"How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another." ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Al Qaeda is now ISIS or ISIL and we must fight them in Iraq and Syria, before we must fight them over here!
Washington Post -- "Obama calls for unity against the 'cancer of violent extremism'"
In his remarks of September 24th the President of the United States spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, an organization dedicated to world peace and ramped up his rhetoric for war. If you closed your eyes you could almost hear the nasal tang of George W. Bush, but that was a different political party with a different political philosophy, wasn't it? The Neocons are all gone now, aren't they? Barack Obama is a Democrat and a Nobel Peace Prize winner and when elected, kept as the lone holdover from the Bush cabinet Robert Gates, as Secretary of Defense. Robert Gates had worked for the CIA most of his adult life; he's the same Robert Gates once accused of stealing Jimmy Carter's debate notes, which mysteriously ended up in the hands of Ronald Reagan.
The same Robert Gates who was waist deep in the Iran-Contra scandal; the same Robert Gates who headed the CIA's operation Neptune Spear. This was a CIA led mission not to capture, but to murder Osama Bin Laden. Entering a sovereign nation illegally, with intent to kill" only, when did the CIA become a branch of the military? Gates retired in July of 2011, Barack Obama presented Gates with the Medal of Freedom, praising him to the heavens, after which, Gates wrote a book slamming Obama.
So do tell me, who are these violent extremists? Who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan? Who bombed Somalia and Syria?
And yet there is a pervasive unease in our world -- a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers, and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces. As we gather here, an outbreak of Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa, and threatens to move rapidly across borders. Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition. The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness. ~ Barack Obama
"If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there" ~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Between January and August of this year, 4,035 rockets and mortar shells landed in Israel, fired from Palestine. Technically, Palestine is not a nation, but a territory. If it were a nation, Israel would be guilty of war crimes. The Gaza Strip is under a blockade and a blockade is an act of war. Israel responded to these attacks which, after eight months, had killed eight and wounded 60, with air attacks by jet fighters dropping high-tech 2,000 pound bombs on civilian neighborhoods. The retaliation caused 1,663 Palestinian deaths and nearly ten thousand injuries in a territory without an army, a navy or an air force. The Israeli's demanded Palestinians leave an area comprising nearly 20 percent of the Gaza Strip or face the wrath of the Israeli military.
Imagine the British, ordering Irish civilians to leave the border areas of Northern Ireland or face the falling bombs of the Royal Air force. Imagine Barack Obama ordering Mexicans to leave Tijuana or face air strikes in an attempt to combat drug gangs.
"For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. . . Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist." ~ Barack Obama
Collective punishment is a form of retaliation whereby a suspected perpetrator's family members, friends, acquaintances, sects or entire ethnic groups are targeted. The punished often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups or have any control over their actions. In times of armed conflict, collective punishment often takes the form of atrocities; it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime. Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by resistance movements.
"It is better to be feared than loved." ~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Three weeks before stepping down as Defense Secretary, Robert Gates gave a blistering 20-minute oration in Brussels reading the riot act to a stunned elite audience of European officers, diplomats, and officials. NATO, he warned, "had degenerated into a 'two-tiered' alliance of those willing to wage war and those only interested in 'talking' and peacekeeping." The nerve of those limp-wristed Europeans, only willing to talk and do peacekeeping. But was Gates speaking for himself or was he speaking for Obama? Did the President ever repudiate those remarks?
"Russia's actions in Ukraine challenge this post-war order. Here are the facts. After the people of Ukraine mobilized popular protests and calls for reform, their corrupt President fled. Against the will of the government in Kiev, Crimea was annexed. Russia poured arms into Eastern Ukraine, fueling violent separatists and a conflict that has killed thousands." ~ Barack Obama
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