Cowards, Maniacs or Warriors

“It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth, to make it superior over all religions, though the Mushrikûn (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah” - Quran, Sura 9:33

Sura 9:33, simply put, predicts the conquest of Islam over all religions. Islam must dominate the world through jihad.

"He who fights that Allah’s word be superior is in Allah’s cause" – The Hadith

The Hadith are the collections of the reports claiming to quote what the prophet Muhammad said verbatim on any matter. The term comes from the Arabic meaning "report", "account" or "narrative". Hadiths are second only to the Quran in developing Islamic jurisprudence, and regarded as important tools for understanding the Quran and commentaries on it. Many important elements of traditional Islam such as five salat prayers, the abhorrence of paintings and sculpture of living things, stoning adulterers, are mentioned in hadith but not the Quran.

In Islam, Muhammad is considered al-insan al-kamil (the "ideal man"). Muhammad is in no way considered divine, nor is he worshipped (no image of Muhammad is permitted lest it encourage idolatry), but he is the model par excellence for all Muslims in how they should conduct themselves.

It is through Muhammad's personal teachings and actions — which make up the "way of the Prophet," the Sunnah — that Muslims discern what is a good and holy life. Details about the Prophet — how he lived, what he did, his non-Quranic utterances, his personal habits — are indispensable knowledge for any faithful Muslim.

Knowledge of the Sunnah comes primarily from the hadiths ("reports") about Muhammad's life, which were passed down orally until codified in the eighth century AD, some hundred years after Muhammad's death.

The Hadiths comprise the most important body of Islamic texts after the Quran; they are basically a collection of anecdotes about Muhammad's life believed to have originated with those who knew him personally. (Click here for more information regarding the Hadith)

Jihad is an Islamic term referring to the religious duty of Muslims to maintain the religion. In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning "to strive, to apply oneself, to struggle, to persevere". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural of which is mujahideen). The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran, often in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)", to refer to the act of striving to serve the purposes of God on this earth.

Muslims and scholars do not all agree on its definition. Many observers—both Muslim and non-Muslim—as well as the Dictionary of Islam, talk of jihad having two meanings: an inner spiritual struggle (the "greater jihad"), and an outer physical struggle against the enemies of Islam (the "lesser jihad") which may take a violent or non-violent form. Jihad is often translated as "Holy War", although this term is controversial. According to "Orientalist" (historian of the Middle East) Bernard Lewis, "the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists", and specialists in the Hadith "understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense."Javed Ahmad Ghamidi states that there is consensus among Islamic scholars that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against wrong doers.

It was generally supposed that the order for a general war could only be given by the Caliph (an office that was claimed by the Ottoman sultans), but Muslims who did not acknowledge the spiritual authority of the Caliphate (which has been vacant since 1923)—such as non-Sunnis and non-Ottoman Muslim states—always looked to their own rulers for the proclamation of a jihad. There has been in fact no universal warfare by Muslims on non-believers since the early caliphate. Some proclaimed jihad by claiming themselves as Mahdi, e.g. the Sudanese Muhammad Ahmad in 1882 (Fall of Khartoum). In classical Islam, the military form of jihad was also regulated to protect civilians [Source: Wikipedia]

(Note: The Sunnis view the Mahdi as the successor of Muhammad, but, unlike most Shia Muslims, do not believe the Mahdi has already been born. The Mahdi is expected to arrive to rule the world and to reestablish righteousness.)

The primary aim of jihad as warfare is not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by force, but rather the expansion and defense of the Islamic state. In theory, jihad was to continue until "all mankind either embraced Islam or submitted to the authority of the Muslim state." There could be truces before this was achieved, but no permanent peace. One who died 'on the path of God' was a martyr, (Shahid), whose sins were remitted and who was secured "immediate entry to paradise.

All of the above shows the complexity of Islam and the differing interpretations by scholars over the years. There are many sects of Islam and they have been fighting and killing each other since the 7^th century:

Although Sunnis make up the majority of Muslims, not every Muslim belongs to the same Islamic sect. A Muslim's Islamic beliefs may take one of these forms:

Sunni Muslims include 84%–90% of all Muslims. Sunni means “tradition,” and Sunnis regard themselves as those who emphasize following the traditions of Muhammad and of the first two generations of the community of Muslims that followed Muhammad.

A number of movements to reform Islam have originated mainly in the 20th century. Some are limited to one country and others have a broader influence. Most are Sunni movements, such as the Wahhabis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Jama`at-i-Islami.

Shi`ite Muslims comprise 10%–16% of all Muslims. Shi`ites are the “party of `Ali,” who believe that Muhammad’s son-in-law `Ali was his designated successor (imam) and that the Muslim community should be headed by a designated descendent of Muhammad. Three main subgroups of Shi`ites are Twelvers (Ithna-`Asharis), Seveners (Isma`ilis), and Fivers (Zaydis).

Sufis are Islamic mystics. Sufis go beyond external requirements of the religion to seek a personal experience of God through forms of meditation and spiritual growth. A number of Sufi orders, comparable to Christian monastic orders, exist. Most Sufis are also Sunni Muslims, although some are Shi`ite Muslims. Many conservative Sunni Muslims regard Sufism as a corruption of Islam, although most still regard Sufis as Muslims.

Bahai and Ahmadiyyas are 19th-century offshoots of Shi`ite and Sunni Islam, respectively. Bahai’s consider themselves the newest of the major world’s religions but recognize that historically they originated from Shi`ite Islam in the same way that Christianity originated from Judaism. Ahmadiyyas do regard themselves as Muslims. Most other Muslims, however, deny that either group is a legitimate form of Islam and regard members of both groups as heretics — people who have corrupted and abandoned Islamic belief and practice.

Druze, Alevis, and `Alawis are small, sectarian groups with unorthodox beliefs and practices that split off from Islam. Druze and Alevis do not regard themselves as Muslims and are not considered Muslims by other Muslims. `Alawis have various non-Islamic practices, but debate continues as to whether they should still be considered Muslims.

With 1.6 billion people in the world who claim Islam as their faith it is the small sect of Sunnis and some Shi`ites we should be focused on. Iran is a Shiite dominated nation. They are the world’s leading sponsor or terrorism by providing monetary and material support for Hezbollah – a Shi`ite Muslim organization. Hezbollah is often at odds with other Muslim terrorist groups.

Those loyal to the Sunni branch of Islam are by far the largest and most aggressive terrorist organizations. They are comprised of those pledging featly to the likes of The Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabism, Salafism, and Hamas. These groups are large in numbers and get their monetary and material support from the Sunni Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden was loyal to Wahhabism. Hamas’ main concern is the fight with Israel.

The latest coordinated attacks in Paris where 100 people lost their lives and 300 were injured, some critical, were carried out by well trained and armed Jihadis. They were not cowards and maniacs as many in the media are calling them. They were dedicated Radical Islamists believing in the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabism, and Salafism. In essence they believed themselves to be warriors for Allah. James Holmes, the person who shot up the theater in Aurora, Colorado and Adam Lanza the Sandy Hook shooter were maniacs. They were lone wolf disturbed individuals who had no ideological alliances. They just wanted to make a statement by killing innocent, defenseless people.

Like the Japanese Kamikaze pilots of World War II when they volunteered to fly their planes into U.S. warships during the battles for Saipan and Okinawa. They were not maniacs or cowards. They were willing to die for their emperor. By our western standards were could not understand their motives so we deemed them lunatics. Zealots yes, but not lunatics. These pilots had definite targets in mind. They knew their mission and were ready to die for it.

The Radical Islamist terrorists of today are in the same class as the Japanese pilots. They are warriors ready to die for Allah. They carry out well planned missions like the 19 pilots who rammed their hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As were the Pakistanis perpetrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The recent Paris attackers were of the same breed. They were supported by one of the above mentioned radical Islamist sects. They believed they were doing Allah’s work. Some were trained and sponsored by ISIL under the direction of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi its leader.

ISIL is a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant group, self-proclaimed to be a caliphate and Islamic state. Unlike bin Laden’s al Qaeda who had to exist in Afghanistan under the auspices of the Taliban ISIL is a caliphate. They occupy territory in Iraq and Syria. They have training grounds, money, captured military weapons, including tanks, cyber networks, and dedicated leadership and soldiers. They can print passports and send their soldiers anywhere in the world they wish. Many of these soldiers travel as refugees seeking asylum from western nations including the United States.

They advertise for recruits from western nations through their publications and the Internet. Young, disaffected Muslims (including women) surreptitiously travel to the ISIL caliphate for training and a mission. That mission usually pertains to the nation they are citizens of or where they came from. According to Jihad Watch in the past 18 months 66 Muslims have been charged with Islamic State plots in U.S. Many of these people charged do make the news. Faisal Mohammad the student who went on a stabbing spree at the University of California at Merced was one of those young Muslim youths influenced by ISIL propaganda. While deemed a mentally ill lone wolf by the media and UCM despite the fact that Mohammad “was found to have an image of the ISIS flag, a handwritten manifesto with instructions on how to behead someone, and reminders to pray to Allah,” everyone who participated was sure that his stabbings had something to do with “images of masculinity” and nothing to do with Islam, and that only “Islamophobes” thought otherwise. This is no surprise. The University of California Merced is no different from any other campus all over the country: full of indoctrinated bots who have been thoroughly imbued with the notion that when Islamic jihadists attack us, it is our fault. This is an example of how political correctness will get people killed. This what the French thought even after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January. It took last week’s attack to finally mobilize the French and Belgian security and intelligence forces to begin rounding up those suspected of jihad.

This week the Honduran authorities arrested five Syrians intending to make it to the United States with stolen Greek passports, triggering alarm Wednesday in the wake of the Paris attacks launched by Syria-linked jihadists.

The Syrians were arrested on Tuesday as they flew into Toncontin airport serving the Honduran capital and failed to make it past airport security checks, a police spokesman, Anibal Baca, told reporters.

“Five Syrian citizens have been detained and will be taken to our offices to be investigated because it is suspected they are carrying false documents, passports stolen in Greece,” Baca said.

Were these trained jihad soldiers making their way to the United States to form a terrorist cell or just a few Syrian refugees trying to get into the United States. If they were refugees where were their wives and children, if any?

Now ISIL is threatening attacks in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Times Square. While these attacks may be possible to me they are doubtful. Both of these places are hard targets. As demonstrated in Paris these jihadis go after soft targets. Their cells are not large enough or equipped with heavy weapons to assault hard, well-guarded hard targets. In my view they will go after soft targets such as shopping malls and theaters.

Shopping malls and darkened theaters are soft targets. They usually are not protected by armed guards. They are in most cases designated as “Gun Free” zones. For a moment think of malls like The Mall of America in Minnesota, South Coast Plaza in affluent Orange County, California, or Clackamas Town Center in Oregon. These are very large malls with parking spaces for well over 6,000 cars. They also have parking structures. On Black Friday they will filled to capacity – well over 10,000 shoppers.

Now you take an Islamic terrorist cell of three or four persons armed with AK-47s – there favorite weapon of choice. In 6 or 7 minutes, the minimum time it would take armed law enforcement officers to arrive on scene, the terrorists could kill and wound upwards of 200 people spraying 7.62 rounds at 600 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of 2,300 feet per second around the mall from differing positions.

When the police arrive they will most probably be armed with a 9mm Glock 17 or 19. While these hand guns are fine for normal police work or self-defense they are pretty much useless against trained terrorists using AK-47. Not many people, including law enforcement officers are able to hit a person in their central nervous system from more than 30-40 feet. FBI studies have concluded that between 50-70% of LEOs will miss the target with their second and third shots. Even when hit by a 9mm 124 grain hollow point anywhere but the CNS (heart, upper spine or head) the shooter will not be disabled and will continue his shooting. This has been proven by the FBI.

There has been mention of armed citizens carrying a concealed weapon (CCW) in preventing deaths in a terrorist attack such as mentioned above. Most CCW permit holders will be armed with either a 9mm or .40 caliber semi-automatic hand gun with a 3 or 4 inch barrel like a Glock or Smith and Wesson M-P. While these fire arms are good for close range self-defense they are not much value at ranges beyond 30-40 feet while the AK-47 can reach out to 100 yards with accuracy in the hands of a trained shooter. Keep in mind that these terrorist shooters will be using high capacity (50 rounds) double stacked magazines allowing then to reload quickly while the LEO or armed citizen will have magazines with a 10 or 15 round capacities. Once their slide locks open on an empty chamber they will probably be shot unless they are behind suitable cover.

I am not trying to downplay the value of LEOs or armed citizens I am merely stating the facts. Yes, the LEO or armed citizen can alleviate a terrorist attack by trained Islamic soldiers but these LEOs and armed citizens must be trained in tactical firearm combat with adequate mindset and muscle memory to shoot quickly and accurately. They are not shooting at paper targets; they are shooting at people who are shooting back.

My recommendation to those visiting their local shopping mall during this upcoming Christmas season is to stay in the yellow zone of situation awareness and if they see something suspicious get the hell out of there quickly. Embarrassment is way better than being dead.

Why doesn't it feel like world war to most of us? Because the attacks are happening at different times by people from many different countries against many different countries, using many different kinds of weapons, without using a flag, without uniforms, and often done by people born and raised in the country being attacked. What kind of a war is this?

It's an all-out war of Islamists against everyone else, not to seize territory or gain the spoils of war, but to make the whole world apply Sharia law.

Why are they doing this? Because it is their duty. They believe (as it says in the Qur'an) that the world cannot be saved until every government on earth is an Islamic state. Peace cannot reign until the whole world is ruled by Islamic law. It is their sacred duty to overthrow, by whatever means, the non-Islamic governments of the world, because a government ruled without Allah's laws is a profanity.

They are not cowards and maniacs. They are dedicated soldiers willing to die for the caliphate and Allah.

What is the Future Strategic Battlefield?

“To know yourself, to know the enemy and to know the environment you will always be victorious in countless numbers of battles” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

On May 27, 1942 two Czechs working for the British SOE assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the second highest SS officer in the Nazi regime, in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Heydrich was the architect of the “Final Solution” and the leading figure at the Wannsee Conference. Heydrich’s death did not stop the Holocaust or in any way dampen the Nazi’s ability to wage war.

On April 18, 1943 planes of the U.S. Air Force intercepted and shot down the plane carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the leading Imperial Japanese Naval Commander and the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, over Buin in the South Pacific near Rabaul. Yamamoto’s death did not end the war with Japan and in any way dampen Japan’s ability to wage war.

We did not enter World War Two to defeat the Blitzkrieg of the 2^nd SS Panzer Division or the defeat the Kamikaze attacks of Japanese. These were tactics used by the enemy as part of an overall strategy just as our strategic bombing of Europe and the battle of Guadalcanal were tactics of an overall strategy to defeat the Nazi war machine and the Empire of Japan.

To say the assassination of Osama bin Laden is a victory in the “War on Terror” is a complete fallacy. Terror is a tactic and bin Laden was one of the experts in this tactic. To say we are engaged in a war on terror is analogous to saying we went to war in 1941 to defeat blitzkrieg or the Japanese navy. In World War Two we had the overall strategy of crushing the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany. What is our strategy today for protecting the vital interests of the United States? Is it Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya?

Today we say we are at war with the Taliban or al Qaeda. This is tantamount to saying we are at war with the 2^nd SS Panzer Division or the Japanese 55^th Infantry Regiment. Before the Taliban or al Qaeda the leading exponent of the tactic of Terror was Hezbollah. Today Hezbollah is one of those non-state, non-uniformed entities that are controlling the 21^st century battlefield. Hezbollah now has sophisticated missiles that can strike any city in Israel. Yes the use of the missile as a weapon terror is true, but what is our strategic plan to deal with this new form of enemy.

In the 1801 we had a problem with the Barbary Pirates. They were capturing and holding for ransom American vessels and seamen. Jefferson sent in the Navy and the Marines to deal with his enemy to protect the vital interests of the United States. The mission was clear because the strategy was defined — to defeat the pirates and out an end to piracy on the high seas.

Today we are having a problem with the Somalian pirates. They have killed American and other seamen in sight of U.S. warships while they do nothing to stop them. This is another example of not having a clear strategy to protect our vital interests. We are more concerned with our position within the United Nations than the protection of our own citizens or commerce.

What are our strategic objectives when it comes to piracy on the high seas against U.S. ships or seamen? Is it to capture them, read them their Miranda rights and bring them back for trial? What is the role of a commander on the ground (or sea) to do when they are witnessing these acts of piracy or terror?

Right now Yemen is becoming the central headquarters for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).Yemen is a neighbor of Somalia and the Somalian pirates are beginning to work with the AQAP. When you combine AQAP with the Taliban in Pakistan, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim brotherhood you now have an axis of Islamic radicalism.

Like in WWII and the Cold War we must define who the enemy is. In WWII it was the Empire of Japan, Nazi Germany and Italy. In the Cold War it was the Soviet Union and its goal of world domination by the spread on communism. These were defined enemies who we could develop strategic goals for their defeat and he protection of our security and vital interests.

Today we must define the enemy before we can develop a strategy to defeat him As Sun Tzu said: “To know yourself, to know the enemy and to know the environment you will always be victorious in countless numbers of battles”. Today our enemy is Islamic Radicalism — or as some call it Islamic Fascism. We must make this clear to the American people. Just as we made clear who are enemies were WWII and the Cold War. Islamic Radicalism is every bit as dangerous to our national security as the Nazis or communists were.

The first part in the new strategy for the 21^st century battlefield is to deny the enemy sanctuary. Our military is the most mobile military in the history of the world. We can move from place to place with great speed and efficiency yet we bog it down in forward operating bases and nation building. They now become targets for an enemy that has the ability to move across borders with ease. As an example in Afghanistan the Taliban fighters strike our forward bases then run over the Pakistan for refuge and to rearm. Our troops are forbidden to seek and destroy them in Pakistan. We have great air support for our troops, yet their targets are selected by lawyers and they cannot strike into Pakistan where the Taliban has sanctuary.

The second step is to define the enemy, or as Sun Tzu says “know the enemy.” As stated above the enemy is Islamic Radicalism. We know who it is but we are reluctant to publically define it. The majority of the American public knows who the enemy is, but our leaders are loath to say the words “Islamic Radicalism.”

Without a clear definition of the enemy our military cannot be given a clear and definable mission. During the WWII the U.S. government made a series of films directed by Frank Capra called “Why We Fight.” This series of seven propaganda films was commissioned by the United States government during World War II to demonstrate to American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war. Where is such propaganda today. Instead we have Hollywood turning out films that are pro Islam and anti-military.

The third step is to cut off the flow of men and materials. This is done through intelligence and interdiction. Our enemy is mobile. He can move from place to place with impunity. Right now there is a flotilla of arms and supplies heading to Israel for Hezbollah. The Israelis will have to interdict this flotilla at a great cost in public relations, but they must do it if they wish to survive. Their enemies know this and are willing to risk mortal confrontation to achieve their public relations goals. This is a part of their strategy and they will use useful idiots as their pawns.

The Somalian pirates can attack ships and then seek safe harbor in Yemen where they can be resupplied with arms and military equipment. The Taliban is constantly being rearmed in Pakistan with arms coming in from China, Russia and Venezuela. In Iraq the insurgents are still being armed from Iran.

This also includes the security on our southern border. We cannot allow the constant influx of illegal immigrants bringing drugs and draining our economy. These insecure borders offer the terrorist a perfect way of bringing in men and weapons that can be used against us.

The fourth step may be the most critical. We must win the information war. As I mentioned above we made films clearly stating why we fight during WWII. Today we are losing that information war abroad and at home. We are losing the psychological operations (PSYOPS) war. During WWII and the Cold War we had radio stations beaming our messages at the Nazis and Eastern Bloc countries under Soviet domination. We had the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. These radio stations were staffed with commentators who had fled these dominated nations and were native speakers. They were known for bringing the news from the west and attempting to tell the truth.

Today we need radio, TV and the World Wide Web to do this work. We are failing badly at this tactic. On the other hand the enemy’s message gets through to us with impunity. We even have NPR carrying broadcast from Al Jazeera and our own Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, claiming it is better than our own cable news services as there are no commercials. If there are no commercials how is Al Jazeera supported? They are supported by financing from the Gulf States for the purpose of spreading their message to us.

We also have our own media working against our national interests. In many cases they have taken on a political agenda that runs counter our national interests. They readily report bad actions by our military like Abu Ghraib, but ignore the bad acts of the enemy. The Islamic Radicals seem to be winning the PSYOPS war.

The fifth step is to reduce the enemy’s sphere of influence. How could a U.S. Army officer kill 13 and wound 29 at a U.S. Army base in Texas? The Fort Hood shooting should never have happened. The sphere of Islamic Radicalism is advancing through Europe and the United States. We are allowing organizations like CAIR to advance their radical message on our TV news. Mosques are becoming sanctuaries for radical Islamist to indoctrinate the youth and finance terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. Our political correctness is causing us to turn a blind eye towards the growing influence radical Islam.

We must also realize there is an economic element to our 21^st century battlefield. The USSR did not collapse because their military was weak; they collapsed because their economy fell apart. This did not go unnoticed by China. Today we have an economic battlefield with China. Due to our trade imbalance and borrowing China holds 29% of our national debt. This is unacceptable if we with this nation to survive.

In 8 to 10 years China will have the largest blue water navy in the world. The earth is covered to the tune of 70% with water so this gives China quite a leg up on us. Remember it was the power of their navy that allowed the Empire of Japan to dominate the Pacific in WWII until our navy was powerful enough to defeat them. Great civilizations like the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Portuguese, Spanish, French and British used their navies to dominate commerce and advance their interests in the world. Soon it will be the Chinese at the helm.

At the end of the Cold War our navy consisted of 546 ships. We now have 284. Yes the ships may be better and more technologically advanced, but so was the German ME 262 jet fighter. The problem was the Germans did not have enough of them to make a difference. We need a strong navy to protect our sea lanes for commerce and counter the threat of the Chinese.

By 2014 the expansion of the Panama Canal will be completed allowing larger ships to pass through. This is a canal built by the United States and now under the operational control of a Chinese contractor.

The final element in our 21^st century battlefield is energy. In the late 1970s there was an oil embargo against us by our Middle Eastern oil producing “friends”. This embargo caused massive lines at the gas pumps and frustration among the American people. The U.S. Government created the Department of Energy in 1977 during the Carter administration. The aim of the DOE was to make the United States energy independent.

34 years later with some 109,000 employees (16,000 federal and 93,000 contract) and an annual budget of $24 billion we are just as dependent on foreign sources of energy as we were in 1977.

Today energy is being used as a weapon. Today we import 62% of our oil with 20% coming from Canada, 10% from Mexico and 32% coming from states under the control of Islamic governments or dictators like Cesar Chavez in Venezuela. The situation is much worse for Europe. They are not only dependent on the Islamic countries, but also are under the thumb of Russia for their oil; and natural gas. This is why we at war with Libya. (Click here for an interactive map of the oil producing nations of the world).

If we expect to win on the 21^st century battlefield we must develop a strategic vision for the use of all of our energy resources; oil, coal, natural gas, wind and solar and we must do it quickly.

People say it will take 10 to 12 years to develop these energy resources. That’s nonsense. If the DOE and EPA would get out of the way these energy resources would come on line much quicker. American industry can do it if he government gets out of the way.

After the battle of the Coral Sea in WWII the aircraft carrier Yorktown was severely damaged and limped back to Pearl Harbor. The time estimated to complete repairs was 6 to 7 months. This was not good enough for Admiral Nimitz. He needed that carrier. He pushed his men and he contractors and they completed repairs in 3 weeks. As soon as the repairs were completed the Yorktown went to sea and was engaged in the battle of Midway, a battle that turned the tide of the war in the pacific. We need to utilize the full spectrum of or energy resources and we need to do it now.

To fight and win the 21^st century battlefield we need a national security roadmap based on the DIME principle — Diplomatic, Information, Military and Economic. With the 2012 presidential race heating up we need to listen to the Republican candidates to hear what they have to say about the DIME principle. Not just old worn out platitudes but solid, concrete proposals for how they will insure our national security and protect our vital interests.

Chris Wallace gets it Wrong

"For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly, to fit the people for social life — to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this — a government ought to mold children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is and how the child may be molded into one." — British author, economist and philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

During an Interview with Herman Cain, on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Cain what he would do about the “Right of Return” of the Palestinians to the “occupied territories.” You can watch the complete interview by clicking here. Wallace’s question regarding Israel comes at 08:42 into the video.

I think Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday is one of the better interviewers among the various news channel hosts. He is prepared, and pushes pretty hard with everybody, though not in an obnoxious fashion. He chooses to remain the interviewer, and not become the story. Unfortunately, Wallace injected himself into an interview Sunday, with the use of language that can be best described as inflammatory and historically inaccurate.

In an interview with newly announced GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain, Wallace asked a few questions about Cain's support of Israel.

He then asked him about the Palestinian right of return. When Cain seemed unaware of the issue, Wallace tried to clarify the issue for him that the right of return was for the Palestinians who were "kicked out" by Israel in the 48 war. Wallace’s question to Cain was:

“Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?”

This statement is evidence that Wallace is unaware of the circumstances of the 1948 war or the history of the refugees since that war.

The 1948 war began with Arab attacks the day the U.N. passed the partition resolution in November 1947, which was accepted by the Zionists, and rejected by the Arabs in mandate Palestine and the Arab nations. The war escalated when 5 Arab armies invaded in May 1948 when the British withdrew, with a goal of wiping out the Jewish presence. About 600,000 Arabs abandoned homes in the war that went on for over a year. Very few of them were kicked out or driven out by the Zionists.

That did happen, but only in a few places. The great majority of the Arabs left due to other circumstances — fleeing a war zone where hand to hand close range fighting was going on, or because they were encouraged to do so by the invading Arab armies, telling them to come back to their homes after the Zionists were eliminated. All the contemporary news accounts of the day, and statements by Arab leaders support this conclusion.

While this war was going on, an equal number of Jews in Arab countries — Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and other Arab countries — were driven from their homes and their countries. Most of the Jewish refugees moved to Israel, and were accepted as full citizens. None of them lingered in refugee camps for decades. The treatment of the Arab refugees by Arab nations was different. Many were never resettled, and many never obtained citizenship in their new countries. Many were never allowed to work, but were forced to remain in stagnant camps, funded by the UNWRA, (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) where indoctrination of future generations consisted mainly of blaming Israel for their plight.

Israeli official sources, foreign press, officials present at the time and historians have claimed that the refugee flight was instigated by Arab leaders. For example, Yosef Weitz wrote in October 1948: "The migration of the Arabs from the Land of Israel was not caused by persecution, violence, expulsion — it was a tactic of war on the part of the Arabs.” Israeli historian Efraim Karsh wrote, "The logic behind this policy was apparently that 'the absence of women and children from Palestine would free the men for fighting', as the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Abd al-Rahman Azzam put it." In his book, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948, Karsh cited the substantial, active role the Arab Higher Committee played in the exoduses from Haifa, Tiberias, and Jaffa as an important part of understanding what he called the "birth of the Palestinian refugee problem."

A May 3, 1948 Time Magazine article attributed the exodus from the city of Haifa to fear, Arab orders to leave and a Jewish assault. The Economist attributed the exodus from Haifa to orders to leave from the Higher Arab Executive as well as expulsion by Jewish troops.

In the case of the village of Ein Karem, William O. Douglas was told by the villagers that the cause of their flight was twofold: first, it was caused by fear that came out of the Deir Yassin massacre, and second because "the villagers were told by the Arab leaders to leave. It apparently was a strategy of mass evacuation, whether or not necessary as a military or public safety measure."

Khalid al-`Azm who was prime minister of Syria from December 17, 1949 to March 30, 1949 listed in his memoirs a number of reasons for the Arab defeat in an attack on the Arab leaders including his own predecessor Jamil Mardam Bey:

“Fifth: the Arab governments' invitation to the people of Palestine to flee from it and seek refuge in adjacent Arab countries, after terror had spread among their ranks in the wake of the Deir Yassin event. This mass flight has benefited the Jews and the situation stabilized in their favor without effort. Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homeland, while it is we who constrained them to leave it. Between the invitation extended to the refugees and the request to the United Nations to decide upon their return, there elapsed only a few months.”

After the war, a few Arab leaders tried to present the Palestinian exodus as a victory by claiming to have planned it. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Said was later quoted as saying: "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

The Arab National Committee of Haifa, the Arab leadership in Haifa in 1948, wrote and delivered a report on the flight of roughly 60,000 Arabs from Haifa. The report said, "The removal of the Arab inhabitants from the town was voluntary and carried out at our request."

"Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring, brotherly states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down," wrote Habab Issa of Al-Hoda, the leading newspaper for Lebanese Maronites in the United States. A Muslim weekly newspaper in Beirut similarly reported, "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders?” The Arab States and Lebanon amongst them, did it!"

Mahmoud Abbas, at the time Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, would later recall: "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."

In 2009, veteran opponent of Israel, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, wrote about his vision for a One-state solution, saying that the Arabs fled "in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus." He added that "it is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. (I suggest Chris Wallace take time to read the Causes of the 1948 Palestinian Exodus by clicking here.

After the 1948 War the population east of the Jordan River contained over 400,000 Palestinian refugees who made up one-third of the population; another third of the population was Palestinians on the West Bank. Only one third of the population consisted of the original inhabitants of Trans-Jordan, which meant that the Jordanians had become a ruling minority over a Palestinian majority. This proved to be a mercurial element in internal Jordanian politics and played a critical role in the political opposition. Since the 1950s, the West Bank had become the center of the national and territorial aspects of the Palestinian problem that was the key issue of Jordan's domestic and foreign policy. According to King Hussein, the Palestinian problem spelled "life or death" for Jordan and would remain the country's overriding national security issue.

King Hussein feared an independent West Bank under PLO administration would threaten the autonomy of his Hashemite kingdom. The Palestinian factions were supported variously by many Arab regimes, most notably Egypt's President Nasser, who gave political support; and Saudi Arabia, which gave financial support. The Palestinian nationalist organization Fatah started organizing attacks against Israel in January 1965, and Israel was also subject to repeated cross-border attacks by Palestinian Fedayeen; these often drew reprisals that killed and injured Jordanians. The Samu Incident was one such reprisal. Jordan had long maintained secret contacts with Israel concerning peace and security along their border. Due to internal splits within the Jordanian government and population however, many of King Hussein's orders to stop these raids were not obeyed, and some Jordanian commanders along the Israeli-Jordanian border began giving the Palestinian raids passive assistance.

On September 18, during the time of turmoil, Syria tried to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian guerrillas. President Hafez al-Assad told his biographer, Patrick Seale, that Syria's intervention was only to protect the Palestinians from a massacre. The Syrians sent in armored forces equivalent to a brigade, with tanks, some of them allegedly hastily rebranded from the regular Syrian army for the purpose. Other Syrian units were the 5th Infantry Division (with the 88th and 91st Tank Brigades and the 67th Mechanized Brigade with over 200 T-55 tanks) and Commandos. They were under the command of the Palestine Liberation Army's (PLA) Syrian branch, whose headquarters were located in Damascus, and which was controlled by the government. They were met by the 40th Armored Brigade of the Jordanian Army. The Syrian Air Force, under orders of Assad, never entered the battle. This has been variously attributed to power struggles within the Syrian Baathist government (pitting Assad against Salah Jadid), and to the threat of Israeli military intervention.

As King Hussein dealt with threats by both Palestinian refugees in his country and invading Syrian forces, the king asked "the United States and Great Britain to intervene in the war in Jordan, asking the United States, in fact, to attack Syria, and some transcripts of diplomatic communiqués show that Hussein requested Israeli intervention against Syria." Timothy Naftali said. "Syria had invaded Jordan and the Jordanian king, facing what he felt was a military rout, said please help us in any way possible."

A telegram indicates that Hussein himself called a U.S. official at 3 a.m. to ask for American or British help. "Situation deteriorating dangerously following Syrian massive invasion", the document said. "I request immediate physical intervention both land and air to safeguard sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Jordan. Immediate air strikes on invading forces from any quarter plus air cover are imperative."

On 21 September the Syrian 5th Division broke through the defenses of the Jordanian 40th Armored Brigade, and pushed it back off the ar-Ramtha crossroads. King Hussein was thrown into a near panic. On 22 September the Royal Jordanian Air Force began attacking Syrian forces, which were badly battered as a result. The constant airstrikes broke the will of the Syrian force, and on the late afternoon of 22 September the 5th Division began to retreat.

Whatever the case, the swift Syrian withdrawal was a severe blow to Palestinian hopes. Jordanian armored forces steadily pounded their headquarters in Amman, and threatened to break them in other regions of the kingdom as well. The Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire. Hussein and Arafat attended the meeting of leaders of Arab countries in Cairo, where Arafat won a diplomatic victory. On September 27, Hussein was forced to sign an agreement which preserved the right of the Palestinian organizations to operate in Jordan. For Jordan, it was humiliating that the agreement treated both sides to the conflict as equals. This was the beginning of the “Black September” movement, a terrorist organization that would plague the world with airline hijackings, bombings and the massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Of the 600,000 original Arab refugees, perhap 75,000 are alive today. Yet the Palestinians claim 5 million refugees. They do this because alone among the refugee populations of the world, the U.N considers descendants of the original refugees, whether 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation, as refugees, even though they never even set foot in Israel in their lives. The Palestinians and Arab nations blame Israel for the plight of the refugees, but it is their cynical use of the refugee issue, that has kept alive a refugee population 63 years after a war, and embittered Palestinians from ever accepting a Jewish majority state of Israel.

The Palestinians want to flood Israel with five million "non-refugee refugees" in order to become a majority in Israel and change the character of the state. All the so-called foreign policy experts who have looked at ways to resolve the conflict, and all the U.S. Presidents who have spoken about the issue, including Obama on several occasions, have argued that Palestinian refugees would need to be resettled in a new Palestinian state, or in Arab countries, or Western countries, with some compensation provided, assuming a two state solution that ended the conflict could be achieved.

Since the 1948 War of Independence there have been numerous peace conferences and accords. None of them have worked and they never will. Just as there will never be “peace” between India and Pakistan or the Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka so there will never be peace between Islamic nations and the Jews. Judaism is the sworn enemy of Islam. The best you can hope for is the absence of war and this can only be achieved by a strong Israel with secure and defensible borders. As George Washington said; “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” And for Israel to be prepared for war it needs defensible borders and a committed, unified population.

Calling for a right of return to Israel is part of a strategy to end the Zionist state, the same strategy that created the refugee situation in the beginning. There are consequences to starting wars and losing them. Click here to read more.

Wallace might want to read up a bit, and then tell his viewers next week that his statement was incorrect.

The Cognitive Dissonance of the American Jew

When the fox fails to reach the grapes, he decides he does not want them after all, an example of adaptive preference formation, designed to reduce cognitive dissonance — The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs, or from experiencing apparently conflicting phenomena. In simple terms, it can be the filtering of information that conflicts with what you already believe, in an effort to ignore that information and reinforce your beliefs.

Experience can clash with expectations, as, for example, with buyer's remorse following the purchase of an expensive item. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. People are biased to think of their choices as correct, despite any contrary evidence. This bias gives dissonance theory its predictive power, shedding light on otherwise puzzling irrational and destructive behavior.

A classic example of this idea (and the origin of the expression "sour grapes") is expressed in the fable The Fox and the Grapes by Aesop (ca. 620–564 BCE). In the story, a fox sees some high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat them. When the fox is unable to think of a way to reach them, he surmises that the grapes are probably not worth eating, as they must not be ripe or that they are sour. This example follows a pattern: one desires something, finds it unattainable, and reduces one's dissonance by criticizing it. Jon Elster calls this pattern "adaptive preference formation. [Source: Wikipedia and Science Daily]

The most prevalent example of cognitive dissonance is the attitudes and beliefs of the American Jew when it comes to Israel. I say American Jew because the Jews in Israel (Israelis) so not have this same physiological disease and there aren’t many Jews left in Europe.

For generations the American Jew has supported liberal, progressive, socialist and even communist ideologies. They have done this out a sense of justice and more so empathy. They are more in tune with the philosophies Marx, Lenin and the Fabian Socialists than of Locke, Burke, Smith or Frederic Bastiat. They have this ideology because of their generally higher levels of education, especially in the area of the arts where empathy rules and logic is looked upon as a conservative value.

A perfect example of this can be found in the great novel by Herman Wouk, The Winds of War and his sequel War And Remembrance. One of the main characters in the books is Aaron Jastrow, an intellectual Jew living in Italy. Jastrow has written several acclaimed and scholars books and sees himself as a person of some prominence. AS the war clouds gather over Europe Jastrow is warned several times by his niece’s fiancée, Leslie Slote, U.S. State Department official to get his affairs in order and return to the United States.

As the plot unfolds Jastrow keeps ignoring Slote’s warnings by claiming that Jew have always been able to weather the storms of history and that Hitler was really no different than other anti-Sematic tyrants of the past. This is Jastow’s cognitive dissonance (CD). When Hitler invades Poland and WWII breaks out in full Jastrow still claims to be safe in Italy. Finally after much persuasion by his niece, Natalie, and Slote Jastrow finally consents to return to the U.S. But, he has one problem — through neglect he has allowed his passport to expire and he must get a new one issued at the Embassy in Rome. Before this can happen Pearl Harbor is attacked, and Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. Now Jastrow is an enemy alien in a nation where a state of war with his country of citizenship.

Throughout the books as Jastrow is moved from an internment camp at Baden Baden to the “model” Jewish ghetto at Theresienstadt and finally to Auschwitz where he is murdered in he gas chamber and his body burned in the ovens.

All through the novels and the mini-series Wouk a Jewish naval officer who served in the Pacific) shows Jastrow in a constant state of denial as to what would happen to him if he did not take action to save himself and his niece. To me Aaron Jastrow, through the eyes of Herman Wouk, displayed the ultimate example of CD that affects so many American Jews today or as I like to call it the “Aaron Jastrow Syndrome” (AJS).

Last week in his speech before the State Department (an arm of our government with a long history of anti-Semitism) Obama dropped a bombshell by saying:

“So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”

What the president had said is essentially that rather than borders and boundaries being established as an end result of negotiations, the two states that will be created should be based on the 1967 lines, a conclusion that gives the Palestinian Authority its own desired boundaries — and takes away from Israel the necessary buffer zone it gained after the 1967 war, and from which it has been able to prevent attacks on its own people.

It is akin to the policy in which the Obama administration focused on their demand that Israel give up settlements, leading Fatah and Abbas to adopt a position that, until then, they were willing to negotiate. Ultimately, it put them in a corner from which they could not back down.

Moreover, the newly developed Hamas-Fatah “unity government” agreement has already made it clear that the Palestinian leadership will not honor the requirement that the existence of a Jewish state in the region must be accepted. As the president put it, “how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?” Not only have the PA leadership not provided “a credible answer to that question,” they have in effect done the exact opposite — made it clear that they will never do what is required.

In effect, the president is rewarding Abbas for his bad behavior, after the PA leader’s own recent op-ed in The New York Times in which he revealed his intransigence. Statehood, as he perceives it, is not an end in itself, but is put forth as the new means for waging a continuing war against Israel. That is why Jackson Diehl’s article in The Washington Post is so important. Diehl points out: “Desperate to jump-start an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Obama administration and its European allies are piling pressure on Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding that he offer a plan, concessions — something — that will provide the basis for starting negotiations with Palestinians.” As I said in a previous blog post there are two things you not do in public — make love and make peace. You can read more on this issue by clicking here.

Today I watched Obama address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) where he clarified and somewhat modified his previous remarks on Israel, but did not deviate from his comments on the 1967 borders. He received a standing ovation for the AIPAC crowd of Jewish donors. To me this was like Hitler telling the same audience he was ordering some great new ovens from Krupp and would be used to bake matzah.

Obama said to the AIPAC Crowd:

"There was nothing particularly original in my proposal; this basic framework for negotiations has long been the basis for discussions among the parties, including previous U.S. administrations,"

"What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately," he added, saying his remarks were no different than a "well-known formula" that has been worked on for a generation.

"It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.”

There has been talk of peace between Israel and its Muslim neighbors for 63 years and the same old, tired sayings and proposals are brought out. What Obama did do that was different was to tell the Muslim states he was on their side of this issue and wanted to pressure Israel into a corner.

Obama is an anti-Semite. He was mentored in Chicago by Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan — both virulent anti-Semites. His sympathies lie with the Islamic states and those at AIPAC just could not see it or choose to ignore it due to AJS. This is tantamount to people saying Hitler was not going to be influenced by the likes of Himmler, Heydrich, Julius Streicher and the rest of his NAZI cohorts. People who thought that were like Aaron Jastrow.

The American Jew just can’t let go of his devotion to the Democrat Party — no matter the consequences. I know because I had a Jewish partner who was born in Israel, fought in the 1973 war on the Golan Heights as a tank commander and still suffered from AJS.

The President of the United States has willingly and with forethought placed our long term ally, Israel, whose existence America has guaranteed since 1948, in an untenable situation by his attempt to impose a course of action that, if not followed by Israel, will further inflame the Muslim world and cause international sentiment to turn against Israel.

President Obama is attempting to force a settlement on terms dictated by the Arabs in the Middle East. By setting as a pre-condition the surrender of territory commensurate with the pre-1967 boundaries in any negotiations with the Palestinians, he has instead guaranteed further conflict.

Mr. Obama, the “smartest and ablest person to ever occupy the Oval Office” (as confirmed by his demeanor and sycophants in the media), either is naive and overweening (synonymous with the Left) or unaware of the failures throughout history caused by intimidating one's ally into giving up land in exchange for peace with someone bent on their destruction. I believe it’s the later. After all a community organizer doesn’t have to study any history beyond the 1965 and the civil rights movement.

However, in case the President wasn't aware, about this time 73 years ago there was an eerily similar situation taking place in Europe. Czechoslovakia was a country formed out of the re-drawing of boundaries after the horrific slaughter of World War I and the surrender of Germany and Austria. Much of the Czech border was adjacent to what was left of Germany. But it was defensible border against a nation which for decades exhibited a particularly aggressive stance against its neighbors.

The new nation quickly developed its own economy, government and military while avoiding much of the financial and political chaos taking place in Germany during the 1920's and 30's. However, along its border with Germany was a region called Sudetenland which contained many ethnic Germans, who for the most part were quite content to live within the boundaries of Czechoslovakia.

Adolf Hitler upon assuming power in Germany almost immediately began to cast his eye on recapturing and re-instituting the old German-speaking Empire in Europe. Once he realized that the other strong Western European powers would not stand in the way of his immediate ambitions, such as the re-occupation of the Rhineland (controlled by France), he cast his eye toward Czechoslovakia.

In April of 1938, Hitler, together with his allies in the Sudeten Nazi party, issued a demand that Sudetenland by made autonomous and allied with Nazi Germany. A request if granted would leave Czechoslovakia nearly unprotected, as almost all its border defenses were located in this region, as well a large portion of its industry. The Czech government refused to acquiesce to these absurd demands.

Hitler then, knowing that the governments of France and the United Kingdom were set on avoiding war at any cost, ratcheted up his demands and threatened to begin a war by invading Czechoslovakia. Both France and Britain advised the Czech government to accede to Hitler's demands or they would not support them in the event of a war.

Hitler and his henchmen then began to foment unrest in the Sudetenland, which prompted military action by the Czech army in an attempt to restore order. Hitler then claimed that the Czechs were indiscriminately slaughtering Sudeten Germans (a wholly false accusation). He demanded that the French and British acquiesce to the German takeover of the region. They agreed and issued an ultimatum to the Czechs, making their commitment to Czechoslovakia's existence contingent on accepting Hitler's demands.

The Czechs reluctantly accepted; however Hitler then increased his demands once more insisting that the claims of ethnic Germans in Poland and Hungary also be satisfied which would have the effect of further decreasing not only the border with Germany but also that of Poland to the north and Hungary to the South. The remaining Czechoslovakia could not survive in such a diminished state.

The Czech government refused these new demands and began to mobilize its military. On September 28, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlin, appealed for a conference with Hitler on this matter along with France and Italy. Czechoslovakia was not invited.

A deal was reached the next day. The German army was to occupy the Sudetenland by October 10, 1938, and an international commission would decide the fate of the other disputed areas; Hitler agreed that he had no further designs on the country and would leave the balance of the Czechoslovakia in peace. The allies would therefore guarantee the survival of the remainder of the country.

Czechoslovakia was informed by Britain and France that it could resist Nazi Germany alone, as they would not honor their defense agreements with Czechoslovakia or submit to the annexations and the terms of the Agreement. Given that option the Czechs capitulated.

Neville Chamberlin flew back to London and proclaimed this Agreement, now known as the "Munich Pact", together with a new peace treaty with Germany as "Peace in our time."

1. Within six months Czechoslovakia ceased to exist as:
2. October 1938: Germany occupies the Sudetenland
3. October 1938: Poland occupies parts of northern Czechoslovakia
4. November 1938: Hungary occupies parts of southern Czechoslovakia
5. March 1939: The remaining Czech territories were annexed and became part of Germany

Hitler having so successfully intimidated and bullied the European allies over Czechoslovakia and other territory then set his sights on Poland which was invaded in September of 1939 thus triggering the most devastating war in the history of mankind.

It is not a casual observation to notice how many parallels there are with the saga of Czechoslovakia and today's Israel.

Many of the immigrants to the new state of Israel in 1946-1948 originated in the cauldron that was Europe in the 1930's and 40's. They and their progeny remember what happened to Czechoslovakia and other countries that relied on the guarantees of so-called allies for their survival. Israel is surrounded by those whose primary ambition is to destroy and annihilate the people of that country. Barack Obama, by his recent actions, has forced a major question to be asked: will the United States reprise the role of France and Britain in 1938? Will Israel be intimidated and bullied into accepting terms that will have as their end-game the dissolution of the country?

Despite numerous efforts over the past forty years by Israel to negotiate and surrender some land, among other concessions, nothing has or will accomplish peace with the Palestinians and Muslim radicals unless and until all parties have an equal commitment to peace and most importantly respect for each other. How can this happen when Hamas and Hezbollah, both deemed terrorist organizations, are the main parties of any negotiations with Israel.

It would do well for the President to understand not only history but human nature before he attempts to satisfy his misguided ambition for an exalted place as the savior of the Middle East. His ham-handed attempt to force a settlement by appeasing the radical Arab street at the expense of Israel will only lead to a potential world-wide conflagration as Iran and it's jihadist allies will only be emboldened to seek more concessions and ultimately war.

So far the only potential Republican candidate for the Presidency to give a clear evaluation of Obama’s misguided Middle East policy has been Sarah Palin. You can see her remarks on FNC by clicking here.

For reactions from Israel click here

Did Obama Throw Israel Under The Bus?

Did Obama Throw Israel Under The Bus?"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." — George Washington from his Farewell Address, 1796

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic in Western Asia, located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is the world's only Jewish-majority state, and is defined as a Jewish and democratic state in its Basic Laws.

Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 and neighboring Arab states invaded the next day. Since then, Israel has fought a series of wars with neighboring Arab states, and has occupied territories, including the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, beyond those delineated in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. The border between Israel and the neighboring West Bank is not formally defined by the Israeli government, as a result of a complex and unresolved political situation. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts by elements on both sides to solve the problem diplomatically have so far met with only limited success.[Source: Wikipedia]

Following World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides. The territories Israel occupied since the 1967 war are not included in the Israel country profile, unless otherwise noted. On 25 April 1982, Israel withdrew from the Sinai pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. In keeping with the framework established at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, bilateral negotiations were conducted between Israel and Palestinian representatives and Syria to achieve a permanent settlement. Israel and Palestinian officials signed on 13 September 1993 a Declaration of Principles (also known as the "Oslo Accords") guiding an interim period of Palestinian self-rule. Outstanding territorial and other disputes with Jordan were resolved in the 26 October 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace. In addition, on 25 May 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982. In April 2003, US President Bushon, working in conjunction with the EU, UN, and Russia — the "Quartet" — took the lead in laying out a roadmap to a final settlement of the conflict by 2005, based on reciprocal steps by the two parties leading to two states, Israel and a democratic Palestine. However, progress toward a permanent status agreement was undermined by Israeli-Palestinian violence between September 2003 and February 2005. In the summer of 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, evacuating settlers and its military while retaining control over most points of entry into the Gaza Strip. The election of HAMAS to head the Palestinian Legislative Council froze relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Ehud Olmert became prime minister in March 2006 and presided over a 34-day conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon in June-August 2006 and a 23-day conflict with HAMAS in the Gaza Strip during December 2008 and January 2009. Olmert, who in June 2007 resumed talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, resigned in September 2008. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu formed a coalition in March 2009 following a February 2009 general election. Direct talks launched in September 2010 collapsed following the expiration of Israel's 10-month partial settlement construction moratorium in the West Bank. Diplomatic initiatives to revive the negotiations through proximity talks began at the end of 2010. [Source: CIA Fact Book]

I was just 12 years old when the state of Israel was created some 63 years ago. On May 14, 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, the Jewish Agency proclaimed independence, naming the country Israel. The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq—attacked Israel, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; Saudi Arabia sent a military contingent to operate under Egyptian command; Yemen declared war but did not take military action. After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. About 700,000 Palestinian refugees were expelled or fled the country during the conflict. Israel was accepted as a member of the United Nations by majority vote on May 11, 1949.

Since that day in 1948 Israel has been engaged in three wars, wars that threated the very existence of the nation. Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognize Israel, calling for its destruction. By 1966, Israeli-Arab relations had deteriorated to the point of actual battles taking place between official Israeli and Arab forces. In 1967, Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and announced a partial blockade of Israel's access to the Red Sea. Israel saw these actions as a casus belli for a pre-emptive strike that launched a Six-Day War, in which Israel was able to occupy the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem, and the 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories.

As the Arab states lost in the 1967 war against Israel, Arab non-state actors came to have a more central role in the conflict. Most important among them is the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), established in 1964, which initially committed itself to "armed struggle as the only way to liberate the homeland". In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

On October 6, 1973, as Jews were observing Yom Kippur, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. The war ended on October 26 with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering massive losses. An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for failures before and during the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign. Israel was on the verge of losing this war. They had lost part of their vaunted air force to Egypt’s Soviet supplied antiaircraft missiles and the IDF had lost numerous tanks in he battles with the Syrians on the Golan Heights. Without the resupply efforts from President Nikon Israel, especially of M-60 battle tanks, Israel might not have prevailed in this war. Since the 1973 War the Israelis have maintained their occupation of the Golan and will not give it up.

In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the PLO launched attacks and missiles at northern Israel; that move developed into the First Lebanon War. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone until 2000. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987 with waves of violence occurring in the occupied territories. Over the following six years, more than a thousand people were killed in the ensuing violence, much of which was internal Palestinian violence. During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO and many Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel, though Israel did not participate in that war. When I was in Israel the hotel I stayed at in Tel Aviv was about a half mile from the spot where a SCUD missile landed near the headquarters of the Israeli Air Force.

In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party promoted compromise with Israel's neighbors. The following year, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, on behalf of Israel and the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to self-govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The PLO also recognized Israel's right to exist and pledged an end to terrorism. In 1994, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel. Arab public support for the Accords was damaged by the continuation of Israeli settlements and checkpoints, and the deterioration of economic conditions. Israeli public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by Palestinian suicide attacks

At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron, and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority. Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanon and conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Yasser Arafat rejected it. After the collapse of the talks and a controversial visit by Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, the Second Intifada began. Sharon became prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.

In July 2006, a Hezbollah artillery assault on Israel's northern border communities and a cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers sparked the month-long Second Lebanon War. Two years later, in May 2008, Israel confirmed it had been discussing a peace treaty with Syria for a year, with Turkey as a go-between. However, at the end of the year, Israel entered another conflict as a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed. The Gaza War lasted three weeks and ended after Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire. Hamas announced its own ceasefire, with its own conditions of complete withdrawal and opening of border crossings. Despite neither the rocket launchings nor Israeli retaliatory strikes having completely stopped, the fragile ceasefire remained in order.

Since 1948 I have been a supporter of the State of Israel. In fact at one point in my life I wanted to go to Israel and join in the fight against the Arab States. This feeling was enhanced when I read the book Exodus and saw the 1960 film of the same name.

For 63 years Israel, a nation 7.5 million inhabitants, has been defending itself against many more millions of Arabs who want to destroy her. The Arab nations surrounding Israel have vowed not to rest until Israel is wiped off the face of the earth.

After the 1967 war Israel gained the territory known as the West Bank, an area of approximately 32 miles wide, stretching to the banks of the Jordan River. The West Bank also includes the city of Jerusalem. They also gained the strategic ground of the Golan Heights that overlooks the Sea of Galilee — a heights that would give Syria a tactical advantage over Israel fro artillery and rocket launches. The third piece of land Israel gained was a small strip of land abutting the shores of the Mediterranean Sea known as the Gaza Strip. This gives Israel a total land mass of just over 8,000 square miles.

Two days ago President Obama gave a speech where he stated he wanted Israel to back to the pre 1967 borders, something Israel will never do He proposed a two state solution with the Palestinians having their own sovereign nation. In essence he wanted Israel to return to borders they could not defend. This will never happen.

Next Tuesday, four days after he meets with President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu will address Congress. With Israel now confronting a triple-security threat that leaves the country more vulnerable than at any time since the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, it is imperative for the Israeli leader to stand firm.

Netanyahu's planned "peace initiative" has been undermined by recent events. With its peace treaty with Egypt fraying since Mubarak's forced departure, Gaza will surely become a Hamas arsenal. Reconciliation between Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, and the Palestinian Authority, too weak to resist, will trap Israel between Palestinian pincers in Gaza and the West Bank. Looming in September is United Nations recognition of Palestinian statehood, another step in that organization's persistent delegitimization of Israel.

Pressure continues to mount, from the international community and from the Obama administration, for Israel to relinquish the West Bank for a Palestinian state — and, presumably, "peace." That is a delusion.

It is time for Netanyahu, in his address to Congress, to decisively reject the seductive but menacing mantra of "land for peace." His recent declaration that the Palestinian Authority can have peace with Israel or with Hamas, but not both, was reassuring. His conditions for peace, recently outlined to the Knesset, sounded firm: Palestinian recognition of Israel; its refugee problem to be solved outside Israel's borders; settlement blocs to remain part of Israel, with Jerusalem as its united capital. But they are insufficient.

The West Bank mountain ridge forms the major land barrier against an attack from the east that could decimate the coastal plain (including Tel Aviv), where 70 percent of Israelis live. The widely despised Jewish settlements located there are not the primary obstacle to peace; enduring Arab hostility to a Jewish state is. Between 1948 and 1967, there were no settlements — and still no peace.

The prime minister might use his opportunity to remind the world that the West Bank, biblical Judea and Samaria, is the biblical homeland of the Jewish people. Two thousand years of ancient Jewish history unfolded there. If there is Jewish land anywhere in the world, it is there.

Until after the 1967 Six-Day War, however, this land was Judenrein (cleansed of Jews). Only then, following yet another failed Arab attempt to annihilate the Jewish state, could Jews return to live in their historical homeland. More than 300,000 Israelis have done so. Surrounding settlements with a Palestinian state will destroy them and undermine Israeli security. The alternative — Israeli expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews who live outside the settlement blocs — is no better. To me this sounds more like Poland in 1940 than a move towards peace in 2011. Where is Obama’s knowledge of History, or is just so anti-Semitic that he just doesn’t care.

Finally, given relentless international efforts to delegitimize Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu might remind critics that Jewish settlement, protected by international guarantees ever since 1922, is fully consistent with international law.

The League of Nations Mandate then cited "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and the legitimacy of grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." After Great Britain lopped off three-quarters of Palestine for Trans-Jordan (the first Palestinian state), Jews were assured the right of "close settlement" in the remaining land west of the Jordan River. That right has never been rescinded.

Article 80 of the United Nations Charter explicitly protected the rights of "any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." Drafted in 1945 by Jewish legal representatives (including Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the Prime Minister's father), it preserved the rights of the Jewish people to settle in all the land west of the Jordan River.

Settlement critics often cite Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, adopted in 1949 in the shadow of the Holocaust, as a restriction on settlement. They are mistaken. Drafted to prevent a repetition of the forced Nazi and Soviet deportations of civilian populations, it declared that an "Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."

The international lawyer Prof. Eugene V. Rostow, a former dean of Yale Law School and Undersecretary of State, stated in 1990:

“The Convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviet Union during and before the Second World War — the mass transfer of people into and out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example....The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are most emphatically volunteers. They have not been "deported" or "transferred" to the area by the Government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population it is the goal of the Geneva Convention to prevent.“

Ambassador Morris Abram, a member of the U.S. staff at the Nuremburg Tribunal and later involved in the drafting of the Fourth Geneva Convention is on record as stating that the convention:

“Was not designed to cover situations like Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, but rather the forcible transfer, deportation or resettlement of large numbers of people.”

Similarly, international lawyer Prof. Julius Stone, in referring to the absurdity of considering Israeli settlements as a violation of Article 49, stated:

“Irony would.be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49, designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that. the West Bank. must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49.”

This provision has no applicability to Jewish settlements. Neither during nor since the Six-Day War did Israel "deport" Palestinians from the West Bank or "transfer" Israelis there. Settlers acted on their own volition to restore a Jewish presence in the Jewish homeland — precisely as Zionist kibbutzniks had earlier done in the Galilee and Negev.

After the Six-Day War, Security Council Resolution 242 permitted Israel to administer the West Bank until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. (In case anyone has noticed, that has not yet happened.) Even then, Israel would be required only to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" — not from "the territories" or "all the territories."

The absence of "the," the missing definite article, was not accidental. The result of prolonged negotiation, it meant that Israel would not be required to withdraw from all the territory that it had acquired during the Six-Day War; indeed, precisely such proposals were defeated in both the Security Council and the General Assembly.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech should be framed with reminders of these international guarantees, the historic Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel, and the menacing security situation that Israel will confront should its ancient homeland be abandoned. The consequences for Israel of surrendering its legitimate security and its historic and internationally guaranteed land claims would be dire, if not fatal.

But if his past is prologue, then Netanyahu is likely to revert, once again, to what Harvard Yiddish scholar Ruth Wisse has aptly called "the Diaspora strategy of accommodation." This is precisely what Jewish statehood was intended to terminate.

Netanyahu's willingness to sacrifice Jewish land, first demonstrated when he capitulated to Clinton administration demands under the Oslo II Accords, is a disturbing harbinger. Last year he acceded to President Obama's insistence on a ten-month freeze on settlement construction — in return for nothing. Even after the freeze expired, with no discernible Palestinian willingness to resume peace negotiations, Netanyahu tacitly acquiesced to its continuation.

The other day I heard a liberal caller on a radio talk show argue that Netanyahu should talk with the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah in the pursuit of peace. When asked if the British should have talked with Hitler prior to the NAZI invasion of Czechoslovakia he responded yeas and that because the British did not talk with and try to understand Hitler the Second World War could have been prevented. This caller sounded like an educated person, but where did he get his education? He knew nothing of the Munich Conference or Chamberlin’s “peace in our time” statement after Hitler had bamboozled him. This is an example of the state and depth of knowledge the American people have of both the roots and caused of WWII and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Appeasement paved the way for one horrific Jewish tragedy. It is imperative for Israel's Prime Minister to state, clearly and unequivocally, that the Jewish state will not become another Czechoslovakia, sacrificed by "friends" to please its enemies. Clinging to the fantasy of land for peace can only deepen Israel's alarming vulnerability.

When Obama made his speech on Israel last week he demonstrated a definite pro-Palestinian position, something he should not have done if he expected ant sort of productive peace negotiations to develop. He has taken a position that will embolden the PLO, PLA Hamas and Hezbollah to push Israel for more and more appeasement. He has shown his himself to be definitely on the side against Israel. You can view a video interview with Democrat Congressman on CNN by clicking here. You will also know the absolute ignorance demonstrated by the CNN interviewer regarding the history of Israel. This is the state of knowledge the American people are getting from the media today.

Tea Party Rep. Allen West has just issued a response to Obama‘s announcement that he backs the Palestinians’ demand that Israel redraw its borders to where they were in 1967. Not only did he call the move the “most egregious foreign policy decision” the administration has made, but he also feared this “could be the beginning of the end as we know it for the Jewish state.”

“The pre-1967 borders endorsed by President Obama would deny millions of the world’s Jews access to their holiest site and force Israel to return the strategically important Golan Heights to Syria, a known state-sponsor of terrorism,” West said in an e-mail.

“Resorting to the pre-1967 borders would mean a full withdrawal by the Israelis from the West Bank and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Make no mistake, there has always been a Nation of Israel and Jerusalem has been and must always be recognized as its rightful capital.”

He concluded with some harsh criticisms: “President Obama has not stood for Israel or the Jewish people and has made it clear where the United States will stand when Palestine attempts to gain recognition of statehood by the United Nations. The President should focus on the real obstacle to security- the Palestinian leadership and its ultimate goal to eliminate Israel and the Jewish people.”

West has been an outspoken supporter of Israel in the past. Back in December he delivered a speech at the Americans Against Hate Pro-Israel Conference in Fort Lauderdale, FL:

Obama needs to learn that there are two thing you do not do in public —make love and make peace. Obama has shown himself over and over again to be an incompetent amateur when it comes to foreign affairs. Libya and Israel are just the latest examples.