Saturday, July 8, 2017

On the brink of a strategic shift - Amnon Lord




by Amnon Lord

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan

The IDF has unprecedented intelligence on Hezbollah, and believes that even when the Syrian civil war ends, the Shiite terrorist group is unlikely to provoke hostilities



Hezbollah operatives march in Beirut, Lebanon [Archive]
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Photo credit: AFP


Amnon Lord

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=43675&hp=1

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Real Legislation To Combat Terrorism - Michael Cutler




by Michael Cutler


Welcome to a bill that makes a crucial first step.



The continuing threat of terror attacks committed by international terrorists in the United States requires meaningful, decisive and effective action that protects America and Americans.

Congressman Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho, has introduced legislation that would help address the issue of the lack of integrity to the refugee program.  His bill is H.R. 2826 (Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act of 2017) and addresses an area of critical importance, imbuing the refugee program with meaningful integrity to combat fraud in this program.
I am particularly gratified by Congressman Labrador’s efforts.  I have repeatedly noted in my appearances before Congressional hearings and elsewhere that the lack of integrity of the immigration system created a national security vulnerability that international terrorists and transnational criminals and fugitives frequently exploited, often with deadly consequences.
I have also noted that the lack of integrity of the immigration system was attributable to the lack of integrity of all too many politicians from both political parties creating Immigration Failure - By Design.” 
These politicians hypocritically claim that “the immigration system is broken” while never providing the resources that would enable DHS to enforce and administer the immigration laws to prevent the entry and embedding of international terrorists and transnational criminals.
However while H.R.2826 would require DHS more carefully vet the applications for refugees and maintain awareness about their activities after they admitted into the United States this level of scrutiny and vigilance must not be limited to refugees but also must be applied to aliens who are granted political asylum.
There are many examples of aliens who, upon being granted political asylum, carried out or attempted to carry out terror attacks in the United States.
One of the most notorious examples of this involves the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the deadly terror attack at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.
Along with other members of their family they were lawfully admitted into the United States as nonimmigrants from their native Russia.
They subsequently applied for an were granted political asylum when they made a claim of “credible fear” that they could not return to their home country.  However, shortly after being granted political asylum they voluntarily flew back to Russia.
Nevertheless, both brothers were granted lawful immigrant status along with other members of their family and one of the brothers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, currently incarcerated and awaiting his execution having been found guilty of his murderous terror attack, became a naturalized United States citizen, ironically on September 11, 2012.
His older brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a shootout with law enforcement officers during the attacks.  He had applied for citizenship but that applications was never approved.
The adjudications of applications for lawful immigrant status require thorough background investigations.  Under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act applicants for United States citizenship are supposed to undergo even more stringent “Good Moral Character” investigations.  
Clearly this process failed abysmally and resulted in hundreds of casualties and Rep. Labrador’s bill, if enacted, would strip refugees of their refugee status under these circumstances.  There is no justification for not expanding this scrutiny to aliens who apply for political asylum.  The risks are no less significant.
Additionally, the program that would be created by this legislation also calls for followup monitoring of refugees in the United States.  Again, this sort of ongoing security must also be brought to bear where aliens granted political asylum are concerned for the very same reasons and concerns.
For decades international terrorists have entered the United States determined to carry out deadly terror attacks on American soil.  In order to gain access to the United States they committed multiple forms of immigration fraud using false aliases, altered or counterfeit passports and making false claims in their applications for visas, for political asylum and when they were interviewed by Immigration or CBP (Customs and Border Protection) inspectors at ports of entry.
In 1993 two such attacks were carried out in the United States.
On January 25, 1993 Mir Aimal Kansi a citizen of Pakistan opened fire with an AK-47 on cars being driven into the parking lot at the CIA Headquarters in Virginia by CIA officials. Reportedly Kansi fired more than 70 rounds, killing two CIA officials and wounding three others.
Kansi had applied for Political asylum.
On February 26, 1993 the first bombing at the World Trade Center killed six innocent victims and injured more than one thousand.  
Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the bombing at the World Trade Center, applied for political asylum.  He is also the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who funded his terrorist activities.  He had also planted a bomb on Philippines Airlines Flight 434 that killed one of the passengers and planned to carry out a massive attack that would send 11 airliners to the bottom of the ocean on one day.  That plot was known as the “Bojinka Jetliners Bomb Plot" that thankfully was never carried out.
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and other that followed, were the result of  multiple failures of the immigration system that enabled the terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves as they went about their deadly preparations.
The inability of our government to effectively vet refugees seeking entry into the United States was behind President Trump imposition of a temporary restriction that prohibits the admission of certain aliens who are citizens of countries associated with terrorism, specifically Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia. 
The media has falsely referred to this as a “Travel Ban” and has insisted on referring to these as “Muslim Majority” countries while ignoring the truth.  Citizens of many other countries whose population are “Muslim Majority” are not on that list.  The issue is not religion but national security.
Here is the summary of Representative Labrador’s legislation:
Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act of 2017
This bill amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to: (1) establish the number of annual refugee admissions at 50,000, (2) authorize the President to submit an adjustment recommendation to Congress for approval based upon humanitarian or national interest concerns, and (3) provide that the President must submit emergency refugee admission recommendations to Congress for approval.
The President shall (currently, may) terminate the refugee status of a person not entitled to such status.
Refugee status is terminated for an individual who applied for such status because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which he or she sought refuge on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, but who has returned to such country absent changed conditions.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shall, when processing refugee applications from individuals seeking refuge from a "country of particular concern," grant priority to minority religion applicants whose claims are based on persecution because of their religion.
DHS may conduct recurrent background security checks of an admitted refugee until the refugee adjusts to permanent resident status.
Waiver authorities are limited with respect to refugee inadmissibility and permanent resident status adjustment.
With respect to refugee status adjustment to permanent resident: (1) required U.S. residency is increased to three years; (2) an in-person DHS interview is required; (3) five-year reexaminations are required for a refugee whose status adjustment is refused; and (4) deportability grounds, with an exception for public charge grounds, shall be grounds for refusal of status adjustment.
Resettlement of any refugee may not be provided for in any state or locality in which the governor, chief executive, or legislature has taken action disapproving such resettlement.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shall complete a refugee processing fraud study.
DHS shall: (1) establish a program to detect the use of fraudulent documents in refugee admissions applications, which shall include placement of fraud detection officers at screening locations; and (2) use digital recording technology to record USCIS refugee interviews.
A person may not be considered a refugee if such person fled from violence in his or her country of nationality if the violence: (1) was not specifically directed at the person; or (2) was specifically directed at the person but not because of that person's race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Prior to U.S. refugee admission, DHS shall ensure that an alien is not a threat to U.S. national security based on a background check that includes a review of the alien's publicly available Internet interactions, including social media services. 
My dad used to tell me that nothing is so bad it could not get worse or so good it could not be made better.
Representative Labrador is absolutely on the right track and his bill must be supported by all Americans.  
Good as his bill is, it must either be amended or a parallel bill must be drafted, to apply comparable measures of scrutiny and integrity for aliens who are granted political asylum.
We must deprive our enemies the opportunity to turn America’s kindness and compassion demonstrated in our political asylum program into a weapon to be used against us.


Michael Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent of the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) whose career spanned some 30 years. He served as an Immigration Inspector, Immigration Adjudications Officer and spent 26 years as an agent who rotated through all of the squads within the Investigations Branch. For half of his career he was assigned to the Drug Task Force. He has testified before well over a dozen congressional hearings, provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission as well as state legislative hearings around the United States and at trials where immigration is at issue. He hosts his radio show, “The Michael Cutler Hour,” on Friday evenings on BlogTalk Radio. His personal website is http://michaelcutler.net/.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267203/real-legislation-combat-terrorism-michael-cutler

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Qatar and the Saudis – getting ready for the next round - Dr. Mordechai Kedar




by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The demands have been retracted, but reconciliation is not at hand.

Tensions are at an all time high between the four countries – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Emrates and Egypt – and Qatar, supported by the large, powerful forces of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia and Hezbollah. The four countries handed Qatar a list of 13 demands and an ultimatum: either carry them out to the letter or else. They have  since retracted them.

The following is the list of demands, with my comments in parentheses:

1.Qatar is to announce officially that it has lowered the level of its diplomatic representatives in Iran, close the Iranian diplomatic delegation offices in Qatar, cease all military and intelligence gathering cooperation with Iran. Commerce is permitted while adhering to the international and American sanctions as long as the trade does not endanger the Gulf states.

2. Qatar is to close the Turkish army base that is now under construction and end all cooperation with Turkey on Qatari soil, immediately.

3..Qatar is to break off all relations with "ethnic and ideological terrorist organizations" (i.e. Shiites), including the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State (Daesh), al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the Syrian Jabhat al Nusra) and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Qatar is to declare officially that these are terrorist organizations, recognized as such by the list of terror organizations published by the Saudis, Bahrain, the Emirates and Egypt. It is to update the list in line with any list publicized by the four countries in the future.

4. Qatar will call a halt to funding of any kind to people, groups or organizations defined as terrorist by the Saudi Arabian monarchy, United Emirates, Egupt , Bahrain, the USA and other countries (can this be an allusion to Israel and its defining Hamas and certain Palestinian organizations as terror organizations?).

5. Qatar is to hand over "terrorist persons" fleeing the law, those wanted by the  Saudis, Bahrain, the Emirates and Egypt, to their homelands, freeze their funds and share any information Qatar is asked to provide about their residences, funds and movements.

6. Qatar is to close down al Jazeera and the channels it owns.

7. Qatar is to cease getting involved in the internal issues of sovereign countries, refrain from granting Qatari citizenship to wanted persons from the four countries and cancel those already granted under those circumstances.

8. Qatar will pay reparations for the loss of life and property caused by its policies over the past several years (how many?), with the amount to be coordinated with Qatar.

9. Qatar is to join forces militarily, politically, socially and economically with the Gulf States and Arab countries (i.e. no glutting the market with gas and oil so as not to cause a drop in prices that harms other Gulf States) in a way that is compatible with the (previous) agreement it signed with the Saudi monarchy in 2014.

10. Qatar is to hand over the names and details of those members of the opposition (organizations) which it supported in the past, break off all connection with the political opposition in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt and Libya, and to hand over the files detailing its contacts with them and the aid provided them.

11. Qatar is to close all media channels it funds directly and indirectly.

12. Qatar must agree to all these demands within 10 days of their presentation or the list will be cancelled. (The document does not spell out what steps would be taken should Qatar refuse to accept these conditions.)

13. Qatar must agree to a monthly inspection (of the carrying out) of these demands during the first year after it agrees to them, and to a quarterly inspection during the second year. After that, an annual inspection will suffice.

A close look at the document presented to Qatar by the four countries shows that it contains three major demands: To cut off political relations with Iran; to exile all the subversives plotting against the regimes who presented the demands; shutting the media outlets managed or supported by Qatar, the most important among them being al Jazeera.

Qatar then claimed that it cannot accept the demands as they undercut its sovereignty. Qatar's reaction was surprising, to say the least, since all that country has done since the present emir assumed the reins in 1995 is to ride roughshod over the internal issues of other countries in an attempt to undermine their sovereignty by supporting organizations that oppose the current regimes.

The mediator between Qatar and the 4 country coalition is the Emir of Kuwait. He asked for the ultimatum to be extended and was granted two days that will end shortly after these lines were penned. Since then, the demands have been retracted. Still, the end results are hard to predict for several reasons:

The ultimatum did not spell out the measures that would be taken against Qatar should it refuse to accede to the document's demands and although it is far from certain that the coalition has the power to do anything beyond expelling  Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), there may be other measures it can take.. In a previous article I noted the  possibility that the Saudis invade Qatar and put an end to the al Thani family's rule, but this  might lead to a conflagration with Iran if it should decide to aid Qatar militarily.

A Saudi invasion must be coordinated with the United Sates, because the Saudis need US support for a step of this gravity so as to cause Iran to have second thoughts about joining the fray. The Saudis need US intelligence knowledge and military aid as well as the US  veto in the Security Council against resolutions that will be raised by countries such as Russia and Iran. 

However, this is where US Secretary of State Tillerson comes in. He called the demands made of Qatar too extreme and the European foreign ministers agreed with him. Their declarations were broadcast non-stop by Qarar's al Jazeera

Tillerson's statements may be a result of his long term positive business relations with the Qatar regime in the field of energy, but he certainly dealt a sharp blow to Saudi Arabia's attempts to tame the Qatari shrew.

Erdogan came out for Qatar and joined the growing number of Arab and Islamic countries who have good relations with Qatar. That country has not changed its policies and continues to declare that it can withstand the boycott imposed on it by the coalition of four countries, forever, if need be. Qatar even announced that it is continuing to develop another gas field, something which can send the energy markets into a price downspin by flooding the market. This would harm Iran, but more importantly, immensely harm the Saudi economy.

On Wednesday morning, July 5th,  there was an announcement saying that Qatar had sent an answer to the ultimatum, but without disclosing its contents. The Saudi foreign minister said that  "the four states will respond to the Qatari answer in time" without providing any further details.

I believed then that had Qatar bowed to the ultimatum, the Saudi minister would have read its letter of submission proudly to the entire world. Since he did not, I tended to believe that Qatar refused to give in. That turned out to be the case, and that the Saudis held an emergency meeting with the other coalition members to decide their next steps, probably to increase pressure on Qatar while climbing down from the high tree upon which they stationed themselves.

Qatar refused and the Saudis retracted and that spells a great victory for Iran over the Saudis. The next steps the coalition will take are not clear, but they will most likely involve doing everything they can to carry on the struggle against the opposing coalition of Qatar, Iran and Turkey which also has Russia's backing.

US President Donald Trump is going to have to decide what kind of Middle East he wants: a region controlled by an Iranian-Qatari-Turkish coalition or by a Saudi-Egyptian-Emirates one. The two coalitions are fast approaching a head-on collision.


Dr. Mordechai Kedar is a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic at Bar-Ilan University. He served in IDF Military Intelligence for 25 years, specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. Thoroughly familiar with Arab media in real time, he is frequently interviewed on the various news programs in Israel.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20719

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Liberal Jews to Israel: Do It Our Way or Else - Ron Jager




by Ron Jager

While disagreements may arise, there is no justification for the contempt and condescension being leveled at the Israeli government by this liberal diaspora leadership threatening to rethink their support for the State of Israel.

In recent days, liberal American Jewish leaders have done everything in their power to portray the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his ruling coalition as purposely causing significant harm to the strong alliance between diaspora Jewry and the State of Israel. These leaders have leveled accusations that Netanyahu's actions constitute a slap in the face to American Jewry, have shaken the historical alliance between American Jewry and Israel, and have attacked the very essence of what defines Jewish identity.

The recent conversion law controversy and egalitarian praying area at the Western Wall are indicative, complainers claim, of what Israel has become. These serious accusations seem to serve the political opponents of Israel's ruling coalition rather than reflect the facts concerning the Western Wall, where the status quo remains in effect. Concerning the conversion law controversy, the relevant parties are mainly former Russian Olim (that is, immigrants making aliyah to Israel) living in Israel and not American Jewry or American Olim.

These same liberal American Jewish leaders have joined hands with Israel's leading opposition political parties to challenge the viability of Israel's democratically elected ruling coalition, all in the name of what they define as Jewish unity. While disagreements may arise, there is no justification for the contempt and condescension being leveled at the Israeli government by this liberal diaspora leadership threatening to rethink their support for the State of Israel.

A senior official of the Chicago Jewish federation and one of the most influential leaders in the American Jewish federation world was quoted stating that "the federation in Chicago will not be hosting any member of Knesset that votes for this bill. None. They will not be welcome in our community." He added: "We're past the time when we're standing and applauding and being nice because they're members of [the] Knesset or because they hold this position or that position." In other words, Israel's elected political leaders are not welcome in his community, and he is calling for a boycott of Israel's Knesset members. Again, all in the name of Jewish unity. Declaring war against the government, lecturing to Israel about how Israeli society is intolerable while not living in Israel, while not being part of the daily effort to live with the complex reality here in Israel is nothing short of chutzpah.

In response to many of the declarations made by American Jewish leaders, United States ambassador to Israel David Friedman was quoted stating, "We will defeat our enemies. I have no doubt that we will defeat our enemies." Friedman continued, "The question is: Can we survive ourselves?" without identifying any particular organization. He was apparently referring to comments by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who said in an Israeli TV interview that the repercussions of the Western Wall and conversion decisions pose a strategic danger to the well-being of the State of Israel.

"Yesterday," Friedman said at a B'nai B'rith journalism awards ceremony in Jerusalem, "I heard something that I never thought I'd hear. And I understand the source of the frustration and the source of the anger. But I heard a major Jewish organization say that they needed to rethink their support for the State of Israel. That's something unthinkable in my lifetime, up until yesterday." Boycotts, questioning the legality of governmental decisions, encouraging members of Congress to threaten to withdraw their support of Israel – all are strikingly similar in content and in language used by the BDS and anti-Israel movements in America that promote the delegitimization of the State of Israel. For many liberal diaspora leaders, Israel has become an "oppressor" of Jewish rights. These people have repeatedly attempted in recent days to brand Israel as an intolerant society.

What seems to escape these diaspora leaders is the very fabric of democratic life here in Israel. Their suggested dialogue is based on recriminations and false accusations. They suggest that they can save Israel from itself so as to survive as a democratic state. For these liberal Jewish leaders, the status of religious pluralism in Israel has become the defining lens through which unwarranted criticism about Israel becomes justified. Rather than perceiving Israel as representing the very embodiment of a moral world, they unjustly label Israel undemocratic. Orthodox, secular, Jews, Arabs, veteran Israelis, new immigrants all enjoy equal rights and are subject to judicial review should they feel that their democratic rights are being impinged. Israel's Supreme Court of Appeals has adopted "judicial activism" in its orientation and is at the forefront of protecting the rights of all sectors of the population in Israel.

Dividing Israel into good cop, bad cop, making out the ruling coalition as an amalgamation of Dirty Harry and The Chosen so as to make Israel palatable to young liberal American Jews, is avoiding the real issue at hand. The problem, as arch-Jewish liberal Peter Beinart puts it, is that young liberal American Jews "are not especially connected to Israel because they are not especially connected to being Jewish." Supporting Israel, including Jews who are Dat-Leumi or Haredi, is messy and complicated. It raises too many questions concerning Jewish identity and Jewish affiliation. Israel that accepts the Reform and Conservative movements, Israel the start-up nation, is a Jewish nation agreeable to the palate of liberal American Jews who would prefer to remain Jewish from afar.

I can assure my liberal Jewish brethren in North America that most Israelis inhabit not "tolerant Israel" or "intolerant Israel." Rather, they inhabit the vast landmass of "middle Israel," the place where all Jews can live together, providing maximum liberty and religious rights.


Ron Jager, a 25-year veteran of the IDF, served as a field mental health officer and commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGOs implementing psycho-trauma and psycho-education programs to communities in the North and South of Israel and is a strategic adviser to the chief foreign envoy of Judea and Samaria. Contact: medconf@netvision.net.il

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/liberal_jews_to_israel_do_it_our_way_or_else.html

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Asking China to 'Fix' North Korea Is a Waste of Time - John R. Bolton




by John R. Bolton

China has been playing the United States while doing next to nothing to reverse the North's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.

American and South Korean officials have said for over a year that North Korea would be able, within a very short time, to miniaturize a nuclear device, mount it on an intercontinental ballistic missile and hit the continental United States. The country's test launch Tuesday didn't conclusively demonstrate that Pyongyang has reached this point, but Alaska and Hawaii might already be within range — and US forces in South Korea and Japan certainly are.

This isn't the first time the North has marked the Fourth with fireworks. On July 4, 2006, a North Korean short-range missile barrage broke a seven-year moratorium, stemming from a 1998 Taepo-Dong missile launch that landed in the Pacific east of Japan. Tokyo responded angrily, leading Pyongyang to declare the moratorium (though it continued static-rocket testing), ironically gaining a propaganda victory.

In addition, the North substantially increased ballistic-missile cooperation with Iran, begun earlier in the decade, a logical choice since both countries were relying upon the same Soviet-era Scud missile technology, and because their missile objectives were the same: acquiring delivery capabilities for nuclear warheads.

This longstanding cooperation on delivery systems, almost certainly mirrored in comparable cooperation on nuclear weapons, is one reason North Korea threatens not only the United States and East Asia, but the entire world. In strategic terms, this threat is already here. Unfortunately, we should have realized its seriousness decades ago to prevent it from maturing.


A South Korean navy ship fires a missile during a drill aimed to counter North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile test, on July 6, 2017 in East Sea, South Korea. (Photo by South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images)

It's clear that nearly 25 years of diplomatic efforts, even when accompanied by economic sanctions, have failed. President Trump seemed to continue the "carrots and sticks" approach, first with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and more recently during South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Washington visit.

As he has said subsequently, however, we must shift to a more productive approach. China has been playing the United States while doing next to nothing to reverse the North's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Indeed, there's every reason to believe Beijing has at best turned a blind eye to willful violations of international sanctions and its own commitments, allowing Chinese enterprises and individuals to enable Pyongyang.

In response, many contend we should impose economic sanctions against China, pressuring it to pressure North Korea. While superficially attractive, this policy will inevitably fail.

Because, however, the failure will take time to become evident, sanctioning China will simply buy still more time for Pyongyang to advance its programs.

China's economy is so large that targeted sanctions against named individuals and institutions can have only minimal consequences. They will also suffer the common fate of such sanctions, being very easily evaded by establishing "cut outs" carrying on precisely the same activities under new names.

Plus, China's decades of mixed signals about the DPRK reflect its uncertainty about exactly what to do with the North. Sanctioning China might only strengthen the hand of Beijing's pro-Pyongyang faction, obviously the opposite of the result we seek.

Instead, Washington should keep its focus on the real problem: North Korea. China must be made to understand that, unless the threat is eliminated by reunifying the Peninsula, the US will do whatever is necessary to protect innocent American civilians from the threat of nuclear blackmail.

In the end, this unquestionably implies the use of military force, despite the risks of broader conflict on the Korean Peninsula, enormous dangers to civilians there and the threat of massive refugee flows from the North into China and South Korea. They can work with us or face the inevitable consequences, which will be far more damaging to China than pinprick sanctions.

These are very unhappy alternatives. But the lesson of the past 25 years is that pursuing diplomacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that diplomacy could not succeed has brought us to this point. We can either accept that reality now, or be forced to accept it later, with potentially much more painful results.

John R. Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is Chairman of Gatestone Institute, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad".
This article first appeared in the New York Post

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10630/china-north-korea

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John Bolton: Every Time You Hear North Korea Think of Iran - John Hayward




by John Hayward

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton talked about North Korea’s Fourth of July missile test launch on Thursday’s edition of Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow.




Bolton said intercontinental ballistic missiles are a goal North Korea has been working towards since the early 1990s, as part of the outlaw regime’s quest for “deliverable nuclear weapons,” but it was still surprising to many observers that a missile with true intercontinental capability was successfully launched this week.

“It’s capable of hitting Alaska. It can’t hit the Lower 48 yet, but that’s only a matter of time,” he said. “The only other thing we need to find out, and I don’t want to be on the receiving end of it, is whether North Korea has miniaturized its nuclear devices – of which it’s already detonated five – to the point they can put it under an ICBM nose cone.”

“I’ve been talking about this for 20 years, and so have many other people. And yet, for the last three U.S. administrations – eight years of Clinton, eight years of Bush, eight years of Obama – people have tried to negotiate with North Korea to talk them out of their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. It’s failed consistently for 25 years,” he said. 

“That’s why Trump has inherited this mess. The issue is whether he can find a way out of it, or whether he succumbs to what I know the State Department, and much of the Defense Department, and much of the intelligence community are telling him: just keep doing what we’ve been doing before. Because that will result in a nuclear North Korea,” Bolton warned. 

“And by the way, you can already see the mainstream media and academia preparing us to live in a world where North Korea has nuclear weapons,” he added, citing a New York Times op-ed to that effect from Wednesday.

Bolton judged that Japan would continue to be a reliable ally against North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, since the Japanese are well aware their cities lie within range of North Korea’s missiles. On the other hand, he said “all of the evidence points to China and Russia as, at best, turning a blind eye to what the North has been up to, and more likely facilitating the North’s nuclear and missile programs.”

He said his support from China and Russia was kept low-profile to avoid sanctions, but there was no way to conceal that China supplies North Korea with much of its oil and food, giving Beijing more than enough leverage to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear missile program if it truly wanted to.

“China is playing a double game. They say they don’t want the North Koreans to have nuclear weapons but they haven’t shut it down,” Bolton charged. “It’s a very dangerous situation. Nobody should underestimate it.”

“One other point I would make: Every time you hear the words ‘North Korea,’ think of the word ‘Iran,’” he added. “Because whatever North Korea can do, Iran can do the next day by sending them a check in the appropriate amount. We have stovepiped these two nuclear proliferation threats for a very long time. We need to stop doing that because every day that goes by brings us closer to the day when one or both of them can hit the United States.”

Bolton cited North Korea’s five known nuclear test detonations, and its successful test of ballistic missile technology, to say it is a “more imminent threat” than Iran, but stressed that North Korea and Iran have been working “extremely closely on ballistic missiles” since the Nineties, “and there’s every reason to think they have worked extremely closely on the nuclear program as well.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if a big chunk of Iran’s uranium enrichment program is not in Iran, where we know where it is, but under a mountain in North Korea,” he said. “We have very poor intelligence on North Korea, so it’s a big advantage for Iran to work with them.”

“When the Israelis destroyed that reactor in Syria in September 2007, it was being built by North Koreans,” he recalled. “Well, who paid for that? North Korea doesn’t do anything for free. I doubt that Syria had the resources to do it. Quite likely it was Iran. When that reactor was found by the Israelis and destroyed, the lesson I think to Iran was, ‘Build it someplace where the Israelis can’t find it.’ That’s why they may well have turned to North Korea.”

Bolton noted that U.S. and South Korean military officials have been warning for the past year that North Korea was on the verge of developing missiles that could hit the West Coast of the United States, perhaps as early as 2018.

“In public testimony three or four months ago now, the head of the U.S. Strategic Command told Congress that the only thing he had any doubt about was whether North Korea had fully conquered the miniaturization tasks to take a nuclear device and make it small enough to put under an ICBM nose cone. So even just three or four months ago, he didn’t have any doubt about the range,” he noted. 

“There are a lot of other technical steps to overcome here. You can put the nose cone and the warhead up, you can bring it back down, but it’s a pretty rocky ride. You have to make sure that the warhead will detonate at the appropriate time,” he explained. 

“We don’t know whether the North has mastered that technology, but I would be very cautious about intelligence that says they can’t do this, and they can’t do that, and they can’t do the other thing, because the first American reaction to this launch was ‘it was an intermediate range ballistic missile, not an ICBM,” and we were wrong. And we didn’t detect this one before the launch. I think we’ve had enough lessons in intelligence being imperfect,” he said. 

“Don’t count on our lack of knowledge meaning that the North doesn’t have the capability,” he advised. “They may well have the capability. We may simply not have detected it.”

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.

John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and head of his own political action committee, BoltonPAC.


John Hayward

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/07/06/john-bolton-every-time-hear-north-korea-think-iran/

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CNN’s Secret Business Links to the Castro Regime - Humberto Fontova




by Humberto Fontova


The shameless ties that bind.




“Wow. CNN had to retract big story on 'Russia,' with three employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do?”  (tweet from President Trump, June 27.)

Start with practically everything from CNN’s Havana Bureau for the past twenty years, Mr President. But don’t take it from me. Take it from the mass-murdering terror-sponsors who graciously bestowed CNN their platform to spread communist propaganda:

“Propaganda is vital—propaganda is the heart of our struggle.” (Fidel Castro.)

“Much more valuable than rural recruits for our Cuban guerrilla force were American media recruits to export our propaganda.” (Ernesto “Che” Guevara.)

“Fidel Castro is one hell of a guy!" Ted Turner gushed to a capacity crowd at Harvard Law School during a speech in 1997. "You people would like him! Most people in Cuba like him."

Within weeks CNN was granted its coveted Havana Bureau, the first ever granted by Castro to a foreign network. Though Tuner officially relinquished his vice chairmanship of (CNN parent) Time-Warner in 2003, the network’s role as subsidiary of the Castro regime’s propaganda ministry remains as shameless as ever—a “shining” legacy!

 A genuine (but hopelessly naive) Spanish reporter who took his job title seriously and (very foolishly) attempted to practice his profession in the Castro-Family-Fiefdom, explains the issue very succinctly:

“The Castro regime assigns 20 security agents to follow and monitor every foreign journalist. You play the regime’s game and practice self–censorship or you’re gone.” (Vicente Botin, reporter for Madrid’s El Pais who was promptly booted from Cuba for refusing to play the same sniveling, cowardly game as CNN’s cuckolded –perhaps even black-mailed--“reporters” play every time they file a “story” from Cuba.)

Retired U.S counter-intelligence officer Chris Simmons also explains the issue: “The vetting procedure starts the minute the (Cuban) regime receives a visa application,” says the man long-regarded as America’s top Cuba spycatcher. “When those smiling Cuban “guides” greet you at the airport they know plenty about you, and from several angles.” (Chris Simmons, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuban spycatcher, now retired.)

In brief, you’re not getting and keeping a Cuban journalist visa (much less a Havana Bureau) unless you  shamelessly (and genuinely) collude with Cuba’s KGB-founded and mentored ministry of propaganda. This isn’t rocket science, amigos.

According to a recent story where CNN’s Havana-based reporter Patrick  Oppmann  (SURPRISE!) bemoans President Trump’s proposed Cuba policy, Uncle Sam has no better, more honorable or more trustworthy friend in the war on drugs than the Castro family, those noble purifiers of Cuban society–because according to CNN’s Oppmann:

“Cuban officials told CNN that, despite political differences with the United States, they have provided key intelligence to help capture smugglers,” among many other heart-warming modes of selfless cooperation.
 
Let’s have a look at some of the fruits of this co-operation, shall we. (please carefully note the dates.)

HAVANA (AP) — The Obama administration and Cuba’s Interior Ministry have agreed to share information on international criminal activity such as terrorism, human trafficking and money laundering. (Jan. 17, 2017.)

“Panamanian authorities have intercepted over 401 kilos of cocaine in a shipment from Cuba en route to Belgium. The cocaine was found in a (Cuban) container camouflaged by (Cuban) molasses tanks.” (April, 14, 2017.)

You’ll be astounded to hear that CNN somehow “overlooked” the story regarding their Cuban benefactors getting nailed red-handed in a major drug-bust and thus making a pathetic joke of much of what CNN’s reports from Cuba…Oh! and also no mention by CNN of the following fascinating facts closely related to this theme:

“The case we have against Raul Castro right now (for drug-trafficking) is much stronger than the one we had against Manuel Noriega in 1988.” (U.S. prosecutors in Florida to the Miami Herald, July 1996.)

“Federal prosecutors in Miami were prepared to indict Raul Castro as the head of a major cocaine smuggling conspiracy in 1993, but the Clinton Administration Justice Department overruled them, current and former Justice Department officials tell ABC News…”It was a major investigation involving numerous witnesses that was killed at the highest levels in Washington,” said a former Justice Department official with direct knowledge of the case.

Another theme on which CNN relentlessly “reports” are all the recent “free-market reforms!”  in Cuba thanks to Obama’s policy and Raul Castro’s “pragmatism.”

In fact, despite this constant CNN clamor,  the percentage of Cubans privately employed in 2017 (under “free-market reformer”  Raul Castro) is slightly LOWER than the percentage who were privately employed in 1965 when Maoist/Stalinist fanatic Che Guevara  served as Cuba’s “minister of the economy.” 

You see, amigos: Unlike those who—in order to earn and keep their “journalist” visas-- dutifully transcribe from Castro’s propaganda ministry, your humble servant  (whose books are outlawed in Cuba and who is  denounced by Castro’s media as a  “SCOUNDREL! And a TRAITOR!”)— actually bothered to do some research and run the numbers.  

Recently CNN struck an ominous note regarding Trump’s proposed Cuba policy. CNN has strong suspicions that this policy is a simple ploy by hotel mogul Donald Trump to sandbag other hotel companies–so that Trump’s company can later fill Cuba with Trump hotels.

 “…the decision to prohibit business with GAESA (Cuba’s military-controlled business empire) ….is an example of Trump's ability to impact his business' competitors while in the White House. Trump's prohibition, in effect, puts other hotel companies on equal footing with his personal company -- not allowed to pursue future business in Cuba.”

In brief, according to CNN, Trump’s Cuba policy constitutes a blatant “conflict of interest.”
And speaking of conflict of interests: how many of y’all knew that CNN’s Cuba reporter Patrick Oppmann—who constantly rails against Trump’s Cuba policy of restricting tourism to Cuba—has an American wife who owns a shop in Havana that caters primarily to tourists? 

Needless to add, permission to open a shop in Havana isn’t doled out randomly by the Stalinist regime—especially to a foreigner! In fact several Cubans who had opened up small restaurants in Havana were recently arrested and had their restaurants confiscated by Stalinist authorities.  Seems they weren’t sufficiently greasing the right regime palms.

Apparently no such “irregularities” hamper the operation of the shop owned by the CNN reporter’s wife.  

More interestingly still: Oppmann’s wife ALSO works as a high-rolling consultant to foreign companies seeking to hook-up with the Castro regime business-wise. It appears that she knows many of the “ins and outs,” of the Stalinist system along with many of the right communist apparatchik hands for foreign businessmen to grease.

And I repeat: her CNN reporter husband—who denounces Trump’s “conflict-of-interest”—specializes in denouncing any U.S. restrictions on doing business with Cuba’s Stalinist regime.

Humberto Fontova

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267204/cnns-secret-business-links-castro-regime-humberto-fontova

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The Democrats’ Soviet Insane Asylum for Trump - Jamie Glazov




by Jamie Glazov


The Left’s faithful devotion to socialist-style “psychiatric” disposal of political dissidents.




The former Soviet Union possessed many imaginative mechanisms to deal with the problem of enemies of the people who obstructed the path to socialist utopia -- now known as “social justice.” One of those mechanisms was the practice of confining individuals who were thinking the wrong thoughts to insane asylums. Indeed, if you caused any trouble for the commissars, a good inoculation of neuroleptics (powerful drugs used to “quiet” the symptoms of schizophrenia), forcibly administered through a tube in the nose, could do wonders in bringing your politically incorrect behavior to a halt.

Dissidents such as Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Pyotr Grigorenko, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Esenin-Volpin and Joseph Brodsky were all among the brave freedom-fighters who bore the brunt of the Soviet practice of institutionalizing dissidents in mental hospitals and force-feeding them mind-shattering drugs. Gorbanevskaya was committed to a psychiatric hospital for attending the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Grigorenko suffered the same fate for criticizing the Khrushchev regime. Bukovsky was confined to a psychiatric hospital for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Brodksy was sent to mental hospitals for not writing the right kind of poetry; his treatments involved "tranquilizing" injections, sleep deprivation and forced freezing baths. Esenin-Volpin was institutionalized in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital for his anti-Soviet thoughts.

Today’s progressive Democrats are also faithfully journeying on an uplifting odyssey. Horrified by Trump’s opposition to Obama’s “fundamental transformations,” they have found their own neuroleptics in the form of the 25th Amendment and a bill seeking to impeach the president for being mentally unsound. Indeed, Trump has to be mentally deranged and unfit for office, because what other reason could possibly explain his frightening disagreement with the Left’s un-American creed of identity politics -- race and gender uber alles? What other factor could possibly be at play in his embrace of individual freedom and responsibility -- and in his rejection of group privileges and racial/gender hierarchies that, as David Horowitz has noted, can only be manifested after America’s Constitution is null and void?

Confronted by Trump’s shocking blasphemy against their anointed plan, several Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), have now signed onto a bill that seeks to remove Trump by invoking 25th Amendment powers. The bill cites section 4 of the amendment, created in 1967 after JFK's assassination, that allows for an independent body to remove the president based on the determination that he has been mentally or physically incapacitated to carry out his duties. Raskin's initiative would activate a probe into whether Trump has been too far "incapacitated" to continue as president.

This effort is, actually, even sicker than the Soviet practice, since the amendment does not refer to psychiatric problems, but to actual incapacitation through assassination or stroke.

Raskin claims he is concerned that "something is seriously wrong" with Trump, citing a "sustained pattern of behavior" and several "errant and seemingly deranged tweets," which he believes are damaging to U.S. interests. But to anyone who hasn’t drunk the progressive Kool-Aid, it is obvious that Trump’s sustained pattern of behavior is not damaging U.S. interests. Instead, it is unhinging his political enemies and damaging the progressive assault on America’s social contract. Trump’s tweets do not warn, for example, that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam (an Obama meme) or that you can keep your doctor if you like him. They are singing the praises of America and calling out a corrupt media for its brazen lies and political partisanship.

The only reasonable observation in Raskin’s statements is that (to people like him): "it certainly doesn't feel like the ship is on an even course right now."

Consequently, the Democrats are now trying to steer the ship back into progressive waters. They are doing so by applying the lessons of the Soviet secret police -- in quashing those who disagree with them like Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov refused to toe the Soviet party line and be politically correct; therefore, like Trump, he was also obviously mentally ill. That’s why the Soviet authorities had to confine him in a closed ward of the Semashko Hospital in Gorky, where he was force-fed and given drugs to alter and enlighten his state of mind.

And now enter the new self-appointed social redeemers of our time: the progressive Democrats who are consumed with ferocious rage as they watch the horror show of an American president strengthening America and abandoning the enlightened course on which Obama’s ship sailed. There is no secret about what the true yearnings of the Raskin Gang are, but absent a totalitarian state to back them up, they are bound to fail.


Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed and best-selling, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror and the host of the web-TV show, The Glazov Gang. He can be reached at jamieglazov11@gmail.com. Visit his site at JamieGlazov.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267208/democrats-soviet-insane-asylum-trump-jamie-glazov

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