Conservative Musings

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Showing posts with label alawites. Show all posts

Thursday, October 1, 2015

China And Russia Enter The Middle East Vacuum Created By Obama. This Can ONLY End Badly.

WWIII IS SHAPING UP IN SYRIA

Exclusive: Joseph Farah likens alliance to 'apocalyptic visions of John the Revelator'

Published: 14 hours ago

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2011/12/Joseph-Farah_avatar.jpg

JOSEPH FARAH

World War III is shaping up in Syria right now, thanks to Barack Obama.

According to Russian Sen. Igor Morozov, Beijing has agreed to dispatch naval forces, including an aircraft carrier, to Syria alongside a Russian military force that will join Hezbollah and Iranian army regulars in Syria, an immediate neighbor to the north of Israel, and Iraq to fight ISIS.

Now this is both good news and bad news:

Good news: Somebody’s got to fight ISIS. And it’s clearly not going to be the U.S. under Barack Obama. Somebody’s got to soundly defeat and destroy ISIS. And that’s clearly not going to be the U.S. while Obama’s around.
Bad news: It’s going to be a coalition of Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah in the Middle East – something that sounds vaguely out of the worst apocalyptic visions of John the Revelator.

Obama has left this vacuum wide open for two powerful, nuclear nations to bring the U.S. down – one or both of which was responsible for the greatest act of cyberwarfare in the history of the world against the U.S., hacking into government computers and getting data on every past and present federal employee, including spies and military personnel, just months ago.

China is sending an aircraft carrier – a provocative act that it hasn’t invoked against U.S. interests since the Vietnam War era.

But it gets worse.

What is the mission?

The mission of Russia and China is to ensure Bashar Assad’s regime is not overthrown by ISIS or any other “terrorists.” The mission of Iran and Hezbollah, on the other hand, is hegemony over much of the Middle East – from Persia to the Levant, as they say.

Meanwhile, what is the U.S. trying to do? The U.S. is at the forefront of supplying and training forces to overthrow Assad, including arming groups associated with al-Qaida. Some of the arms provided by the U.S. have fallen into the hands of ISIS.

So the U.S. is on a collision course with Russia and China in the Middle East.

Russian military presence in Syria and Iraq has been increasing since 2012. Syria is now equipped with sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons that make U.S. flights vulnerable, and Russia began airstrikes against anti-Assad forces in Syria yesterday.

Israel, which knows it cannot depend on Obama for support, has been quietly negotiating with Russia. Israel’s main concern are periodic attacks on its civilians and territory by Hezbollah militia groups.

The Jewish state is going along with the Russians and, now, apparently, the Chinese. Benjamin Netanyahu, no fan of Assad, understands that stability in the Middle East is better than ISIS chaos and savagery. So he now has a hotline directly to Vladimir Putin to deal immediately with any misunderstandings. As you know, Netanyahu does not have Obama on speed dial – unless it’s to leave crank calls.

Russia is building up its forces in Syria because of its frustrations with Obama for not taking on ISIS in any meaningful way.

Now, apparently, China is stepping in.

“It is known, that China has joined our military operation in Syria, the Chinese cruiser has already entered the Mediterranean, aircraft carrier follows it,” said Morozov.

This is what happens when the U.S. fails to act, or, in the case of Obama, chooses the wrong target at the wrong time – namely the Syrian Assad regime.

Make no mistake about it: Assad is a terrible actor – but by Middle East tyrant standards, he’s practically a saint. He runs a country that doesn’t actively discriminate against Sunnis, Shia, Christians, Alawites or Druze. In fact, his army is made up of non-Sunni minority groups. Women are not treated like garbage in Syria. Meanwhile, he faces overthrow at the hands of ISIS, the most brutal and barbaric Sunni Muslim force since shortly after the time of Muhammad 1,300 years ago. It has already taken over strategic territory in the Middle East roughly the size of Great Britain. ISIS is just outside the gates of Damascus.

America could have interceded to destroy ISIS. It didn’t. Instead, Obama insisted on a path of doing all it could support non-ISIS groups to attack Assad’s Syria – which, if successful, would only help ISIS take over.

Do you see where all this potentially leading?

Russia and China swoop in to defend Syria, while it remains a target for toppling by the U.S.

Who is strengthened by all this? Iran: the regional power that just got a sweetheart nuclear deal from the U.S.

The trouble with foreign military powers that engage in the Middle East is simple: It’s easy to get in. Not so easy to disengage, as the U.S. has figured out.

Once the Russians and the Chinese start fighting ISIS – in Syria and Iraq – will they ever get out?

And I haven’t even mentioned that the U.S. seems to be more fixated on battling Russia in Ukraine.

Where will all this lead?

It’s the most obvious potential flashpoint for World War III.

But, hey, what could go wrong?

Maybe those Blood Moons and Shemitah predictions were right.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/wwiii-is-shaping-up-in-syria/#T85M9RvAQpavB0yT.99

Friday, September 11, 2015

Why Are Middle East Nations Not Stepping Up To Take Care Of Migrant Crisis? Why Are Europe And US Doing More Than Saudi Arabia And The Emerites?

The Mideast Migrant Crisis Requires Mideast Solutions

By Noah Beck September 10, 2015 , 9:00 am

Political responses to crises are often tardy and embarrassingly fad-driven, as with the current global outcry over the image of a three-year-old Syrian boy washed up on the Turkish shore. He was hardly the first innocent victim of this century’s most brutal war. Where has the world been for the last 54 months?

Indeed, the unfolding humanitarian crisis was an entirely foreseeable consequence of Obama’s spineless Syria policy, and the Western European leaders who followed it. So, despite Obama’s efforts to anesthetize the public, it is understandable if some collective shame for Western failures — driven by tragic images that went viral — has prompted Europe suddenly to announce that it will accept more refugees from the war-torn Middle East.

But how did the West become more responsible for the Mideast refugee crisis than the wealthiest Mideast states (whose funding of Islamist rebels helped to create that crisis)? According to news reports and think tanks, Arab Gulf donors have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Syria in recent years, including to ISIS and other groups.

Even if Gulf states weren’t at all responsible for aggravating the Syrian refugee crisis by strengthening ISIS, their wealth, proximity, and cultural/religious affinities with the refugees should still make these countries far more responsible than Europe is for their welfare. The vast majority of refugees are Muslim Arabs. They therefore share a common language, religion, culture and ethnicity with the wealthy Gulf countries that have shunned them for reasons of national security (as if the West didn’t have such concerns). Any dialect or denominational differences Mideast refugees may have with Gulf states are nothing compared to the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious differences between most Middle East refugees and the European countries they hope to enter.

Even more absurd, Gulf countries are bringing in foreign laborers to build up their vast, oil-rich territories. Putting aside their horrific exploitation of those workers (which is a scandal all of its own, even if campus protests, international boycotts, and UN resolutions never mention it), why aren’t they instead accepting Mideast refugees who would happily accept the work that imported labor is now doing? Similarly, why have no Gulf countries granted Palestinian refugees citizenship if they so readily advocate for them at the U.N. out of some purported concern for their welfare? The cynical hypocrisy is staggering.

By contrast, tiny Israel absorbed nearly a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who were similarly made homeless when, in the 1940s and 1950s, their survival meant fleeing the Muslim-majority states where they had lived for millennia. Israel has also accepted plenty of non-Jewish refugees, from the Vietnamese boatpeople in the late 1970s to African refugees and migrants in recent years. Israel has provided humanitarian medical assistance to countless Syrians and now Israel’s deputy minister of regional affairs Israel (an Arab Druze), has joined the leader of the political opposition in urging Israel to accept Syrian refugees, despite the demographic and strategic risks of doing so.

Yet Europe now tries to hurt Israel’s economy by stigmatizing goods from the West Bank, with no similar economic campaigns against any of the Gulf countries, whose human rights records are exponentially worse on every issue (freedom of speech, women’s rights, religious freedom, minority rights, gay rights, treatment of guest workers, helping refugees, etc.).

Such double standards will undoubtedly worsen as Europe becomes increasingly Muslim — a trend that will only intensify with the current refugee crisis. But appeasement hasn’t kept Europe safe from Islamist attacks, as evidenced by the 2004 Madrid bombings, the 2005 London attacks, the 2014 Belgium attack, and this year’s attacks in Paris (to name just a few).

Europe clearly failed to integrate Muslim immigrants into its societies, which only reinforces doubts about the wisdom of bringing in more such immigrants.

More importantly, the EU’s sudden, politically correct acceptance of refugees addresses the symptoms rather than the root cause: the rise of ISIS — an evil cancer that metastasizes with each day that the world dithers. The longer ISIS survives, the more people are killed, tortured, and enslaved, the more Syria’s minorities are persecuted under an extreme Sunni Islamic rule, and the more refugees desperately try to flee wherever they can.

Defeating ISIS will have to happen eventually anyway, because ISIS threatens everything that civilized life offers, so the sooner that painful task is accomplished, the sooner the related problems (like the migrant crisis) will be solved.

ISIS took territory from Syria and Iraq that is roughly the size of Indiana (according to this New York Times article last July about ISIS’s destruction of Mideast Christianity), so there is plenty of land to resettle refugees, once ISIS is defeated.

Notwithstanding the generous island-purchase-offer by an Egyptian billionaire, the best long-term home for these refugees is not some remote Greek island (which only consolidates ISIS’s victory). Rather, the refugees should be able to live in security and dignity in the same region from which they fled, which means defeating ISIS and converting the ISIS-liberated territories into mini states that will serve as safe havens for moderate Sunnis and the various minorities at risk, including Christians, Kurds, Druze, Yazidis, and Alawites (who will become the most targeted after Syria’s Alawite-led regime falls).

The Kurds — who have fought ISIS with more courage and determination than any other party — have more than proven themselves worthy of a state.

The fact that Christians were once 20% of the Middle East and are now safest in the only non-Muslim country in the entire region (Israel), reinforces the need to create a Mideast Christian State. Such a state could exist around Mosul and/or other parts of Iraq/Syria where Christianity has historically existed (Assyria, Antioch, etc.).

The Druze — an ancient religion that has often also suffered persecution — could be given a state in southwest Syria.

There could be yet another, non-religious state that welcomes any other minorities (like the Yazidis) and moderate Sunni Muslims.

Until ISIS is replaced with stable and sane states, the Gulf countries should welcome all Mideast refugees.

To address the Middle East refugee crisis intelligently, the EU should help to defeat ISIS, convert liberated territories into states for the region’s persecuted minorities, and pressure Gulf states to absorb all refugees in the interim.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

When Christians Are Supported By Act, Deed Or Speech, Those Supporters Are Mocked And Condemned. All One Has To Look At Is The Hypothetical Comment By The Owner Of Memories Pizza. This Is A Sad Day In America.

Megyn Kelly: Obama Scolding Christians Could Have Chilling Effect

(Andrew Harrer/UPI/Landov)

Wednesday, 08 Apr 2015 01:43 PM

By Jennifer G. Hickey

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Fox News host Megyn Kelly believes President Barack Obama's recent comments about the "less-than-loving expressions by Christians" could have a chilling effect on those who want to speak out against ongoing religious persecution of their religious brethren.

"I mean, the question is whether those comments do real damage not just to morale among Christians about what their own president thinks of them, but… that they feel he won't stand up for Christians who are under threat," Kelly said last night on "The Kelly File," according to Mediaite.

Kelly was reacting to off-script comments made by Obama to an audience at Tuesday'sEaster Prayer Breakfast in which he reflected upon his own faith.

"On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned," he said possibly referring to the current controversy over religious freedom legislation in Arkansas, Indiana, and several other states.

"But that's a topic for another day… I was about to veer off. I'm pulling it back," the president added.

Kelly took exception to the timing of Obama's criticism.

"His remarks come as Christians are increasingly being targeted by terrorists worldwide," she added, referring to the 147 Christians who were killed in a recent attack at a university in Kenya.

The president's decision to publicly scold Christians is not the first time he has created controversy.

In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, Obama called on the audience not to forget the "terrible deeds" people have committed in the name of Christ.

Monday, October 21, 2013

The Ironies Of The Obama Administration--Supporting The Wrong People, Denying Americans Benefits And Always On The Wrong Side Of History

Funding Jihadists while Denying Military Benefits

Andrew C. McCarthy - National Review Online, October 12th, 2013

Here is where we’re at: The Republican establishment — the guys who told us that for a trillion dollars and several thousand American casualties, we could build “Islamic democracies” that would be reliable U.S. allies in the War on Terror — say it is Ted Cruz who is “delusional” and the effort to stave off Obamacare that is “unattainable.”

These self-appointed sages are, of course, the same guys who told us the way to “stabilize” and “democratize” Libya was to help jihadists topple and kill the resident dictator — who, at the time, was a U.S. ally, providing intelligence about the jihadists using his eastern badlands as a springboard for the anti-American terror insurgency in Iraq. That’s probably worth remembering this week, during which some of our new “allies” abducted Libya’s president while others car-bombed Sweden’s consulate in Benghazi — site of the still unavenged terrorist massacre of American ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials 13 months ago.

Not to worry, though. So successful do they figure the Libyan escapade was, GOP leaders are backing a reprise in Syria. It is there, we learn from a Human Rights Watch report issued this week, that our new “allies,” the al-Qaeda-rife “rebels,” executed a savage atrocity just two months ago. Sweeping into the coastal village of Latakia, the jihadists slaughtered 190 minority Alawites. As the New York Times details, “at least 67 of the dead appeared to have been shot or stabbed while unarmed or fleeing, including 48 women and 11 children.” More than 200 other civilians were captured and are still being held hostage.

So that’s going well.

And, you’ll be pleased to know, supporting the Syrian “rebels” is a high enough priority that it’s not part of the 17 percent of the federal government affected by the “shutdown.” America’s enemies are still receiving taxpayer-funded weapons, so that they can fight America’s other enemies, the Assad regime, to what Washington hopes will be a resounding victory. Er . . . check that — to what the administration hopes will be . . . a tie. The administration also let slip this week that it is arming our preferred jihadists so they can grind to a stalemate with Russia’s preferred jihadists — after all, we wouldn’t want to upset Iran’s ruling jihadists after they’ve just finally deigned to take, yes, a phone call from our pleading president after blowing him off in New York.

So support for the Syrian jihad remains unaffected by the shutdown, just like the Capitol Hill gym and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” website. Obama did manage, however, to cut off death benefits for the families of American troops killed fighting for our country. Or at least our conniving Alinsky-in-chiefthought he’d succeeded in cutting off the military death benefits — along with forcible closures of war-hero cemeteries, national monuments, private homes, and the ocean.

It turned out he’d miscalculated.

President I Will Not Negotiate ended up negotiating, and then quietly paying bereaved military families, because he discovered, to his astonishment, that the public would hold him, not Republicans, responsible for this unspeakable breach of faith. He’d thought he had that covered. After all, as the Republican establishment repeatedly tells us, Obama’s media always blame the GOP — thus making it “delusional” for the GOP to stand up and fight about anything.

The president was caught by the strategy devised by the delusional rubes who want to exercise Congress’s prerogative not to fund Obamacare — a purportedly unattainable goal, notwithstanding that the prerogative is rooted in the Constitution, in marked contrast to Obama’s own selective waivers of Obamacare, which are apparently rooted in . . . Obama.

See, in order to demonstrate beyond cavil that they were being reasonable, notwithstanding huge objections to the current unsustainable $3.6 trillion trough of federal spending, conservatives volunteered to fund everything the government does except Obamacare. The administration and its scribes shrieked, of course, but there is nothing illegal or unusual about withholding appropriations for federal programs. The government does it every year.Obama himself does it, not just in refusing to enforce the federal immigration laws (to take just one example) but in refusing to execute aspects of Obamacare that harm preferred corporations, union cronies, and Congress.

As expected, our petulant president refused the deal, directing his minions to forge ahead full-speed on his signature socialization of health care — never mind its unpopularity, unconstitutionality, and unreadiness for implementation. Meantime, he schemed to make the shutdown he was forcing as painful as possible. The mainstream-media division of the White House press operation would then, he figured, dutifully blame Republicans for the inevitable public outcry, and the GOP would instantly unfurl its ever-ready white flag.

But instead of waving the flag, House conservatives decided to wave a series of appropriations bills: bite-size portions of the mega-funding the president had already refused — a page out of the Left’s book, offering heartstring-tugging dollars for Head Start, disadvantaged women and children, cancer patients, emergency responders, national-parks operation, city services for Washington residents, etc. Obama thumbed his nose at these House overtures, banked on the press’s refusal to cover them, and went merrily about the business of scalding Republicans over a government shutdown that he was actually causing.

Except Obama let one bill get by: the House’s Pay Our Military Act (POMA). Why? Because Obama needs to hold Senate Democrats in lockstep “no” mode, but even they would not sign on to refusing to pay our troops in wartime. So the bill was passed — proving that, as the delusional Ted Cruz maintains, Democrats can be moved if unified Republicans make the pressure intense enough.

Obama signed POMA even though it cut sharply against his Maximum Pain strategy, but that was because he had his usual Plan B: ignore federal law. As Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky explained on the Corner, administration lawyers issued tortuous guidance, twisting a statute that directs the payment of death benefits into a prohibition against the payment of death benefits. The idea was to add POMA to the community organizer’s propaganda campaign: to show that the Republicans would betray even our fallen heroes if that’s what it took to deny health care to millions of Americans.

But the president who slept through the Benghazi massacre once again forgot that our military is not just an agitprop. Our soldiers really do put their lives on the line, and lose them — as did the one marine and four soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan last weekend. That made it all too real. When bereaved families were suddenly denied death benefits by our government, there was no hiding the fact that the commander-in-chief had, yet again, abandoned those who’d made the ultimate patriotic sacrifice. What’s more, this dereliction was nothing more than crass political calculation — or, as it turned out, miscalculation.

Public anger erupted and even the Associated Press courtiers were reduced toreporting a sharp drop in the president’s approval rating. Congressional Democrats scrambled and a superfluous, face-saving death-benefits law was enacted so the White House could try to pretend the president now had payment authority he’d previously lacked. Administration lawyers continue to mumble about how, though Obama felt really terrible about it, the perfectly clear POMA had been “too vague” to help military families in their time of need.

You know, there’s also a 1996 law on the federal books that makes it a felony to provide material support to terrorists. It’s not vague. In fact, it’s clear as a bell, according to the many federal courts that have applied it in sentencing scores of jihadist-abettors to hundreds of years in prison.

Don’t you find it strange, don’t you think the public at large would find it strange, that in a shutdown Obama has instigated in order to enforce the Obamacare law Americans don’t want, he so skews the rest of our law that his administration says we can fund al-Qaeda but we can’t fund the families of our war dead?

What a great argument that would be for Republicans . . . if only they were on the right side of it. But they’re not. So let’s roll over on Obamacare, get behind the Syrian jihadists, and make sure everyone knows Ted Cruz is the delusional one around here.