Israelis want Washington to permit the "natural growth" of the settlements — i.e., allow the children of existing settlers to build new homes — which U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says she opposes. The Israelis also argue that while sacrifices are being asked of them, little is being demanded of the Palestinians. President Abbas, who, according to aides, came away from Washington convinced of "Obama's seriousness" in pushing Israel to remove settlements, says he refuses to hold peace talks with Netanyahu until he publicly backs the two-state solution, something the premier has been loathe to do.

Meantime, the Palestinian leader is trying rather blatantly to show Washington that while he may have lost Gaza to the Islamic militants Hamas, his security forces are still capable of policing the West Bank. On Sunday, Abbas' forces raided a Hamas stronghold in the West Bank town of Qalqilya; six were killed in the resulting clash. This may be a way for Abbas to prove to Obama that he's fulfilling his security promises, but the shoot-out could wreck ongoing talks in Egypt between him and Hamas over forming a unity government that would bring the West Bank and Gaza under a single Palestinian leadership. As a Hamas official in Gaza told TIME: "All this proves is that Abbas is carrying out the bidding of our enemy Israel."

For now, all Abbas has to do is sit quietly while Netanyahu takes the heat from Washington — and from his own fractious coalition partners. The cabinet right-wingers want Netanyahu to stand firm against Obama's demands to halt the settlements, while Labor, in the words of Knesset Member Ophir Pines, wants Netanyahu to face his "moment of truth." Says Labor's Pines, "The government needs to decide whether it prefers good relations with the American administration or whether it prefers the illegal settlement in the territories. All of the talk about natural growth in the settlements is a bluff, and the Americans know that," said Pines. Obama may just call Netanyahu's bluff, which will undoubtedly complicate the friendship between the U.S. and its closest Middle Eastern partner. But the chances of reviving peace talks between Israelis and Arabs will be the better for it.

— With reporting by Jamil Hamad / Bethlehem
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

CONFIRMED: N.Korea Prepares ICBM for Mid-June Launch

from Fox News.com
Monday, June 01, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is preparing to launch its most advanced missile, believed to be capable of reaching Alaska, from its west coast near China, news reports said Monday.

With the launch, the reclusive communist country could thumb its nose at U.N. Security Council attempts to rein it in after last week's nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches.

One South Korean report said the launch could be ready by the time South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Barack Obama on June 16.

South Korean news reports said the North has transported a long-range missile to a newly completed launch pad. And Yonhap news agency said South Korea is studying an intelligence report that the North has ordered troops along the west coast to double their stocks of ammunition.

Yonhap cited an unnamed government official as saying vehicle activity to and from military bases along the coast has increased. South Korea's Defense Ministry declined to confirm the report.

U.S Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking at a news conference in the Philippines, said North Korea appears to be working on a long-range missile but it's not clear yet what they plan to do with it. [STUPID STATEMENT OF THE YEAR! HEY GATES - THEY PROBABLY PLAN TO LAUNCH IT, YOU IDIOT! - my comments]

Lee, hosting a conference of Southeast Asian leaders on the southern island of Jeju, warned North Korea against any provocation.

"If North Korea turns its back on dialogue and peace and dares to carry out military threats and provocations, the Republic of Korea will never tolerate that," Lee said in his regular radio address. "I want to make clear that there won't be any compromise on things that threaten our nation's security."

The new missile could be ready to launch as soon as mid-June, in time for a summit between Lee and President Barack Obama in Washington on June 16, according to the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper.

Adding to tensions this week, the trial starts Thursday in Pyongyang of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, accused of entering the country illegally and engaging in "hostile acts."

North Korea faced strong international criticism after its last long-range missile launch, on April 5. The North said the launch was of a rocket intended to put a satellite in orbit. That Taepodong-2 rocket flew about 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers), crossing over Japan before crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

In late April, the North threatened to conduct nuclear and long-range missile tests unless the Security Council apologized for criticizing the launch. On Friday, it threatened to take a further "self-defense" measure if the Security Council provokes it. That threat was seen as referring to an ICBM test.

In another sign that a new launch is in the works, the North has designated a large area off its west coast as a "no-sail" zone through the end of next month, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing unidentified intelligence officials.

Experts said the preparations were especially significant because the North has never launched a long-range missile from the northwestern base.

Kim Tae-woo, vice president of Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said he thinks the North chose the site because of its proximity to China, making it more risky for the U.S. to strike.

The site is about 40 miles from the Chinese border city of Dandong.

The missile being prepared for launch is believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 4,000 miles, the JoongAng Ilbo reported, citing an unnamed South Korean official.
That would put Alaska within striking range.

On Monday, the North said again that it is being provoked by South Korea and the United States, saying that the number of spy planes operating in its airspace has risen dramatically.

"The U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppets perpetrated at least 200 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK in May, or 30 cases more than those in the same month of last year," it said in a report in its official Korean Central News Agency.

The DPRK is an abbreviation of North Korea's official name.

The North's missile and nuclear programs have been considered a top regional security concern, though the regime is not yet believed to have mastered the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.
Click to read the article and the comments

Hamas orders West Bank cells to attack Abbas forces and Israel

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
May 31, 2009

Hamas gears up to shoot missiles from West Bank

DEBKAfile's military sources disclose that Sunday night, May 31, Hamas commanders in Damascus and Gaza ordered all West Bank cells to unleash a terrorist assault on the West Bank with bomb cars, roadside bombs, snipers and missiles. They were told to set their sights on all Palestinian Authority officials including Mahmoud Abbas as well as taking aim at Israeli cities north of Tel Aviv.

Our sources quote the Hamas directive as saying: "From tonight, you must go into action without delay against every Palestinian/Israel target within reach, using all the resources prepared in recent months."

The directive continues: "There are no limits on targets, the more senior, central and important, the better."

Israel's homeland defense authority was notified of Hamas' declaration of war Sunday as it embarked on "Turning Point 3", Israel's largest civil defense exercise ever, designed to simulate simultaneous missile attacks from Iran, Syria, Hizballah from Lebanon and Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

The new Hamas directive placed Sharon towns north of Tel Aviv squarely within its sights. A number of Qassam missiles are believed to be hidden in Palestinian towns in Samaria, northern West Bank.

Hamas leaders' decision to unleash violence was triggered by three events:

1. In 48 hours, the fundamentalist Palestinian terrorists lost two top West Bank leaders in battle. Friday morning, May 29, an Israeli Border Guard counter-terror unit shot dead its Hebron commander, Abdullah Majid Dudin, when he resisted arrest.

Before dawn Sunday, May 31, a special Palestinian Authority unit killed Hamas' northern Samaria commander Muhammad Saman after a seven-hour shootout in Qalqilya.

PA troops also detained 22 members.

Hamas leaders, convinced that Israeli and Palestinian security forces acted in conjunction to liquidate their top commanders, determined not to let this go unanswered.

2. They believe that the Palestinian Authority US-trained security force directed by Gen. Keith Dayton, is not up to much and a determined Hamas offensive would blow the Fatah-led force away on the West Bank as easily as its comrades were defeated in the Gaza Strip.

3. Hamas is worried by the way the US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are cooperating, as their White House talks Thursday, May 28 indicated. Its leaders are also fiercely opposed to Obama's forthcoming address Thursday, June offering America's hand of peace to the Muslim world.

From their command centers in Damascus and the Gaza Strip, Hamas chiefs have concluded that the most effective way to scuttle the US president's Middle East projects and his diplomatic and financial backing for Abbas' Fatah-led administration in Ramallah is to set the West Bank on fire by a wholesale terror offensive against the Palestinian Authority and Israeli urban targets.
Click to read the article

Obama Is Stabbing Israel In The Back

from The Jerusalem Post
By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
May 31, 2009

Israel fumes as Abbas undermines Netanyahu during US visit

Senior Israeli officials were dismissive and defiant on Saturday night, following Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's visit to Washington, highlighted by a report in which PA officials said the leadership is waiting for US pressure to bring down the Netanyahu government.
The report in Friday's Washington Post came a day after Abbas's White House meeting with US President Barack Obama.

"It will take a couple of years" for this American pressure to force Netanyahu from office, the Washington Post quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying, presumably bringing opposition head Tzipi Livni to power.

"With all due respect to the United States, our strategic ally, we are an independent democratic country, and our political leadership is chosen by internal democratic processes," coalition chairman and Likud MK Ze'ev Elkin said on Saturday night.

A senior government official recalled former foreign minister Abba Eban's declaration that the Palestinians "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Let that not happen this time as well."

"It would be a pity if the Palestinian leadership threw away the very real chance that exists to move forward with this Israeli government on our proposed three-track approach of political, economic and security issues. If they decide they don't want to work to move the process forward, they'll have no one to blame but themselves," the official added.

According to the report, Abbas and his leadership believe the government would likely fall if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu surrendered to American demands for a total freeze on construction in West Bank settlements.

"If it is true that Abu Mazen [Abbas] believes Livni will be a more comfortable negotiating partner for the Palestinians, then it shows the wisdom of the Israeli voter, who decided to place someone else in charge," Elkin declared.

He insisted the government was stable - "I think every member of the coalition is responsible enough to enable this government to last its appointed term" - and that it would not easily give in to American demands.

"Our experience with American dictates in the very recent past has not been a good one," he said. "It was the United States that insisted on allowing Hamas to run in the Palestinian elections. I don't think this government will very easily cave to demands that are not carefully considered and responsible, no matter how much we value our strategic partnership with the United States."

Abbas was interviewed the day before his Thursday meeting with the US president, during which Obama reiterated his calls on Israel "to stop the settlements, to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts, to work with the Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce."

Setting out what the newspaper called "a hardline position," the Palestinian leader conditioned a resumption of talks with Israel on Netanyahu's agreement to a halt in all settlement building and formal Israeli government acceptance of Palestinian statehood.

Abbas added that he would not even assist Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, in trying to encourage Arab states to begin warming relations with Israel until Israel accepted these conditions.

"We can't talk to the Arabs until Israel agrees to freeze settlements and recognizes the two-state solution," Abbas was quoted as saying. "Until then, we can't talk to anyone."

However, the Washington Post went on, "Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze - if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while US pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office.

"'It will take a couple of years,' one official breezily predicted."

Abbas "rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession - such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees," the article continued.

Abbas intends to remain passive, he told the paper.

"I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements… Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality... The people are living a normal life."

Abbas also told the Washington Post that former prime minister Ehud Olmert accepted the principle of a "right of return" to Israel for Palestinian refugees and offered to resettle thousands of Palestinians in Israel. He said Olmert proposed a Palestinian state on 97 percent of the West Bank, and showed him its contours on a map.

Abbas said he turned down Olmert's peace offer because "the gaps were too wide."

"What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position," wrote the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, who conducted the interview along with a colleague, "is what it says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and Arab governments."

While the Bush administration placed the onus for change in the Middle East on the Palestinians, Diehl wrote, the Obama administration had shifted the focus to Israel.

The upshot is that "in the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian," Diehl wrote.

Under George W. Bush, the Palestinians knew that "until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel," wrote Diehl.

But Obama, with his repeated demands for a settlement freeze, "has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud."

Diehl wrote that Netanyahu and the Likud Party had not reconciled themselves "to the idea that Israel will have to give up most of the West Bank and evacuate tens of thousands of settlers" for a permanent accord.

"But Palestinians remain a long way from swallowing reality as well," he added. "Setting aside Hamas and its insistence that Israel must be liquidated, Abbas - usually described as the most moderate of Palestinian leaders - last year helped doom Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, by rejecting a generous outline for Palestinian statehood."

Olmert's offer "was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of Bush or Bill Clinton," wrote Diehl. "It's almost impossible to imagine Obama, or any Israeli government, going further."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's spokesman Tzahi Moshe confirmed on Saturday night that the foreign minister would go to Russia and Belarus on Monday for talks "that are part of the special strategic connection which the minister believes Israel has with Russia."

In Moscow, Lieberman will meet with President Dmitri Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, "and will discuss many issues, including Iran and the strengthening of Israel's relationship with 'Eastern bloc' countries," Moshe said.
Click to read the rest of the article and the comments

One Nation Under Obama - withOUT liberty and justice for all

The president is co-opting whatever he needs to remake this country. Why not religion too?

from Pajamas Media
May 30, 2009
by Awr Hawkins
image by rees

Barack Obama has long been known for his socialistic convictions and messianic tendencies. That he therefore wants to rule rather than represent and to dictate rather than debate is not hard to understand. And while he may not come right out and say it, he expects us to pledge allegiance to him. He said as much when he told Republican House members just three days after his inauguration that the quicker they quit listening to voices that run counter to his, the better for us all.

Obama has been encouraged down this kingly path by some very unsavory characters. Just a month before the 2008 presidential elections were held, he drew the praise of the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who said “when Obama talks ‘the messiah is absolutely speaking.’” And more recently, on April 24, 2009, he drew praise from communist dictators from “Boliva, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela” who are trusting Obama to join them in their efforts to prove that “capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction” by incorporating everything from health care to cell service under the guise of “human rights” — and thus under the purview of government entitlements at taxpayer expense.

The scary news is that our president is a self-aggrandizing anti-capitalist with or without the support of Farrakhan and the Latin communists, and therefore has no problem overseeing a federal government eager to take over more aspects of our everyday lives. For the more Obama co-opts, the more we have to focus on him. And please don’t fail to understand that this includes religion in the United States — especially Christianity.

Obama wants his judgments and convictions to be our guide in all spheres of life, even when his judgments run 180 degrees counter to the natural law that guided our Founders or the Bibles that guided the Puritans. Therefore, it was as easy for him to skip the National Day of Prayer on May 7, 2009, and open the door to the legalized killing of “days-old unborn children for [stem cell] research” as it was for him to tell GM what type of cars they’ll be building in the future if they want to remain extant.

Obama has long been opposed to the traditional values that undergird this nation and has been wise enough to war against those values in the name of those values, thus disorienting those whom he can’t intellectually disarm. For example, when he discusses any of his personal positions that go against the Christian faith, such as his pro-abortion stance, he always makes certain to mention that he’s a Christian in the process. The implication being that Christianity’s chief characteristic is some vague acceptance of all positions as equally valid instead of the orthodox, historical Christian insistence on truth and justice, good and evil.

Ultimately, this allows him to dismiss Christianity’s ethical claims on the life of the believer altogether. This was clear when he spoke about the tensions between his pro-abortion stance and Christianity at the Call to Renewal Conference in 2006: “Democracy demands that … religiously motivated [individuals] translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values.”

This is also how Obama sidestepped the implications of his support for abortion when giving Notre Dame’s commencement address. He made it sound like the pro-abortion and anti-abortion positions are just two viable positions that Christians can hold. While he admitted that these two positions flow from “views … [which] are complex and even contradictory … [and] irreconcilable,” he wisely avoided the use of smaller but more important words such as “right” and “wrong,” and asked that members of the “irreconcilable” factions “honor the consciences” of those with whom they disagree on the abortion issue. Never mind that this tactic allowed him to continue down the path of supporting abortion without having to explain why he supports it or to justify his use of taxpayer dollars to fund the practice.

But how dare we expect the great and powerful Obama to explain himself, as if he too were a mere serf or subject, or even a run-of-the-mill politician from days gone by?

When it comes to economics, Obama’s mode of operation is similar to that which he uses when talking to religious universities and Christian congregations. Therefore, although he’s only been in office since January 20, 2009, he’s been able to move at a speed that disorients those he can’t convert and has succeeded in the quasi-nationalization of many banks, financial institutions, and the American auto industry. He’s openly setting his sights on our health care system now, which means the Latin American communist leaders who asked Obama to join their war against capitalism should feel encouraged that things are going their way here in the United States.

Of course, Obama always says government bailouts (takeovers) are just temporary and that he only resorts to them as a last-ditch effort to save the economy. But the fact that he has that cheese-eating grin on his face every time he announces more government involvement seems dubious.

In fact, in a style which only a two-bit revolutionary could love, the always-grinning Obama acts then explains or at best acts while explaining, so that by the time his explanation comes through it’s too late to do much more than go along with him. This is the epitome of what the late Harvard Professor Crane Brinton communicated in his book The Anatomy of Revolution, when he wrote of how extremists like Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin (and Obama) cannot wait until people share their views before acting, but must act and trust that the people will eventually see why the action was necessary to further the revolution.

The bottom line is this: Forget the “one nation under God” stuff and understand that for the foreseeable future we are to consider ourselves “one nation under Obama.” The quicker we figure this out, the easier the adjustment is going to be for us all.
Click to read the article and the comments