March, 2010:

The Netanyahu-Obama Meeting in Strategic Context

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“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR”

By George Friedman

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama on March 23. The meeting follows the explosion in U.S.-Israeli relations after Israel announced it was licensing construction of homes in East Jerusalem while U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel. The United States wants Israel to stop all construction of new Jewish settlements. The Israelis argue that East Jerusalem is not part of the occupied territories, and hence, the U.S. demand doesn’t apply there. The Americans are not parsing their demand so finely and regard the announcement — timed as it was — as a direct affront and challenge. Israel’s response is that it is a sovereign state and so must be permitted to do as it wishes. The implicit American response is that the United States is also a sovereign state and will respond as it wishes.

The polemics in this case are not the point. The issue is more fundamental: namely, the degree to which U.S. and Israeli relations converge and diverge. This is not a matter of friendship but, as in all things geopolitical, of national interest. It is difficult to discuss U.S. and Israeli interests objectively, as the relationship is clouded with endless rhetoric and simplistic formulations. It is thus difficult to know where to start, but two points of entry into this controversy come to mind.

The first is the idea that anti-Americanism in the Middle East has its roots in U.S. support for Israel, a point made by those in the United States and abroad who want the United States to distance itself from Israel. The second is that the United States has a special strategic relationship with Israel and a mutual dependency. Both statements have elements of truth, but neither is simply true — and both require much more substantial analysis. In analyzing them, we begin the process of trying to disentangle national interests from rhetoric.

Anti-Americanism in the Middle East

Begin with the claim that U.S. support for Israel generates anti-Americanism in the Arab and Islamic world. While such support undoubtedly contributes to the phenomenon, it hardly explains it. The fundamental problem with the theory is that Arab anti-Americanism predates significant U.S. support for Israel. Until 1967, the United States gave very little aid to Israel. What aid Washington gave was in the form of very limited loans to purchase agricultural products from the United States — a program that many countries in the world participated in. It was France, not the United States, which was the primary supplier of weapons to Israeli.

In 1956, Israel invaded the Sinai while Britain and France seized the Suez Canal, which the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdul Nasser had nationalized. The Eisenhower administration intervened — against Israel and on the side of Egypt. Under U.S. pressure, the British, French and Israelis were forced to withdraw. There were widespread charges that the Eisenhower administration was pro-Arab and anti-Israeli; certainly no one could argue that Eisenhower was significantly pro-Israel.

In spite of this, Nasser entered into a series of major agreements with the Soviet Union. Egypt effectively became a Soviet ally, the recipient of massive Soviet aid and a center of anti-American rhetoric. Whatever his reasons — and they had to do with U.S. unwillingness to give Egypt massive aid — Egypt’s anti-American attitude had nothing to do with the Israelis, save perhaps that the United States was not prepared to join Egypt in trying to destroy Israel.

Two major political events took place in 1963: left-wing political coups in Syria and Iraq that brought the Baathist Party to power in both countries. Note that this took place pre-1967, i.e., before the United States became closely aligned with Israel. Both regimes were pro-Soviet and anti-American, but neither could have been responding to U.S. support for Israel because there wasn’t much.

In 1964, Washington gave Cairo the first significant U.S. military aid in the form of Hawk missiles, but it gave those to other Arab countries, too, in response to the coups in Iraq and Syria. The United States feared the Soviets would base fighters in those two countries, so it began installing anti-air systems to try to block potential Soviet airstrikes on Saudi Arabia.

In 1967, France broke with Israel over the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. The United States began significant aid to Israel. In 1973, after the Syrian and Egyptian attack on Israel, the U.S. began massive assistance. In 1974 this amounted to about 25 percent of Israeli gross domestic product (GDP). The aid has continued at roughly the same level, but given the massive growth of the Israeli economy, it now amounts to about 2.5 percent of Israeli GDP.

The point here is that the United States was not actively involved in supporting Israel prior to 1967, yet anti-Americanism in the Arab world was rampant. The Arabs might have blamed the United States for Israel, but there was little empirical basis for this claim. Certainly, U.S. aid commenced in 1967 and surged in 1974, but the argument that eliminating support for Israel would cause anti-Americanism to decline must first explain the origins of anti-Americanism, which substantially predated American support for Israel. In fact, it is not clear that Arab anti-Americanism was greater after the initiation of major aid to Israel than before. Indeed, Egypt, the most important Arab country, shifted its position to a pro-American stance after the 1973 war in the face of U.S. aid.

Israel’s Importance to the United States

Let’s now consider the assumption that Israel is a critical U.S. asset. American grand strategy has always been derived from British grand strategy. The United States seeks to maintain regional balances of power in order to avoid the emergence of larger powers that can threaten U.S. interests. The Cold War was a massive exercise in the balance of power, pitting an American-sponsored worldwide alliance system against one formed by the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has acted a number of times against regional hegemons: Iraq in 1990-91, Serbia in 1999 and so on.

In the area called generally the Middle East, but which we prefer to think of as the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush, there are three intrinsic regional balances. One is the Arab-Israeli balance of power. The second is the Iran-Iraq balance. The third is the Indo-Pakistani balance of power. The American goal in each balance is not so much stability as it is the mutual neutralization of local powers by other local powers.

Two of the three regional balances of power are collapsed or in jeopardy. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the failure to quickly put a strong, anti-Iranian government in place in Baghdad, has led to the collapse of the central balance of power — with little hope of resurrection. The eastern balance of power between Pakistan and India is also in danger of toppling. The Afghan war has caused profound stresses in Pakistan, and there are scenarios in which we can imagine Pakistan’s power dramatically weakening or even cracking. It is unclear how this will evolve, but what is clear is that it is not in the interest of the United States because it would destroy the native balance of power with India. The United States does not want to see India as the unchallenged power in the subcontinent any more than it wants to see Pakistan in that position. The United States needs a strong Pakistan to balance India, and its problem now is how to manage the Afghan war — a side issue strategically — without undermining the strategic interest of the United States, an Indo-Pakistani balance of power.

The western balance of power, Israel and the surrounding states, is relatively stable. What is most important to the United States at this point is that this balance of power also not destabilize. In this sense, Israel is an important strategic asset. But in the broader picture, where the United States is dealing with the collapse of the central balance of power and with the destabilization of the eastern balance of power, Washington does not want or need the destabilization of the western balance — between the Israelis and Arabs — at this time. U.S. “bandwidth” is already stretched to the limit. Washington does not need another problem. Nor does it need instability in this region complicating things in the other regions.

Note that the United States is interested in maintaining the balance of power. This means that the U.S. interest is in a stable set of relations, with no one power becoming excessively powerful and therefore unmanageable by the United States. Israel is already the dominant power in the region, and the degree to which Syria, Jordan and Egypt contain Israel is limited. Israel is moving from the position of an American ally maintaining a balance of power to a regional hegemon in its own right operating outside the framework of American interests.

The United States above all wants to ensure continuity after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dies. It wants to ensure that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan remains stable. And in its attempts to manage the situation in the center and east, it wants to ensure that nothing happens in the west to further complicate an already-enormously complex situation.

There is very little Israel can do to help the United States in the center and eastern balances. On the other hand, if the western balance of power were to collapse — due to anything from a collapse of the Egyptian regime to a new Israeli war with Hezbollah — the United States might find itself drawn into that conflict, while a new intifada in the Palestinian territories would not help matters either. It is unknown what effect this would have in the other balances of power, but the United States is operating at the limits of its power to try to manage these situations. Israel cannot help there, but it could hurt, for example by initiating an attack on Iran outside the framework of American planning. Therefore, the United States wants one thing from Israel now: for Israel to do nothing that could possibly destabilize the western balance of power or make America’s task more difficult in the other regions.

Israel sees the American preoccupation in these other regions, along with the current favorable alignment of forces in its region, as an opportunity both to consolidate and expand its power and to create new realities on the ground. One of these is building in East Jerusalem, or more precisely, using the moment to reshape the demographics and geography of its immediate region. The Israeli position is that it has rights in East Jerusalem that the United States cannot intrude on. The U.S. position is that it has interests in the broader region that are potentially weakened by this construction at this time.

Israel’s desire to do so is understandable, but it runs counter to American interests. The United States, given its overwhelming challenges, is neither interested in Israel’s desire to reshape its region, nor can it tolerate any more risk deriving from Israel’s actions. However small the risks might be, the United States is maxed out on risk. Therefore, Israel’s interests and that of the United States diverge. Israel sees an opportunity; the United States sees more risk.

The problem Israel has is that, in the long run, its relationship to the United States is its insurance policy. Netanyahu appears to be calculating that given the U.S. need for a western balance of power, whatever Israel does now will be allowed because in the end the United States needs Israel to maintain that balance of power. Therefore, he is probing aggressively. Netanyahu also has domestic political reasons for proceeding with this construction. For him, this construction is a prudent and necessary step.

Obama’s task is to convince Netanyahu that Israel has strategic value for the United States, but only in the context of broader U.S. interests in the region. If Israel becomes part of the American problem rather than the solution, the United States will seek other solutions. That is a hard case to make but not an impossible one. The balance of power is in the eastern Mediterranean, and there is another democracy the United States could turn to: Turkey — which is more than eager to fulfill that role and exploit Israeli tensions with the United States.

It may not be the most persuasive threat, but the fact is that Israel cannot afford any threat from the United States, such as an end to the intense U.S.-Israeli bilateral relationship. While this relationship might not be essential to Israel at the moment, it is one of the foundations of Israeli grand strategy in the long run. Just as the United States cannot afford any more instability in the region at the moment, so Israel cannot afford any threat, however remote, to its relationship with the United States.

A More Complicated Relationship

What is clear in all this is that the statement that Israel and the United States are strategic partners is not untrue, it is just vastly more complicated than it appears. Similarly, the claim that American support for Israel fuels anti-Americans is both a true and insufficient statement.

Netanyahu is betting on Congress and political pressures to restrain U.S. responses to Israel. One of the arguments of geopolitics is that political advantage is insufficient in the face of geopolitical necessity. Pressure on Congress from Israel in order to build houses in Jerusalem while the United States is dealing with crises in the region could easily backfire.

The fact is that while the argument that U.S. Israel policy caused anti-Americanism in the region may not be altogether true, the United States does not need any further challenges or stresses. Nations overwhelmed by challenges can behave in unpredictable ways. Netanyahu’s decision to confront the United States at this time on this issue creates an unpredictability that would seem excessive to Israel’s long term interests. Expecting the American political process to protect Israel from the consequences is not necessarily gauging the American mood at the moment.

The national interest of both countries is to maximize their freedom to maneuver. The Israelis have a temporary advantage because of American interests elsewhere in the region. But that creates a long-term threat. With two wars going on and two regional balances in shambles or tottering, the United States does not need a new crisis in the third. Israel has an interest in housing in East Jerusalem. The United States does not. This frames the conversation between Netanyahu and Obama. The rest is rhetoric.

Was Muhammad Shooting Blanks?

Mar 14th, 2010

by EdTroy.

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I’ve followed Islam for many years, just as I have followed Christianity for a long time. They are both totally without supporting evidence. But, there are some interesting questions that come up in regards to Muhammad. Jesus was supposedly a virgin (and probably never even existed, anyway). We know that Muhammad existed, since several of his front teeth that were knocked out in one of his many battles are in a Mosque. And, he was known to be a real barbarian, from the accounts by many historians who lived during his lifetime, the latter part of which was filled with almost constant warring and conquests, while there is absolutely no contemporaneous historic evidence that Jesus ever existed. All accounts of his “life” were written decades, or even centuries, after his supposed death. Of those, the most famous was by Josephus, but he was not alive when Jesus supposedly lived, and most historians agree that the brief mention of Jesus in Antiquities XVIII, Chapter 3, section 3 was a forgery inserted in the fourth century CE, by Eusebius, who said that lying for the advancement of the church was acceptable.

Anyway, we are now looking at Muhammad. We all know that his “favorite wife” was Aisha. He married her when she was a 6 year old child, and he was in his 50’s. He consummated the marriage when she was 9 years old. Why did she never become pregnant? Of course, at 9, she might not yet have reached puberty, but that is unlikely, since Islam puts such a high value on having daughters married off by the time they reach puberty, and this has descended from the teachings of Muhammad. But, when Muhammad died, she was 16 or 17, so she certainly would have been old enough to conceive, then. As time went on, Muhammad married many more women, including his son-in-law’s wife (after he convinced his son-in-law to divorce her, since Muhammad had seen her naked, and lusted after her), perhaps because he was desperate to have a son. But, while he had sex with them repeatedly, there were no children. Apparently, Muhammad was shooting blanks in his later life. (He did have several daughters with his first wife, but no children after he became a “prophet” and invented a religion.) Why is this not discussed? Why are there no special Islamic ruling elevating impotent men? After all, Muhammad was the perfect man. You might think this vital aspect of his life might be mentioned and revered somewhere in the Koran or Hadiths, but I don’t believe it is.

I guess, in a sense, he would not have needed Muhammad Brand Condoms.

Al Gore Follows Disgraceful Lead of Clive Hamilton And Tells Children They Know More Than Their Parents

Mar 12th, 2010

by EdTroy.

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In what may be his most disgraceful, disingenuous performance of lies, deceit, and treachery, Al Gore has now told children that they know more than their parents!

Of course, this is nothing new. As I reported several months ago, moronic Australian global warmingista Clive Hamilton published a letter to children titled “About Your Father”. In this letter, Hamilton urged children to “sit their father down” and tell him to get another job!

I am sure it’s hard for you to hear these words, but there is something you can do to help. Why not sit your dad down and have a good talk to him. Tell him you want him to stop helping the big companies that are spoiling the future for you and all the other kids at school. Tell him that the family would rather have less money if he had a different job, one you could be proud of.

Of course, Hamilton tells the children not to hate their parents; they just don’t know any better.

So your dad is not really a bad person. He is not deliberately making the world a worse place for you and all the other kids. But he is telling lies to himself so he does not have to face up to the truth about what he does at work.

The thing is, though, that what your dad is doing is wrecking the future for my children too, and that makes me feel upset. Many Australians feel the same way; they think that what your father does is just plain wrong, and that he should stop.

Hey Al, Get Over It! Man-made global warming is a lie. Some of us have known that for years. Most people now realize it is a lie, thanks to the revelations of Climategate, as well as the chain of admissions that many of the “scariest” statements in the IPCC document were not true. Actually, it is worse than a lie; it was nothing more than an attempt to put a massive global tax in place that would finish off the economy of the United States for good, raise unemployment to levels never seen before, and make things so bad that Americans would actually start begging for a “world government” to “save” them. (Enslave them would be a better term, actually.)

If you want to see what many real scientists think may be one of the primary drivers of climate change over the last few billion years, see my previous article, “Lecture From CERN Describes How Cosmic Rays Like Cause of Climate Change (Not CO2)“. If you want to see one of Al’s previous whopping lies shown to be false (that CO2 drives temperature), see my post “The Crux of The Global Warming Fraud: Global Warmingistas Claim CO2 Drives Temperature, But Just The Opposite Is True“. In this article I take the very same Vostok ice core data that Al Gore deceptively graphed out in such a way that the true relationship between CO2 and temperature could not been seen, and show, very clearly, that temperature increases, then CO2 increases, and temperature decreases, followed by a decrease in CO2 levels! His lies and deceptions are amazing!

Time Magazine Shows Its Lunacy Again

Mar 7th, 2010

by EdTroy.

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In the March 15, 2010 edition of Time Magazine”, in the Briefing section, they have a short article on ice calving in Antarctica. In part, the article states:

Owing in part to warming global temperatures, Antarctica is loosing ice all the time–about 24 cu. mi (100 cu km) worth each year–a development that is slowly but steadily raising global sea levels, and scientists worry that climate change could suddenly accelerate that vast melting. But the models indicate that ice loss should be happening on the western edge of the continent, where it is warmer, not in the much cooler east. No doubt there are complicated scientific reasons for this…

And they call this journalism? “Complicated scientific reasons”? Why not do a few minutes of research, or just use a little common sense, and you can see how many problems the brief quotation above has in it. They are correct when they point out that “Antarctica is loosing ice all the time”, but they should have added “and it always has been”. Think about it. It is cold in Antarctica. Very cold. Temperatures of 50 below zero (and at that temperature, who cares whether we are talking Fahrenheit or Celsius; it is about the same) are common. A few degrees, or even a few 10s of degrees of “global warming” is not going to make any difference. Water is still going to be frozen! But, as it snows over Antarctica, the ice sheet, which is thousands of feet thick in most places, gets thicker. As it gets thicker, the pressure from the sheer weight of the snow presses the snow outwards. Eventually, that ice sheet meets the ocean. As it get further pressed out from the pressure of the weight of the ice, it eventually is squeezed out over the water, and breaks off, or calves, to form an ice berg. The best analogy that I can think of is to think of a mass of pie dough. As you press on it from the top with your hands or a rolling pin, it expands out horizontally. If you did that at the edge of your counter, as the dough expands out over the edge of the counter, just like the ice sheet in Antarctica expands out beyond the actual land mass of the Antarctica, a section of the dough will “calve” and fall on the floor. That process is actually due to cold temperatures causing ice to continue to build up, not melting as we are lead to believe by the warmingistas. And, that is why the “models” fail.

Also, here is another glaring example of the problems with the holy models. Global warmingistas base their whole agenda on their “models”. But, time and again, the “models” fail to predict reality. That is because the “models” are wrong! The “models” predict that Antarctica will loose ice on the warmer western edge, but the “models” fail, because the most rapid ice loss is on the cooler eastern edge of the continent. The “models” have predicted a steady rise in global temperature due to CO2, but, as even Phil Jones, the disgraced former head of the CRU, admits, temperatures have not been rising for the last 15 years. The “models” also predict certain temperature profiles in the atmosphere at certain latitudes due to CO2, but multiple data sets clearly show that not to be the case. Rather than trying to correct their models, the “scientists” state that the measurements must be wrong!

And, of course, if the “models” were correct, they would not be called “models”. They would be referred to as “the model”.

A Beer Story Explains US Taxes In A Way Even A Democrat Should Understand

Mar 6th, 2010

by EdTroy.

2 comments

I realize I may be giving democrats too much credit, when I say that even they should be able to understand this story and get the message. But, given the total collapse of the education system in the United States since the inception of the Department of Education in the early 1980’s, and the control of the education system by the democrats and their transformation of a system of education to a system of indoctrination, even this simple story may go over the heads of many Americans. But, for those masses that couldn’t be bothered to read Atlas Shrugged, here is a very simple story that explains how the US income tax system works.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

“The Government Can” by Tim Hawkins

Mar 4th, 2010

by EdTroy.

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A little documentary ditty about the government, Obama, Pelosi, Dingy Harry, Obamacare, Global Warming BS, etc!

Whose Side Is Our Government On? US To Deliver 1000 Laser Guided Bombs To Pakistan

Mar 2nd, 2010

by EdTroy.

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I’ve been ranting for quite some time now that our government is insane, selling sophisticated weapons to Islamic states. You would think we would have learned our lessons over the years. We befriended Turkey, allowed them into NATO, and now they are renouncing secularism, and returning to Islam and Sharia law. They are even siding with Iran against the necessary attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States or Israel! How stupid were we to sell them modern weapons, that now might be turned against us and/or Israel, as Muslims further their attempts to re-establish the Ottoman Empire?

Then, of course, we sold millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan back in the 80’s. Of course, that was ok, because the Taliban, even though not very likable, were fighting the Russians. And, as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Oops, I guess that was not the best decision, since they are now using those weapons, quite effectively, against us and the Russians are (at least sort of, sometimes) our friend.

Then, we announced a while back that we were going to sell the most advanced F-16 fighters to Pakistan. That would be the same Pakistan that has nuclear weapons which may soon fall into the hands of those same Taliban. Well, not just the Taliban. Given the close ties between the Pakistani military and the ISI with both the Taliban and al Qaeda, those weapons could well fall into the hands of bin Laden. In fact, if things keep going like they are in that part of the world, bin Laden might be elected President of Pakistan after the Taliban and/or al Qaeda take over the country. If an election was held, he would certainly win in a landslide over any of the current, or past, leadership of Pakistan. (Or Afghanistan, for that matter.)

But, today it was announced that we will sell Pakistan 1000 laser guided bombs!

Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jeffry Glenn said the United States delivered 1,000 MK-82 500-pound bombs to Pakistan last month, and was considering additional requests for those bombs and more laser-guided tail kits.

Glenn said an initial batch of 700 GBU-12 and 300 GBU-10 Paveway laser-guided bomb kits built by Lockheed and Raytheon Co (RTN.N) would be delivered to Pakistan this month, allowing the Pakistani air force to outfit the MK-82 bombs delivered last month with sophisticated technology that allows better targeting of the weapons.

Those are to go with the shiny new F-16’s that we have sold to them. What could possibly go wrong? After all, Pakistan is our friend, just like Saudi Arabia! (It’s only an unfortunate coincidence that the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.)

This is not only spitting in the face of one of our increasingly few and genuine friends in the world, India, but it should scare any sensible non-Muslim, including Americans, to death! Imagine if Iran had such weapons! And, lets face it, the only real difference between Iran and Pakistan is that Iran is Shite and Pakistan is Sunni. From a purely geopolitical/economic point of view, Iran would be a more likely ally, since they have oil, which we value, while Pakistan, quite frankly, has nothing of value to offer. They are both Islamic nations, and they both hate us because we are not Muslims. If our thinking was that Pakistan would use the weapons to eliminate Iran’s nuclear facilities, I might be a little less harsh on this insane decision. But, lets face it, if Pakistan does use these weapons, it will be against Infidels, not fellow Muslims.

Damn, where did I put that roll of duct tape. I feel like my head is about to explode.

More Government Insanity; This Time The TSA Compromises Our Security

Mar 2nd, 2010

by EdTroy.

2 comments

In war, it is vital to know your enemy. But, we, or at least the United States government, clearly does not understand that. You won’t hear this from the government (of course) but we are at war with Islam. But, government employees are not even supposed to refer to “terrorists” or “acts of terror”. (They are to be referred to as “man-made disasters”.) The word “Islamist” is out. And, of course, in the most ludicrous case of cover-up, and not seeing the forests for the trees, not a single connection was made between the fact that Nidal Hasan was a Muslim and the fact that he murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood while wearing an Islamic dress and shouting “Allahu Akbar”. (He was not only a Muslim, but a very devout one. But the official finding made no connection between that fact and the attack.)

And, by the way, Islam is at war with us. They have been for almost 1400 years. At least they know it, and have very publicly stated that they are at war with us. It is even in the Koran:

“Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.” Koran 8:12

“Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels.” Koran 8:60

But, the politically correct politicians and main stream media do not tell us that. All we hear is that “Islam is a religion of peace”. (It may be a religion of pieces, as in body pieces after a homicide bomber attack, but it has never had anything to do with peace.) To make matters worse, some uninformed, ignorant-of-history products of our failed American educational system even go so far as to bring up the Crusades as some sort of defense of Islam, or mea culpa plea. Of course, we owe our very freedoms to the Crusades, because they are what saved us from the Muslim hordes that had conquered and over-run much of what we now call Europe. (Although it is now insidiously becoming Eurabia as Muslims infiltrate society, and breed like rabbits, so as to take over the nations of the world without having to resort to their usual sword tricks.) By the way, don’t think it was some kind of coincidence that Osama bin Laden attacked us on September 11. September 11, 1683, was the date on which the Battle of Vienna took place. On that date, the Ottoman Empire was finally turned back, and prevented from taking over Austria by Polish, Austrian, and German soldiers. It marked the end to the expansion of the Ottoman empire.

But, now we hear that the TSA is going to release secret material to ten thousand employees! According to the report in USA Today:

The 10,000 people in line to get classified information are managers, supervisors and “behavior detection officers” who roam airports looking for suspicious people. They represent about 20% of the TSA’s airport workforce and exclude screeners who scan passengers and bags.

The information will give workers details about terrorist “tactics, planning, operations and threats,” TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said. Those details “give context to things they see every day which may otherwise not appear unusual” and let workers “exercise discretion” in dealing with travelers, Payne added. She would not elaborate on specific intelligence the workers will get. All TSA airport workers now get daily intelligence briefings that include less sensitive information.

So far, 750 people have been cleared to get classified information, Payne said, adding that it will take two more years to get all 10,000 workers cleared.

What could possibly go wrong? After all, I’m sure none of those people who get the secret material could be Muslims, who could relay the sensitive information to their buddies in jihad, so that they will better know how to escape screening and attack us. Yea, right. I’m sure Osama is dancing for glee in his cave, wondering how the infidels can be so incredibly stupid.

March, 2010: