American military power in a steep decline

From the Warning Signs of Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know Caruba's Warning Signs

“Eliminating the terrorists of today with force will not guarantee protection from the terrorists of tomorrow. We have to transform the environments that give birth to these movements…It may be training young people so they can get jobs…it may be working to eliminate corruption and promote the rule of law…”

The Obama administration proposal that a jobs program be created for the militants in the Middle East was met with appropriate derision because what the jihadists need is killing. That’s what they are doing to Christians, Jews and others in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The quote above is by John Kerry, the Secretary of State, and to be fair, his February 18 Wall Street Journal commentary began by saying “The rise of violent extremism represents the pre-eminent challenge of the young 21st Century.

Military force is a rational and often necessary response to the wanton slaughters of children, mass kidnappings of schoolgirls, and beheading of innocents. But military force along won’t achieve victory.”

Kerry is wrong. History as recent as the mid-20th century is proof enough that the military defeat of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan was the only thing that ended the threat they represented. He was also wrong when he told a congressional committee that the world is a safer place these days when it is clear to anyone it is not.

We are being led by people who live in some alternative universe where pixie dust and unicorns exist.

The real question the Obama administration has to answer is why, since he took office in 2009, has he been systematically reducing the military power of the United States? By pulling our troops out of Iraq he created a vacuum filled by the Islamic State (ISIS) that now threatens the entire Middle East and parts of North Africa. He has since curtailed plans to pull most of our troops out of Afghanistan.

Out of sight of Americans, however, the key personnel, the leaders on which our military depends, have been subject to a purge. General Paul Vallely (Ret) has warned that “Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented,” adding that “He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

In late February, 84 former U.S. government officials, retired U.S. military leaders, and national security experts sent an open letter to the House and Senate leadership asking them to work together to end the harm that the Budget Control Act and sequestration is inflicting on our Armed Forces.

They deemed the trillion dollars of required defense spending cuts “a grave and growing danger to our national security…as threats intensify across the globe.” The cuts “are undermining the readiness of our forces today and investment in the critical capabilities they will need tomorrow.”

“In the last three years, the Army’s strength has been cut by nearly 100,000 soldiers. The Navy’s contingency response force is at one-third the level of what it should be. Less than half of the Air Force’s combat squadrons are fully ready. Approximately half of the Marine Corps non-deployed units lack sufficient personnel, equipment, and training.”

These were facts set forth in the National Defense Panel’s July 2014 report. It warned that if sequestration takes effect in fiscal year 2016, the U.S. would be facing an “immediate readiness crisis.”

This lack of readiness was the subject of a Wall Street Journal commentary, “Europe’s Defense Wanes as the Putin Threat Grows” by Ian Birrell, so it is not just the United States that lacks sufficient troops and weapons in the event of a war.

Birrell noted that “With fewer than 100,000 full-time troops, Great Britain now has a smaller army than during the mid-19th-century Crimean War.” Other members of NATO have cut their defense budgets in recent years. He warned that “As we fight this new Cold War, Western leaders need to relearn the old lessons of crisis management and deterrence that defeated Mr. Putin’s Soviet predecessors—and relearn them quickly.”

Recall that Secretary Kerry has gone on record saying that “climate change” is the greatest threat the U.S. and the world faces. Little wonder that Chuck Hegel resigned as the former Secretary of Defense given the pressure he was under from a White House indifferent to the real problems and threats the U.S. faces.

In 2014 the Pentagon released a “Climate Change Adaptation Forecast” and any defense funds diverted to this plan were just that much less than needed for our troops in the field and the real needs of the U.S. military. Are they supposed to be fighting melting ice bergs or staying ready for potential military threats from China or Russia?

An example of the idiotic political correctness, scarce Pentagon resources are being diverted to a plan to generate 50% of the Navy’s energy needs from “alternative sources” by 2020, including $3.5 billion for biofuels. You cannot fight a global war if the Navy cannot swiftly and easily acquire oil to run its ships that are not nuclear-powered and fly its aircraft.

At the same time, the U.S. has been reducing its stockpile of nuclear arms. The State Department’s Rose Gottemoeller, under-secretary for arms control and international security, recently told a group “The U.S. commitment to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons is unassailable.” She noted that the nation’s stockpile of active weapons is down 85% from maximum cold war levels, falling to 4,804 in 2013 from a high of 31,255, adding that “We still have more work to do.”

This completely ignores nuclear nations like North Korea who have bad intentions toward the U.S. and their neighbors and it runs completely contrary to the U.S. negotiations with Iran that would permit it to become a nuclear armed nation.

This is worse than diplomatic schizophrenia; it is a plan for national suicide.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently told Congress that Russia and China have placed their highest priority on building up and maintaining strategic nuclear forces.

If you want to know what is wrong about the entire approach to our nation’s military needs, consider that since 2009 when Obama took office, the Pentagon’s civilian workforce has grown about 7% to almost 750,000, while active-duty military personnel have been cut by approximately 8%.

At the same time, dozens of military-equipment and weapons programs have been canceled, including a new Navy cruiser, a new search-and-rescue helicopter, the F-22 first-generation fighter, the C-17 transport aircraft, missile defense and the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

We are not prepared to fight a war and now you know why.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Science of fear: Racket of war

The science of fear and the racket of war comes of age from the files of Ken LaRive at the Lafayette Examiner

_____________________________________________________

Read the LaRive Files at the Examiner

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.

Out of war a few people make huge fortunes." - Smedley D. Butler.

Without a doubt, money is the primary motivation for war, and it is fear that greases the wheels of that machine. An ideology is secondary to profit since World War 2, and the average solder has little or no understanding for the true reason of his participation, and that is the ultimate betrayal to our military men of honor.

The mindset of constant war is so cleverly promoted, most think the idea they hold is an original thought. It is indeed a science, and that science has come of age. And while we wave our flags, and risk our lives all around the world, a few men are getting very rich. Men who make profit on destruction and reconstruction, in an institution called the military industrial complex.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.- Plato

The study of fear as an acquirable motivating drive goes back to antiquity. In 1948, the science of fear took on a life all its own, and men like B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Neal E. Miller explored the possibility of manipulating fear in the minds of men to motivate an agenda. The paragraph below came from a study by Neal E. Miller.

It was called: “Fear as motivation and fear-reduction as reinforcement in the learning of new responses.” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol 38(1), Feb 1948, 89-101.

“Albino rats were trained to go from a white compartment through an open door into a black compartment in order to escape from electric shock. "To demonstrate that an acquired drive (fear or anxiety) had been established, the animals were taught a new habit without further shocks. The door (previously always open) was closed. The only way that the door could be opened was by rotating a little wheel, which was above the door, a fraction of a turn.

Under these conditions, the animals exhibited trial-and-error behavior and gradually learned to escape from the white compartment by rotating the wheel. If conditions were changed so that only pressing a bar would open the door, wheel turning extinguished, and a second new habit (bar pressing) was learned. Control experiments demonstrated that the learning of the new habits was dependent upon having received moderately strong electric shocks during the first stages of training."

Do you see a bit of your own life reflected in this description? Seems simple enough to understand, a response to stimuli; but just fifty years later the study of this so called “fear-factor” had grown into a fine art, a new expanded science using its own set of terminology, and here is an excerpt:

From normal fear to pathological anxiety. Rosen, Jeffrey B.; Schulkin, Jay. Psychological Review, Vol 105(2), Apr 1998, 325-350.

“In this article the authors address how pathological anxiety may develop from adaptive fear states. Fear responses (e.g., freezing, startle, heart rate and blood pressure changes, and increased vigilance) are functionally adaptive behavioral and perceptual responses elicited during danger to facilitate appropriate defensive responses that can reduce danger or injury (e.g., escape and avoidance).

Fear is a central motive state of action tendencies subserved by fear circuits, with the amygdala playing a central role. Pathological anxiety is conceptualized as an exaggerated fear state in which hyperexcitability of fear circuits that include the amygdala and extended amygdala (i.e., bed nucleus of the strict terminalis) is expressed as hypervigilance and increased behavioral responsivity to fearful stimuli.

Reduced thresholds for activation and hyperexcitability in fear circuits develop through sensitization- or kindling-like processes that involve neuropeptides, hormones, and other proteins.

Hyperexcitability in fear circuits is expressed as pathological anxiety that is manifested in the various anxiety disorders.”

Seems that terminology has separated men from the understanding of a science that has grown so powerful... A science that controls and dominates us from cradle to grave... A science that is still expanding, with another twenty years of fine tuning under its belt...

Motivations we must all face to find solace in our lives, are now being used against us... If we are going to win this war being waged for our very minds, we must educate ourselves...

Motivations are not the same...

There are many kinds of motivations that can propel us to action. All of them, in one form or another, can drive us to work hard, to learn, and to try new things... but not all motivations are for our common good, nor do they all inspire us in a positive way. Those who want to control us, and manipulate our actions, know this very well...

One motivation is called incentive. It is a very common motivation that involves rewards, and on many diverse levels in our lives. It refers, in most all cases, to some form of goal, or a target to work for, like a business promotion, or a bonus for a monthly sales goal... or a simple inspiration by a good job performance, or pride in a job well done.

It is, for the most part, a benign form of motivation, and it originates inside as a dream or as plans stimulated by our own volition, and extends outward into the world with the hope to manifest itself into a positive future reality. It is this reality that drew people to America, and the motivation of what we once knew to be the American Dream.

Another motivation is called Achievement. It starts with the desire to be more competent in some way. One may attempt to become more educated, more sensitive and appreciative to art, to find-tune a talent (like piano), or a physical accomplishment (like running a marathon, or lifting weights.) Sometimes the motivation comes from the hope of some future recognition, positive feedback from a peer or a superior perhaps.

Again, this motivation originates inside and attempts to manifest itself outwardly. This feedback may be as simple as a pat on the back for a job well done, financial gain, and most rarely... for just the joy of the doing.

Growth is the overt need for self-improvement, and exists from birth to death in one form or another. It is a burning desire, most time singular in nature, where learning and experience comes together to produce growth and ability.

Most time a specific type of personality, thought to be hardwired from very early development, pushes to change us internally, like quitting smoking or to speak in front of a large audience. In its very nature it moves from internal to external, as we attempt to manipulate environment, with a new invention... or just hard work. Without this motivation, surely we would still be living in a cave...

The motivation of power usually takes an alpha form, where control of ourselves, others, and our environment is emphatically desired. Most often, along with the need to control environment, a need to control others by some form manipulation might give one the ability, to a degree, to manipulate the future.

Sometimes, the need for this power is so great, they will aspire to do just about anything to accomplish it. Considerations, both moral and ethical, push aside all possible consequence... but also... it may be illegal.

But this kind of motivation considers itself above all law as it moves to accomplish its task.... and if it prescribes to any moral compass at all, it will be designed by them... the code of a thief, or a mafia manifesto, and all of it can be suspended if need be. Rules are not designed to be moral, but to be used for the purpose of success...

Social motivation is a desire to belong, to be accepted into the fold of a particular peer group, such as a political party, a religion, or a race or creed. This is again internal, innate at times but mostly taught, and always with the need for acceptance and affiliation.

So strong are these social motivations, that questioning the validity or value of it is very difficult if not impossible, as most believe that what they are experiencing, their reality, is ultimate truth.

Most all positive contributions in our society come from those who are socially motivated, and good and bad, right and wrong, positive or negative outcomes manifest entirely by the method by which it is used... which brings us to the final, most destructive form of motivation... FEAR.

The motivation of fear involves consequences, and most often is manifest after the failure of an incentive form of motivation. This is important to note. To be clear, for instance, in a business style of motivation where one refers to the, “carrot and stick,” incentive is the carrot, and fear is the stick.

Punishment, or the possibility of a negative consequences, is a primary form of fear motivation, and this is used widely today, from advertising, politics, religion, to many forms of propaganda from news to current event fabrication... and all of it with an agenda for action.

As most all "fear motivation" is instilled, failure to achieve, guilt in may forms, the breaking of rules, and even social taboos inspire fear and in some way... a form of penalty. To find Liberty, to actually see truth, an understanding of fear is primary.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. - John F. Kennedy

Author's note: Finding your master is easy. Look to what, or who, you can not talk about. It will be found in the folds of social constraint, taboo, and well hidden in the doubts of your own inspiration. The hardest of all avenues to traverse is the concept of truth, where lies are intentional and reality manipulated from a forgotten or rewritten history. And yet, nothing has more intrinsic value for the health of a lucid mind, as truth is the illumination of sanity, and the bane of evil intent. 

Truth guards us from the claws of fear. with heavy hearts unburdened, and transforms our conscious minds with an ability to formulate a decision based on righteous principles. When truth is relinquished, fear becomes a cancer to each and every act, and propels us to sit on the precipice of confusion, and without knowing why, as no viable decision can be made. This is the mind of a slave, and the greatest of all tragedy in our humanity... slavery of the spirit. A tragedy that can only be stifled by a singular ideal, the need to find truth.

War is wrought by mighty men. Men who justify the blood of innocence for their own selfish concerns. It is, to a pragmatic mind, pure genius in both depth and scope. It destroys dreams, and innocent lives are extinguished to white ash. The cost of that endeavor is paid in full, with a 17.8 trillion in debt... a debt that can never be paid, and inherited by our children. And yet, as new money is printed out of thin air, new loans are issued to rebuild. And the hidden tax of inflation enslaves us all... forever. Until of course, when we foreclose.

I know this... a singular concept that is my redemption in a world of evil men: that any religion who promotes the killing of another, is suspect. And as I do not pretend to know the mind of God, as so many others exclaim to be inspired... no Loving God-Creator of my comprehension would sanction it under any circumstance... and so it must be man-made, war, inspired by men, and not from the mind of God... and so I propose to you that we are not obliged, in any way or fashion, to obey. And yes, there are things worthy to sacrifice our lives, and I count Liberty from Tyranny as a primary one...

I would die to regain Liberty, but never for international corporate profit, or central banking manipulations of our precious America.

A universal law, called cause and effect, seems to be scientifically valid and sound, as what we sow we will reap... and yet, the same bullies, the same universal money-hungry malcontents, the same malevolent shadow manipulators, seem so surprised when there is a reaction that attempts to curb their agenda. 

There is so much ego wrapped into their masterful deign, that they expect us all to die for them. I say, no thank you just the same... Do not, sir, tread on me. Give me Liberty, or give me your death. Yes, your death, as just one candle of truth in the great voids you create, will curse you. And we will hand this candle, the light of liberty and truth, for our children to cherish, because you are forever cursed to a darkness of your own design... We the people of the United States of America do not belong to you.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. - Sigmund Freud 

A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence. - Sigmund Freud

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Secret deal could kill 160,000 by ISIS

Secret Deal Could Doom 160,000 to ISIS

United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran said to let key border town fall by F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for WND and G2Bulletin, ~ a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

______________________________________________

Click Here to Read the F. Michael Maloof Column at WND

A secret decision apparently has been made by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Iran to let the strategic Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish-Syrian border fall to ISIS fighters, jeopardizing the lives of some 160,000 Syrian Kurds, WND has been told by a well-placed Middle East expert.

In letting Kobani fall to ISIS, the source said, there was agreement “to deal with ISIS later.”

The apparent decision aims to diminish the influence of the Kurds in Syria and weaken the prospect of creating a sovereign Kurdistan, which is sought by the Kurds not only in Syria, but in Turkey, Iran and Iraq..

“It is a real set up behind the backs of everyone,” the well-placed source told WND.

Ankara has brought its tanks up to the Turkish-Syrian border in sight of Kobani but has not committed any troops to stop the ISIS siege of the Kurdish city.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Kurds have been appealing for arms and ammunition in addition to aerial bombing by the U.S.-led coalition of Arab countries on ISIS positions. Sources on the ground, however, say the bombing has become virtually meaningless, since ISIS fighters have blended into the population, requiring more fighters on the ground.

The Syrian Kurds have been fighting ISIS just as their counterparts in Iraq, the Kurdish peshmerga, have been doing to keep ISIS from taking over their territory, which comprises some of the largest oil reserves in Iraq and Syria.

The Turks have resisted assisting the Kurds since Ankara for years has been battling the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, which seeks to carve out a portion of the border countries to create Kurdistan.

For Turkey, the Syrian and Turkish Kurds occupy valuable oil resources sought by the energy-deficient Turks.

In addition, the Kurds have an alliance with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Turks want to see overthrown in favor of a Sunni-run government.

However, ISIS clearly is the only predominant Sunni group in a position to take over, since it already has grabbed much of northeastern Syria and western and central Iraq to form its caliphate, which it seeks to govern under strict Islamic law, or Shariah.

For Turkey, an ISIS takeover of Kobani would help split up the Iraqi Kurds from the Syrian Kurds, further diminishing the chance for a united Kurdistan.

At the same time, it would give ISIS a northern bridge between Iraq and Syria, which it hasn’t had until now.

Consequently, not only will the Turks refuse to commit combat troops, so will the U.S.

Because of the Kurds’ ties not only with Syrian President Assad but also with Iran, sources say the U.S. doesn’t want to leave the impression it is bolstering Assad and working with Iran by providing further assistance to the Syrian Kurds beyond aerial bombings.

There are questions concerning the extent to which the Iranians went along with the secret deal to let Kobani fall to ISIS.

As WND reported, there have been calls in recent days within Iran for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to assist the Syrian Kurds, prompting demonstrations of support in a number of Iranian cities.

As a signal of Iran’s concern, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Kobani.

“Iran will soon send humanitarian aid for the residents and refugees in this area through the Syrian government,” Afkham said.

Shiite Iran is a major supporter of the government of Assad, a Shiite-Alawite.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has made it clear that Iran doesn’t want Turkish troops inside Syria. Iran now is in discussions with Turkey to return some 200,000 Kurds who have fled Syria for refuge in Turkey.

At the same time, Amir-Abdollahian made clear Iran “will take any necessary action to help the Kurds in Kobani in line with its support for the Syrian government in its fight against terrorism.”

The WND source said Iran’s interest in wanting to help the Kurds is “just a front,” since Iran, like Turkey, has opposed an independent Kurdistan carved out of western Iran, which, like the Kurdish portions of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, have rich oil deposits.

Although Tehran wants to show support for the Kurds because of their backing of Assad, it nonetheless may be more concerned about the repeated historical efforts by the Kurds to establish their own Kurdish state. There are strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties between the Kurds and Iran. However, Tehran doesn’t want to see the Kurds taking over its western oil reserves.

Click here to read more on ISIS.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Is President Obama cursed with nightmares?

ISIS is one mile from Baghdad: May Obama be cursed with nightmares of the Americans we lost in Iraq from the files of Colonel Allen B. West

Read the Allen B. West Files

Vice President Joe Biden recently proclaimed we would “chase ISIS to the gates of hell” — well, it seems they’re going to be a bit delayed, as they’re at the gates of Baghdad right now. Perhaps those almost 1,500 American troops — boots on the ground — will be allowed to leave from behind the gates of the U.S. Embassy and compound to fight — oops, that would be combat, and Obama said that’s not allowed.

So could we be on the verge of seeing a 21st century version of the last U.S. helicopter taking off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon as the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong breached those gates?

And you must understand this would be the third U.S. Embassy that would have been evacuated in this year! First Libya, now it seems we’re doing the same in Yemen, and Baghdad could be next. I remember transiting through Baghdad as we moved in to take up our positions at Taji AB, just north of the city.

But it’s not just ISIS at the gates. The al-Qaida in Syria affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, is joining forces with ISIS — so much for those Obama air strikes to “degrade” ISIS.

As reported in the UK Independent, “Isis fighters are reportedly just one mile away from Baghdad as reports emerge of al-Qaida militants bolstering their ranks in Syria. According to the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, Isis was approaching the Iraqi capital on Monday morning.

“The Islamic State are now less than 2km away from entering Baghdad,” a spokesperson said. “They said it could never happen and now it almost has. Obama says he overestimated what the Iraqi Army could do. Well you only need to be here a very short while to know they can do very, very little.”

I suppose this is something else that will sneak up on the Obama administration? It’s clearly evident — well, except to the mindless progressive socialists — that Obama’s political agenda and narrative is far more important to him than the security of the American people or the precious blood many of my warrior brothers and sisters shed in Iraq.

Just last year at the UN General Assembly, it was B. Hussein Obama who spiked the football in his speech and took a personal victory lap before the world over his acclaimed achievement of ending the war in Iraq and bringing all US troops home — looks like he never consulted with the enemy about their perspective on the matter.

But we can all expect Obama to just blame the U.S. intelligence community — or maybe he’ll blame ISIS for not playing along.

The Independent says “Isis fighters were also battling Government forces in a key town 25 miles west of Baghdad – Amiriyat al-Fallujah. According to a BBC correspondent, fighting had calmed by Monday afternoon but a standoff continued along the main road to nearby Fallujah, which is under Isis control.

US air strikes overnight targeted other Isis positions in Anbar province, the Pentagon said, and in Syria four more oil fields controlled by militants near Raqqa were hit on Sunday.”

“American officials called the attacks “successful” but the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed mostly civilians were hit and a grain silo was destroyed.”

Folks, this is what happens when you’re just dropping bombs with no targeting assets on the ground to enable precision. I love the pretty fighter jet tapes that are being released, but all I’ve seen are a truck here and a truck there being brilliantly blown up.

According to the Independent, “The news comes amid reports of an emerging alliance between ISIS forces in Syria and Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front. The group is the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaida and has been fighting against the Assad regime in the civil war.

Despite months of clashes between its forces and Isis (also known as Islamic State) militants, the two groups appear to be forming a loose coalition in parts of the country to fight increasing attacks by the US and its allies.”

“Al-Nusra’s official spokesperson, Abu Firas al-Suri, threatened the coalition nations with retaliation on Saturday. “These states have committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world,” he said. “This is not a war against al-Nusra, but a war against Islam.”

Ok, so I just have to ask, is this guy al-Suri a high school or college teacher of the “religion of peace?” Now, does anyone believe we should take the enemy at his word and realize that his reality must become our own? So now please remind me, who are these “moderate” Islamists who are going to fight ISIS again?

“Al-Nusra and Isis leaders are now holding war planning meetings together, a source told the Guardian, although no formal alliance has been confirmed. The reports follow growing defections from other Islamist groups to Isis, which is seen as better organised and equipped to create an “Islamic State” straddling Iraq and Syria.

A loyalty pledge was reportedly made by al-Nusra in June in the town of Al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, and the two groups have fought together against Government forces.”

People follow winners and in the eyes of those in the Islamic world, ISIS is kicking arse, and they want to be a part of that. Here in America we have a loser – and just so you know, winning presidential elections through deceit, media manipulation and nefarious voting actions doesn’t make you a winner, just a progressive socialist.

I’m waiting to hear the excuses when Baghdad potentially falls — which is quite possible within this week. May Obama be cursed with nightmares by all those who lost their lives in Iraq.

The “Lie of the Year for 2013″ was Obama’s “You can keep your doctor.”

The Lie of the Year for 2014 should be “ISIS is the jayvee team.”

But the greatest lie has to be, “al-Qaida has been decimated and is on the run.”

Leaders take responsibility, not credit, and winners don’t need to lie.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Intelligence reveals the ISIS bombing strategy

Intelligence reveals the specific ISIS war strategy while the U.S. drops bombs from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco and featured at Net Right Daily.com

Get Your Daily Dose of Humor from A.F. (Tony) Branco

Check out some of the sights listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

U.S. is becoming a weaker nation

The U.S. is Becoming a Weaker Nation from the Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know the Warning Signs from Caruba On-Line

The news that the U.S. Air Force, joined at long last by some of the Arab nations most threatened by the Islamic State (ISIS), began bombing their headquarters and military sites in Syria was long overdue, but welcome. It took time because Obama had originally dismissed ISIS as a threat.

It no doubt took time to get Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia to team with the U.S., but missing from the action is Turkey that borders Syria and Egypt. Turkey has become increasingly Islamist, but appears determined to stay out of the war with ISIS. By initially refusing to provide arms to Egypt, Obama drove it into the waiting arms of the Soviet Union, but has since reversed its policy and is seeking to woe Egypt back as an ally.

In a September 23rd column, Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal opined that “…every President gets things wrong. Mr. Obama is not exceptional in those respects. Where he stands apart is in his combination of ideological rigidity and fathomless ignorance. What does the President know? The simple answer, and maybe the truest, is: not a lot.”

Available on Amazon

Obama’s combination of ideology and ignorance is analyzed in an extraordinary book by Douglas E. Schoen and Melik Kaylan, “The Russia-China Axis: The New Cold War and America’s Crisis of Leadership.” It provides a fact-filled look at his failure to provide leadership to a nation that other nations have looked to for leadership and protection since the end of World War II.

Indeed, in addition to the ISIS videos of Americans and others being beheaded, it has taken the outspoken criticism of retired U.S. generals to mobilize public opinion to support a return to the battlefield. It is a battlefield that Obama has fled at every opportunity, pulling out all of our troops from Iraq and planning to do the same in Afghanistan.

In the September 14th issue of Defense News, General John Michael Loh, retired, a former Air Force vice chief of state and Air Combat Command commander, said, “ The right solution is neither exclusively boots on the ground airpower.

The right solution is a one-two punch: a massive air campaign followed by a ground force offensive to defeat ISIS. If executed the way airmen and soldiers have worked together in the past, most notably in Desert Storm, the result is not just a decisive victory, quickly and with few casualties, but the basis for deterrence of any ISIS-like movement in the future.”

“The Russia-China Axis” delves deep into the failure of both the Presidency and Congress to address the threats to our nation around the world. “As China and Russia beef up”, the authors note regarding our military expenditure, “Congress is set to cut nearly $1 trillion from the defense budget over the next ten years” and while the full brunt of those cuts is a ways off, the military is already taking it on the chin thanks to the cuts negotiated during the sequestration of January 2013.”

Citing the warnings of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, “What he and others have found so far is alarming; impaired combat-troop readiness; inability to modernize equipment and weapons and technology systems; and the need, potentially, to slash as many as five of the Air Force’s tactical aircraft squadrons.”

“Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warns that the effects of sequestration alone will leave the United States with our smallest ground fighting force since 1940, the smallest naval fleet since 1915, and the ‘smallest tactical fighter force in the history of the Air Force.’”

While the headlines of the strikes against Syrian ISIS locations are exciting, in addition to our Defense Secretaries, we need to pay heed to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who has said, “We would go from being unquestionably powerful everywhere to being less visible globally and presenting less of an overmatch to our adversaries. And that would translate into a different deterrent calculus and potentially, therefore, increase the likelihood of conflict.”

While the U.S. cuts its defense spending, Russia and China have been increasing theirs. Moreover, while nuclear weapons can be found in nations like North Korea, a self-declared enemy of the U.S. Iran is intent on creating its own nuclear capability, the U.S. has not only reduced its nuclear arsenal (Obama wants no arsenal) and has entered into negotiations that no observer believes will result in any cessation of Iran’s intentions.

The authors of “The Russia-China Axis” warn that “The U.S. retreat from the nuclear playing field is not just apparent in offensive capabilities; the American missile-defense shield that protects our homeland and our European allies is gravely deficient as well.”

The authors assess that “America, worn down by a decade-plus of wars, has become inner-directed, even isolationist.” This is a repeat of history prior to and following World War I. Following World War II, America was the only nation with the power to hold off and wear down the former Soviet Union’s ambitions to spread communism worldwide. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia is seeking to regain its influence in Eastern Europe and has, of course, invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimea.

This has all happened while Obama has been President. He has already announced that the U.S. will not put “boots on the ground” in Iraq and will leave Afghanistan next year. Telling the enemy what you intend to do militarily is a profoundly stupid thing to do. And this is a President who has resisted even his closest advisors regarding the need for action.

Plainly said, we need to survive the last two years of Obama’s second term in office. We can do so to some degree if the Republican Party can gain control of the U.S. Senate and expand it in the House. The November midterm elections have never been more critical.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Breaking the Russian energy stanglehold

Breaking Russia’s energy stranglehold from the files of Paul Driessen at CFACT.org

Europe cannot afford to have its foreign and domestic policies dictated by Putin’s blackmail

Read the Driessen Files at CFACT.org

European Union nations want to impose tougher economic sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine and providing the missiles that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. However, they are worried about biting the hand that feeds them – with the natural gas that fuels much of its economy.

Russia is the world’s second-biggest natural gas producer and third-biggest oil producer, so it can inflict tremendous pressure and damage on its neighbors without firing a shot. The 28 EU nations as a whole depend on Russia for one-third of their oil and gas.

However, Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania get 100% of their natural gas from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Six other European countries get more than half of their gas from the powerful Russian Bear: Czech Republic (57%), Poland (59%), Ukraine (60%), Hungary (80%), Slovakia (84%) and Bulgaria (89%).

That makes the Europeans highly vulnerable to cuts in the fuel supplies they need to power their cars, keep their businesses, factories and economies running smoothly – and heat homes, to literally keep people alive during brutal winters like those they’ve experienced recently.

A simple “nyet” from Mr. Putin could reduce or cut off energy exports, leaving the continent hostage to Russia and creating a potential disaster. European officials know this but so far are frozen by their own fears and policies.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) calls Russia “a gas station masquerading as a country,” because 60% of its exports are oil and natural gas. Cutting these exports to pressure Europe politically might hurt Russia’s economy.

However, it has already done so, is currently squeezing Ukraine over winter gas supplies – supposedly over late payments for past deliveries – and is making export arrangements with China and other countries, to reduce any economic harm it might suffer from engaging in renewed energy blackmail.

Moreover, during one week this September, Russia supplied up to 45% less gas than Poland requested, the Poles’ largest oil and gas company reported. Over the past decade, “Russia has halted the flow of gas through Ukraine three times, directly affecting eastern and southern European countries most reliant on Gazprom, the giant Russian energy monopoly,” the Christian Science Monitor has observed.

Indeed, 16% of Russian natural gas exports flow through Ukraine. In yet another pressure tactic, Russia began tightening the export spigot in June. Russian gas supplies through Ukraine to Slovakia have been cut by 25%, says Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan.

There’s no question that the EU and USA must punish Russia for seizing Crimea, infiltrating troops and military equipment into eastern Ukraine to support secessionists, aiding terrorism, and killing hundreds of innocent jetliner passengers. Since no one wants a shooting war with Russia, economic sanctions are all that’s left.

Failure to do even that would give Putin a green light to move more forcefully against Ukraine – or even try to occupy other former Soviet Union nations.

Putin has called the breakup of the Soviet Union “the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.” Before invading Ukraine, Russia invaded the former Soviet territory of Georgia in 2008 to support separatists who had declared independence for the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

It’s not at all hard to imagine Putin moving against Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, other former Soviet possessions or even Finland, to bring them into Mother Russia’s suffocating embrace. But how can the EU end the blackmail, enjoy some foreign policy independence and improve its faltering economy with less reliance on Russia?

If European countries faced food shortages due to import restrictions, they would offer their farmers incentives to grow more. EU members need to act the same way on the energy front. Otherwise, they give Russia tremendous sway over their future. European nations certainly have the ability to take action.

For one thing, they could import more natural gas from the United States and other countries besides Russia, until it can produce more domestic energy. Europe is blessed with enormous quantities of oil and natural gas – including enough gas to supply all its needs for at least 28 years, during which it could develop viable alternatives to gas and the dozens of coal-fired generators it is now building. US Energy Information Administration data reveal that Sweden has enough gas to meet its needs for 250 years.

Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, France and Spain also have extensive potential, as do Great Britain and other countries. Unfortunately, those deposits aren’t economically recoverable using traditional drilling.

However, they can be captured using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) – which has been used safely and with great economic and employment benefit more than a million times in the United States since 1947. It has made the United States the world’s largest natural gas producer.

Not surprisingly, environmental extremists strenuously oppose fracking – further crippling Europe’s ability to meet its energy needs and chart its economic destiny and foreign policy. Also not surprising, Russia is secretly funding the European anti-fracking movement “to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently revealed.

But if there’s a silver lining to unfolding Middle East events and Russia’s naked aggression, it’s that more sensible Europeans are finally looking more critically at their self-destructive energy and environmental policies. The European Union announced in September that it will combine previously separate energy and climate ministries into one office.

The decision infuriates radical greens, but it reflects growing business, worker, consumer and family concerns about reliable, affordable electricity and motor fuels.

Next, Europe needs to allow fracking. Right now, virtually every EU nation except Poland and Britain bans fracking. Besides making Europe more energy independent, fracking would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by enabling European nations to rely more on natural gas and less on coal. Fracking would also reduce EU natural gas, electricity and even oil prices, as it has in the USA.

It would also create or save millions of jobs that are endangered (or gone) because of Europe’s outrageously high energy costs. In fact, many EU companies and families pay three to eight times more than Americans do for electricity.

Another problem in Europe is that people living above the shale deposits have no ownership or economic interests in developing them. They are inconvenienced, but the state and drilling companies get all the money. The EU needs to devise incentives that give landowners and residents a positive stake in development – such as a royalty or percentage of every Euro of oil and gas produced and sold.

On this side of the pond, US petroleum production must be further increased. The huge gains in American oil and gas output since 2009 were all on private and state lands, while the Obama administration has presided over a nearly 40% decline in production from onshore and offshore federal lands. The President and congressional Democrats need to stop being energy obstructionists, and let American companies tap these energy treasure troves.

That would create jobs, generate billions in government revenues, make more gas available for European purchase, and strengthen our economy and balance of trade. Congress should also consider prohibiting state and local fracking bans as unconstitutional constraints on trade.

Congress and the President should also fast-track US natural gas exports to Europe, by speeding permits for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. These actions would encourage further drilling, technology improvements and job creation. As Europeans adapt and improve America’s rapidly advancing fracking technologies and develop their own gas, these exports will be less vital. But they are essential now.

The world is not going find safe, efficient, affordable, environment-friendly alternatives to oil, natural gas and coal in the next decade or so. (Right now, Europe gets just 1.3% of its energy from wind and solar, but 75% from fossil fuels – and both wind and solar exact significant environmental costs.)

In the meantime, we need to rely more on realistic opportunities and initiatives, and on our oil supplier friends in Canada and Mexico. If we don’t, we’ll have to continue importing from increasingly unstable and unfriendly parts of the world – and being constantly at their tender mercies, just like the Europeans.

 _________________________________________________ 

 Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow  and Congress of Racial Equality, and author or Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

The ISIS briefing as never seen before

The ISIS Briefing as never seen before from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco and featured at Comically Incorrect.com

Get Your Daily Dose of Humor from A.F. (Tony) Branco

Check out some of the sights listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

____________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Why beheading?

Why Beheading? from the files of Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe

Read the Jacoby Files at the Boston Globe

ISLAMIC STATE has made the beheading of victims a key element in its campaign of terror and conquest. Most conspicuous in recent weeks have been the murders of Westerners James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines, whose severed heads and decapitated bodies have been shown in threatening videos produced by the jihadists.

In the years since 9/11, other Islamist terrorist groups have circulated equally ghastly beheading videos. Among the earlier victims were journalist Daniel Pearl, businessman Nicholas Berg, and construction contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong — all Americans beheaded by Al Qaeda.

Last week, meanwhile, Australian police arrested 15 suspects allegedly linked to Islamic State; they are accused of plotting to publicly behead a victim abducted at random.

Why this obsession with cutting off people's heads?

Clearly the terrorists relish the horror beheading evokes in America and other Western democracies, as well as the fear it inspires among Kurds, Shiites, or other local forces standing in the path of their juggernaut.

Psychological warfare is an essential element in Islamic State's military strategy, writes Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Even when heavily outnumbered, Islamic State has been able to leverage its reputation for implacable brutality "to dissuade Iraqi forces from ever seeking battle."

And by killing American and British hostages with such sadistic relish, it aims to intensify the desire of many in the West to wash their hands of involvement in Iraq once and for all.

But there are other ways to terrorize, other gruesome means of mass murder — suicide bombings, poison gas, hijackings. Why the emphasis on beheading?

No doubt part of the explanation is that beheadings tend to draw more attention than suicide bombings and exploding cars. Deadly though they are, car bombs and shootings have lost much of their shock value in Western eyes. It takes an unusually high death toll for a bombing in Iraq to attract as much media attention as the decapitation of a single hostage by an English-speaking Islamist wielding a knife.

Terrorists crave attention, more now in the digital age, perhaps, than ever before. Islamic State and other jihadist groups have many ways to commit mass murder. But for generating a spectacle that will be noticed — and shuddered at — the world over, sawing off the head of an American journalist or a European relief worker, then uploading the video to the Internet, is hard to beat.

Yet beheadings, too, can lose their shock value. It wasn't all that long ago that decapitation was a familiar punishment in Western culture. As late as 1977, the guillotine was still being used for executions in France.

In the colonial era, severed heads of criminals were sometimes displayed on Boston Common. Plus, modern video games and ultrarealistic computer graphics make it easier than ever to grow inured to almost any image or scene, no matter how grisly or intense or intimate.

But the beheadings aren't just a fashion.

There is more to the Islamist passion for decapitation than psychological warfare and a hunger for notoriety. There is also Muslim theology and history, and a mandate going back to the Koran. In a 2005 study published in Middle East Quarterly, historian Timothy Furnish quotes the famous passage at Sura 47:4:

"When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks." For centuries, Furnish observes, "leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse literally," and examples abound throughout Islamic history.

Yet Western leaders keep insisting that the beheading of "infidels" is unrelated to the jihadists' religious outlook.

"When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks," the Koran commands. For centuries leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse literally. Examples of mass beheadings abound throughout Islamic history.

"When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks," the
Koran commands. For centuries leading Islamic scholars
have interpreted this verse literally. Examples of mass
beheadings abound throughout Islamic history.

Last week, after British aid worker David Haines became the third Western hostage to be decapitated by Islamic State, Britain's immigration minister, James Brokenshire, made a point of going to a mosque in London to declare that the "atrocious" beheadings "have nothing to do with Islam."

At an international emergency conference in Paris the same day, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius likewise insisted that neither Islamic State nor its "throat-cutters" were "representative of Islam."

President Obama repeatedly makes the same assertion. When he outlined new military steps against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in a televised address this month, he avowed categorically: "ISIL is not Islamic."

Alas, ISIL disagrees. And so do the radicalized Western Muslims flocking to the Middle East to join its brutal jihad, many of them stimulated by propaganda videos that feature the beheading of "unbelievers." To millions of moderate and peaceable Muslims the world over, beheadings in the name of Islam may seem a terrible defilement of the religion they love.

To a fanatical Islamist minority, they are just what Allah demands.

It may take a long while to destroy that enemy, but surely the first step is to call it what it is.

____________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Meet the Syrian moderate rebels

Meet the Syrian Moderates from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco for Comically Incorrect.com

Start You Day with Some Branco Humor

Check out some of the sights listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

President Obama reassures ISIS

O-baa-ma gives reassuring speech to ISIS at CENTCOM [VIDEO] from the files of Colonel Allen B. West




Alexander the Great is often attributed with the sentiment, “I would not fear an army of lions if led by sheep, I would however fear an army of sheep if led by a lion.”

On Wednesday, Barack Hussein Obama took the stage at the home of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), MacDill AFB in Florida, and all I heard was baa-baa-baa.

As reported by CNS News, “President Barack Obama said he will not commit U.S. forces to fighting “another ground war in Iraq,” and explained that he had built a coalition of nations to help Iraq combat Islamic State terrorists.”

I’ve included an excerpt from Obama’s speech below, but you can watch the video if you prefer. It must be quite reassuring to our enemies.

This is not leading. It is retreating. And if our troops deployed to Iraq do not have a combat mission, then what are they there to do? Oh, right, advise and train, the exact same mission Obama was recommended to approve as part of a residual force in Iraq some three years ago.

So, I just have to ask, do we have a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq now? If Obama hadn’t been a political dupe and instead was a strategic visionary then we wouldn’t have to contend with “retraining” the Iraqi Army led by the Iranian cronies. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have to see ISIS riding around in American vehicles and using American weapons.

We continue to hear about this armada of a coalition but have yet to see any credible proof of its existence. Air power alone cannot destroy an enemy — and who exactly will be on the ground coordinating the air strikes?

If the Kurdish Peshmerga forces or Iraqi Army are engaged with ISIS in ground combat operations, then someone in a U.S. uniform will be the GTAC (Ground Tactical Air Coordinator) communicating to our air assets. And if that person is on the ground alongside Iraqi forces in combat — are they not engaged in combat?

What kind of sheep stands before warriors – lions — and states, “As your Commander-in-Chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our Armed Forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq?”

Why do we have a volunteer military who understands the commitment they are called to make to support and defend this nation?

Far better to have a Commander-in-Chief who stands before these warriors and conveys to them a sense of confidence that we are going to defeat this savage and barbaric threat to our nation. To give them the directions and rules of engagement enabling them to meet the desired effects in the most expeditious timeframe and manner.

Can you imagine a top 25 college football coach standing before his team and telling them he isn’t going to commit them to playing the game? That we will support and advise a coalition that includes the cheerleaders, college band, and concession workers to play and we’ll lead them? Well, that’s what Obama the sheep basically did.

We lack leadership, but worse, America lacks courageous leadership. All we have as president is a weak speech-giver. Funny, he can muster far more anger and angst to commit his domestic ground troops to attack conservatives than to defend the honor of our Republic. Pathetic.

Funding a fool's errand in Syria

Funding a Fool's Errand in Syria from the files of Jeff Crouere at WLAE-TV in New Orleans

Tune in to Jeff Crouere at Ringside Politics

This week, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation to train, arm and fund the elusive “moderate” Muslim rebels fighting to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria.

The plan calls for the U.S. to start supporting between 3,000 and 5,000 rebels in the Free Syrian Army. It is part of a $500 million aid package that will authorize U.S. support through December 11, 2014.

While the bill passed both houses with ease, it received more support from Republicans than Democrats. Yes, it is a truly sad day for the country when Democrats sound more reasonable than Republicans.

According to Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), the plan is “lame,” so she opposed it. Speier noted that former generals are also expressing their opposition because it does not address the real problem of stopping the funding for the terrorist group Islamic State. Speier said the terrorist organization is earning $3 million per day on oil income and the U.S. should “disrupt their line of income and that means blowing up oil wells and the roads they use to get….those oil tankers to shipment.”

Her Democratic colleague also voiced a very legitimate concern. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) claimed that “We simply don't know if somewhere down the line it will turn our guns back against us." In Iraq, millions of dollars of our military equipment that was given to the Iraqi army is now in the hands of the Islamic State, who is using it to kill innocent people.

Another issue that the administration refuses to address is that there is a real possibility that these so-called “moderate” Muslim fighters will not be reliable partners in fighting the Islamic State. In the view of former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, the rebels are not focused on fighting the Islamic State terrorist organization. He said that “their priority is not the Islamic State; it is the Bashar al-Assad regime. We need to know that going in.”

This viewpoint is also shared by U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) who said that he has “seen no evidence that the Syrian rebels we plan to train and arm will remain committed to American goals or interests. Further, the opposition fighters that we will train care more about overthrowing Assad than they do about defeating ISIS. Assad is evil, but he is not a threat to America."

There is no doubt that Assad has a track record of supporting terrorism and is a brutal dictator, much like Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. However, we need to be very careful that we do not overthrow another dictator, only to see the country fall under the control of radical Muslim terrorists. A country can go from bad to worse, such as Iraq and Libya, which are today beset with terrorists, who control large portions of the country.

Fortunately, not all Republicans supported the President’s “lame” plan. In the Senate, conservative leaders such as Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) opposed the funding of Syrian rebels; however, the vast majority of their Republican and Democratic colleagues (78) voted for the legislation.

The reason for the President’s impressive margin of victory was that Congress did not want to be seen as opposing his plan to combat the Islamic State. In the wake of the barbaric beheading of American journalists and countless innocent civilians in Iraq and Syria, Congress wanted to show the American people they were doing something, even if it involved supporting a plan that will likely fail.

Instead of supporting a confused President, who initially called the Islamic State, the “JV” of terrorism, Congress should have rejected the plan that will ultimately create more havoc in the region.

____________________________________________________

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 10:00 p.m. Sunday on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore.

For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com or e-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

Marines amazing song on video

Amazing Video: Marines song will uplift your soul from the files of Allen B. West


Oh boy, this here video is surely going to send the head chucklehead of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Mikey Weinstein, into a apoplectic state of frothing hysteria. And you can imagine that the leadership of the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation is running about gnashing their teeth and tearing at their clothes.

This video taken at Camp Pendleton shows U.S. Marines at a Christian worship service singing the upbeat Christian song, “Days of Elijah.” And as you will see, they are very enthusiastic about the song.

As reported by The Blaze, “A description of the video, which was first posted to Facebook Sunday by a woman named Merrie Pardee Baldwin, reads, “Participatory worship. I love how excited the men get to sing this song & the camaraderie.”

Baldwin posted the video again Monday on the Facebook page for the Caruso Memorial Chapel at Camp Pendleton, giving a little more information about the clip’s origins. “This is one of my favorite things about coming each month for the Faith Warrior service,” she wrote.

“I love to see the camaraderie & how participatory worship is. They bless me MUCH more than they know.”

And this blessed me as well. You see, I truly don’t worry about America. What I am concerned about are the sheep who lead these lions.

Enjoy the video and please pray these young Marines — who volunteered to serve — have the freedom of religion and the free exercise thereof, especially since they stand as the sentinels protecting that right for us all.

Be careful, you progressive socialists, about complaining about this. I’m sure y’all supported repealing “Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Arab Muslims suffer mentally and economically

Arab Muslims Suffer Mentally and Economically at Warning Signs from the files of Alan Caruba with Facts-not-Fantasy

Know the Warning Signs from Caruba On-Line

“For years there has been a rising tide of Islamic radicalism, starting in the Middle East, providing a hospitable environment in which terrorism grew naturally,” wrote former Ambassador John Bolton, in a May edition of The Washington Times.

The eruption of the Islamic State (ISIS) has demonstrated how swiftly it has been able to recruit thousands of jihadists to its ranks. The millions it is earning from selling oil on the black market enables it to provide salaries to those recruits. And weapons.

“This radical wave has been spreading throughout northern Africa, into Asia, and now around the world,” warned Bolton.

There is a reason why there is such a supply of recruits to the self-proclaimed caliphate that controls a large swath of northern Syria and Iraq. Jim Clifton, CEO of the Gallup polling organization, says. “The Middle East has collapsed into a state of chaos, conflict, and suffering that was unimaginable and unforeseen just four years ago.”

Clifton took note of the incident that triggered the “Arab Spring” in which dictators were deposed in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. “Food vendor Mohammed Bouazis set himself on fire. Bouazizi didn’t hell ‘Death to America’ or ‘U.S. out of Iraq’ or ‘Allahu Akbar.’ He cried out, ‘I just want to work!’”

No Customers

Clifton said, “Here’s an explanation you don’t hear very often that is likely the root cause of the entire meltdown in the Middle East: no customers.”

He noted that “When a society fails to create jobs, as in countries throughout the Middle East, young men get up each morning with zero hope for a great life, zero hope to get married (you usually can’t marry in Middle Eastern society without a real job), zero dream of a family, zero dignity, and zero self-respect.”

“What millions of young Middle Eastern males wake up to every morning is unimaginable humiliation, indignation, desperation, and a form of dangerous boredom.” Clifton noted that “There are over 100 million young people aged 18 to 29 in the Middle East/North Africa area—meaning there are probably 50 million young males.”

That is more than enough to recruit a huge army of holy warriors who find meaning in their lives by joining ISIS and other groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria. We are witnessing a war between Sunnis and Shiites, and Clifton warned that “Western leaders prefer to operate through delusional wishful-thinking policies.”

I received an account by an unidentified Lockheed employee who cited research by a Danish psychologist, Nikolai Sennels as published in 2010. The Lockheed employee had been in Saudi Arabia on three assignments and noted that Saudi pilot trainees often had “dim memories and had to be constantly reminded of things that were told to them the day before.” They also had very limited night vision, “even on the brightest of moonlit nights.”

The larger problem as noted by Sennels was attributed to 1,400 years of inbreeding, the Muslim practice of marrying first cousins; it has been in effect for fifty generations and is based on the teachings of Muhammad, their revered prophet, and the prohibition on marrying outside of the Muslim faith.

Sennels noted that “The consequences for offspring of consanguineous marriages are unpleasantly clear: Death, low intelligence or even mental retardation, handicaps and diseases often leading to a slow and painful death.”

“Other consequences are: Limited social skills and understanding, limited ability to manage education and work procedures and painful treatment procedures. The negative cognitive consequences also influence the executive functions. The impairment of concentration and emotional control most often leads to anti-social behavior.”

“The economic costs and consequences for society of inbreeding,” said Sennels, “are of course secondary to the reality of human suffering.”

Sennels concluded that “A lower IQ, together with a religion that denounces critical thinking, surely makes it harder for many Muslims to have success in our high-tech knowledge societies.” In the case of the United States, He noted “One study based on 300,000 Americans shows that the majority of Muslims in the USA have a lower income, are less education, and have worse jobs than the population as a whole.”

There are many ramifications of the inbreeding that Judeo-Christian faiths prohibited from their inception. It explains in many ways why it is wrong to believe that Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere “think” in the same fashion as those in the West.

It permits them to believe that beheading westerners is a way to impose their will by videotaping this ancient, barbaric practice. It encourages the belief that all non-Muslims are worthy of death.

The flow of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe has created a massive problem for its native population. In Great Britain measures are being taken to crack down on those who go abroad to become jihadists and return.

According to Wikipedia: ”The Muslim population of the U.S. increased dramatically in the 20th century, with much of the growth driven by a comparatively high birth rate and immigrant communities of mainly Arab and South Asian descent. About 72% of American Muslims are immigrants or "second generation". In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents— nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. In 2009, more than 115,000 Muslims became legal residents of the United States.”

The other element of the American Muslim population is African-Americans who have been converting to Islam.

Westerners are perplexed by the rise of fanatical Islam, but the answer comes down to a lack of entrepreneurism in Middle Eastern and other Muslim nations, combined with the problems resulting from generations of inbreeding.

It still means war at some point and for some time to come.

War hawk in disguise or just an empty suit

Is the president a war hawk in disguise or is he just an empty suit? from the art studios of A.F. Branco

Catch a Daily Dose of Branco's Humor at Legal Insurrection.com

Check out some of the sights listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

Dropping bombs is not actually war

Kerry thinks dropping bombs on ISIS isn't actually war from the files of Colonel Allen B. West

Read the Allen B. West Files

Ok, this is becoming rather embarrassing for America. Let me be clear, when you are dropping a bomb on someone’s head, you are at war with them — unless, you are Barack Hussein Obama or John Kerry.

According to *** CNN, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday would not say the United States is at war with ISIS, saying the administration’s strategy includes “many different things that one doesn’t think of normally in context of war.”

“What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counterterrorism operation,” Kerry told CNN’s Elise Labott in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “It’s going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it’s a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts.”

So, can anyone explain to me what a “very significant counter-terrorism operation” is? Last time I checked the dictionary of military tactics, operations and terminology, a counter-terrorism operation means folks die. And if the goal is to “destroy” ISIS that means you are conducting violent actions against them — a war.

Classical military strategist Carl von Clausewitz defined war as the imposition of one’s will upon another — don’t we want to impose our will on ISIS? Isn’t seeking to degrade and destroy an enemy a matter of imposing your will — would that not mean conducting war?

This incessant PC nonsense emanating from the Obama administration continually erodes confidence. Why would I want to join a coalition with a bunch of amateurish incompetent chuckleheads who have no clue? As a matter of fact, the vaunted “coalition” of nine countries took a hit when the United Kingdom and Germany stated they hadn’t signed up for any airstrikes – but hey, we do still have the Albanians.

Just to demonstrate how delusional world Kerry’s world is, get this, he said, ISIL has attracted a “significant coalition” that is determined to go and destroy it. And who Mr. Secretary of State may that be? As we wrote here, the Turks have reservations about the Kurdish Peshmerga Army being armed and supported — so they’re not “all in” either.

Another major concern is that the Obama administration doesn’t want to present its case to Congress for approval — by vote, all things political. Say what you wish, but George W. Bush assembled a coalition of almost 40 countries and received approval from Congress for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Now, instead of doing the same, Obama believes in his imperial little mind that he already possesses the authority to involve America in a “very significant counter-terrorism operation” – a careful choice of words which he believes allows him to skirt Constitutional responsibilities, because only Congress can authorize war.

Obama is using the existing AUMF (Authorization of Use of Military Force) enacted under the Bush administration after 9-11 as cover.

*** CNN reports, “Kerry, in Jeddah for meetings with Arab leaders to enlist regional support for a coalition to defeat ISIS, defended the administration’s insistence that the 2001 authority to go after al Qaeda and affiliates applies to ISIS. He insisted that, despite the split between jihadist groups, the origin of ISIS as an al Qaeda affiliate is enough to consider them connected. “This group is and has been al Qaeda,” Kerry said. “By trying to change its name, it doesn’t change who it is, what it does.”

I hate to tell ol’ Johnny boy but even al-Qaida doesn’t want its name associated with ISIS, and I bet Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi takes offense at being associated with al-Qaida. Then again, I thought that all these al-Qaida folks were decimated and on the run? So what is the truth, B. Hussein and John?

There should be no funds appropriated for this ambiguous endeavor until there is clarity, which at this time there is none. As well, Obama should go to Saudi King Abdullah and tell him to fund this venture – the Saudis did for Operation Desert Shield/Storm — heck, they even wanted to pay every troop who fought a stipend.

But Kerry didn’t want to be upstaged by Obama’s ridiculous statement that “ISIS is not Islamic.”

“When asked whether Saudi Arabia supports the extremist expressions of the Wahhabism version of Islam espoused by some terror groups, Kerry told CNN that the nation is “deeply committed to the effort to terminate ISIL.”

“They have never funded the kind of effort you’re talking about with respect to ISIL,” Kerry said, adding that a significant part of the counter-terrorism effort will include stemming fundraising for terror groups.”

Kerry evaded the question and we all know Saudi Arabia funds Wahabbism all over the globe. The House of Saud does indeed have members who are supporting ISIS with funding. And there are Saudis amongst the ISIS terrorist army — why not just tell the truth Mr. Secretary of State?

Ladies and gents, there is no way we can trust this administration to handle this situation, unless you applaud their efforts in enabling it. The confusion is mounting. There is no coalition. And all Obama has done is outsourced our national security.

We have nearly 1,500 combat troops on the ground in Iraq who are wearing boots — yet we’re told they’re not to be involved in combat — so why deploy them? If it’s to “train” Iraqi troops, they’re already trained. Just put the original generals and leaders back in charge, and get rid of al Maliki’s cronies.

So again, we’re going to conduct a very significant counter-terrorism operation to degrade and destroy ISIS, but not with American ground troops, and it’s not a war — but we have a coalition.

The only ones not confused are ISIS, and they are winning.

*** Note: CNN pulled the supporting video yesterday.