Friday, January 28, 2011

Obama Fiddles as the Middle East Burns

Of all things, Butch Jackson came into the Cafe this week raving about an funny little Northern African country, "Tunisia overthrew their government in January and were rarely even mentioned in our press, and when mentioned, the press said the government's leader stepped down because of 'street protest'. Obama made a positive statement about Tunisia in his state of the union speech. So what is the history that led up to the present situation in Tunisia that Obama praises? I took this information from the BBC:
'French colonial rule ended in 1956, and Tunisia was led for three decades by Habib Bourguiba, who advanced secular ideas. These included emancipation for women - women's rights in Tunisia are among the most advanced in the Arab world - the abolition of polygamy and compulsory free education. The diverse economy has grown steadily and the slum population has halved. Mr Bourguiba insisted on an anti-Islamic fundamentalist line, while increasing his own powers to become a virtual dictator.

 In 1987 he was dismissed on grounds of senility and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali' became president. He continued with a hard line against Islamic extremists, but inherited an economically-stable country. 

Although Tunisia has introduced some press freedoms and has freed a number of political prisoners, human rights groups say the authorities tolerate no dissent, harassing government critics and rights activists. Political violence was rare until recently, but militant Islamists have become an issue of concern for the authorities. A suicide bomb attack on an historic synagogue in the resort of Djerba in 2002 killed 21 people and led to a dramatic drop in tourist numbers.

Violent repression of protests over unemployment and lack of political freedom in the winter of 2010-2011 left dozens of people dead. But popular street protests continued and President Ben Ali went into exile in January 2011'."

 Aunt Martha did her best to follow Butch, "So what, Butch? Why do we care?"

"Because history repeats itself. While we were focused on Jimmy Carter's incompetence in screwing up the American economy we found out later that our foreign policy was even more screwed up. Carter never met an enemy of the free world that he didn't like. While Obama has us focused on deficits, socialism, and even gays in the military (all serious issues) while his Radical Muslim friends are taking over the Middle East."

"Martha, I think once again Butch is on a really big issue," weighed in Billy Roy. "While Obama and Clinton just give mushy statements about democracy and violence trying to play both sides, the Radical Muslim's seem to be making huge gains as they take advantage of Obama's weakness and incompetence. Any sane person knows that the conflicts in the Middle East come down to the Radical Muslim Brotherhood and their comrades like al-Queda and the Taliban against more secular and less radical Muslims who, in all cases except Afghanistan and Iraq, are headed up by dictators or royal families.

Let's go through several situations:

Hezbollah is taking over the Lebanon government. Hezbollah is on the U.S. terrorists list. Obama never mentioned this in his State of the Union message. Hezbollah's prime interest is the destruction of Israel and all other 'infidels'.

In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood is rioting against the current secular (that means non-radical-Muslim) government and the military, who have been U.S. allies.  Obama's idiot press secretary Gibbs, of all things, called this morning for the Egyptian Government to restore the use of Twitter and Social Networking. Meanwhile, what Obama calls peaceful demonstrators, have set the Egyptian President's headquarters on fire. Today commentators are attacking Obama for supporting Radical Street Muslims and at the same time for supporting the present government. Bottom line, no one knows what Obama is doing. Bottom line, we know with Obama in office the radical Muslims have the upper hand in the Middle East.

Afghanistan is an active war in which our clear enemy is the Taliban who George Bush ran out of office because they were providing sanctuaries for al-Queda, who then fled to Pakistan and Yemen. Obama wants to pull out at all costs and hopes to negotiate a compromise with the Taliban.

Iran sits with a huge army on the border of Iraq just waiting for the Obama pull out there. Meanwhile Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The free world has no idea whether Obama will prevent a nuclear Iran. Nor whether he will even allow Israel to stop Iran.

Islamist radicals are taking major steps to control the 80% of the world's oil supply in the middle east.  Meanwhile Obama wants to spend money, we don't have, to ramp up our solar and wind sources which currently supply less than one per cent of our needs.  He also has done everything he can to hinder our development of coal, oil, and nuclear energy.  No sane person can explain these actions and inactions."

Think about it,

Jim

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Why Has Our President Intentionally Chosen to "Court the Disaster" of the Free World?

America's President just lauded Communist Red China's investments in technology and their superior education system while holding up Communist Russia's successes with Sputnik (even though he has basically defunded NASA) during his State of the Union "massage" of his Socialist followers. What he didn't talk about was this week's bombing of a Russian airport by Muslims nor the Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon nor the radical Muslim's attempt to overthrow our US friendly Egyptian allies. On constant is his solutions don’t change. Just tell bigger lies and continue to overload key American systems until they collapse (economy, health care, transportation, energy, real estate, banking, immigration, military, etc.). Lies? In 2010 Obama called for a 3 year freeze of spending and then increased spending by 20%. And to top it off, he and Pelosi/Reid never even submitted a budget. This year he doubled up on the big lie by calling for a 5 year freeze. And of course he made the big move to the center by saying he would "talk" about medical malpractice.

Meanwhile a new book, "Courting Disaster", How the CIA Kept America Safe (Regnery), has been recently published. The author is President George W. Bush's top speechwriter, Marc Thiessen, who was provided unique access to the CIA program used in interrogating top Al Qaeda terrorists, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).

The book covers in great detail how on March 1, 2003, two dozen heavily armed Pakistani tactical assault forces move in and surround a safe house in Rawalpindi . A few hours earlier they had received a text message from an informant inside the house. It read: "I am with KSM."

Bursting in, they find the disheveled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his bedroom. He is taken into custody. In the safe house, they find a treasure trove of computers, documents, cell phones and other valuable "pocket litter."

And now pay close attention because this part of the story is what is so relevant to our safety and the free world's future. Once in custody, KSM is defiant. He refuses to answer questions, informing his captors that he will tell them everything when he gets to America and sees his lawyer. But KSM is not taken to America to see a lawyer Instead he is taken to a secret CIA "black site" in an undisclosed location.

Upon arrival, KSM finds himself in the complete control of Americans. He does not know where he is, how long he will be there, or what his fate will be.

Despite his circumstances, KSM still refuses to talk. He spews contempt at his interrogators, telling them Americans are weak, lack resilience, and are unable to do what is necessary to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals. He has trained to resist interrogation. When he is asked for information about future attacks, he tells his questioners scornfully: "Soon, you will know."

It becomes clear he will not reveal the information using traditional interrogation techniques. So he undergoes a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" approved for use only on the most high-value detainees. The techniques include waterboarding.

His resistance is described by one senior American official as "superhuman." Eventually, however, the techniques work, and KSM becomes cooperative.

He begins telling his CIA de-briefers about active al Qaeda plots to launch attacks against the United States and other Western targets. He holds classes for CIA officials, using a chalkboard to draw a picture of al Qaeda's operating structure, financing, communications, and logistics. He identifies al Qaeda travel routes and safe havens, and helps intelligence officers make sense of documents and computer records seized in terrorist raids. He identifies voices in intercepted telephone calls, and helps officials understand the meaning of coded terrorist communications. He provides information that helps our intelligence community capture other high-ranking terrorists, KSM's questioning, and that of other captured terrorists, produces more than 6,000 intelligence reports, which are shared across the intelligence community, as well as with our allies across the world.

In one of these reports, KSM describes in detail the revisions he made to his failed 1994-1995 plan known as the "Bojinka plot" to blow up a dozen airplanes carrying some 4,000 passengers over the Pacific Ocean.

Years later, an observant CIA officer notices the activities of a cell being followed by British authorities appear to match KSM's description of his plans for a Bojinka-style attack.

In an operation that involves unprecedented intelligence cooperation between our countries, British officials proceed to unravel the plot. On the night of Aug.9, 2006 they launch a series of raids in a northeast London suburb that lead to the arrest of two dozen al Qaeda terrorist suspects. They find a USB thumb-drive in the pocket of one of the men with security details for Heathrow airport, and information on seven trans-Atlantic flights that were scheduled to take off within hours of each other. They seize bomb-making equipment and hydrogen peroxide to make liquid explosives. And they find the chilling martyrdom videos the suicide bombers had prepared.

In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda-how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks-came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.

Former CIA Director George Tenet and former CIA Director Mike Hayden have said: "The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work."

Even Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: "High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country. Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA Director, has said: "Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon."

Despite the facts on Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, closing the CIA program and directing that, henceforth, all interrogations by U.S personnel must follow the techniques contained in the Army Field Manual.

The morning of the announcement, Mike Hayden was still in his post as CIA Director, He called White House Counsel Greg Craig and told him bluntly: "You didn't ask, but this is the CIA officially nonconcurring". The president went ahead anyway, over ruling the objections of the agency.

A few months later, on April 16, 2009, President Obama ordered the release of four Justice Department memos that described in detail the techniques used to interrogate KSM and other high-value terrorists. This time, not just Hayden (who was now retired) but five CIA directors -including Obama's own director, Leon Panetta -- objected. George Tenet called to urge against the memos' release. So did Porter Goss. So did John Deutch. Hayden says: "You had CIA directors in a continuous unbroken stream to 1995 calling saying, 'Don't do this.'"

In addition to objections from the men who led the agency for a collective 14 years, the President also heard objections from the agency's covert field operatives. A few weeks earlier, Panetta had arranged for the eight top officials of the Clandestine Service to meet with the President. It was highly unusual for these clandestine officers to visit the Oval Office, and they used the opportunity to warn the President that releasing the memos would put agency operatives at risk. The President reportedly listened respectfully-and then ignored their advice.

With these actions, Barack Obama arguably did more damage to America and the Free World's security in his first 100 days of office than any enemy of the free world has the power nor will to do. We can and will argue "why" Obama has chosen to harm our nation to such an extent. Is it because of a desire to "transform" us to become more like other weaker global nations? Does he desire to overthrow our capitalist nation? Is he just so incompetent as a leader that "he knows not what he does"?  No matter how we answer the "why", no sane person can argue the damage of the "what".  For whatever his reasons he has put our families, loved ones, and soldiers at great and unnecessary risk.


Think about it,

Jim

Monday, January 24, 2011

If It Quakes Like a Socialist, Don't Sit Next to Them

Butch Jackson stormed the Cafe after watching week end news shows, "Two months after the voters routed the Socialist Dems the media has launched a gigantic counter attack aided and abetted by RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). Old John McCain, after calling Obama a patriot, now says 'he has already changed'. And then, of all people, they drag Collin Powell out and he says the Republicans should not make cuts across the board, like returning to 2006 spending levels, but should itemize every program they want cut and by what amount. Any idiot knows this plays right into the Socialist's hands so that they can claim Republicans hate the elderly, the young, the poor and downtrodden, women, minorities, and of course gays. This is exactly what Powell, who supported Obama in 2008, wants to happen."

"And what are the Republicans in Congress doing? They are trying to decide which Socialist they will sit by at the State of the Union speech? Any idiot knows this is a ploy by the Dems to disguise the number of losses they had in November from the TV audience in an attempt to spread their small number across the screen. And Obama has already tipped his hand with this quote, 'I want to make America competitive and create jobs, not just now, but into the future. How, by investing in education and green energy for the jobs of tomorrow'. This is code for 'don't hold me to create jobs now or in the short term as I continue to cripple America's energy industry and the economy even more'. I will continue to send tax payer money to Algore, GE, and the Chinese who are stashing it away for Michelle and my retirement'. God help us if American voters and RINOs believe this crap.Has anyone noticed that gasoline prices have risen from a national average of $1.65 to $3.15 since big O took office.  Donald Trump says we are going to over $5.00. "

Billy Roy strolled into the conversation like John Wayne in the real True Grit movie, "Well the folks are not falling for it. Did you see the road sign in Waco with a picture of Obama calling him a 'Socialist by Conduct'? This weekend letters to the editor in the Waco Tribune answered those who thought the sign was 'disrespectful' to our President. Here is what they said:

'I looked up the definition of a Socialist as one who advocates collective government ownership and administration of production and distribution of goods rather than private or corporate ownership. Listening to our President I have learned that all big business and rich people are bad and that it is fair and right for the government to take money away from these bad guys and spread it around. Of course not included in that list of bad people are folks like George Soros, book writers like he and Clinton,and selected crony-capitalism companies like Goldman Sachs, GE, and now Wal-Mart. Can you believe with all the real problems in our large cities with crime, drugs, abortions, welfare, hip-hop, illegal immigration,and parent less children that Michelle and Wal-Mart are going to save the ghetto with inexpensive healthy meals.'


'Liberals and Socialists advocate for the unlimited powers of the Federal Government in violation of our Constitution the following ways: income redistribution, rich versus poor class warfare, micro-managing the economy, and a takeover of certain industries such as health care, student loans, real estate banking, energy, and Wall Street. These are socialists themes and policies and are un-American. If liberals and progressives don't want to be called socialists they should quit advocating socialist policies.'


'We need to get rid of this guy in 2012. I have yet to see another liar like him in politics. He is nothing but a socialist at heart and wants to enslave the U.S. population.


'Why would Progressives object so profusely to us calling Obama a socialist by observing his conduct? As I recall Socialism is supposed to be an internationally accepted respectable set of political beliefs. Why do socialists have to always hide their attempts at political takeovers?'


'Regarding the billboard, I am reminded of that old saying, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.'


'Surely there has never been a President more vilified than George Bush. There are many avowed socialists in this administration and Congress. We all know who their leader is.'


'On my way to Killeen on Sunday this road sign made my day. It proves that I am not the only one that knows Obama is a socialist'."


BM then close things down, "The RINOs say we should treat Obama like a patriot and not question his motives. They might as well tell us to just be deaf, dumb, and blind while leaving things to Washington. Ain't no way!  And, sit with your own folks!"

Think about it,

Jim