Dore Gold: The risk of talking to terrorists
The Taliban and Hamas perceive dialogue as a sign of weakness.
FP: That is perhaps the most critical ignorance by the West: engagement, compromise, negotiations achieve the exact opposite of what is intended.
Poland to put Hitler's forest lair on tourist trail
Poland officials hope to turn Hitler's northeastern fortress complex into major tourist attraction • The site, which served as Hitler's military headquarters, was built between 1940 and 1941 to protect top Nazi officials during Operation Barbarossa.
FP: With most of the WW2 experiencing generation gone, the new wave of anti-Semitism includes initially small steps in turning Hitler and Nazism into just a “historic” figure and phenomenon.
David Bernstein: CJR on the New York Times and Israel
I’ve blogged before about the New York Times’ coverage of Israel, so I thought I’d point out a piece in the Columbia Journalism Review by former Times reporter Neil Lewis on that precise topic.
Unfortunately, it’s trite, largely repeating what any fair-minded observer already knows: first, that the Times is not hostile to Israel, per se, but its reporters’ and editors’ views of “proper” Israeli policy have for decades leaned far to the “left” of actual Israeli policy, which in turn makes much of its coverage implicitly adversarial (and which also explains why folks that are truly hostile to Israel think that the Times is a Zionist rag); and, second, that in a David vs. Goliath story, reporters tend to strongly favor David.
FP: First, this validates my claim that the West is clueless about the Middle East and tends to project from itself to it. A core component of that is the imposition of the left-right perspective on everything. While left/right can be applied to some of Israeli domestic policies, it has no relevance whatsoever to the Arab-Israeli conflict, except that the Western left sees what ought to be their nemesis, Islamism, as ally in bringing down the capitalistic West, which they cannot do by themselves. But that is a purely Western, not Middle-Eastern issue.
Patrick Clawson: Calculating Victory: How Iran Views Confronting the United States
If Washington does not demonstrate through both word and deed the risks that Tehran faces, overly optimistic Iranian hardliners may wrongly decide that the benefits of a confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz outweigh the costs.
…
For Washington's part, the proverb "if you want peace, prepare for war" holds true: the best prospect for persuading Khamenei to revert to his past cautiousness is to clearly lay out that the United States has red lines which, if crossed, will cost Iran dearly. Declaratory policy, such as President Obama's recent letter to Iran about red lines, helps. But Iran may be more impressed by deeds that back up those words. Peace is more likely to be preserved if the United States marshals its allies and demonstrates its power -- hopefully through military exercises alone, but also by vigorous response to any Iranian aggression if necessary.
FP: Exactly right. But Obama is not gonna do it.
Michelle Malkin: The Land of Obama Make-Believe
Instead of supporting new infrastructure jobs in America through an energy independence-enhancing project that has bipartisan legislative support on Capitol Hill, the president flew to Disney World to peddle looser visa restrictions in China and Brazil by executive order. He also will expand the Visa Waiver Program (a security loophole-ridden program that was suspended temporarily after the 9/11 terrorist attacks) to speed foreign travel.
In case anyone needs reminding, it was the relentless drive of the tourism industry and kowtowing State Department bureaucrats that led to the Bush-era Visa Express Program, which relaxed visa policies, eliminated in-person consulate interviews and opened the door to the 9/11 hijackers. Brazil is just the latest base for al-Qaida and other Islamic jihadi groups. It does not consider Hezbollah or Hamas terrorist groups, and it disbanded its anti-terrorism force in 2009.
The Visa Waiver Program and other efforts to expedite the tourist visa process also pose continuing security risks because — as the Government Accountability Office itself admitted last year — there is still no comprehensive, systematic way to track the 70 million-plus foreign visitors who enter the country on tourist and other short-term visas. Indeed, half of the nation’s estimated 20 million illegal aliens are visa overstayers.
…
How many of the new Disney foreign tourists whom Obama is touting as America’s economic salvation will fail to return to their home countries after their Obama World visas expire? We’ll likely never know. And Team Obama doesn’t care.
In his opening campaign ad salvo, Obama accuses his opponents of being “untethered to facts.” But this is an administration that believes lowering visa standards and risking homeland security to pump up Disney foreign tourism is a better path to economic recovery than supporting direct American job creation and enhancing energy security. Like the Disney characters he posed with this week, our cartoonish president is wholly untethered to reality.
FP: This is how decline is accelerated.
0 comments:
Post a Comment