Is Iran, by itself, a threat to the U.S and the West?
 

Was Romney right?

An interesting review of a debate featured in a new book ,The USA and The New World Order, which ties Iran into an anti-Israel and anti-Western sphere which includes Russia and its satellites as well as China and others:

Review and comments by Cliff Kincaid March 3, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington and speaks to Congress, bypassing the Obama administration, the stakes could not be higher. But President Obama is not the only, and certainly not the most significant, opponent of Israel. The important new book, “The USA and The New World Order,” features a debate in which one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key advisers, Alexander Dugin, criticizes Israel’s “imperialist” role in the Middle East and America’s role in the world as a whole.

A careful reading of this important debate, which occurred in 2011 and has recently been published in book form, demonstrates that it is Russia which is the main threat to Israel and the United States.

Dugin’s debate opponent, the anti-communist Brazilian writer and philosopher Olavo de Carvalho, sees Dugin as the brains behind Putin’s geopolitical strategy that embraces “genocidal violence.” He notes that Dugin has “advocated the systematic killing of Ukrainians—a people who, according to him, do not belong to the human species.”

As for Israel, the debate transcript shows that Dugin regards the Jewish state as “a modern capitalist and Atlantist entity and an ally of American imperialism.” This is a rather straightforward view of how the Moscow regime views Israel today, and why it backs the government of Iran with weapons, nuclear technology, and diplomatic support.

The term “Atlantist” or “Atlanticist” is meant to refer to trans-Atlantic cooperation between Europe, the United States and Canada in defense and other areas.

Iran is a key part of the anti-American alliance. Dugin has explained in the article, “Eurasianism, Iran, and Russia’s Foreign Policy,” that a “strategic alliance” exists between Iran and Russia, and Russia “will not cease its efforts to reduce sanctions against Iran” over its support for terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In the debate with de Carvalho, Dugin proclaims, “I have nothing against Israel,” then quickly added, “but its cruelty in repressing the Palestinians is evident.”

To which de Carvalho counters, “The rockets that the Palestinians fire practically every day at non-military areas of Israel are never reported by the international big media, whereas any raid by Israel against Palestinian military installations always provokes the greatest outcry all over the world.”

He tells Dugin, “I know the facts, my friend. I know the dose of violence on both sides. I know, for instance, that the Israelis never use human shields, while the Palestinians almost always do it. I know that, in Israel, Muslims have civil rights and are protected by the police, while, in countries under Islamic rule, non-Muslims are treated as dogs and often stoned to death.”

This exchange is only part of a debate that puts Israel in the context of a global conflict that Dugin sees as “The West against the rest.” The world is going through a “global transition,” away from dominance by the U.S. and its allies, he asserts.

De Carvalho commented that Dugin, himself the son of a KGB officer, is “the political mentor of a man [Vladimir Putin] who is the very incarnation of the KGB.” He said that Dugin has emerged as “the creator and guide of one of the widest and most ambitious geopolitical plans of all time—a plan adopted and followed as closely as possible by a nation which has the largest army in the world, the most efficient and daring secret service and a network of alliances that stretches itself through four continents.”

De Carvalho describes Eurasianism as “a synthesis of the defunct USSR and the Tzarist Empire” that includes philosophical elements of Marxism-Leninism, Russian Messianism, Nazism, and esotericism. The last element is a reference to certain occult influences in Russia.

“In order to fulfill his plans,” de Carvalho explains, “he counts on Vladimir Putin’s strong arm, the armies of Russia and China and every terrorist organization of the Middle East, not to mention practically every leftist, fascist and neo-Nazi movements which today place themselves under the banner of his ‘Eurasian’ project.”

He says the historical roles played by Russia and China in sponsoring and arming terrorist groups help explain why global Islam has targeted the United States and Israel. “Some theoreticians of the Caliphate allege that socialism, once triumphant in the world, will need a soul, and Islam will provide it with one,” he notes.

In this global war for domination, however, he also identifies a “globalist elite,” including in the U.S. Government and society, which wants to destroy traditional Christianity and share in “the spoils” from the decaying West.

What we are witnessing, he writes, is an “alliance of Russia with China and the Islamic countries, as well as with part of Western Europe,” that has come together in a “total war against the United States and Israel,” which is to be followed by “the establishment of a worldwide dictatorship.” It is the replacement of an “Atlanticist Order” by the “Eurasian Order.”

For those who doubt such global schemes could come to pass, de Carvalho says that Dugin “is not a dreamer, a macabre poet creating imaginary hecatombs in a dark dungeon infested with rats.” Rather, he is “the mentor of the Putin government and the brains behind Russian foreign policy,” whose ideas “have long ceased to be mere speculations.”

De Carvalho identifies among these “material incarnations” of the Dugin vision the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group founded by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which “intends to be the center of a restructuring of military power in the world.” Iran has been an observer state at the SCO since 2005. He also cites the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, a geopolitical term for countries which are seen as developing a mechanism to replace NATO, the one-time anti-communist alliance.

Another such international organization is the BRICS alliance of nations, incorporating Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Iran is also discussing joining BRICS.

On January 20, Iran and Russia signed an agreement expanding their military ties. Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow wants to develop a “long-term and multifaceted” military relationship with Iran. Just a few days ago Russia offered to sell the Antey-2500 anti- aircraft and ballistic missile system to Iran. “The United States and Israel lobbied Russia to block the missile sale, saying it could be used to shield Iran’s nuclear facilities from possible future air strikes,” Reuters reported.

For its part, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been warning about Iran while simultaneously conducting cordial relations with Russia and refusing to condemn Putin for invading Ukraine. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says Israel will maintain “neutrality” in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “Maintenance of good relations with Russia is a priority moment for Israel and its principal stance,” Lieberman said.

It has been estimated that more than 6,000 people have died in eastern Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of the country. The Obama administration has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons for its own self-defense.

I got sort of lost here.

I'm sure you can find your way back. That was an opinion of the reviewer not of Carvallo in his debate with Dugin. Go ahead . . . be brave and find your way back to the thread and get into the meat of what Carvallo had to say.

In response to Netanyahu's speech, Obama, among other things, said that sanctions have not worked in forcing Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons aspirations.

Yet, he seems to believe that sanctions, if the ante is constantly raised, would stop Russia's aggression in Ukraine. There seems to be a misunderstanding about the world views of Iran, Russia, and the Islamic Middle East, especially of the so called "radical" Islamists. There is this total disregard of the mindset of what Alexander Dugin calls Eurasia and Islamism. Our policies toward these "civilizations," as Dugin refers to them, approaches them as if they think about international relations in the same way the West does. And we don't recognize their expansionist desire to achieve a share of world power . . . even dominance.

We discount, publically, the relations they have formed with each other to form a different geopolitics than that which informs our "negotiations" with them. And, because we apparently trust that they will respond honestly to agreements we make with them, they can roll us and, if not openly but on the sly, do as they wish. So the relations and agreements they form with each other make them stronger against our sanctions and negotiations. And our insistence that they conform to our requests, "or else," further drives them into cooperation with each other, possibly creating a formidable opponent which is comprised of anti-Western "civilizations" that see us as a threat which must be defeated.

What is more disturbing is the growing influence in their leadership of a desire to have a decisive total war against us. Maybe Obama does understand that, and he is willing to let them have their way in hopes that they will leave us alone--that elusive "peace in our time."

The majority of Iranians do not hate America or Israel. It's a shame we didn't do more to help the people there form of democracy back in 2009 when they were trying so hard. Missed opportunities and poor or lack of decision making has really hurt this country.
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I assume you personally did a door to door consensus?
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No I've been too busy with the charter 2 fish thread.
So I take it you believe different?
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I believe there is no truely accurate statement and to make one in a formulated rebuttal is preposterous, but i figured i would give you the benefit just in case you had the oppertunity, and i would love to see the data.
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I believe it's true from what I've read and listening to members of the opposition party . The relatively few in power are the problem. For us and for them
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

That was pretty much my understanding also.

Is it pretty much your understanding also that back in 2009 "Missed opportunities and poor or lack of decision making has really hurt this country"?

If the majority of Iranians need our help to remove the mullah command and control of Iran, then the mullah's power obviously does not need the majority opinion. As is usually the case in international wars, it is not the people of the countries that is to be feared as much as their leadership.

I think this is the 1st time in months that I have read one of your posts. I think missed opportunities and poor decision making have hurt us there for many years prior to 2009.

Since your agreeing with Buckman, I asked about his assertion about 2009, not about many years before.

Another post I've read.

Did I agree with the whole post or did I quote only part of his statement? If you want info. about his assertion, why wouldn't you ask him? I wouldn't know what he was thinking.

What he was thinking was explicitly expressed by him. I didn't have to ask him.

Since you agreed with a part of his post, I wondered if you agreed with his whole post since he tied it all together. Since, as you explicitly say, you "think missed opportunities and poor decision making have hurt us there for many years prior to 2009." I wonder if you agree with Buckman that those missed opportunities and poor decisions also occurred in 2009.

So why would you post only your opinion of decisions and opportunities before 2009?

If I agreed with the whole post, wouldn't I have quoted the whole post?

You must be fun at parties:)

I've read that the religious demographic distribution in Iran is similar to the US actually in terms of conviction.

It always seems to be a shame when Obama didn't wave his magic want and make impossible situations perfect doesn't it?

The Green movement didn't have the momentum to really take shape. It's unfortunate but it's also reality. Don't ignore the history of the US meddling in Iranian affairs, we seem to have forgotten it but they haven't.

What is it with you and parties?

Nor have Russia or other "enemies" in the Middle East. If you had not got lost early in my post at the beginning of this thread, you would have seen that we haven't forgotten it, and that their "not forgetting," but even translating it into misrepresentation, is a unifying force for getting them together in opposition to us, to Israel, and to what is left of the "West." Obama's pretending to wave his magic want at the threat to us, while realizing that the "situation" is supposedly impossible, seems to be theater to appease them. With the realization that they will, with or without his approval, eventually have their way. I wouldn't be surprised, if he actually thinks that far ahead, that he sees their inevitable coalescence to be their own demise. After they have had their little anti-West party, they will see that they really don't agree with each other and will destroy one another in their own petty conflagrations. That will make it easier for the Progressive unification of the World. And the Greenies will have their place at the table.

Pretty ironic statement considering the rediculus deal being worked out by your hero
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Right.....
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Do you know anything about the deal?

I do but of course I'm a tad bit more cynical of it then I imagine you are . But I'm in good company .
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So how would you make it better?

Caveat, must have a chance of succeeding.

I believe we have hand in this .
Congress is moving on stronger sactions . They are working
The deal is a win for Iran . Sanctions reduced and long term plans for a nuclear weapon granted. Is that what you mean by succeed?
He's kicking a very dangerous can down the road .
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Succeed in what way and for whom? Success for us is maintaining, or getting back, our strength and freedom. What success for Iran would be, probably, is what they may well get from the "negotiations." Maybe something as paltry and potentially destructive, to them and the world, as getting nuclear weapons.

An addition to a start to "make it better" in the above post, the federal government should let private companies develop wind energy on their own and stop providing them public money (the unconstitutional picking winners and losers thing). And it should make the production of oil in the U.S. more profitable by lowering tax and unnecessary regulations. The anti-oil ban on federal lands should mostly be removed. There is no good reason, in the first place, that the federal government should own over 40% of the land in the U.S. The states would manage their own land better and more productively than the federal government does. The states even manage State parks better than the federal government manages National parks.

If we are in an economic and cultural war which threatens to break out into total war with enemies who mostly depend on oil for revenue, restricting our oil production makes them stronger. It has just been proven that releasing larger oil production here threatens the wealth, therefor the power, of our oil producing enemies.

Adding that to the above post recommendations would give us a bigger bargaining chip in the supposed "negotiations" we have with untrustworthy, unscrupulous, adversaries.

The other Green movement.

And then read this...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z2

Zakaria!?! really? You read that left wing hack.

Were supposed to believe that Iran was willing to be nice-nice, but Bush (yeah Bush did it) tried to scare it. So, instead of doing the right "practical" thing, it went bonkers and became an evil anti-American kookoo intent on nuclear annihilation of Israel. Really? It flipped from being "practical" to being insane? Just to spite Bush?

Why on earth was it necessary for Bush to scare such a nice little country which only wanted to do the right thing?

Oh yeah, it was a bit more complicated than that. It wasn't only Bush. There were the IAEA, Russia, EU, and others as well. But, of course, Bush controlled them all. God, his legacy grows. He scared ALL of them?

And, my gosh, 2005 was a long time ago. There were 10 years, six of them after Bush was gone, that it could have come to its senses. There were 10 years of continuous IAEA inspections where he was not in compliance and "Iran went from 164 centrifuges to 19,000, accumulated more than 17,000 pounds of enriched uranium gas and ramped up construction of a heavy water reactor at Arak that could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium."

Just to spite Bush!

If all it really, REALLY wanted was peaceful use of nuclear power and friendly relations with its neighbors, was that so difficult? Really? Was it necessary to go from a nice, practical, sensible, cooperative, little country to an insane ogre? Just to spite Bush?

It went from 164 centrifuges to 19,000, etc. just to spite Bush? It supports terrorism and vows to exterminate Israel just to spite Bush. Would it be that difficult to recognize Israel as a state with a right to exist?

If we are to believe that it doesn't want nuclear weapons, why would Zakaria be concerned with all the centrifuges and enriched uranium and heavy water? Hey, the wicked Bush is gone. What's the problem? Why are there negotiations?

And if by Bush trying to "scare" it, Iran erupted from being limited to 164 centrifuges, and being 10 years away from producing a bomb to only months of doing so, what's the point of negotiating an agreement that says if it refrains from making the bomb for another 10 years it would after that no longer be held to the agreement? What, if it has lied all along, would keep it from lying and getting the bomb now rather than another 10 years on top of the 10 years that it was sticking it, out of spite, to Bush? To spite Obama for 10 years?

Oh, yeah, Netanyahu was in never-never land. I wonder if Iran had for the past ten years been calling Zakaria something evil that needed to be exterminated, and had kept Hezbollah throwing bombs his way, and vowed that if he ever came within 10 miles of its borders, it would burn him to a crisp, would Zakaria feel comfortable to visit Iran if Obama got it to sign a paper that it would leave him alone?

Zakaria is a la-la left-wing Islam apologist hack. His writing is usually heavily slanted . . . and stupid.

That's it? Blame the messenger?

He doesn't claim Iran scaled their capacity to spite Bush, they did it because they had no reason not to. Had the deal been made it likely would have been different.

What about the facts in the story? How about Netenyahu's repeated claims of impending doom?

What facts? The assertion of something being "likely"?

I can understand, very well, Netenyahu's concern over Iran's threat to annihilate Israel. And the reality of being able to achieve that threat with a nuclear weapon.

If Iran is telling the truth, that it wants nuclear power only for peaceful uses, not nuclear weapons, then there is no point to the incessant back and forth attempts at negotiations to restrict or allow Iran's capacities. Nor is there a need for Zakaria to be concerned about Iran's ability to have the bomb in a matter of months.

If Iran is not telling the truth, if it really does want the nuclear capability of building the bomb, and had that desire all along, AS MOST EVERYONE ELSE ASSUMES TO BE THE CASE . . . if Iran is lying, then asserting that if Bush, way back when, had agreed to some deal we would not "likely" be at a point where Iran was month's away from that bomb, is, as Zakaria puts it, never-never land

Spence, the story by Zakaria was clearly a hit job against Bush, Netanyahu, and the West in general. Nuclear nonproliferation has been a U.N. policy since the 1960's. The IAEA was established by the U.N. in 1957 and specified in 1968 to ensure no expansion of nuclear programs designed to create nuclear weapons. This was all well Before Bush.

Iran, under the Shah, had started a nuclear program which was for energy purposes only. It hired outside Western contractors to build it. They operated under IAEA regulations. There was no secrecy, no attempt to build nuclear weapons, no hidden violations. After the revolution, under control of an Islamic State, the nuclear program, which had been discontinued during the war with Iraq, was restarted, but this time strictly under control of Iran, with Iranian contractors to design and build it. There were, very shortly, IAEA concerns about the ultimate purpose.

And the agents who came to Iran's aid this time were not from the West, but from Eurasia. Russia and China, mainly. And IAEA suspicions gradually heightened. For example, China agreed to prevent new cooperation and halt existing projects with Iran in the nuclear field, and to cancel a project to help Iran with a blueprint for the plant. But China continued its aid anyway. Iran, in Nov. 2003, entered into an agreement with Britain, France, and Germany to suspend enrichment, but it continued building the centrifuges anyway. And it has continually advanced enrichment, before, through, and past the Bush era to its present ability. Iran has refused to have its program of enrichment done by outside commercial sources with no political objective, as was done by the Shah, but maintains its own program, in constant secrecy, violation of agreements, and uncooperativeness with IAEA. Even Obama says that if there are no guarantees that Iran will not build nuclear weapons, we will walk away from the negotiation. Long after Bush, there are still no guarantees. If Iran simply wanted peaceful use of nuclear power, it could have gone about it the way the Shah did. Something else is obviously going on, and Bush didn't cause it. And at this point at which Iran is about to have the ability to build the bomb, any "agreement" would be highly suspect, and its "guarantee" by a regime which has continuously broken agreements may not be worth the paper it's written on.

Your query to me to talk about the facts of Zakaria's story is amusing. You often dismiss "stories," simply by sneering at the source, and avoid any further discussion. Which you did with the article that is the subject of this thread. You claimed to get "lost" by one of the initial sentences (which I pointed out was not relevant to the rest of the review), and that was that. No further discussion. No "what about the facts in the story?" At least I expanded my discussion of Zakaria's hit job.

I don't know if you actually did go ahead and read the rest of the article I posted. If you did, you might have seen and discussed what are and have been growing alliances that are not wholly, if at all, interested in alliance with what we call the "West." They, in varying degrees among its participants, actually tend to be anti-Western. And the alliances, including SOC and BRICS comprise half the population of the planet.

The article certainly sheds some light on what is actually happening in Ukraine. And why economic sanctions have had little effect. The alliances afford partners to ameliorate the effects of U.S. or European opposition and sanction. They want to neutralize the power of the West. And to replace the dollar as the go-to currency with their own currency. They see Israel as an extension of Western power into their Eurasian sphere, so tend to back Iran and care little for Israel's security. Iran wants to be part of their alliance, and they will eventually officially accept it, but will back it for the time being. Here's the Wiki entry for SOC and BRIC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangha...n_Organisation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS

The SOC, Shanghai Cooperation Organization is strictly Eurasian and won't allow European countries or the U.S. entry. The U.S. had applied for observer status but was denied. Russia and China are the most important members.

The BRICS expands from Eurasia to include the African and South American sphere, but its main members, Russia, China, and India, are Eurasian.

There are many "observer" nations who attend SOC and BRICS conferences, most being potential members and will be wholeheartedly welcomed into the alliance. If numbers and statistics mean much, the combined alliances will have a much larger population than a U.S./Euro alliance.

Interesting how wagons are circling around the U.S./Euro zone, no? How Russia and China are quietly expanding their influence in the rest of the world? And they already have a powerful influence among our own alliances by being two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

I transferred this out of the Hillary email thread to a more appropriate one:

Gosh, I guess you have to load your comment with defamatory insinuations, short-sighted, silly, surreal, strange, in order to give it the "appearance" of validity.

Quote:
"But President Obama is not the only, and certainly not the most significant, opponent of Israel."


Maybe this article can help you to find your way:

http://carolineglick.com/israels-next-22-months/

Apparently, saying that Obama is an opponent of Israel is not so astounding or shocking that it should make you lose your way.

Hope you can find your way through this article.

The following article by Raymond Ibrahim points out the need to understand the motives of Islamists in the same way they understand them. And when we impute our secular Western understanding to what they practice and believe, we will entirely miss the point. And we will be at an insurmountable disadvantage if we "negotiate," for instance, with an Islamic state such as Iran if we believe that the terms and obligations of an agreement are looked at by them in the same way we do . . . :

CIA Projects Western Motives onto the Islamic Jihad

Raymond Ibrahim | Thursday Mar 19, 2015 12:01 AM


By constantly projecting Western standards on Islamic jihadis, CIA head John Brennan has come to epitomize the U.S. intelligence community’s intellectual failures concerning the true sources of the jihad.

Last Friday, March 13, Brennan insisted that Islamic State (IS) members are not Islamic. Instead, “They are terrorists, they’re criminals. Most—many—of them are psychopathic thugs, murderers who use a religious concept and masquerade and mask themselves in that religious construct.”

Note his usage of terms familiar to Western people (“terrorists,” “criminals,” etc.). Islamic State jihadis may be all those things—including “psychopathic thugs”—from a Western paradigm, but the fact left out by Brennan is that, according to Islamic law and history, savage and psychopathic behavior is permissible, especially in the context of the jihad.

But perhaps Brennan knows all this and is simply being “strategic”? After all, the CIA head also “warned against ascribing ‘Islamic legitimacy’ to the overseas terrorist group, saying that allowing them to identify themselves with Islam does a disservice to Muslims around the world.”

Brennan of course is following Barack Obama’s lead; a month earlier the president said:

"We must never accept the premise that they [Islamic State] put forward, because it is a lie, nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders, they are terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam. "

The problem is that, according to Western norms—built as they are atop Judeo-Christian principles—Islam has been “perverted” from day one. As far back as the 8th century, mere generations after Islam was born, Byzantine chronicler Theophanes wrote in his Chrongraphia:

"He [Islamic prophet Muhammad] taught those who gave ear to him that the one slaying the enemy—or being slain by the enemy—entered into paradise [e.g., Koran 9:111]. And he said paradise was carnal and sensual—orgies of eating, drinking, and women. Also, there was a river of wine … and the woman were of another sort, and the duration of sex greatly prolonged and its pleasure long-enduring" [e.g., Koran 56: 7-40, 78:31, 55:70-77]. And all sorts of other nonsense.

More to the point, every atrocity IS has committed—beheading, crucifying, raping, enslaving, or burning people alive—is legitimate according to Islamic law and the teachings and deeds of Muhammad, that most “perfect” and “moral” man (Koran 33:21, 68:4), as documented here. [see link to article below for linked documentation]

Based on Islamic historical texts, Muhammad sent assassins to slaughter his critics—including poets and one old woman whose body was dismembered by her Muslim assailants; he had an “infidel” tortured to death with fire in order to reveal his tribe’s hidden treasure; he “married” that same man’s wife hours later (the woman, Safiya, later confessed that “Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father”); and he reportedly used to visit and have sex with his nine wives in a single hour. (For more, read “The Perverse Sexual Habits of the Prophet.”)

Again, all this information is based on Islamic texts deemed reliable and regularly quoted by Muslim scholars and theologians—not fabrications by “Islamophobes.”

Even so, the point here is that, whatever the “truth” about Islam, its origins and founder, the premise that Brennan, Obama, etc., constantly put forth—that it would be counterproductive for “us” to confer any Islamic “legitimacy” on groups like the Islamic State—is fatuous at best. As I explained in a 2009 article titled “Words Matter in the War on Terror”:

Muslims are not waiting around for Americans or their government — that is, the misguided, the deluded, in a word, the infidel — to define Islam for them; much less will subtle word games and euphemisms emanating from the West manage to confer or take away Islamic legitimacy on the Islamists of the world. For Muslims, only Islamic law, the antithesis of international law, decides what is or is not legitimate, or in legal terminology, what is mubah or mahrum.

Furthermore, the U.S. government would do well to worry less about which words appease Muslims … and worry more about providing its own citizenry with accurate and meaningful terminology.

Words matter. Whom those words are directed at matters even more. The world’s Muslims aren’t holding their breath to hear what sort of Islamic legitimacy the U.S. government is about to confer on any given Islamist group, since it is not for non-Muslims — the despised infidels — to decide what is and is not Islamic in the first place. Americans, on the other hand, who still wonder “why they hate us,” are in desperate need of understanding. Using accurate terminology is the first step.

Indeed, for all of U.S. leadership’s fear that we “infidels” not “legitimize” the Islamic State, Al Azhar—perhaps the most “legitimate” of all Islamic institutions—refuses to delegitimize the jihadi terrorists. And little wonder, since Al Azhar’s curriculum teaches everything that IS is doing—including burning people alive.

Meanwhile, Brennan whitewashes and praises the jihad. Speaking back in 2010, the politically correct CIA chief said: "Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children."

Inasmuch as he is correct that “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community”—he greatly errs by again projecting Judeo-Christian notions of what constitutes “holy,” “legitimate,” and “innocent” onto Islam.

Jihad is nothing less than offensive warfare to spread Islamic rule, a cause seen as both “legitimate” and “holy” in Islam. (Read this “moderate” Muslim scholar’s “logic” on the (invisible) differences between jihad and terrorism. [see link to article below for link to this reference]) Moreover, jihadis regularly seek to “purify” their communities by purging them of “infidels” and their influences. As for “innocence,” by simply being a non-Muslim, one is already guilty in Islam. And when Muhammad’s disciples warned him about attacking non-Muslim tribes in the night, since women and children might get killed accidentally, the prophet replied, “They are from among them” and proceeded with the raid.

All this leads to the following question: If the Islamic State and other jihadi organizations are not animated by Islam, then what, according to the CIA chief, is really fueling their jihad? Brennan spelled this out very clearly back in 2010 when he described Islamic terrorists as victims of “political, economic and social forces.”

In other words, the way to defeat the Islamic State is by offering its members better “job opportunities”—as so eloquently expressed by the State Department recently in the person of Mary Harf.

Ironically enough, Brennan’s invocation of “political, economic and social forces” brings to mind the fact that I warned against precisely these three pretexts, and in the same order, in the opening paragraph of my written testimony submitted to the US House of Representatives on February 12, 2009—since removed from their website—a year before Brennan invoked “political, economic and social forces” as the true sources of Islamic jihad.

I close with that opening paragraph as it appears more relevant now than it was over six years ago when I wrote it:

The greatest hurdle Americans need to get over in order to properly respond to the growing threat of radical Islam is purely intellectual in nature; specifically, it is epistemological, and revolves around the abstract realm of ‘knowledge.’ Before attempting to formulate a long-term strategy to counter radical Islam, Americans must first and foremost understand Islam, particularly its laws and doctrines, the same way Muslims understand it—without giving it undue Western (liberal) interpretations. This is apparently not as simple as expected: all peoples of whatever civilizations and religions tend to assume that other peoples more or less share in their worldview, which they assume is objective, including notions of right and wrong, good and bad. …. [T]he secular, Western experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples may fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of radical Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the ‘other,’ irrespective of grievances…. Being able to understand all this, being able to appreciate it without any conceptual or intellectual constraints is paramount for Americans to truly understand the nature of the enemy and his ultimate goals.

Originally published by FrontPage Magazine


There are several interesting links within the article which give more in-depth explanations which are not linked in the above. Here is a link to the article if you wish to read them: http://humanevents.com/2015/03/19/ci...tm_campaign=nl

"But President Obama is not the only, and certainly not the most significant, opponent of Israel."

Quote: Spence reply:
"I got sort of lost here."

Sure doesn't sound like Obama supports Israel in this Huffpost article:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politi...id=ansnewshp11

Is this sort of being an opponent of Israel?

Sounds more like Obama acting as the wiser older brother.

So the "wiser older brother" got pissed when Netanyahu, in order to "scare" people into voting for him, is reported to have said that “The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves . . . Left-wing NGOs are bringing them in buses.”

And so then, being pissed, Obama said that statement was "contrary to what is the best of Israel's traditions. That although Israel was founded based on the historic Jewish homeland and the need to have a Jewish homeland, Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly . . . And I think that that is what's best about Israeli democracy. If that is lost, then I think that not only does it give ammunition to folks who don't believe in a Jewish state, but it also I think starts to erode the name of democracy in the country."

If that is a danger to democracy in Israel, why is it not the same danger here in the U.S.? Don't our politicians, certainly Obama supporters do, try to "get out the vote" on election days? And don't they warn that the other side will win and bring about disaster for the country if their own side doesn't vote? In fact, there are "reports" (I know you like and often depend on "reports') that Obama actually sent some of his "expert" community election organizers (included in the Left-wing NGOs Netanyahu spoke of) to help defeat Netanyahu? It would seem, therefor, that what Netanyahu said, contrary to Obama's suggestion, would actually level the playing field and ensure "everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly" would happen.

Sounds more like the spiteful hypocrite sibling rival than the wiser older brother.

And then there's the pissy threat that now Obama would not block the Palestinians getting statehood by U. N. decree rather than what he always said was truly necessary--agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. All just because Netanyahu acted like an American politician instead of the idyllic "what's best about Israeli democracy"? Really? When those whom Netanyahu has to "negotiate" and come to some agreement with are not honest democratic angels and who represent those who don't want a two state solution, but one Palestinian state and no Israeli state? And these "negotiations" have been going on for almost 40 years?

So this supposed wiser older brother is so concerned with the well-being of his sibling that he must dictate how that brother acts and what he says? And then talk glowingly about democracy as if he had any significant inkling of what that word means?

And this wiser older brother would glow on about Israel's honorable, fair and democratic traditions and totally neglect to mention the spent blood and violence that was necessary to defend that founding and its traditions? And that it was and is under various assaults and threats, even by those with whom it must negotiate in order to appease the wiser older brother? And if it doesn't keep up the decades old charade of negotiations while under assault, the loving wiser older brother drops the chilling hint that if it doesn't toe the line "then I think that it [will] give ammunition to folks who don't believe in a Jewish state". The wiser older brother, it would be assumed, would be among those "folks" since it all would have come about because little brother didn't do as he was told.

This Iran deal get more unbelievable and disturbing by the moment.
And now this administration has declassified information on the Israeli nuclear program???? Wtf
I can't help but feel that Israel and America are passengers on an airliner , Obama is the copilot, and the GOP and the prime minister of Israel represent the pilot locked out of the cockpit.
Everyone is screaming as the plane suddenly loses altitude but Spence and Paul are sitting there calmly explaining what a brilliant copilot we have.
I now truly don't know who's side Obama is on.
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