Jon Stewart on Planned US Attack on Syria - The Daily Show

“You got to see the red line,” the “Daily Show” host said after returning to the show from a 12-week absence. “You can’t use chemicals to kill your own people. You have to do it organically. America and the world want to make sure Assad uses only locally-sourced free long-ranged lead ordinance. Now, back in the early 80s, we knew Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran and were likely to use them again. Not only did we not attack them we supported Iraq, we supported Iraq in doing that and of course, we still get to use bunker-busters, cluster bombs and mark-77, which is not, not filled with napalm, technically. So given the fact that we have no idea who has control over these chemical weapons in a failed Syria, remind us again why we have to do this?” …

“We have to bomb Syria because we are in seventh grade,” Stewart said. “And the red line — the red line that they crossed is actually a dick-measuring ribbon. Why does holding back look like weakness? Isn’t it maturity? It’s like the guy who is picking on Clark Kent and he doesn’t do anything, even though he knows he could throw that guy into the sun. I’ll tell you what would be real weakness — Clark Kent laying waste to a town because someone called him a pussy.”

From: HotAir

Dear Congress: Welcome To Pottery Barn

 Rick Wilson ·

Let's get a caveat out of the way: Basher Assad is a truly bad man, a murderous thug, has terrible allies and should be hanging by the neck from a lightpole in Damascus. Nor am I some isolationist or hesitant about executive action in foreign affairs.This isn't about whether we should act against Syria, but about the politics of Barack Obama's utterly failed policy and his attempt to force the GOP to own the debacle he created.

Really, Congress?

Are you really taking this sucker bet?

Really?

You're willing to bail out President Barack Obama after he's managed to set the Middle East on fire?

You're going give Obama cover after two years of Syrian civil war, a growing threat to Israel, a nuclear Iran closer than ever, and Egypt and Libya in chaos...all of which has been met with a shrug and “at this point what difference does it make?” nonchalance?

As in practically everything but campaigning, Barack Obama's zone of competence in foreign policy is so far in the rearview mirror it's almost comical...and now he wants the GOP to save him from himself.

 

Read more at: Ricochet

Non-Black America Experiences a Paradigm Shift

By John Ross

There is a sea change occurring in America fifty years after MLK Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. This paradigm shift is spreading with the growing realization among our citizens that Black America (including our president) seems to hate Non-Black America. Temper this sweeping statement with the fact that blacks in America may genuinely like non-black individuals, just as whites in 1850 who believed blacks were a lower form of life still knew individual black men they respected for their particular talents and/or character. However, if we take specific individual knowledge out of the equation, on the whole, being black trumps everything else for blacks in America today. This is not true of any other ethnic or racial group.

I first became aware of this fact on October 3, 1995, almost eighteen years ago. That was the day the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. I personally thought the verdict was the correct one, since the prosecution botched their case, but it was also pretty obvious that Simpson, and no one else, had wielded the knife.
 
What stunned me then was the absolutely breathtaking reaction of America's black population when the verdict was announced. Across the country, Black America was positively jubilant. Yes, long ago, all-white juries sometimes ignored the evidence of white violence against blacks, but White America as a whole has never, in my 50-year memory, collectively cheered such events.

Read more at: American Thinker

Razend naar de afgrond

Geplaatst door Joost Niemoller op 31 augustus, 2013 - 11:30

Nieuw onderzoek: Nederland is bevangen door angst en paniek. Er is een gevoel van controleverlies.

Het bureau Motivaction peilde voor NRC handelsblad naar gevoelens in Nederland.  De woorden die vooral naar boven kwamen waren economie, islam en Europa. Het verbazingwekkende is dat het eerste onderwerp dag in dag uit in de media is, over het tweede alleen nog een discussie in de marge bestaat, terwijl we het in de vorm van de onttakeling van het Midden Oosten dag in dag uit op het netvlies krijgen. En over Europa bestaat hier ook geen nationaal debat.
Wat me ook opviel was dat de gemeten gevoelens in Nederland kennelijk dieper en zwarter zijn dan ooit:

De peiling ging met name over angst en paniek, door de onderzoekers omschreven als ‘controleverlies’ en ‘het gevoel geen uitweg meer te hebben’. Het is voor het eerst dat Motivaction dergelijk controleverlies peilt.

Angst en paniek. Ik zie dat toch wel als de uiterste staat van volksgevoel. Iets wat alleen maar om kan slaan in woede.

Lees meer op: Dagelijkse Standaard

Obama's bread and circuses

Over the past week, President Barack Obama and his senior advisers have told us that the US is poised to go to war against Syria. In the next few days, the US intends to use its air power and guided missiles to attack Syria in response to the regime's use of chemical weapons in the outskirts of Damascus last week.

The questions that ought to have been answered before any statements were made by the likes of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have barely been raised in the public arena. The most important of those questions are: What US interests are at stake in Syria? How should the US go about advancing them? What does Syria's use of chemical weapons means for the US's position in the region? How would the planned US military action in Syria impact US deterrent strength, national interests and credibility regionally and worldwide? Syria is not an easy case. Thirty months into the war there, it is clear that the good guys, such as they are, are not in a position to win.

Syria is controlled by Iran and its war is being directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and by Hezbollah. And arrayed against them are rebel forces dominated by al-Qaida.

 

Read more at: Caroline Glick.com

The Pros and Cons of Attacking Syria

PJ Media's columnists weigh in on intervening in Syria as the Obama administration decides how to respond to the use of chemical weapons. Updated: Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson and Roger Kimball provide their analyses.

MICHAEL LEDEEN

Well today, Thursday, it looks like we’re running away from the very idea of doing anything. Today’s headlines say that the intel is suddenly dubious, that Cameron won’t do anything without the UN — which means he won’t do anything at all — and Hollande is suddenly cautious.

Surprised?  You say it’s inconceivable that Obama would do nothing at all after all the yelling and jumping up and down?

It wouldn’t be the first time. Think back to the Iranian-sponsored plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador to Washington. There was a monster press conference, featuring the FBI director and General Holder himself.  Intel was presented. Violent words were uttered. Anyone who watched it would have had only one question: what terrible vengeance will we wreak upon the Iranians?
And then…nothing. Aside from General Mattis, it’s hard to find an authoritative voice condemning the inaction (and Mattis only said it on the eve of retirement). The story just went away, as pundits assured their readers, viewers, and listeners that the Iranians couldn’t possibly have been so stupid as to have ordered an attack on American soil.

Kinda like the current refrain that Assad couldn’t possibly have been so stupid as to have ordered a chemical attack against his enemies…

Read more at: PJ Media

Quick Note on Syrian WMDs and Iraq

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

On the overall Syria situation, I have made clear my strong view that the Obama misadministration is leading us into a disaster--almost regardless of the end result of the intervention, our national interests lose. In addition, we are apparently going to intervene in a half-baked manner that would not have been necessary had we maintained a base in Iraq. That base would have given us an ability to come at the Syrians from two sides. A robust US military presence in Iraq also would have helped curb what is growing Iranian influence in Iraq, and hampered Iran's ability to intervene in Syria and Lebanon. Such, however, is the quality of our "leadership" that we are operating with self-imposed and severe handicaps, at the same time that we adopt grandiloquent objectives.

I notice some renewed speculation about the origin of Syria's stockpile of chemical WMDs. That reminds me of a little event in which I participated. The day, April 9, 2003, the day Saddam's statue was pulled down in Firdos Square in Baghdad. I was sitting in my office at a US Embassy in Asia. As were millions of others people around the world, I watched the destruction of Saddam's monument on TV. My phone rang; my office manager said that the Ambassador wanted me to take a call from Iraq's Embassy. I first thought it a joke, but, no, Iraqi Charge Abbas was indeed calling. I picked up the phone, and, in very good English, he immediately said, "I am calling from the Embassy of Liberated Iraq. I have told your Ambassador, you have done a good thing. You have given us freedom!" I was a bit surprised. This man had a reputation as one of the most loyal Saddamers around; just a few days prior he had been agitating for protests at the US Embassy. I had gone into the host nation Foreign Ministry to lodge my own protest over his activities. He previously had been, apparently, a senior official in the Iraqi Finance Ministry, and was very close to Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. He now wanted to talk, and was willing to come to our Embassy, but I was curious about the Iraqi Embassy and wanted to go there. We agreed to meet there in a couple of days if State approved.

Read more at:   The DiploMad 2.0

In Another Country

By Christopher Orlet

How do we make people want to be successful?

I live in a different America now. For the past two years I lived in the inner-city of America’s most dangerous city. I saw the culture of poverty up close and personal. Some insist there is no such thing as a culture of poverty; they would think differently if they spent the last two years in my shoes. But of course they won’t.

The culture of poverty is many things. Actually it is an accumulation of things. Having one of those things doesn’t necessarily mean you are part of that culture. One characteristic of the culture of poverty is the single-parent household. But there are many middle class and even upper class (though fewer) single-parent households that are doing just fine. That is because they have resources unavailable to the poor. Like savings. Lawyers. Reliable transportation.

But if you are a single parent with multiple children by multiple fathers, and a high school dropout, with a record, then chances are you are part of that culture. If you move to a new rental every six months, yanking your kids out of school after school, and if you do drugs in front of your children, and sell your food stamps for cash, then chances are you are part of that culture. If you are 20 years old, living with your grandmother, with no interest in ever getting a job, or getting married, or doing much of anything, chances are you are part of that culture. If you do not have a kitchen table, but you do have a big flat screen TV, and when the social worker comes to visit someone yells, “The social worker is here, go get the light bulb,” then chances are you are part of that culture.

Read more at: The Spectator

Obama and an Edouard Daladier Moment

The day after the November 2008 election I had a major Édouard Daladier moment.

On that horrid Wednesday, I sat in my cluttered office at Main State in Washington, DC, in a deep, deep funk. Blinds drawn; lights out; a small TV on the far side of the office ran images of Obama’s victory celebration in Chicago the night before.

Two colleagues, one male and one female, both white, and both career State officers, walked into the office and started bubbling, “Isn’t this great!” Startled out of my near coma, I glumly asked “What’s great?” The woman looked at me as though I were from outer space, “The election! Obama’s victory.” I stammered, “Wha-what’s so great about it? He’s going to be an awful president.”

They looked at each other, and then the male officer said, “When you drove in today, didn’t you see the joy and pride in the black parking attendants in the basement? They have a real spring in their step this morning.” For one of the few times in my career, I was speechless. No withering reply. No cutting remark. No Churchillian riposte. No well-aimed stream of verbal acid shot from between my lips. Known while I was at the UN as the "Master of the Reply," I stared at him, as a fish pulled out of the depths might. Uncomprehending. Mouth moving without a sound. My pea-sized brain had failed me, yet again. I clearly had not understood that the 2008 national elections in the world’s most important country were about the happiness of parking attendants, about ensuring they had a "spring in their step."

These two cheerful condescending colleagues bounced out of my dreary office; I could hear them celebrating with others outside the door. A couple of minutes later, in walked another friend, a Republican political appointee, who shook his head and sorrowfully asked,”What do you think?” I fidgeted with my pen, undid my tie, and said, in my best Liev Schreiber growl, “We just did a Hemingway. Muzzle of a loaded shotgun in the mouth; about to pull the trigger. Or, as Édouard Daladier would have said, 'The fools! Why are they cheering?'”
Read more at: The Diplomad 2.0

'Toons of the Day: Impudently Dictatorial At Home; Impotently Clueless Abroad

More cartoons at: Predictable History, Unpredictable Past

Consensus in Egypt

By  Mark Steyn

Further to Andy’s and David’s observations on Egypt this weekend, I would add only that everywhere except Washington people are thinking strategically: General Sisi has made a calculation that he has a small window of opportunity to inflict damage on the Muslim Brotherhood that will set them back decades and that it is in Egypt’s vital interest to do so. Grasping that, the Brothers are pushing back hard.

For the same reason, the Gulf monarchies, having weathered the immediate storms of the Arab spring and understanding the longer-term threat the Brotherhood represents, have supplanted Washington as Cairo’s principal paymasters: The $1.5 billion subvention to Egypt was always a drop in the great sucking maw of the US Treasury; compared to what the Saudis and the Emirs are ponying up, it’s looking less and less consequential from the Nile end, too.

Read more at: The Corner

Media, waarom horen we hier niets over?

Aanhangers van de Moslim Broederschap reageren hun woede af op de weerloze christenen in Egypte. En de media maar jammeren over al het geweld en al die zielige dode (Moslim Broederschap-aanhangende) Egyptenaren. Walgelijk!

Tallying the destruction
          
Aug. 15, 2013, 4:15 a.m.

Please note that this situation is fluid and changing.

Churches
 Alexandria

1. Father Maximus Church

Arish

1. St George Church | Burned 

Assiut

1. Good Shepherds Monastery |  Nuns attacked
2. Angel Michael Church | Surrounded
3. St George Coptic Orthodox Church 
4. Al-Eslah Church| Burned 
5. Adventist Church | Pastor and his wife kidnapped 
6. St Therese Church 
7. Apostles Church | Burning 
8. Holy Revival Church | Burning 

Beni Suef

1. The Nuns School 
2. St George Church | al-Wasta

Cairo

1. St Fatima Basilica | Heliopolis | Attempted Attack

Fayoum (Five churches)

1. St Mary Church | El Nazlah 
2. St Damiana Church | Robbed and burned
3. Amir Tawadros (St Theodore) Church
4. Evangelical Church | al-Zorby Village | Looting and destruction
5. Church of Joseph | Burned 
6. Franciscan School | Burned 

Gharbiya

1. Diocese of St Paul | Burned 

Giza

1. Father Antonios
2. Atfeeh Bishopric

Minya

1. Church of the Virgin Mary and Father Abram | Delga, Deir Mawas 
2. St Mina Church | Abu Hilal Kebly, Beni Hilal 
3. Baptist Church | Beni Mazar 
4. Deir Mawas Bishopric
5. Delga Church | Attacked 
6. The Jesuit Fathers Church | Abu Hilal district
7. St Mark Church | Abu Hilal district
8. St Joseph Nunnery 
9. Amir Tadros Church 
10. Evangelical Church 
11. Anba Moussa al-Aswad Church
12. Apostles Church 

Qena

1. St Mary’s Church | Attempted Burning

Sohag

1. St George Church 
2. St Damiana | Attacked and burned 
3. Virgin Mary | Attacked and burned 
4. St Mark Church & Community Center
5. Anba Abram Church | Destroyed and burned 

Suez

1. St Saviours Anglican Church 
2. Franciscan Church and School | Street 23 | Burned 
3. Holy Shepherd Monastery and Hospital 
4. Good Shepherd Church (molotov cocktail thrown)- Relationship with Holy Shepherd Monastery unknown.
5. Greek Orthodox Church 

Christian Institutions

• House of Father Angelos (Pastor of Church of the Virgin Mary and Father Abram) | Delga, Minya | Burned 
• Properties and Markets of Copts | al-Gomhorreya Street, Assiut
• Seventeen Coptic homes | Delga, Minya | Burned
• YMCA | Minya| Burned 
• Coptic Homes | Qulta Street, Assiut | Attacked
• Offices of the Evangelical Foundation & Oum al-Nour | Minya
• Coptic-owned shops, pharmacy, and hotels | Karnak and Cleopatra Streets, Luxor | Attacked and Looted
• Dahabeya Nile Boat | Minya| Church-owned 
• Bible Society bookshop | Cairo | Burned 
• Bible Society | Fayoum 
• Bible Society | al-Gomohoreya Street, Assiut 

Source: http://nilerevolt.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/1198/

Uit: Coptic World

Besteed maar liever eens aandacht aan de échte slachtoffers, mensen die niet bezig waren Egypte te talibaniseren!

Update: Reports from Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood's Fresh Assault on Coptic Christians

Entrepreneurs Turn Oligarchs

by Joel Kotkin 08/12/2013

For a generation, most Americans, whatever their politics, have largely admired Silicon Valley as an exemplar of enlightened free-market capitalism. Yet, increasingly, the one-time folk heroes are beginning to appear more like a digital version of President George W. Bush's “axis of evil.” In terms of threats to freedom and privacy, we now may have more to fear from techies in Palo Alto than the infinitely less-competent retro-Reds in North Korea.

Once, we saw the potential unsurpassed human liberation available through information technology. However, Silicon Valley, as shown in the NSA scandal, increasingly has become intimately tied to the surveillance state. Technology has enabled powerful firms – including Verizon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google – to channel everyone's email and cellphone calls to the national security apparatus.

Read more at: newgeography

Egypt without illusions

Exclusive: Pamela Geller asks, 'What is Obama's obsession with Muslim Brotherhood?'

Despite a series of public (and private) warnings from the Obama administration not to oust Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian people did just that. Good riddance to jihad rubbish. Then Obama issued warnings against arresting Morsi and Brotherhood members, and ordered U.S. government agencies to “review” aid to Egypt. What is Obama’s obsession with the Muslim Brotherhood? Again Obama sides with jihad – in Libya, in Syria, in Tunisia and now yet again in Egypt.

Obama’s loyalty to the Brotherhood ought to be the subject of congressional hearings. He thinks they’re the guardians of democracy in Egypt? The mainstream media and Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. keep claiming that Morsi was democratically elected, and therefore is the legitimate president of Egypt. But there was massive fraud in the election that put Morsi in power. He was no more democratically elected than the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood is made up of Jew-hating Shariah supremacists. Their “Palestinian” wing, Hamas, celebrates attacks on Israeli civilians. Democracy? Obama cited Morsi’s 13 million votes for his unqualified support of these vicious thugs. But the Tamarod opposition group claimed before the toppling of Morsi to have 22 million signatures on a petition demanding that he step down and allow new elections. Insanity has taken over at the highest levels in Washington. We will pay dearly for the Muslim Brotherhood stooge in the White House.

Read more at  WND

A Crisis in Competence

by Richard Fernandez

The overthrow of Morsi in Egypt is bad news for the Muslim Brotherhood. But is it good news for anyone? Austin Bay notes that the Egyptian military is now obviously on top. But he is unsure whether it will revert to its old Nasserite ways or become more inclusive. David Goldman (Spengler) endorses Austin’s view that the army is back in the cards and adds that some Islamists will come up on top  to displace the Muslim Brotherhood, whom the Saudis despised.

The reason the Saudi-backed boys will get a seat at the table is simple. Only the kingdom has the money to save Egypt from imminent starvation. The Egyptian military can hardly turn to Obama. Spengler notes, “Obama is all talk and no money … the administration cannot squeeze meaningful sums out of Congress for Egyptian aid. The only prospective rescuer with deep enough pockets to keep Egypt from disintegrating is Saudi Arabia.”

He’s all turban and no camels. Spengler writes of the military:

There is only one reason the military might do a better job than the Muslim Brotherhood or the liberal opposition, and that is because Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states (besides tiny Qatar) might decide to provide funding for a military regime that suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Saudi regime rightly fears as a competitor to its medieval form of monarchy. That is why Saudi aid to Egypt has been insignificant, while tiny Qatar has committed $5 billion–nearly a fifth of its total foreign exchange reserves–to keep Egypt afloat during the past year. 

Egypt needs about $20 billion a year in external subsidies; a smaller amount would forestall the worst effects of the economic crisis. With $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves, Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country with the resources to give Egypt help on the scale it requires. But the Saudis will not subsidize their own prospective executioners. The Muslim Brotherhood is a modern totalitarian political party; next to the Saudi royal family, it looks like a meritocracy. For ambitious Saudis not born into the ruling family, it offers an attractive alternative. 

Read more at: PJ Media

More pics from Egypt

 

 

For more pictures, go to: Predictable History, Unpredictable Past

One dictator to another...

Herman Van Rompuy @euHvR
You may rest assured that on this pad of enshrining demcracy the EU will stand by your side as a friend,a neighbour & a partner #Morsi 14:10 zo 13 jan.

15 Photos From the Tahrir Square Protests You'll Never See In Legacy Media. #Egypt #Morsi #Obama

 

Curiously, a massive wave of anti-Obama sentiment in Egypt has been utterly ignored by vintage media, even though the protests may be the largest in all of human history.

 

 

 

 

See more pictures at:   Doug Ross @ Journal

 

Update: Look at those crowds!  

 

 

 

RAW: Egypt Military releases New Protest Video

De Westerse steun voor terroristen

Geplaatst door Victor van der Sterren op 2 juli, 2013 - 18:59

In Egypte weet men het: Obama steunt terrorisme. In het Westen sluit men er de ogen voor, maar het is een keiharde waarheid.

En het is niet alleen Obama die zich aan zoiets bezondigt: naast de VS staat ook de EU klaar om het ene terreurbewind na het andere van steun te voorzien. Wie er kritiek op heeft wordt steevast weggezet als een “islamofoob”. Want hoe erg is het nu, om die oh-zo-democratische regeringen te steunen, die zijn ontsproten als gevolg van de Arabische lente? We moeten juist blij zijn dat al die nare dictaturen omver zijn geworpen! Nietwaar?

Nee. Niets van aan. Politiek correcte commentatoren in een veilig land als het onze hebben makkelijk praten; vrouwen die worden verkracht door knokploegen van islamistische regeringen weten wel beter. Christenen die de lichamen van hun vermoorde kinderen—onthoofd en verbrand—moeten begraven kennen de vreselijke waarheid: de daders zijn akelig vaak ingehuurd met Westers krediet. Hun wapens zijn steevast geleverd met de hartelijke groeten van Barack Obama.

Lees verder op: Dagelijkse standaard

Wie niet horen wil, moet maar voelen...



Een van de doelstellingen in het Project, een 'plan de campagne' voor de overname van de Westerse wereld door de islam, was:

 

• Gebruik maken van bestaande Westerse instellingen tot ze kunnen worden overgenomen in dienst van de islam.

Peper: 'Turken pleegden staatsgreep bij PvdA 010'

 

Told you so...

 

Het Project: “een totalitaire ideologie van infiltratie die uiteindelijk het grootste gevaar vormt voor de Europese maatschappijen.”