BEIRUT – Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad retook a central district in the city of Homs on Thursday, driving a wedge between two isolated pockets of rebel resistance in Syria’s third largest city, fighters and activists said. (more…)
“We are not recommending any policy other than one exception. That is, if the United States decides to arm the Syrian rebels with lethal weapons, not just defensive weaponry, that those rebels and those weapons be very carefully vetted. We had a very bad experience with Libya where shoulder-fired missiles went disappeared very quickly and showed up in our backyard. We don’t want that to happen again in Syria.”
I’m putting together some more “in depth” information using prior and current research about Syria. But I just want to throw out a note of caution on the Chemical Weapons issues.
Obama set the red line as WMD use. I said at the time that was stupid and still believe it.
Forget the damned “red lines”. Why?
We don’t know who would use the WMD. Just because it’s used doesn’t mean Assad is using it. Think about who benefits?
The Assad regime probably would never use chemical weapons period. The guy is a facist marxist just like Quackdaffy – but he’s also a realist and more westernized than the media will openly tell you.
The “rebels” or resistance in Syria fighting Assad is not just some random collection of democracy loving freedom individualists. That crew was kicked out about 20 months ago. It is now 100% al-Qaeda radicals – Al-nursa front. (more…)
One of the frustrating realities of our polarized time is the media creating a skewed and left leaning view of all things political. However, even with this headwind, each day many more people choose to engage in and honest discovery and understanding of what’s going on. Whether because they stumble upon a concern, or whether they happen across some information that makes them rethink their prior position and views, it can lead to an engagement with us from a perspective of their only reality view having been determined by the lens of the media.
Indeed that can be, and often is, an incredibly frustrating conversation because they bring an embedded and sometimes flawed bias into their narrative. One of the more common misunderstandings stems from the media hatred of George W Bush and his actions, aptly called Bush Derangement Syndrome (BSD).
What I want to do here is not change anyone’s mind, but rather to remind people what led to some of Dubya’s decisions in his own words.
I must first emphasize at the time of Dubya’s tenure in the White House I was not a supporter of many “Bush policies”, however, I did understand his reasoning.
Sometimes research into “why” was needed to understand this reasoning, but there were valid reasons nonetheless. It is unfair for the liberal media, or for any Johnny-come-lately to re-write his motivation as illicit, it was not. In hindsight some of his policies and approaches may have been wrong, but it generally is unfair to look in the rear view mirror to judge. Again, at times it is important to stop the conversation, pause, and remind ourselves what was going on at the time. (more…)
John “Heinz” Kerry lives in the exclusive penthouse suite high up on the crazy mountain built by eons of progressive emissions layering on the stupid.
His recent pontifications solidfy his rights of ownership.
(CNSNews.com) – “[W]e’re not going to solve this challenge of terror and of extremism and of people finding an alternative if we’re not reaching out to people, talking to them, bringing them to the table and trying to work through major, perceived differences,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a gathering in Brussels on Monday.
“I believe we have to create a new paradigm, frankly, to deal with this.” (more…)
One, perhaps positive, thing that’s coming from the Boston bombing is the ideology of the Prog-Left being dragged out into the spotlight. Cue Secretary of State John “ketchup boy” Kerry – who compares the victims from the Boston terror attack to the militant islamists killed aboard the Gaza blockade ship Mavi Marmara in 2010.
Yeah, he said that !
(via GWP) Nine people were killed aboard the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara after IDF troops encountered violent resistance by “peace activists” when they boarded the ship. The so-called “peace activists” were armed with an assortment of weapons. They threw stun grenades and beat the Israeli soldiers with pipes and chains. The ship failed to comply to Israeli commands before it was boarded. The terrorists planned the surprise attack on the Israeli troops in advance.
[The Marmara was boarded by the Israeli Defense Force because the ship violated the anti-terror blockade. The IDF soldiers came under attack from Turkish ideological Islamist passengers militants as they tried to thwart the ships’ arrival. The IDF returned fire.] (more…)
EGYPT – Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi warned Sunday of taking unspecified measures to “protect the nation” following violent clashes two days earlier between opposition demonstrators and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo.
“I am president of all Egyptians and I will not allow anyone to tamper with the nation,” President Mursi said in statement posted on Twitter, adding:
“If I am obliged to do what is necessary to protect this nation, I will do, and I fear I am about to do that.”
The author of this Telegraph article erroneously calls President Obama’s Arafat speech a mistake and an untentional gaffe. No. This was not a mistake – the President delivered his speech exactly where he wanted to, with the exact optic he wanted to express.
(UK Telegraph) It is simply astonishing that the leader of the free world would agree to speak against a backdrop of a murderous terrorist with American and Israeli blood on his hands. What kind of message does this send to America’s enemies when the president of the United States gives a press conference standing in front of a banner celebrating one of the most brutal terrorists in history? It projects a clear signal that Washington is weak in the face of terrorism, and it is an insult to the memory of those who died at the hands of Arafat’s terror network.
While the Obama White House prides itself on having an extremely slick campaign operation, its ineptness and insensitivity in government, not least on the world stage, can be staggering. President Obama, for example, could not even pronounce the name of Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi on his recent visit to Rangoon, referring to her several times as Aung YAN Suu Kyi. He also famously called the Falkland Islands “the Maldives”, and succeeded in offending the whole of Poland when he referred to a ”Polish death camp” in World War Two. (more…)
At a joint press conference with Obama at the Prime Minister’s Office following a lengthy meeting, Netanyahu said that with the entry of the new government, “Israel remains fully committed to peace and a solution for two states for two people.”
“We extend our hands in peace and friendship to the Palestinians… let us put aside all preconditions and work together to achieve a historic compromise and put an end to the conflict,” the prime minister said. (more…)
The blogging world that stands on principle is forever shrinking.
The Conservative Treehouse will be boycotting CPAC in any and all forms (including coverage) due to their lack of honesty and manipulative corruption. This is our small way of showing support for American Patriots Robert Spencer and Pam Geller.
(Via Robert Spencer @JihadWatch) I was surprised and honored that Jihad Watch was among the nominees for the People’s Choice Blog Award, sponsored by Right Wing News and TheTeaParty.net, to be awarded at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2013.
As you can see from the vote above, Jihad Watch won decisively, getting over 50% of the vote in a field of fifteen. And I received confirmation of the victory from one of the organizers of the CPAC blog awards when I asked him when voting officially ended:
From: XXXXXXXXX
Subject: Re: You’ve Been Nominated For A People’s Choice Award At the CPAC Blogger Awards
Date: March 2, 2013 2:58:26 AM EST
To: Robert SpencerRobert
It officially ended at midnight. You won!
But as time went by and no announcement was made of this victory, and the voting continued despite my having been told that it officially ended last Friday night and that I had won, and the promised links and other placement promised to the winning blog didn’t materialize, I started to wonder. So I contacted the organizer who had written me telling me I won and asked him what was going on. (more…)