The real reason behind Benghazigate

Was Obama gun-walking arms to jihadists?

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

President Obama’s once seemingly unstoppable march toward re-election hit what he might call “bumps in the road” in Benghazi, Libya, late on Sept. 11, 2012. It might be more accurate to describe the effect of the well-planned and -executed, military-style attack on a diplomatic facility there as the political equivalent of a devastating improvised explosive device on the myth of the unassailability of the Obama record as commander in chief.

Thanks to intrepid investigative reporting — notably by Bret Baier and Catherine Herridge at Fox News, Aaron Klein at WND.com and Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org — and information developed by congressional investigators, the mystery is beginning to unravel with regard to what happened that night and the reason for the subsequent, clumsy official cover-up now known as Benghazigate.

Read more at: The Washington Times

Santorum to CNN: Yes, Obama’s an appeaser

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/santorum-hammers-obama-middle-east-appeasement

What Gaddafi’s Death Teaches the Middle East…And Should Teach the West

October 20, 2011 - 4:09 pm - by Barry Rubin

What can we learn from the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Qadhafi? First, we should note that he is the second Arab dictator to die in the last decade, the first being the Iraqi Saddam Hussein. Both met their demise due to direct Western intervention.


There are three lessons for the region:

1. To get rid of a dictator, you need either Western intervention or the support of the armed forces.

Consider this simple list:

Dictatorships overthrown with Western forces taking the lead: Iraq, Libya

Dictatorships overthrown with the backing of the army: Egypt, Tunisia

Failed revolutions when these two factors are lacking: Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen.

That shows that it is not popular revolt that changes things in the region.

Dictators must fight or die and concessions don’t help.

The Western view is that revolutions are prevented by moderation and compromise, steps that please the masses and thus discourage them from revolting. This is so deeply ingrained that Western observers simply cannot conceive that approach as anything but a natural law. In contrast, in the Middle East, the political philosophy has been based on the idea that force and intimidation prevail.

With one notable exception, where brilliant maneuvering and concessions (albeit often illusory ones) worked — Morocco — the Middle East has shown that its approach works locally. Even in Turkey, where democratic norms are observed, once in power the Islamist regime has gained ground through toughness and not through concessions. The prisons are full of its opponents.

The event in Eastern Europe that most impressed Arab governments was the assassination in Romania of dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife, Elena. They knew that this could happen to them. When combined with the lesson from the USSR — how Mikhail Gorbachev’s engagement in reforms brought him down — these events played a central role in destroying the 1990s era of toying with possible moderation. The “old-time religion” of toughness and repression was reaffirmed.

Nowhere has this proven to be truer than in Syria. Despite Western fantasies of moderation and reform from dictator Bashar al-Assad, there has never been the slightest chance of this happening. The whole Obama foreign policy toward Syria was demonstrably foolish.

More at: Pajamas Media

Arab Spring, My Foot

October 7, 2011

by Martin Peretz

Or, better yet, “my ass.” The Arab Spring has been with us for nearly three quarters of a year. This is not a long time as history goes. But the annual flowers of the spare land have long ago vanished into the crude, mostly gritty sand that is the Middle East. It’s not, though, as if it is at all back to “normal” in the Arab world. And, frankly, we haven’t the slightest about what normal in the Arab world is or will be. The Muslims and the Jews and the increasingly scarce but differentiated Christians who constituted the region lived (and live) recreant lives. For centuries it was the People of the Book who were put on edge or to death, mostly for what they believed and also for what crimes the authorities fantasized they had committed. (In this way the Jews of the Near East—near where, exactly?—lived lives on the edge much as they did in Christendom. Of course, if there are maybe 2,000 Jews now in all the Arab lands, it would stun me. The near-million there were are now mostly in Israel, God bless them, and in Western countries which, God bless them, welcomed them, even France, like brothers and sisters, a new enunciation offraternité.) The Peoples of the Cross were likewise persecuted—but sometimes the powerful states of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant, were able to extend a cloak of protection around Christian communities of the Levant. Though not, of course, around the Armenians. Or, for that matter, not around the Kurds either, who, mostly Sunni, some Shia, were in the Islamic orbit but distanced from that orbit’s—let’s face it—zealotry.

Read more at: The New Republic

Understanding Obama: His One-World View and Foreign Policy

Did Obama really dither indecisively over the Middle East crises, or were his delays all part of the plan?

March 22, 2011 - by Tony Katz

The frantic, frenetic, high-pitched squeal from all sides of the political aisle could have deafened most any ears. When the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to institute a “no-fly zone” against Libya and its leader Moammar Gaddafi, there were shrieks of disgust. Where is President Obama? How could he allow this? And, conversely, what has taken him so long?

In 24-plus hours when the bombs began to fall on Libya (some 100 or more Tomahawks in the first bombardment), the shrieks continued. Isn’t this the anti-war president? How did he win a Nobel Prize? This is unconstitutional!

It is one of those rare moments: even though both sides come to the table from vastly different points of view, they have the same end game — what is President Obama doing? Even Louis Farrakhan, who I submit to you is an awful person, asked the question: “Who the hell do you think you are?”

It is blazingly obvious that for all the pundits’ talk about understanding Obama, none of them understand Obama. The Right does not understand the depths of his nature, and the Left does not understand his willingness to play them like pawns (see useful idiots.) Most importantly, neither side has grasped the proper context of Obama, and the fact that Libya has played out exactly as he wanted it to.

More at: Pajamas Media