Saturday, September 7, 2019

The U.S.-Taliban Negotiations: A Deadly Qatari Trap - Yigal Carmon


by Yigal Carmon

Mr. Trump -- is unfortunately empowering his Taliban enemy by protracted negotiations, where America makes successive concessions and ultimately throws its Afghan allies under the bus.

  • One can understand President Donald Trump's wish to leave Afghanistan. There are, however, ways to leave without losing people, respect, and allies. Mr. Trump, instead of leaving unilaterally, while reinforcing the democratically elected government in Kabul without boots on the ground, is unfortunately empowering his Taliban enemy by protracted negotiations, where America makes successive concessions and ultimately throws its Afghan allies under the bus.
  • Afghan officials are the first to sense that the sellout of the Kabul government is impending, and are scurrying to defect to the Taliban (in July alone there were 800 defections).
  • As opposed to what many Americans think, Qatar did the US no favors in building the base in the mid-1990s. It needed an American base for its own self-protection and this dependence still persists. Without this base, this Lilliputian energy Gulliver would be taken over by its neighbors (whether Iranian or Saudi) within a day. The US military establishment ignores this reality to its own detriment, and behaves as if America is in Qatar's debt rather than the reverse.
  • Qatar is already threatening to limit potential operations against Iran from Al-Udeid, should they be needed, and Qatar's Tamim told Rouhani that "only countries [placed] along the coast [of the Persian Gulf] should keep security in the region."
This is an edited and shortened version of an article recently in MEMRI.

Pictured: U.S. Marines at Camp Shorab on September 11, 2017 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images)

What is happening in Afghanistan is already beyond grief. The United States is negotiating with the Taliban, without the Taliban first agreeing to a cease-fire as a precondition for talks, and although President Trump has emphatically announced his determination to withdraw from the country, American soldiers are still being killed (in recent days, three American servicemen died). [1]

One can understand President Donald Trump's wish to leave Afghanistan. Whether the US can sustain its strategic and economic leadership in the context of an isolationist policy, is a legitimate debate. This is the president's and Congress's purview. There are, however, ways to leave without losing people, respect, and allies. Mr. Trump, instead of leaving unilaterally, while reinforcing the democratically elected government in Kabul without boots on the ground, is unfortunately empowering his Taliban enemy by protracted negotiations, where America makes successive concessions and ultimately throws its Afghan allies under the bus.[2] Afghan officials are the first to sense that the sellout of the Kabul government is impending, and are scurrying to defect to the Taliban (in July alone there were 800 defections).[3]

Some enemies have no interest in anything but an American withdrawal and will not pay anything for such a withdrawal; on the contrary, they will exact payment for each day the Americans remain until they exit with their tails between their legs. Apparently, the president and his administration are unable to see this. According to leaks to the media, the Americans are trying to negotiate with the Taliban a dialogue with the elected Kabul government. However, even if the Taliban sign on the dotted line, our experience in the Middle East shows time and again that there is no way to ensure that they keep their word. President Trump insists that the Taliban promise not to attack the US following its departure. The Taliban can definitely affix their empty signature: in the Middle East, people use proxies. Like the Iranians, the Taliban can be seemingly uninvolved, but 9/11 was hatched in Afghanistan by Muslim-Arab Al-Qaeda members.

Who blinded brilliant, shrewd and goal-oriented people such as President Trump and the people around him, as they did also during his first year in office? Why do they prefer to overlook the public announcements by the Taliban such as: "the reason behind war... in Afghanistan is the presence of Americans forces and it will only find an end when American forces leave Afghanistan."[4] The answer (surprise) is Qatar, which talked the U.S. administration into this self-destructive process. The administration bought into it on the assumption that a country that built and hosts the CENTCOM base is therefore an ally with shared interests and therefore its recommendations must be benevolent and bona fide. Little do they understand -- Qatar is an enemy in allied clothing -- and its interests are antithetical to America's.

Qatar supports every major terrorist organization: the Muslim Brotherhood (it hosts their chief inciter for terror, Sheikh Yusef Al-Qaradawi) and its offshoots such as Al-Qaeda and now the Taliban in order to buy protection for the ruling Al-Thani clan. It also sustains Muslim governments antagonistic to America such as Erdogan's Turkey. The Al-Thani family-owned Al-Jazeera news network has for decades served as an efficient weaponized media outlet targeting the US and its interests in the region and beyond.[5]

According to Richard A. Clarke, National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism in the Clinton and Bush (43) administrations, the previous Qatari Emir, father of the current one, personally snatched from the Americans an arch-terrorist named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, (who plotted terror attacks against America) and spirited him away from Qatar to foil his arrest by the Americans, thus enabling him to mastermind the 9/11 attacks a few years later. Clarke concluded: "Had the Qataris handed him over to us as requested in 1996, the world might have been a very different place."

As opposed to what many Americans think, Qatar did the US no favors in building the base in the mid-1990s. It needed an American base for its own self-protection and this dependence still persists. Without this base, this Lilliputian energy Gulliver would be taken over by its neighbors (whether Iranian or Saudi) within a day. The US military establishment ignores this reality to its own detriment, and behaves as if America is in Qatar's debt rather than the reverse.

By enlisting America, Qatar protects itself.


The Qataris won President Trump's friendship the same way they purchase anything in the West, from think tanks to World Cup competitions. They insinuated themselves into his good graces by promising a reported $85 billion for rehabilitating America's infrastructure. President Trump's eagerness for American jobs and prosperity understandably fed his enthusiasm for the Qatari emir:
"Tamim, you've been a friend of mine for a long time, before I did this presidential thing, and we feel very comfortable with each other... Investments that you make in the United States -- one of the largest in the world -- but the investments that you make are very much appreciated. And I know the planes you're buying and all of the other things you're investing in. And I view it differently; I view it as jobs. Because for me, it's jobs. And today, we set a new record for jobs. We're setting it almost on a daily basis."
Even more unfortunate is Qatar's ability to buy off the US military on the cheap by expanding the Al-Udeid base on its dime to allow more comfortable housing for the servicemen's families; so far, no American commander has arisen to challenge the price in American blood and honor that Doha's largesse is demanding. Instead, we get Brigadier General Daniel H. Tulley, the Al-Udeid base commander, cluelessly saying: "It never ceases to amaze Americans how gracious our hosts are here."

Years ago, a senior administration official explained to me why the US turns a blind eye to Qatar's nefarious activities. "We have in the Al-Udeid base total freedom of operations," he said. "The Al-Udeid base is like a USAFB in Alabama." This too is no longer true; Qatar is already threatening to limit potential operations against Iran from Al-Udeid, should they be needed, and Qatar's Tamim told Rouhani that "only countries [placed] along the coast [of the Persian Gulf] should keep security in the region."[6] One can imagine the Qatari ruling family laughing in the safety of their US-protected palace, and prizing their good fortune in having such useful idiots as allies and protectors.
Yigal Carmon is the President and founder of MEMRI [Middle East Media and Research Institute].

[1] Belatedly, only after the continuous killing of American soldiers by the Taliban after all signs pointed to an imminent deal, Khalilzad awoke to tell the Taliban "violence like this must stop. Has the chief US negotiator forgotten that the Taliban has long demanded a complete withdrawal of foreign troops in order to "end the occupation" of Afghanistan and that there will be no ceasefire until a US troop withdrawal?
[2] In addition to agreeing to the conduct of negotiations under fire, the US: 1. Agreed to exclude the elected Afghan government from the talks (this belies Khalilzad's claim in footnote 3 that the US will not throw Kabul under the bus). 2. Absolved the Taliban of being a terror organization and extended this blanket absolution to any terror organization worldwide operating within a specific territory. 3. Agreed in principle to release 10,000 Taliban terrorists in exchange for 3,000 abducted Afghan officials, and 4. Totally ignored the Taliban declaration that elections are un-Islamic thus rendering a possible Taliban signature on a clause mandating democratic dialogue with the Afghan government a dead letter.
[3] AlemarahEnglish.com (Afghanistan), August 10, 2019. Indeed Zalmay Khalilzad, the US negotiator with the Taliban has recently tweeted that "We will defend Afghan forces now and after any agreement w/ the Talibs." The facts on the ground belie such assurances. The US has acquiesced to a veritable Taliban embassy in Doha, the ultimate brush-off to the Kabul government.
[4] AlemarahEnglish.com (Afghanistan), August 26, 2019.
[5] For a recapitulation of Qatar's double dealing featuring its weaponized Al-Jazeera network see: MEMRI Daily Brief No. 146, Qatar The Emirate That Fools Them All, And Its Enablers, January 18, 2018
[6] Mehrnews.com (Iran), August 12, 2019.


Yigal Carmon is the President and founder of MEMRI [Middle East Media and Research Institute].

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14816/us-taliban-negotiations-qatar

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How Despots Interpret Deals with the West - Bassam Tawil


by Bassam Tawil

Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.

  • The European Union wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because as far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe's hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, "send Jews to the ovens," "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "kill the Jews."
  • The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should "bow down" to Iran. Seems it is.
  • Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."
  • Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially in Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was quoted as saying on August 28 that the US is "not seeking conflict with Iran." During the Pentagon press briefing, Esper repeated Trump's calls for diplomatic efforts with Iran. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The European Union says it will support talks between the US and Iran, but only if the current nuclear deal with Tehran is preserved.

The idea of direct talks between the US and Iran seems to have developed after President Donald Trump recently said he was ready to meet Iran's President Hassan Rouhani.

"We are always in favor of talks, the more people talk, the more people understand each other better, on the basis of clarity and on the basis of respect," EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said last month.

The EU wants the world to welcome Iran back into the international community because -- this might sound harsh, but it is increasingly hard not to believe it -- they are hoping that the leaders of Tehran will focus their efforts on achieving their goal of annihilating Israel. As far as the Europeans are concerned, it appears that the stronger Iran is, the better: a renewed Iran would further Europe's hope of seeing Israel and the Jews wiped off the face of the earth. Heard just a few months ago were calls such as, "send Jews to the ovens," "Hitler didn't finish the job," and "kill the Jews."

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was quoted as saying on August 28 that the US is "not seeking conflict with Iran." During the Pentagon press briefing, Esper repeated Trump's calls for diplomatic efforts with Iran. "You saw over the weekend some reporting. The president once again said that he's more than willing to meet with Iran's leaders to resolve this... diplomatically."

The Trump administration's gestures towards Iran, however, do not appear to have impressed the leaders of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Arabs and Muslims have a habit of misinterpreting gestures from Westerners as a sign of weakness and retreat. In addition, such gestures have historically whetted the appetite of Arabs and Muslims, leading to demands for yet more concessions.

The Trump administration has created the impression in the Arab and Muslim world that it is ready to beg the leaders of Iran to engage in direct negotiations with Washington. This approach is exceptionally harmful to US interests: it sends a message to many Arabs and Muslims that Americans are prepared to surrender again and humiliate themselves for the sake of any kind of deal with the Iranians. As Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said last month, America should "bow down" to Iran. Seems it is.

In the eyes of many Arabs and Muslims, the US now appears to be courting the Iranian regime despite Tehran's increased support for terrorism, particularly in the Middle East. These Arabs and Muslims are even convinced that it is only a matter of time before the Trump administration comes knocking on Iran's door, begging for a meeting between Trump and Rouhani.

The Iranians are already making it appear as if they are the ones who need to consider whether or not to meet with the Trump administration. This policy is designed to send the following message to Arabs and Muslims: "See how these pathetic Westerners have come to us, begging? See how they have zero self-respect?"

Echoing this approach, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last month:
"It won't be possible for us to engage with US unless they stop imposing a war, engaging in economic terrorism... If they want to come back to the [negotiating] room, there is a ticket, and that ticket is to observe the agreement."
Zarif was referring to the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the JCPOA, but never signed by Iran and never submitted to the US Senate to make it a binding treaty.

Zarif is saying, in other words, that Iran has its own pre-conditions for talking with the Trump administration. Statements like these are aimed at making Iran appear to Arabs and Muslims as a country that can afford openly to challenge -- and even degrade -- the US.

For now, the Iranians appear as if they have the upper hand and final say in the crisis with the US. This bearing further emboldens Tehran's leaders and proxies throughout the Middle East, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the Houthi Shia militias in Yemen.

The Trump administration, rather than avoiding the telephone calls of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would do well to learn from Israel's experience when it comes to offering gestures and making territorial and political concessions: that striking deals with Arab and Islamic regimes and organizations, such as Iran and the Palestinian Authority -- as well as the Taliban, China, North Korea and Russia, which all seem to think that honoring agreements is for other people -- tends to come with a heavy price.

In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo Accord with the PLO -- a move that allowed then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and thousands of his "fighters" to move from Tunis to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Israelis were hoping back then that the Oslo Accords would lead to real peace and coexistence, with the Palestinians living under PLO rule. The Oslo Accords, nonetheless, have since proven to be a disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians. Why? As it later transpired, Arafat and the PLO never had any intention of implementing the agreements. Arafat, in fact, spoke of the Oslo Accord as a modern version of Mohammad's Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, in which the prophet had promised not to attack a Jewish tribe for ten years, but instead came back in two years and wiped it out.

PLO official Faisal Husseini on two separate occasions in 2001 described Oslo as a "Trojan Horse" – presumably first to open Israel to Palestinian demands and then to destroy it.

In 2006, Palestinian journalist Abdel Al-Bari Atwan revealed in a television interview that Arafat had told him that he was planning to turn the Oslo Accords into a curse for Israel.
"When the Oslo Accords were signed, I went to visit [Arafat] in Tunis. It was around July, before he went to Gaza. I said to him: We disagree. I do not support this agreement. It will harm us, the Palestinians, distort our image, and uproot us from our Arab origins. This agreement will not get us what we want, because these Israelis are deceitful.
"He [Arafat] took me outside and told me: By Allah, I will drive them [the Jews] crazy. By Allah, I will turn this agreement into a curse for them. By Allah, perhaps not in my lifetime, but you will live to see the Israelis flee from Palestine. Have a little patience. I entrust this with you. Don't mention this to anyone."
When Arafat and the PLO realized at the 2000 Camp David summit that their plan had been uncovered, they launched a massive wave of terrorism, called "the Second Intifada," against Israel. At that meeting, Arafat received the most generous offer to date from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak -- but the Palestinian leader still said "no."

Barak's proposal, according to various sources, included the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on approximately 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from land inside Israel; the dismantling of most of the settlements; and the establishment of the future Palestinian capital in large parts of east Jerusalem. (An offer in 2008 from then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, even more far-reaching, was rejected by the Palestinians without even a counter-offer.)

Israel had believed what the PLO and Yasser Arafat said, and ended up facing an unprecedented campaign of suicide bombings and different forms of terrorism that have claimed the lives of thousands of Israelis in the past 27 years.

In 2005, Israel again paid a heavy price for a move that was supposed to promote peace and stability in the Middle East: the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Then, Israel withdrew to the 1949 armistice line bordering the Gaza Strip after evacuating more than 8,000 Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip settlements. Israel's gesture, however, was misinterpreted by many Palestinians as a sign of weakness and retreat. The way most Palestinians saw it was: "Wow, we have killed 1,000 Jews in four and a half years -- and now the Jews run! What we need to do is step up our terrorism: today they are evacuating the Gaza Strip, tomorrow they will evacuate the cities of Ashkelon, then Ashdod, then Tel Aviv ... and from there to the sea."

So, the Palestinians continued to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel even after the Israeli pullout. They had evidently concluded that spilling more Jewish blood would force the Jews to make even greater concessions and lead eventually lead to the elimination of Israel.

Similarly, Israel has repeatedly paid a heavy price for other gestures, such as releasing convicted terrorists from prison or removing checkpoints. Virtually each time, the Palestinian response was mounting more terrorism and killing more Jews. Many Palestinians who were released by Israel in the past few decades have returned to terrorist activity. They clearly saw their release from prison as a sign of weakness, and not as a gesture of goodwill on the part of Israel. Their conclusion was: to get Israel to release more prisoners, kill more Jews.

Most of all, the Trump administration would be wise to learn from Israel's bitter experience in dealing with Iran's Palestinian proxies: Hamas and Islamic Jihad. How many ceasefire agreements has Israel reached with the Gaza-based terrorist groups in the past 15 years? Probably at least ten. What has happened since then? Most of the agreements were violated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sometimes within hours, days or weeks.

Israel has learned the hard way that agreements with terrorists and dictators (such as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas) are not worth the paper they are written on -- and usually simply serve to invite further violence.

The Trump administration, in its overtures towards the Iranian regime -- and China, North Korea, Russia and the Taliban -- could well be facing the same scenario. Advice to the Trump administration is: Stay strong. As Osama bin Laden correctly observed, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."

Strength and more strength is the only way to earn the respect of those running the show in Beijing, Kabul, Moscow, Pyongyang, and especially Tehran, Gaza and Beirut.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14805/despots-deals

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IDF attacks targets in northern and central Gaza - Arutz Sheva Staff


by Arutz Sheva Staff

Israel Air Force planes fired three missiles at a Hamas target in central Gaza, reports say.

The IDF on Saturday night began attacking targets in northern and central Gaza.
According to Arab media, Israel Air Force planes fired three missiles at a Hamas target in central Gaza.

"Earlier today, a drone infiltrated into Israeli airspace from the Gaza Strip and dropped an explosive device on a military vehicle," an IDF spokesman said.

"In response, IDF fighter jets and an IDF aircraft recently struck a number of Hamas military targets, including offensive naval equipment and two military compounds belonging to Hamas' aerial array in the northern and central Gaza Strip.

"The IDF will continue operating against all efforts to harm Israeli civilians and soldiers and holds Hamas responsible for all that transpires in the Gaza Strip and emanates from it."


On Saturday, three armed Gazans attempted to cross into Israel and were arrested by the IDF.

Also on Saturday, the IDF arrested an armed Gazan who had successfully infiltrated into Israel.

On Friday night, Gazan terrorists fired five rockets into Israel. One of the rockets exploded in an Israeli town.


Arutz Sheva Staff

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/268531

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Howard Zinn's American Holocaust - Richard Kirk


by Richard Kirk

A People's History of the United States is a one-sided work written from the perspective of a Communist activist that contains a plethora of distortions and outright lies.


If anyone wonders why youngsters today are less patriotic and more inclined toward socialism, they need look no further than the most popular “history” textbook in the United States, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States -- a one-sided work written from the perspective of a Communist activist that contains a plethora of distortions and outright lies. In 2012, the director of the American Textbook Council noted that Zinn’s text had sold two million copies and was the “best-selling survey of American history.” By 2018, it was estimated that the book had sold more than 2.6 million copies. 

Mary Grabar’s new book, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America (Regnery History) does us the service of exposing the mendacious, non-scholarly character of this work that was praised to the hilt by Zinn’s former Cambridge neighbor, Matt Damon. In Good Will Hunting the film’s protagonist exclaims, “It will knock your socks off!” making an even greater rock star of Zinn and solidifying for impressionable teens the bona fides of a propaganda tome composed in a scant year. Even a sympathetic leftist historian, Michael Kammen, called the book “simpleminded” and a “scissors-and-paste-pot job.” The well-known liberal scholar Arthur Schlesinger was even more critical, labeling Zinn “a polemicist, not a historian.” Grabar herself notes that after his graduate school book on Fiorello La Guardia, Zinn produced not a single piece of historical scholarship until decades later he slapped together his People’s History -- a work that relies overwhelmingly on secondary sources and for which “there is no evidence that Zinn ever actually made extensive notes,” as he claimed, in preparation for its writing.

Grabar provides scores of examples of Zinn’s modus operandi -- one that ignores, distorts, or simply lies about evidence to construct a Manichean portrait of good versus evil as those categories are conceived by a Marxist activist. Zinn’s caricature of Columbus sets the stage for his presentation of American history as a series of holocausts. In one case Zinn quotes Columbus’ diary entries out of context to portray the explorer as a rapacious gold-seeker who wouldn’t be averse to enslaving the island’s primitive inhabitants. To accomplish this goal, Zinn ignores Columbus’ positive comments about “freedom” for the “Arawak” tribe and splices together separate entries that make the explorer appear a nascent slave trader on first viewing the island’s inhabitants. In fact, the damning comments about the natives being “good servants” were made days later and concerned the perspective of a warring tribe intent on subjugating their more docile neighbors. The other side of Zinn’s narrative involves the beatification and Marxification of the Americas’ native population -- a portrait at odds with any objective history of the New World which was filled with wars at least as ubiquitous and violent (including the cannibalism that Zinn omits) as those in “capitalist” Europe! 

To top off the lies about Columbus, Grabar shows that a good deal of Zinn’s “scholarship” is plagiarized from a 1976 work by fellow anti-Vietnam War activist Hans Koning, Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth. Grabar shows how page after page in Zinn’s history was lifted almost verbatim from Koning’s book. Indeed, “The first five-and-a-half pages of A People’s History of the United States are little more than slightly altered passages from Columbus: His Enterprise.” The secondary kicker is that Koning wasn’t even an historian, much less a Columbus scholar. In fact, Koning’s “slim volume does not cite any sources.” Grabar also reveals additional instances of Zinn’s plagiarism -- one of which was discovered by a leftist professor who didn’t publicize the truth lest it harm their common ideological objectives. So much for professional standards that were applied even to a well-known historian like PBS’s favorite scholar, Doris Kearns Goodwin, who “resigned from her post on the Pulitzer Prize review board and took a ‘leave’ from PBS NewsHour” when parts of her work were found to be plagiarized.

Chapter two of Grabar’s book reviews the life of Zinn as a dedicated Communist activist whose Marxist beliefs and activities spoke louder than any card he may or may not have carried. Chapter three shows how Native Americans are used as props for Zinn’s ongoing Marxist cartoon, with Europeans and Americans forming the necessary oppressive class. As for his account of the Iroquois Indians, it was again largely plagiarized from another patently biased historian, Gary Nash. One critic said the descriptions of this well-known American tribe resembled “California countercultural rebels, defenders of women’s rights, and communist egalitarians...” In Zinn’s telling, any butchery and slavery on the side of oppressed groups (even the Aztecs) is ignored, distorted, or excused. Thus, Zinn’s “history” conforms perfectly to Professor Fred Siegel’s observation about the “New Historians” for whom “American history became a tragedy in three acts: what we did to the Indians, what we did to the African-Americans, and what we did to everyone else.” 

Concerning the second act of that tragedy, Zinn somehow manages to blame capitalism for American slavery, though the institution has been around for all of recorded history and still exists in some very noncapitalist African states. He also ignores the fact that only in America, where slavery was said to be the cruelest, were slaves, despite the evils of the institution, able to grow their population through natural increase, something not possible in regions where slaves died or were killed so frequently that only a constant influx of new victims maintained their numbers.

Grabar clearly demonstrates that Zinn takes the orthodox Communist line when discussing any topic: The Founders were more interested in their investments than the welfare of oppressed groups. Lincoln was more a capitalist tool than a president committed to ending slavery -- or a friend to his adviser and later Republican political official, Frederick Douglass. Even World War II was fought to maintain the capitalist system, as was, of course, the Vietnam War, where, according to Zinn, the My Lai massacre was “typical.” Also in the 60s, radical and violent groups like the Black Panthers are given greater attention and more credit for (always inadequate) civil rights progress than traditional groups like the NAACP -- even though the latter organization clearly accomplished more than the former and was supported by blacks (despite Zinn’s insinuations) far more than their violent counterparts. 

Earlier in the book -- and also in closing -- Grabar makes a telling point about the duplicity of modern historians by comparing their vigorous denunciation of David Irving’s Holocaust-minimizing work with the plenary indulgences given to Zinn’s unbalanced, unreliable, often-plagiarized volume. Why, she asks, should Zinn’s false American holocaust history not be judged by the same standards that make Irving’s account of Hitler’s crimes totally unacceptable? The obvious answer is that most historians, even those who think Zinn’s book is more propaganda than history, are still sympathetic to the ideology that permeates Zinn’s distorted view of the U.S. -- a sympathy illustrated by their spirited defense of the book whenever official attempts arise to remove it from state-related classrooms. Grabar provides sufficient evidence to make the case that Zinn’s history is every bit as contemptible as Irving’s and should be viewed with equal revulsion. That Zinn in 2004 signed a statement supporting an investigation into a possible 9/11 Bush Administration conspiracy says all one really needs to know about Zinn’s animus toward America. That professional historians, clueless high school teachers, and even Google searches (no surprise) present Zinn’s history as reliable is a big reason many young Americans no longer feel pride in a nation that’s been presented to them through the jaundiced eyes of a Communist who cares not a whit for professional historical standards -- or the truth. 


Richard Kirk
is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?" is also available on Kindle

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/howard_zinns_american_holocaust.html

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American Airlines mechanic allegedly tampered with plane in Miami to delay or cancel flight - Louis Casiano


by Louis Casiano

Let's hope that this is a unique case!

An American Airlines employee, allegedly angry over stalled union contract talks with the company, has been accused of disabling the navigation system on a flight slated to take off from Miami over the summer, investigators said Thursday.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, a veteran mechanic with the airline, was arrested Thursday and charged with willfully damaging, destroying or disabling an aircraft, The Miami Herald reported, citing a court affidavit.

Pilots on Flight 2834 bound for Nassau were alerted to the problem by an aircraft warning system before they took off on July 17, preventing possible injury to the 150 people on board.

Crews took the plane to an American Airlines hangar at Miami International Airport for routine maintenance and eventually discovered the tampering during an inspection. A mechanic found a tube underneath the cockpit that had been obstructed with foam, according to the paper.

Alani glued the foam inside the tube leading from the outside of the plane to its air data module, federal prosecutors allege. The system reports the plane's speed and other flight data.

He reportedly told federal air marshals he was angry over stalled contract negotiations between the mechanics' union and the airline, which had hurt him financially. He allegedly said he didn't mean to harm anyone on board and had tampered with the aircraft's data module to cause a "delay or have the flight canceled."

Investigators said they suspected Alani after reviewing video footage. In it, he is said to be seen exiting a truck on the day of the flight and accessing the compartment where the navigation system was located.

He is expected to appear in court Friday.


Louis Casiano

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/travel/american-airlines-mechanic-miami-tampering-plane-takeoff

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Strengthening the US-Israel alliance - Caroline Glick


by Caroline Glick

What sort of rearrangement of Israel’s defense ties with the US would advance those ties to both countries’ mutual advantage?

 

Should Israel and the US sign a mutual defense treaty? Every few years, this question is raised. And every few years, it is set aside.

In 2000 then prime minister Ehud Barak made signing a mutual defense treaty with the US a central component of his national security strategy. That year, as Barak sought to sell the public his plan to give the Temple Mount to Yassir Arafat and Judea and Samaria to Arafat’s terror armies, he presented the option of signing a mutual defense pact with the US as a reasonable payoff for Israel’s sacrifice for peace.

Barak’s thinking was clear.

True, if the PLO boss had accepted Barak’s peace offer Israel would have been left without its capital and without defensible borders. But there was no reason to worry. The Marines would protect us. At the heart of Barak’s vision of a mutual defense treaty stood his unwillingness to bear the burdens of freedom, power and sovereignty.

The present round of chatter about the prospect of achieving a US-Israel defense treaty was initiated by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham. In opposition to the view of the majority of Israelis and of the 2016 Republican party platform, Graham insists on maintaining allegiance to the so-called “two state solution,” despite its hundred-year record of continuous failure.

Still Graham is no foe of Israeli sovereignty and military might. To the contrary. Graham played a decisive role in convincing President Donald Trump to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. So it is inconceivable that Graham shares Barak’s post-Zionist vision of a defenseless Israel protected by Uncle Sam.

Moreover, according to media reports, ahead of the September 17 elections Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is making an effort to convince President Trump to make a statement in favor of a new US-Israel defense treaty. Since Netanyahu’s diplomatic policies and his strategic vision of Israel are diametrically opposed to those Barak advanced, it is impossible to imagine that Netanyahu shares Barak’s vision of the purpose of a defense treaty.

What then could be the purpose of a defense treaty? What sort of rearrangement of Israel’s defense ties with the US would advance those ties to both countries’ mutual advantage?

Israel has two strategic interests that could be significantly advanced by changes in its security ties with the US. Neither necessitates signing a formal agreement. At most, they could be included in some form of presidential memorandum or summary of a bilateral meeting between Trump and Netanyahu.

Israel’s first interest is to provide a formal expression and operating framework for Israel’s now intimate working relations and strategic cooperation with the Sunni Arab states.

These burgeoning ties were the unintended but salutary consequence of the Obama administration’s radical Middle East policy.

During his tenure in office, Barack Obama sought to realign the US away from Israel and from America’s longstanding Sunni Arab allies and towards the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. As Obama’s actions became more damaging, and his intentions unmistakable, Netanyahu reached out to the Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Working under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Netanyahu’s intuition paid off. The Sunnis recognized that working with Israel would help them to survive Obama’s treachery and responded positively to his overtures.

The first visible consequence of the new partnership came in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge. As Obama sought to coerce Israel into accepting Hamas’s ceasefire terms, (presented as a a mediated settlement by Hamas’s state sponsors Turkey and Qatar), the Saudis, the UAE and Egypt stood with Israel in rejecting them. The three Sunni Arab states insisted that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah a-Sisi rather than the Turks or Qataris serve as the mediator between Israel and Hamas. And Sisi demanded that Hamas accept Israel’s ceasefire conditions.

Blindsided, Obama was compelled to stand down.

Obama rightly viewed Israel’s cooperative relationship with the Sunnis as a hostile bloc that stymied his efforts to realign the US away from them and towards Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
As for Trump, from his earliest moments in office, Trump embraced the newfound partnership Netanyahu had forged of necessity, and made it the centerpiece of his Middle East policy.

For more than two years, Israel and the US have discussed ways to bring Israel’s relations with the Arabs out of the closet. Signing a peace treaty is out of the question. Popular hatred of Israel in the Arab world is ubiquitous. To appease the street, the Arab regimes would be compelled to demand that Israel make massive concessions to the Palestinians in exchange for a peace deal that would do nothing more than formalize the relations that Israel and the Arabs have already forged. Israel would be foolish to pay for what it already achieved.

A different framework is required. And as it happens, the US military has one at the ready.
The US military’s Central Command is responsible for the Middle East. To appease the Arabs, the US military refused to include Israel in Central Command’s area of responsibility and placed Israel instead under the aegis of its European Command.

Central Command’s reputation for hostility to Israel is doubtlessly rooted in this anomaly. How can Central Command officers recognize the value of a state that their Arab interlocutors attack? How can they recognize Israel’s role as a stabilizing force in the Middle East when the Arabs criticize the US incessantly for its friendship with Israel?

Transferring responsibility for Israel to the Central Command would kill two birds with one stone. First, American commanders responsible for military operations in the Middle East would be able to work directly with the US’s most powerful ally in the region. Israel would be in a position to present its views to the relevant US military regional commanders on operational issues that affect its security in real time.

And second, including Israel in Central Command would provide Israel and its Arab partners with an appropriate framework for open cooperation. Under the umbrella of the US military, the parties would be able to maintain normal ties and develop their relations openly and free of political constraints and pressure.

The second interest that Israel should use a revision of its strategic relations with the US to advance is its interest in discrediting the widely held assessment that it is a drag on US national security rather than an asset and an ally. This goal can be achieved by intensifying US-Israel technological cooperation in weapons systems development generally and hypersonic weapons development specifically.

Hypersonic weapons are the central component of the new arms race in the emerging cold war between the US on the one side and China and Russia on the other. Today, the US is dangerously trailing both Russia and China in this arms race.

Hypersonic speeds are speeds of 5-mach or 6,000 km per hour and above. There are two types of hypersonic weapons: hypersonic glide vehicles, which are launched from a rocket or a ballistic missile before gliding to a target; and hypersonic cruise missiles which are powered by high-speed, air breathing engines or “scramjets” after acquiring their target.

Hypersonic weapons travel at low altitudes and are guided by internal electro-optics systems that enable them to maneuver and change direction during flight while locked on a target. Their atmospheric altitude makes them difficult for satellite-based missile defense systems to track. Their high speed makes them difficult for ground-based anti-missile systems to detect. In Congressional testimony, US Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin stated that the US has no defense against hypersonic weapons.

According to a report on hypersonic weapons published by the Congressional Research Service in July, Russia and China are expected to field hypersonic glide vehicles as early as 2020. Last year Griffin told defense industry executives that developing hypersonic systems is the Pentagon’s top priority.

According to the CRS report the US is unlikely to field a hypersonic system before 2022, and that likely is an optimistic projection. Congress appropriated $2.6 billion to hypersonic projects for 2020. A mere five percent of the sum is allocated to hypersonic defense programs.

This brings us to Israel, the US ally so many view as a burdensome client.

On July 28, Israel and the US conducted a successful test of the Arrow-3 ballistic missile defense system in Alaska. The Arrow is a joint program developed by Israel Aircraft Industries and Boeing. During the course of the test the Arrow successfully intercepted a ballistic missile flying at what Netanyahu referred to as “unprecedented altitudes and speed.”

Less than a month later, the Pentagon announced that it was cancelling a similar program by Boeing. The proximity of the cancellation of Boeing’s Redesigned Kill Vehicle to the successful Arrow-3 test raises the likelihood that the two events are connected.

As it demonstrated with the Arrow-3 test, Israel has proven capabilities in a number of areas that are relevant to the development of hypersonic weapons. Israel is a world leader for instance in the fields of electronic warfare and electro optics, both critical components of hypersonic systems. With proper funding, Israel could make a significant contribution to US efforts to step up development of hypersonic defensive systems and elements of offensive hypersonic weapons for the benefit of both countries.

This then brings back to the issue of an upgraded defense relationship between Israel and the US.
The specter of a Democratic administration casts a pall over Israel’s current intimate ties with the US. With the rise of radical forces in the Democratic party, the positions of its leaders are becoming increasingly hostile to Israel. How can Israel-US ties be altered to survive and even prosper under a hostile administration in the future?

Regardless of his or her own positions on Israel and those of his or her party, a future a Democratic president faced with a reality in which Israeli officials cooperate openly with their Sunni Arab counterparts under the aegis of the US Central Command, and in which Israel serves as a key partner in the development of offensive and defensive systems that are critical to the US will not rush to abandon the US alliance with Israel.

Thanks to Netanyahu’s interest-based foreign policy, Israel has managed to develop strong bilateral relationships based on common interests rather than ideology with a long list of foreign governments. By placing interests ahead of politics, Netanyahu was able to significantly reduce the salience of anti-Semitism as a political force in the international arena.

If Israel and the US are interested in making significant alterations to their strategic ties, it is important that the changes be expressed in the same manner, for the benefit of both countries.

Originally published in Israel Hayom.


Caroline Glick

Source: https://madmimi.com/p/43fd3f?pact=1180938-153874831-8380778061-233e9a88aa252eee86fc47fdadba5f534b5f52c8

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The suicide of the House is complete - Larry Schweikart


by Larry Schweikart

It certainly was not the Founders' vision for the House to be the least relevant of the legislative process. Yet here we are.


The recent announcement by James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that he would not seek re-election in 2020 sparked new worries among the GOP that retaking the House in 2020 might be nearly impossible. Although Sensenbrenner's district should be "safe" (as should about half of the more than a dozen seats in districts where Republicans are retiring), it never helps to lose an incumbent.

That said, in 2020, the control of the House may be well near irrelevant.

Over time, the House has had one major constitutional duty: the budget. All spending and taxation bills must originate in the House. But in all likelihood, the decline of the House started in 1995, when the newly elected Republican Congress under Newt Gingrich caved in to media pressure to give Bill Clinton his bloated budget. Since then, no House has even attempted to control the deficits or the debt. For eight years under George W. Bush, the rationale was to fund the War on Terror. Then, under Barack Obama, the Democrat House had no intention of dealing with the deficits or the debt. For eight years, under both Democrats and Republicans, nothing was done to recapture the budget process. Continuing resolutions were the rule of the day.

Enter Nancy Pelosi, whose Congress openly and energetically vowed to do utterly nothing in the way of actual legislation, but instead to investigate and otherwise obstruct President Donald Trump. This marked the final transition of the House into irrelevance.

Meanwhile, Trump marched through his presidency like Sherman through Georgia, canceling bad trade deals, negotiating new ones, imposing tariffs, and most recently building the wall. Yes, quietly, while everyone was watching Robert Mueller testify, Trump's reallocation of Department of Defense funds to build the wall was upheld, and wall construction has already started (and in some places been completed) in California and Arizona. Trump predicted that fully 500 miles of the Wall will be completed by 2020.

And the House had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It would be possible for a Democrat House to pass a budget that would not be anything close to what the Senate would pass — then fight it out in reconciliation — and see a Trump-unfriendly budget get vetoed. Even if the Republicans lose a few more seats in 2020, they won't have a veto-proof majority. The House cannot override a Trump veto.

When it comes to another signature issue for Trump, judges, Mitch McConnell in the Senate has been a machine. Trump's appointees are closing in on 30% of the federal bench total, and more wait in the wings. It is entirely possible that Trump will get at least one, and perhaps more, Supreme Court picks. What role does the House play in all this? None.

Trump has already canceled NAFTA. In its place, he has negotiated a new trade agreement that must be approved by both the House and the Senate — but if the House refuses to act, NAFTA is still dead. The House can only confirm and add to Trump's power, not reduce it.

Two rules apply here. Rule 1: A muscle that is not used atrophies. The House's constitutional muscle is budget-making. If it has voluntarily abdicated that role, who needs it? Rule 2: Nature abhors a vacuum. If the House doesn't pass immigration bills (as Trump has begged it to), or address DACA (as Trump has begged it to), or write a budget that Trump can sign, then it has consigned itself to irrelevance.

I write this with some sadness. It certainly was not the Founders' vision for the House to be the least relevant of the legislative process, and in the minds of many of the Founders, it was to be the most "democratic" and responsive to the people. Once the House ceded its most fundamental responsibilities, it was inevitable that those duties would be done by the Executive.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that some or many of the House retirees intuitively know that the House has become meaningless. They may well know that, although the process was long in developing, Nancy Pelosi has turned the House of Representatives into the American equivalent of the House of Lords.

Larry Schweikart

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/the_suicide_of_the_house_is_complete.html

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San Francisco Labels NRA a “Domestic Terrorist Organization” - Joseph Klein


by Joseph Klein

Threatening an economic boycott -- while ignoring violence, filth and mayhem on the streets.

San Francisco, the once-great city by the bay, has become an insane asylum run by its inmates. In July, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors decided that the words “convicted felons,” “criminal,” “offender,” “addict,” “prisoner,” and “juvenile delinquent” are unacceptably offensive terms that need to be replaced. The Board believed that such words “obstruct and separate people from society and make the institutionalization of racism and supremacy appear normal.” In San Francisco doublespeak, a “convicted felon” is now a “justice-involved person.” A “criminal” is now “a returning resident.” A “juvenile delinquent” is now transformed into an innocent-sounding “young person with justice system involvement.”

Obscuring the identity of real criminals with sugarcoated euphemisms is San Francisco’s new “normal.”  Now San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has added to its record of insanity by deciding unanimously this week to pass a resolution accusing the National Rifle Association (NRA) of being a "domestic terrorist organization." In the topsy-turvy world inhabited by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, the NRA is committing a terrorist act by virtue of exercising its First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and to petition the government in defense of the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear Arms.” The resolution denounces what it calls the NRA’s use of its “considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence." It recklessly charges, without citing a shred of evidence, that the “National Rifle Association through its advocacy has armed those individuals who would and have committed acts of terrorism.”

The resolution may technically be a non-binding declaration spouting nonsense, but it represents the proverbial foot in the door to further mischief. Most notably, after maliciously slandering the NRA as a “domestic terrorist organization,” the Board of Supervisors’ resolution urges an economic boycott by San Francisco against firms who dare to do business with the NRA. The resolution states that “the City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.” In effect, the Board of Supervisors is using economic threats to terrorize commercial firms into having to choose between doing business with the city and county of San Francisco or with an organization of approximately 5.5 million members advocating to protect its members’ right to defend themselves against criminals – or, as the Board of Supervisors calls them, “returning residents.”

Catherine Stefani, the supervisor of the city's District 2 who wrote the NRA resolution, declared, "The NRA has it coming to them, and I will do everything that I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization." 

Ms. Stefani should instead call herself and the rest of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors out for the lax law enforcement, generous give-away programs, and sanctuary city policies protecting illegal alien criminals that have contributed to San Francisco’s crime rate and rampant homeless crisis. “People don’t feel safe walking down the street,” said Joel Engardio, vice president of Stop Crime SF, last month, who noted the inexcusable pre-trial release of violent criminals and the failure to prosecute “too many repeat offenders.”  San Francisco also has the highest rate of property crime in the nation among large US cities, according to the FBI. None of these problems are the fault of the NRA or of law-abiding gun owners. They are the fault of progressives who believe that criminals are simply “returning residents,” illegal alien criminals should be protected from deportation, and homelessness is the fault of the rich rather than of incompetent government policies that tolerate encampments, feces, garbage and drug paraphernalia on the streets.

Ironically, the one positive trend in crime that the San Francisco Bay area has experienced in recent years is the sharp drop in the gun homicide rate. Nevertheless, in its infinite stupidity, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has decided to target the NRA as its primary bogeyman.

This is not the NRA’s first encounter with San Francisco’s anti-Second Amendment “values.” Back in 2005, San Francisco voters approved Proposition H, a local ordinance which was intended to restrict the possession of handguns and ban the manufacture, distribution, sale and transfer of firearms and ammunition within the city limits. Proposition H was challenged in court by the NRA and other gun rights advocates who prevailed. The city ended up paying a settlement in the amount of $380,000 to the NRA and other plaintiffs to cover their litigation costs. Since this case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment protected weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” The Court explicitly referred to the individual’s right to armed self-defense. Advocating to protect that right, as the NRA does, is to help law-abiding Americans defend themselves against the violent acts of real terrorists.


Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274859/san-francisco-labels-nra-domestic-terrorist-joseph-klein

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Video: Trump Holds Pakistan Accountable - Frontpagemag.com


by Frontpagemag.com


U.S. president confronts the Jihadist swindle.




Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel and follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov.

This new Glazov Gang episode features former Homeland Security Officer Philip Haney, the author of See Something, Say Nothing. Visit his website: LanternOfLiberty.net – and reach out to him on his Facebook Page.

Phil discusses Trump Holds Pakistan Accountable, revealing how the U.S. president has confronted the Jihadist swindle.

Don’t miss it!



And make sure to watch our special 2-Part-Series with Phil below:

Part I: How Obama Facilitated the San Bernardino Jihadist Attack.



Part II: The Fatal Flaw In Our Afghan Withdrawal Negotiations.



Follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov.


Frontpagemag.com

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274863/video-trump-holds-pakistan-accountable-frontpagemagcom

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