Jonathan Spyer: Kurdish Advances

by Jonathan Spyer


Jerusalem Post, 21/6

The stunning collapse of the Iraqi army in Mosul, and the rapid advance of the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) through Tikrit and toward Baghdad has created a new reality in Iraq.

ISIS advances have continued this week; the organization has now taken the town of Tel Afar, with its 200,000 inhabitants, located west of Mosul.

Iraq is now divided on a de facto basis into a Shi’ite south and center, including Baghdad, a Sunni, ISIS-dominated west and a Kurdish-ruled north.

The biggest winners from this situation, apart perhaps from ISIS itself, are the Iraqi Kurds. The conflict between the Sunni jihadis and the Iran-supported Baghdad authorities has enabled the Kurds to add a number of key building blocks to the nearly completed edifice of Kurdish independence in the area once known as northern Iraq.

Largely ignored by the Western media, the Kurds have been quietly building their autonomy in the three northern provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk, granted to them by the Iraqi Constitution of 2005.

A stable political system protected by a powerful armed force of around 100,000 men (the Peshmerga) has been out in place.

In the weeks prior to the current crisis in Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) began to independently export crude oil, via Turkey, without seeking the approval of Nouri al-Maliki’s government in Baghdad. Maliki struck back by cutting funding to the KRG in Erbil.

The dispute remained unresolved in the days prior to the sudden eruption of the ISIS offensive in early June. The disagreement over oil exports formed part of a larger standoff between the Baghdad government and the KRG over control of oil-rich, majority Kurdish areas in Kirkuk, Ninawa, Salahaddin and Diyala provinces. The Maliki government threatened to exclude any oil company that began to drill under KRG auspices from access to the giant oil fields in Shi’ite southern Iraq.

The complex standoff now appears to have been resolved – entirely in the KRG’s favor. As Iraqi forces fled from the ISIS advance, the Kurdish Peshmerga swiftly moved in to the long-disputed town of Kirkuk. The Kurds refer to Kirkuk as their “Jerusalem,” and their population was largely ethnically cleansed from the city in the 1980s by Saddam Hussein’s regime. They have long sought its reincorporation into their area of control.

This is not a matter only of sentiment: Kirkuk sits on an area of vast oil wealth, considered to contain nearly 9 billion barrels of oil reserves. By comparison, according to the International Energy Agency, the entire KRG area without Kirkuk contains around 4 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

The taking of Kirkuk, along with the recent opening of the pipeline to Turkey and thence to international markets, means the emergence of a Kurdish regional oil power is now a reality. The Kurds have already built a link that connects Kirkuk to their pipeline to Turkey.

The political confusion, meanwhile, and the push east by ISIS and associated Sunni forces has demonstrated that the Peshmerga are the most powerful military force in Iraq. They are now deployed along the newly expanded borders of the KRG, and are directly facing the fighters of ISIS. Some clashes have already taken place.

But, for the most part, ISIS and its allies appear to prefer to advance against Iraqi government forces and in the direction of Baghdad, while leaving the more formidable Kurdish fighters alone. Certainly, unlike the Iraqi government-controlled towns still falling to the advance of the Sunni fighters, the Kurdish-controlled areas do not appear vulnerable.

Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has also made clear that the Peshmerga will not assist the Iraqi army in the effort to retake Mosul. The Kurds, rather, will focus on securing their own borders.

Barzani this week expressed support for an autonomous zone for Sunnis in Iraq, and laid the blame for the current situation largely at the feet of Maliki. Barzani told the BBC, “We have to leave it to Sunni areas to decide, but I think this is the best model for them as well. First, they have to take a decision: what they want exactly. And in our view… the best way is to have a Sunni region, like we have in Kurdistan.”

What all this means is that there exists today an economically powerful, politically stable, well-defended Kurdish entity, with a population of 5 million people, in what was once northern Iraq.

The effective collapse of any authority on the part of Baghdad over this entity means that the latter is now a Kurdish state in all but name.

So will the KRG soon declare independence, turning the de facto state that the Kurds have quietly built up into a de jure sovereign area? The answer is that while it is now clear that statehood is the goal, an early, open declaration of independence by the Kurds remains unlikely.

A source in the KRG told this reporter that Turkish opposition to any declaration of Kurdish statehood had been the main obstacle to any such move. Turkish lobbying in Washington and in the capitals of Europe meant that Western countries remained opposed to Kurdish independence.

The US has also, for its own reasons, remained throughout staunchly in favor of the “territorial integrity” of Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated this stance in a statement this week. The Turkish position in this regard appears to be softening, according to a number of reports.

But for as long as the clear US and Western position remains (somewhat bafflingly) opposed to the aspirations of the powerful and openly pro-Western Kurdish de facto sovereign entity in northern Iraq, its independence is likely to remain undeclared.

The collapse of Iraq into renewed sectarian war, and the powerful assertion of Kurdish self-government in the north are the latest evidence that the region – and specifically the area known formally as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – is in the midst of a historic convulsion whose end is not near.

Whatever the final outcome of all this, Kurdish sovereignty in practice is today a reality in the former northern Iraq. And if the KRG can successfully navigate the difficult diplomacy of the months and years ahead, at a certain point it is likely that the world will have little option but to adjust – and formally recognize this reality.


Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (Continuum, 2010) and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2014/06/kurdish-advances/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Muslim Prof: West Leads the World in ‘Islamic Values’

by Ali Sina


Are non-Muslim countries more Islamic than Muslim countries? That is what Hossein Askari, an Iranian-born professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University, believes. Askari says Ireland “leads the world in Islamic values as Muslim states lag.” After studying 208 countries and territories he found that the top countries in both economic achievement and social values are Ireland, Demark, Luxembourg and New Zealand. Britain also ranks in the top ten.  The first Muslim-majority nation is Malaysia ranking at 33, while the only other state in the top 50 is Kuwait at 48.

Askari then concluded that the Quran’s teachings are better represented in non-Muslim societies than in Islamic countries, which, he believes, have failed to embrace the values of their own faith in politics, business, law and society.

Askari said Muslim countries use religion as an instrument of state control.  “We must emphasize that many countries that profess Islam and are called Islamic are unjust, corrupt, and underdeveloped and are in fact not ‘Islamic’ by any stretch of the imagination,” Askari asserted.

“Looking at an index of Economic Islamicity, or how closely the policies and achievements of countries reflect Islamic economic teachings – Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Norway, and Belgium round up the first 10.”  Askari added.

Askari said:

If a country, society, or community displays characteristics such as unelected, corrupt, oppressive, and unjust rulers, inequality before the law, unequal opportunities for human development, absence of freedom of choice (including that of religion), opulence alongside poverty, force, and aggression as the instruments of conflict resolution as opposed to dialogue and reconciliation, and, above all, the prevalence of injustice of any kind, it is prima facie evidence that it is not an Islamic community.

If Askari were right the solution would be simple. To get rid of corruption, oppression injustice and inequality in Islamic countries, which according to Askari are not Islamic values, we could encourage Muslims to leave Islam and follow the lead of non-Muslim countries.  It appears that the more a country is Islamic the more it lacks “Islamic values.” Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan that are more Islamic are also more oppressive.

But of course Askari is wrong. In Islam the unbelievers are not equal to believers.  “Is he, then, who is a believer like one who is disobedient? They are not equal.” _{(Q. 32:18)} In Islam men excel over women. _(Q. 4:34₎

Also Islam honors the institution of slavery. ^{(Q 33:50, 23:5)}  Dawud reports a hadith ^(14:2692) of a slave of Ibn Umar who ran away to the enemy and when Muslims overpowered them Muhammad returned him to Ibn Umar. Dawud says that this slave was not distributed (as a part of booty) among the rest of the captives who were also reduced to slaves.

As for freedom of religion, the Quran says “No religion other than Islam will be accepted from anyone.” ^{(Q. 3:85)} The argument that Islam is tolerant because the verse 2:256 says there is no compulsion in religion is a fallacy. This verse has nothing to do with tolerance. According to Islamic sources, the Jews of Medina had adopted and raised the orphaned children of Arabs and these children had embraced Judaism. When Muhammad expelled the Jews from their city the relatives of these children (now adults) wanted to prevent them leaving but in loyalty to their adopted parents they preferred to go. The matter was brought to Muhammad who said, if they want to go let them go, “there is no compulsion in religion.” Of course if they wanted to stay they had to convert to Islam.

Askari’s argument that the prevalence of corruption, oppression and injustice in a society is prima facie evidence that it is not Islamic is absurd.  Governments are either democratic or dictatorial. Corruption and oppression are more likely in dictatorships.  In democracies, people have the power to remove corrupt governments, unless they are so ignorant that they are easily deceived, which is not the fault of democracy. In democracy, laws are made by people. Islam does not recognize the laws made by people.  The laws are made by God and the ruler, as the executioner of divine law, is not accountable to the people. And as long as he adhered to the Islamic law no one is allowed to criticize or oppose him, even if he is unjust.

Muhammad said, “If Allah has on Earth a caliph who flays your back and takes your property, obey him; otherwise die holding onto the stump of a tree.” _{[Dawud 35: 4232]} So much for freedom and justice!

The 18^th century Muslim scholar Shah Waliullah on the Obediene of the Caliph wrote,

The Prophet has said: “Hearing and obeying is an obligation of every Muslim, whether he likes the command or dislikes it, as long as he is not commanded to commit a sin. If he is commanded to commit a sin, then he absolved of the obligation to hear and obey.” [Sahih Muslim.]

(I say): Since an imam is installed for two kinds of public weal, by which religious and political affairs are regulated, and since the Prophet was sent for their sake, and the imam is the Prophet’s deputy and an executor of his mission, therefore, obedience to the imam is indeed obedience to the Prophet. And disobedience to him would be tantamount to disobedience of the Prophet except when he commands to commit a sin. For then it would be evident that obedience to him is no longer in obedience to God, and in that event, he would cease to be a deputy of God’s Prophet. This is why the Prophet said: “Whoever follows an amir, he indeed follows me, and whoever disobeys an amir, he indeed disobeys me” [Sahih Muslim].  _{[Shah Wali Allah,} Selection from Hujjat Allah al-Balighah_{, English Translation, 2006, pp. 116-117]}

As for economics, something Khomeini said, “is for the donkey,” Islam has very little to offer. Bukahri _(3:39:541) reports Muhammad saying, “There is no house in which these (agricultural) equipment enters except that Allah will cause humiliation to enter it.” The reason Muhammad disparaged agriculture is because he wanted to encourage his companions to earn their living through jihad. He said that is the best bargain and he who strives hard for Allah’s cause with their wealth and in persons will reap the rewards. _(Q. 6:11₎

The irony is that Muslims can see something is wrong with their societies, but can’t see its cause. Western countries are not prospering because they have embraced Islamic values. How delusional is this thinking? They are prospering because they drew a clear line between religion and state, and have embraced secularism. Muslims can’t do such a thing.  Islam is more than a religion. It is primarily a political system.  It is totalitarian as it controls all aspects of the life of the believer. Muhammad was not just a prophet but also a dictator.  His successors also ruled with undisputed authority.

If Islamic countries are dictatorial, unjust, oppressive and backwards we should look for the cause of it in the values that they espouse. Their failure is evident even to them. But instead of acknowledging the problem they keep digging their heads deeper in the sands of denial. Isn’t it time to wake up?

Ali Sina is the author of Understanding Muhammad and working on his new book The Life of Muhammad under the Light of Reason, a comprehensive review of the Life of the Prophet of Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ali-sina/muslim-prof-west-leads-the-world-in-islamic-values/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Europe's and U.S. Complicity in Kidnapping and Violence

by Richard Kemp

Just the day before the three boys were kidnapped, the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, welcomed Hamas into the Palestinian Authority government while lambasting Israel for detaining terrorists and taking action to prevent Hamas terrorist attacks from Gaza and the West Bank. Ashton, though never slow to condemn Israel, took five days to denounce this kidnapping. Both her words and her actions have legitimized and encouraged Hamas.
Both the U.S. and the EU have paid the salaries of Palestinian terrorists by means of grants to the PA; they also fund this propaganda and incitement.
Like every government, Israel has an absolute duty to protect its citizens, and undermining this terrorist threat is an essential part of that responsibility.

The world has undergone gut-churning revulsion this week at the videos of rows of kneeling young Iraqi men callously gunned down by Al Qaida terrorists in Mosul. But time and again, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Hamas has shown itself to be just as capable of such brutal cold-blooded killing. That knowledge has galvanized Israel's desperate hunt for those who abducted teenagers Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach as they hitchhiked home from their school in Gush Etzion a week ago.

As a member of Cobra, the UK national crisis management committee, I was involved in British efforts to rescue our citizens kidnapped by Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. No modern-day military action is so fraught: the odds are stacked against the captives, the whip hand is with the captors, it is a race against time, and it becomes extremely personal.

The victims look out at us from their photographs and we look into their eyes. We learn about their hopes, their families, their friends, and their daily lives. Nothing – nothing – stands in the way of our efforts to bring them back. Although we hope for the best, we prepare for the worst.

From the outside, it is difficult to read the realities of a kidnapping. Those with the responsibility of saving lives are forced into a cat and mouse game in which they must both reassure the public and sow seeds of disinformation among the captors. So far, for Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, the signs are not encouraging. As far as we know a week later, there is no proof of life, no demands, no negotiations.

Yesterday, June 19, the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency apparently reported that Hamas leader Salah Bardawil said that the "Palestinian resistance" (Hamas -- the acronym for the "Islamic Resistance Movement") had carried out the kidnapping.

The first priority is always to establish the identity and the motive of the captors. Early on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Hamas was guilty. U.S. Secretary of State Kerry agreed, and this seems to be the view throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas leader Mohammad Nazzal, for his part, described the kidnapping of three teenage civilians as "a heroic capture," and "a milestone" for the Palestinian people. He said that every passing day in which the Israelis failed to find the teenagers was "a tremendous achievement."

Nazzal's comments reflect long-standing views on the abduction and butchering of Israelis by the leadership of Hamas, the internationally proscribed terrorist group responsible for firing thousands of lethal rockets indiscriminately against the civilian population of Israel from the Gaza Strip, the latest salvos only this week.

It is the same terrorist group that the United Nations, the United States and the European Union -- in a display of moral bankruptcy and betrayal -- have all endorsed as a legitimate partner in a unity government for the Palestinian Authority [PA]. Just the day before the three boys were kidnapped, the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, welcomed Hamas into the PA government while lambasting Israel for detaining terrorists and taking action to prevent Hamas terrorist attacks from Gaza and the West Bank.

Ashton, though never slow to condemn Israel, took five days to denounce this kidnapping. Both her words and actions have legitimized and encouraged Hamas. Her inaction in the face of repeated terrorist assaults has bolstered Hamas's convictions.

The kidnapping will find favor with Ashton's new best friends in Iran. Also desperate to appease the ayatollahs, British Foreign Secretary William Hague this week announced the re-opening in Tehran of a British embassy, closed in 2011 after being ransacked on the orders of the Iranian government. There are even reports of U.S. military intelligence-sharing with Iran over the crisis in Iraq – where only a few short years ago, large numbers of American and British soldiers were being slaughtered -- using Iranian-supplied munitions by terrorists trained, directed and equipped by Tehran and its terrorist proxy, Lebanese Hizballah.

As Ashton and the West cozy up to the ayatollahs, the ayatollahs are again cozying up to Hamas. A few weeks ago, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, met with Hamas leaders to resolve the differences between Iran and Hamas that arose over the Syrian conflict. Hamas -- isolated from Egypt following the demise of the Muslim Brotherhood regime -- seems desperate to restore full relations with the Iranian tyrant. Iran is equally enthusiastic to bring Hamas back into the fold: Hamas remains an important instrument of the ayatollahs' overriding, stated goal of destroying the State of Israel.

In these circumstances it is certainly not beyond probability that the three boys' kidnapping was a goodwill gesture from Hamas to the ayatollahs.

It is hard to not be chilled to the bone by the thought of three teenage boys -- who might easily be our own sons or brothers -- spending night after night in the hands of ruthless terrorists... or worse. The anguish of the boys' parents must be unimaginable.

Yet among the Palestinian Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza, including children, a new symbol has emerged -- the three-fingered salute, signifying joy at the kidnapping of three innocent youths. Among the many deeply disturbing images generated on Palestinian computers and printing presses, the most repugnant is probably a cartoon of three rats, each bearing the Star of David, dangling from a fishing rod, and published on an official Fatah Facebook page.

A cartoon from Fatah's official Facebook page, depicting the three kidnapped Jewish teens as rats.

Such celebration, including the handing out of sweets in the street, has been widespread. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the kidnappings, and his security apparatus has been providing assistance to the Israeli rescue operation. But as well as bringing Hamas terrorists into his government, Abbas is responsible for the shocking way in which so many of his people have been celebrating. His Palestinian Authority is tireless in spreading fraudulent and malicious anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic propaganda, including Nazi-inspired imagery, in schools, on TV programs and in books and magazines. Both the US and the EU have paid the salaries of Palestinian terrorists by means of grants to the PA; they also fund this propaganda and incitement, no doubt including some of the imagery applauding the boys' kidnapping.

The Israeli security operation has so far focused on finding the three boys. Over 330 Hamas suspects have been arrested, and illicit weapons and ammunition seized. Echoing the code-name of the rescue operation, "Brother's Keeper," the IDF Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, has encouraged his troops to apply the same vigour to their task as if they were searching for their own brothers or members of their own platoon. He has also reminded them that most people in the areas they are searching are not connected to the kidnapping, and to treat them with care and humanity.

Concurrently, the IDF is taking steps to weaken and dismantle Hamas in the West Bank. In some quarters these have been criticized as an unnecessary and opportunistic widening of the operation. It is nothing of the sort. With this latest kidnapping, Hamas has confirmed its continued intent to abduct, attack and murder Israeli civilians in the West Bank. Like every government, Israel has an absolute duty to protect its citizens, and undermining this terrorist threat is an essential part of that responsibility.

All military operations are unpredictable; it is possible that Operation Brother's Keeper could lead to an escalation of violence. Incidents have already occurred. It is unlikely that Israel will expand the current operation into Gaza, unless there is a serious upsurge in violence from there or a connection between Gaza terrorists and the kidnapping comes to light.

The three Israeli teenagers abducted last Thursday night: Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach.

Whichever way this operation develops, the international community should avoid the same response to the current defensive actions that they have so often displayed whenever Israel has sought to defend itself from missile attacks from Gaza. The international community usually ignores repeated volleys of rockets fired at Israeli civilians, and then condemns Israel for taking defensive action to prevent further attacks. It is these responses from the international community that have encouraged Hamas, and amounted to nothing less than support for terrorism. And it is these responses, along with the endorsement of Hamas's inclusion in a Palestinian unity government, that have led to the kidnapping of the boys in the West Bank.


Richard Kemp

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4370/us-eu-israel-kidnapping

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

MSM Cofferdam around IRS Scandal Springs a Leak

by Thomas Lifson

Update: See also: Bombshell: IRS cancelled email backup contract just weeks after Lois Lerner’s computer ‘crashed’

Make no mistake: the weaponization of the IRS and the subsequent cover-up is the biggest political scandal in the history of the United States, and the survival of the Obama presidency now rests in the hands of a compliant mainstream media continuing to ignore the patently ridiculous claims of lost emails and crashed servers.

So when a major mainstream media pillar like the Chicago Tribune takes up the story and raises a few editorial board eyebrows, it makes a difference. The “World’s Greatest Newspaper” editorializes today:

On a matter this serious, the administration can't adequately investigate itself. Given the amount of smoke now rising from the IRS, many Americans won't be much interested in what one arm of the administration concludes about other arms, including the IRS, the Treasury Department of which it's part, and possibly the White House.
That's why we've urged Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor — a phrase that, like "customer support" or "designated hitter," provokes Pavlovian suspicions. We've been skeptical of some special prosecutors and their tendency toward mission creep. But we've also seen situations where only a special prosecutor has the independence and credibility to resolve a case that drips with politics, as when then-U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago investigated (and convicted of perjury and other offenses) I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had been Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
Why Holder won't act is a mystery he's inviting Americans to resolve, uncharitably, in their own minds. (snip)

This 13-month refusal to name a special prosecutor has become its own curiosity.

While the Tribune is a local not national paper, it is the former home of David Axelrod, and the paper was the entity that went to court to unseal the divorce records of the Republican candidate who stood a good chance of defeating Barack Obama in his run for the Senate – the key step in his march to the presidency.  

The continued ability of CBS, NBC, ABC, and the New York Times to ignore the story of the biggest political scandal in history depends on other lesser media organs continuing the boycott. One the story moves beyond the Fox News/conservative media ghetto, editors at the capstone liberal media start to get embarrassed, because their core reader- and viewership is no longer clueless.

I have no way of knowing what kind of pressure is being exlrcised behind the scenes to keep the story out of the consciousness of the low information voters and the liberal mainstream, but it has to be considerable. I wonder what kind of b;owback the Trib will experience?

But with the revelation that email archiver Sonasoft has a contract to back up the IRS emails, the story could bust wide open. For Sonasoft to proclaim that their own servers miraculously malfunctioned would be to proclaim that their backup services are useless. They have a strong incentive to cough up the goods.

Stay tuned. This weekend could eventually prove to be the turning point.

Or not. The IRS holds unique power over corporate America.

Thomas Lifson

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/06/msm_cofferdam_around_irs_scandal_springs_a_leak.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The IRS’s ‘Lost’ Email Deception

by Matthew Vadum

“The Obama administration’s claim that the IRS has ‘lost’ two years of Lois Lerner’s emails is implausible to anyone who understands how email systems work”. “The Obama administration is lying, and lying in a remarkably transparent way.”

Emails from disgraced former IRS tax-exempt division chief Lois Lerner that could throw light on the Obama administration’s thuggish crackdown on conservative nonprofit groups have been sucked into an electronic black hole, IRS officials now claim.

It is the latest outrage from the Obama administration which has been on a vindictive rampage in recent years, using the feared tax collection agency to vex and persecute its political enemies, especially those associated with the Tea Party movement.

Under hyper-partisan, left-wing Democrat Lois Lerner, the tax-exempt organizations branch singled out for harassment the heroic Catherine Engelbrecht, leader of the Houston-based good government group True the Vote. Earlier this year the IRS revoked the charitable status of Manassas, Va.-based Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, a conservative nonprofit group, because it disseminated old statements critical of Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry a decade ago.

Although President Obama claimed earlier this year that there has not been even “a smidgen of corruption” at the IRS under his watch, it is clear that “the dog ate my homework,” is becoming the excuse of choice for his lawless administration.

But in March the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee published an in-depth report detailing IRS targeting of right-of-center 501c4 nonprofit advocacy groups during the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. (The full report is available in PDF form at the committee’s website.) Congressional investigators determined that Lerner orchestrated an unprecedented crackdown on Tea Party and conservative groups and then attempted to scapegoat those nonprofits, blaming them for the harsh treatment they received at her instigation.

As political pressure builds on Capitol Hill, it can finally be revealed that a mysterious, politically progressive electromagnetic pulse may have hit the hard drives of Lerner and six of her IRS underlings. Obama officials now claim the emails of all seven government employees to outside organizations and agencies including the White House have been consigned to oblivion.

As a result of this devastating “attack” the IRS is suddenly claiming it no longer possesses tens of thousands of emails from Lerner and her subordinates, a year after congressional investigators demanded the likely incriminating electronic communications. For the first time IRS officials say that Lerner’s computer “crashed” in 2011 at the same time the tax-collection Leviathan was devising rules calculated to hurt nonprofit groups with words such as “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names.

The IRS, as Carl M. Cannon writes at RealClearPolitics,

also lacked a centralized archive, it says now, and employed an archaic practice of re-using the tapes backing up its system every six months — thereby erasing the material already there. Who knew the IRS was so frugal? In a similar vein, IRS employees had absurdly low limits for how many emails they could store. And the agency apparently allowed IRS employees to decide for themselves which emails constituted an official record, which they are required by law to retain.

It beggars belief that so many emails could vanish into the ether, somehow evading the multiple-redundant backups and system safeguards that are supposed to be in place.

“The Obama administration’s claim that the IRS has ‘lost’ two years of Lois Lerner’s emails is implausible to anyone who understands how email systems work,” according to John Hinderaker, a Claremont Institute fellow. “The Obama administration is lying, and lying in a remarkably transparent way.”

“Nothing digital ever dies,” so the emails must still exist somewhere in cyberspace, Cannon opines. They must be retained on offsite email servers, in files kept by other IRS officials, and in the email accounts and servers of recipients employed by other organizations or agencies.

“This is almost certainly true if they were sent to White House officials,” he writes. “It should be true, anyway: the President[ial] Records Act requires their preservation.”

Meanwhile, as the chattering classes argue over whether the disappearance of so many IRS emails is even technologically possible or about who should go to prison, the fact remains that President Obama is ultimately responsible for the politically motivated assault on conservative nonprofits, whether he knew of the IRS misdeeds or not.

Democrats correctly view Tea Party groups, that is, right-wing populist groups, as an existential threat to the Left. These nonprofits tend to be Republican-leaning organizations and they have been successful so far in derailing, or at least slowing, parts of President Obama’s ongoing transmogrification of America.

Democrats don’t want any conservative nonprofits to enjoy tax-exempt status. Such nonprofits are all working against the Left, standing in the way and preventing America from becoming a leftist utopia. Using the IRS to hurt right-of-center groups is fair game, according to left-wingers.

The media is onboard with Democrats. The evening newscasts of the big three broadcasts last night all deemed the seven-way IRS computer crash unworthy of coverage “even as they had time for Harrison Ford’s broken leg (NBC), a new technology for police car chases (ABC), and comedian Tracy Morgan’s car accident (CBS).”

Just another day in Obama’s America.


Matthew Vadum

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/the-irss-lost-email-deception/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Presbyterians Vote to Sell Church Stocks in Protest of Israeli Policies

by The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

By razor-thin 310-303 margin, Presbyterian Church votes to divest from companies whose products are used by Israel in Judea and Samaria • Israeli Embassy in Washington calls decision "shameful" • AJC: Vote was "driven by hatred of Israel."

The Presbyterian Church has voted to divest from three companies whose products Israel uses in Judea and Samaria | Photo credit: AP

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Friday became the most prominent religious group in the United States to endorse divestment as a protest against Israeli policies toward Palestinians, voting to sell church stock in three companies whose products Israel uses in Judea and Samaria.

The General Assembly voted by a razor-thin margin -- 310-303 -- to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.

The American Jewish Committee, a policy and advocacy group based in New York, said the vote was "driven by hatred of Israel." But Heath Rada, moderator for the church meeting, said immediately after the vote that "in no way is this a reflection of our lack of love for our Jewish brothers and sisters."

The decision is expected to reverberate beyond the 1.8 million-member church. It comes amid discouragement over failed peace talks that have left activists desperate for some way to affect change and as the broader movement known as BDS -- or boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel -- has gained some momentum in the U.S., Israel's closest and most important ally.

Presbyterians who advocated for divestment insisted their action was not part of the broader boycott movement. Israeli officials, along with many American Jewish groups, denounced the campaign as an attempt to delegitimize the Jewish state. Separately, the assembly also voted to re-examine its support for a two-state solution.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the Israeli Embassy in Washington denounced the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) resolution as "shameful."

"Voting for symbolic measures marginalizes and removes its ability to be a constructive partner to promote peace in the Middle East," the statement said.

Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement, praised the vote as a "sweet victory for human rights."

He said Presbyterian supporters of Palestinian rights have introduced divestment into the U.S. mainstream and have given Palestinians "real hope in the face of the relentless and intensifying cruelty of Israel's regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid."

The top Presbyterian legislative body has been considering divestment for a decade. Representatives of the Presbyterian socially responsible investment arm told the national meeting in Detroit that their efforts to lobby the three companies for change had failed. Carol Hylkema of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a Presbyterian group that advocates for Palestinians and spearheaded the drive for divestment, said their action was modeled on the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa. The 2012 assembly had endorsed a boycott of Israeli products made in the Palestinian territories.

"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey DeYoe, of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.

The vote was the subject of intense lobbying both from within and outside the church. Rabbis and other members of Jewish Voice for Peace, which advocates for Palestinians, lined the halls of the meeting and prayed in vigils outside the convention center wearing T-shirts that read, "Another Jew Supporting Divestment." Other rabbis and their Presbyterian supporters held panel discussions and sent letters to delegates urging them to vote no on divestment.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, which is the largest branch of American Judaism, addressed the delegates twice, urging them to reject divestment. After the vote, Jacobs said the denomination as a whole is no longer "a partner for joint work on Israel-Palestine peace issues."

In leading an effort to strike down the proposal, Frank Allen of the Central Florida Presbytery told delegates, "Divestment will create dissension. Dialogue and relationship building will lay the groundwork for true peace."

Bill Ward of the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest, based in Spokane, Washington state, argued the proposal was not an attack on Israel. The measure adopted Friday reaffirms Israel's right to exist. "It is motivated by stewardship integrity, not partisan political advocacy," Ward said.

Two smaller U.S. religious groups have divested in protest of Israeli policies: the Friends Fiduciary Corp., which manages assets for U.S. Quakers, and the Mennonite Central Committee. Last week, the pension board of the United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant group in the U.S., revealed plans to sell holdings worth about $110,000 in G4S, which provides security equipment and has contracts with Israel's prison system. However, the United Methodist Church had rejected church-wide divestment.

Motorola Solutions said in a statement that the company follows the law and its own policies that address human rights. Hewlett-Packard said its checkpoints for Palestinians were developed to expedite passage "in a secure environment, enabling people to get to their place of work or to carry out their business in a faster and safer way." Caterpillar has said it does not sell equipment to Israel, just to the U.S. government.

A church spokeswoman estimated the value of Presbyterian holdings in the companies at $21 million.

The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=18319

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Fox in the Henhouse: Obama's Newest Middle-East Mistake

by Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker

The recent major offensive of the Sunni Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) jihadis upon Mosul and central Iraq and subsequent drive towards Baghdad, with the goal of a theoretical toppling of the regime of the Shiite Nouri al-Maliki, has served at least to awaken Washington, D.C.  Fearful that the al-Qaeda breakaway might succeed, the Obama administration decided to broker a deal with the devil: the State Department was instructed to contact the Iranian regime and suggest that the president was amenable to Iran’s sending units of its Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Sepah-e Qods (Qods Force) to reinforce the Iraqi defenses of Baghdad and the Shiite sacred cities such as Samara, Karbala, and Najaf.

If the Iranians were neutral, the move might have been justified.  But the Iranian regime has been actively fighting the United States – overtly and covertly – for the last thirty-five years, literally from its inception.  It has changed neither its rhetoric nor its anti-Western, anti-American posture for one moment during all that time.

Obama’s illusions about flipping Iran to our side seem logical only after consuming a boatload of cannabis.  While Iran is only too happy to renew its war with the Sunnis, we should be under no illusion that either the Sunni jihadis of ISIS or the Shia jihadis of the Sepah-e Qods are in any way our friends – even temporarily. Both wish to destroy this nation and both wish to eventually dominate the world. They differ only in which branch of Islam is the rightful claimant to world dominion in the name of the prophet.

With our typical lack of foresight, we have sanctioned that Iran send its special black-ops forces to protect Baghdad.  How conveniently we have “forgotten” that on Baghdad’s western flank, a kilometer north of the Baghdad International Airport, sits Camp “Liberty,” where some 3,000 Iranian refugee opponents of the Tehran regime reside – in what was supposed to be a temporary domicile as they were processed for resettlement out of the region.  The Iranian government of Supreme Leader Sayed Ali Khamenei regards this group – the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, MeK) – as its greatest enemy and has used numerous occasions in the past two years to attack the residents.  Last September’s attack on the remaining occupants of Camp Ashraf left 52 dead, including six women.  An earlier attack resulted in 36 fatalities.

The State Department and the White House seem to have forgotten several important facts about the PMOI.  The group was falsely accused of terrorism against this country during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.  As a result, eighteen years later, because of political considerations – a failed attempt to get the Iranian regime to defrost relations – the group was placed on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.  The PMOI renounced violence in 2001 and following “Operation Iraqi Freedom” – in which its camps were attacked by allied forces and yet the PMOI did not return fire – was disarmed in May 2003.  Its members were cleared of any ties to terrorism and granted “Protected Persons” status in November 2004.  The PMOI used the American court system to exonerate itself – all during its “terrorist” status, it never once harmed a single U.S. citizen, and in 2012, it finally was removed from the list, following similar victories in the courts of the United Kingdom and the European Union.

This group, while residing in its home base of Camp Ashraf, was responsible for bringing Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders to sit down with Shiite and Kurdish leaders already in 2006 and 2007.  The Sunni “Tribal Awakening” that led to the defeat of al-Qaeda in 2008 would not have been possible without the groundwork done by the PMOI in bringing the Iraqi factions together to oppose terrorism and fundamentalist Islamic sectarian rule.

If the U.S. hopes to keep Iraq from splitting irrevocably into sectarian regions, it must  not allow the Iranian regime – itself or through its proxies in the Bader Organization or any other proxy Hezb'allah-Iraq creation of the IRGC – to harm the PMOI membership residing in Ashraf and Camp Liberty.  No other group was able to foster discussion and cooperation among the Iraqi faction.  And we must not forget that the Iranian regime dearly desires to execute the PMOI's leadership and imprison its rank and file.

It is time for the United States to exercise some moral leadership once again.  Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants American aid to fight ISIS.  A minimum price tag on that aid should include ironclad guarantees for the safety of the PMOI, and an improvement in their current living conditions at Camp Liberty.  Swift passage of House Resolution 3707 will help facilitate the safety of the PMOI members still located in Iraq.


Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker is founder and chairman of the board of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East, a grassroots organization dedicated to teaching the public and its elected officials of the need to promote genuine democratic institutions throughout the Middle East region as an antidote to the dangers posed by Islamic fundamentalism.  He may be contacted at contact@ADME.ws.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/06/fox_in_the_henhouse_obamas_newest_middleeast_mistake.html

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Israel Accepts 1st Delivery of Disputed Kurdish Pipeline Oil

by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

The Kurdistan Regional Government, seeking greater independence from Iraq, must secure the first sale of oil from its independent pipeline • Ashkelon Port Authority declines to comment on imports by private oil refineries.

SCF Altai tanker docks near Ashkelon port, June 20, 2014 Photo credit: Reuters

A tanker delivered a cargo of disputed crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan's new pipeline for the first time on Friday in Israel, despite threats by Baghdad to take legal action against any buyer.

The SCF Altai tanker arrived at Israel's Ashkelon port early on Friday morning, ship tracking and industry sources said. By the evening, the tanker began unloading the Kurdish oil, a source at the port said.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said on Saturday, a day after the news was first reported, it did not deal with Israel in the sale.

"The KRG categorically refutes the claim that it has sold oil to Israel," a spokesman for the Ministry of Natural Resources said in an email. "The KRG has not sold oil either directly or indirectly to such a destination."

The spokesman did not comment on questions asking who the KRG had sold the oil to, or how crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan had been delivered to Israel.

Reuters was not able to confirm whether the KRG sold the oil directly to a buyer in Israel or to another party. Oil cargoes often change hands multiple times before reaching their final destination.

In a statement on its website earlier on Saturday, the KRG said: "We are proud of this milestone achievement, which was accomplished despite almost three weeks of intimidation and baseless interferences from Baghdad against the tanker-ship owners and the related international traders and buyers."

Securing the first sale of oil from its independent pipeline is crucial for the KRG as it seeks greater financial independence from war-torn Iraq.

But the new export route to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, designed to bypass Baghdad's federal pipeline system, has created a bitter dispute over oil sale rights between the central government and the Kurds.

The United States, Israel's closest ally, does not support independent oil sales by the Kurdish region and has warned possible buyers against accepting the cargoes.

Israeli leaders have been alarmed in recent months, however, by signs of a possible rapprochement between the United States and Iran.

Officials said Israel was keen to build good ties with the Kurds, hoping to expand its limited diplomatic network in the Middle East and broaden options for energy supplies.

It was not clear whether the crude in the SCF Altai has been sold to a local refiner or was slated to discharge into storage, potentially for another destination.

"We do not comment on the origin of crude oil being imported by the private refineries in Israel," an Israeli energy ministry spokeswoman said.

The port authority at Ashkelon declined to comment.

The first tanker to carry Kurdish pipeline oil is still homeless after loading in May. After a false start sailing to the United States, the United Leadership tanker turned back towards Morocco, where it is anchored after local authorities refused to let it discharge for the Mohammedia refinery.

The SCF Altai did not arrive directly from Ceyhan.

The United Emblem was the second tanker to load crude at Ceyhan from the KRG pipeline at the start of last week. It then made a ship-to-ship transfer near Malta to the SCF Altai during June 14-16, several Maltese shipping and market sources said and ship tracking showed.

A third tanker was loading one million barrels of oil from the pipeline, a source at the Turkish ministry said on Friday.

Several market sources said the United Emblem tanker, which loaded the second batch, had gone back to Ceyhan to load the third cargo. Ship tracking showed the tanker berthed at one of the Ceyhan jetties on Friday.

Israeli refineries have taken Kurdish crude oil before but in small volumes, which were shipped to Turkish ports by truck. Some oil has also been stored there.

The KRG began exporting a small volume of its Taq Taq crude grade by truck to Turkey in early 2013 and then added another grade Shaikan at the start of this year.

Israel has less to lose than other U.S. or European refiners, because it has no contract for Iraqi oil. Iraq participates in a boycott of Israel along with many other Arab states.

Italy has warned traders and refineries about the legal risks of importing the oil. Large companies with oil field interests in southern Iraq have stayed clear, although a joint refining venture by Rosneft and BP used a cargo of trucked oil in May.

The KRG's pipeline is currently pumping around 120,000 barrels per day to Ceyhan. The region's natural resources minister is aiming to export 400,000 bpd by year-end.

Emboldened by its takeover of the major Kirkuk oil field in northern Iraq, the KRG is also openly talking about the potential of exporting this oil through its pipeline as well after Kirkuk's usual pipeline outlet was sabotaged.

Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=18305

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