American Values vs Middle East Refugees

Recently some have questioned what exactly are American values. . American values are based in our founding documents; there is probably not an American that at one time has not said "this is a free country". We are also a country of indivual rights; that all men are created equal (endowed with rights that can not be taken away by a government). We are a country of laws, not men and of course what has been coined the Protestant work ethic; in our free country self generated hard work, discipline, frugality and delayed gratification is the key to success and godliness. Like any moral code we often fall short, but as long as we strive toward such lofty goals, we will continue to get closer.

The vast majority of those coming from middle east countries are not immigrants; they are refugees, with no desire to assimilate into American jurisprudence . When the Syrian and Libyan refugees (most are military aged men that don't want to be forced into service with ISIS) are questioned, about a quarter back the mission of ISIS and over 95% prefer Sharia law over the American Criminal Justice system. Many of these refugees, when they settle in non-Muslim countries want to live in segregated communities ruled by Sharia law, and while other countries are welcome to do what they want, this is not possible in America, as it is in direct contradiction to the Constitution and our system of Criminal Justice. Further. "these seven nations were not chosen at random. They were all singled out as exceptional security risks in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015 and its 2016 extension. In fact, President Trump’s order does not even name the seven countries. It merely refers to the sections of U.S. Code that were changed by the Terrorist Prevention Act". The fact is there is a reason these countries were named as provocateurs of terrorism and just becasue they have not yet murdered anyone in the US yet, does not mean the terrorists from these countries have not wreaked havoc and murdered in other countries. And while some have questioned the nature of the roll out of President Trumps "extreme vetting", US intelligence, ICE and Homeland Security have said that this type vetting has been too long over due.

Speaking of Criminal Justice, there is nothing that President Trump has done that is in any way illegal. It was Obama that continually talked with contempt about the Constitutional restrictions of the Executive Branch, including the separation of powers. The reason President Trump can so easily strike down the legacy of Obama is becasue he never used the rule of law to create his policies, rather he attempted to rule by fiat with Executive Actions; and what was created by Presidential decree, can just as easily be revoked by Presidential decree. As a matter of fact, much of what President Trump has done is to demand by EA that currently laws be enforced, rather than be ignored as was done by Obama's EA. Yet you have Democrats that will insist that any policy they don't like must be illegal, and even more absurd, that the enforcement of current law is unconstitutional; you just can't make stuff like this up! No one would believe such things would occur in the real world (until it does).

Is President Obama a Sunni?

Why is President Obama  so intent on destabilizing the Middle East (and Libya) while  fighting along side the extremist  Sunnis? So far he as destabilized Libya, now in controlled by al Qaeda, destabilized Egypt were the President stood up for the Sunni extremist Muslim Brotherhood and now all that's needed for the Sunni Caliphate is the capitulation of Syria. The US assault on Syria is an interesting campaign of retribution, propaganda and the US unholy alliance with (Sunni) Saudi Arabia.  A year ago President Obama  armed and trained (Sunnis) al Qaeda fighters, calling them Syrian Rebel  fighters; known today as  ISIS or the Islamic State. Prior to the Syrian assault, the US and Saudi Arabia consistently blames Syria for allowing terrorists training camps. This was quite the absurdity   as Saudi Arabia probably funds over 90% of the radical Sunni terrorists in the middle East (9 out of 15 of the hijackers on 9/11/2001 were citizens of Saudi Arabia).

When chemical weapons were used on civilians and Syrian soldiers during this assault on Syria, the US was quick to blame it on Assad; with some very questionable evidence and reasoning. However is was thought almost from the beginning that the use of poison gas would only benefit the Syrian Rebels; it was confirmed later by a UN investigation that radical Sunni jihadists in the Syrian Rebel army had gassed their own people in  an agent provocateur act to create international condemnation of Assad. Then there is the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. While it was strategically a US disaster, there is also evidence from numerous sources that confiscated Libyan weapons were being stored in Benghazi by the CIA (there were 31 CIA agents in Benghazi at the time the US embassy was attacked) to arm the Syrian Rebels The Real Benghazi Story ;

It appears the attack occurred when a local al Qaeda wanted the guns for themselves and swarmed the embassy and annex building and seized the weaponry; this is the reason there was so much misdirection form from the White House, trying to create an alternate explanation. When the US followed the Russian lead, ending the assault on Syria, to allow Assad to turn over his chemical arsenal, Saudi Arabia was furious as Obama had promised to remove Assad. The plan now, as I understand is the US is going to arm the Syrian Rebel fighters (of which over 90% are now loyal to ISIS) to fight ISIS?? Only if the endgame is to bring down the Syrian regime does this make any sense. Of course Syria has it's friends like Russia and Iran that may take exception to such an endgame. For right now Assad has been told not to fire on US fighter planes as they are not to attack Syria; for now.   

The Democrats Problem with Obama's New Deal

What is  becoming more and more difficult is the Democrat left differentiating Obama's policies and Bush (43's) legacy. There is practically no Bush policy that candidate Obama ran against, that he has not now embraced (with the exception of an official policy allowing toture).  The liberal bloggers that blame conservatives for the concentration of wealth, and the middle class losing ground seem to have forgotten that it is now year 5 of President Obama's policies. Even the liberal Mother Jones has to question what happened to the Obama promises From Guantanamo to Limitless War, Obama's Failure to Live Up to His Own Five Commandments

Below is a portion of a post from a liberal blogger (WS) that is almost comical in it's hubris that they are not describing their own President.
(WS)  Modern conservatives have much in common with Fascism, they are for a strong military police type state where everyone is monitored and controlled as well as concentrating power and wealth at the top. Republicans championed the Patriot Act and are responsible for reducing many of Americans personal freedoms. Income disparity is a direct result of conservatives deregulating the financial markets and weakening unions.*

As far as fascism, very few understood what candidate Obama meant when he called for a “civilian national security force being just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the U.S. military"; we now know it was his intention to expand Homeland Security as a federal police force. While Bush may have championed the Patriot act, the vote in 2001 and the subsequent reauthorizations under President Obama; the Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and the Patriot Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 all received bipartisan approval with a majority of both parties. Then you have President Obama signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens and self derived power allowing his killing of an American citizen overseas, who are deemed terrorist without due process along with non-American citizens (he says has a list where he personally gives a gladiatorial contest thumbs down when the drone has the victim in it's sight ; and now the lawyer that wrote the law brief saying it is legal to kill American citizen terrorists has been nominated by Obama to a federal appellate court. You may remember how Obama castigated Bush and the Iraq war for invading a country and overthrowing it's leadership when the country did not constitute a national security threat, yet now Obama has been part and parcel of the overthrow of Libya, Egypt and the attempted overthrow of Syria; all three not approaching anything close to a national security threat and are now more unstable and dangerous than before.

*(continued) Make no mistake about it as discontent grows there will be a correction just as there was after the great depression which ushered in several decades of progressive power including the New Deal policies that benefit working people to this day.

Is this really the correction the Democrats are championing? Do you really think that President Obama is offering the American people anything that reeks of a new Deal? FDR put people to work, Obama has lowered unemployment by discouraged workers dropping out of  the labor force; FDR built and re-build the national infrastructure; the Obama Stimulus couldn't find any shovel ready jobs (which Obama later admitted never existed to begin with). And while the President wants universal healthcare, all that has happened is millions of cancelled heathcare policies and new policies that have less coverage and are more expensive. And then there is promise about keeping your  health-plan and /or doctor if you like both or either;  funny, I don't remember FDR lying to the American people when he was championing the New Deal.

The Ukraine, Benghazi and Obama's War on Reality

The Obama Administration continue their war against reality when we look at the Ukraine. First, there is no doubt in anyone with any knowledge of the area, that the vast majority of the population of Crimea is Russian, and the vote to be annexed by Russia was a populace and expected move. It is also known that about 50-60% of the Eastern Ukrainians are also Russian and do not want to be part of the EU; this has led to protests in the city of Donetsk and two other eastern cities by several hundred pro-Russian demonstrators. What is Washington's response? The United States says there is "strong evidence that pro-Russian demonstrators in eastern Ukraine are being paid." The White House said some of the demonstrators who took over a government building and proclaimed independence from Ukraine were not local residents. White House spokesman Jay Carney said "I think that at least suggests that outside forces, not local forces, were participating in the effort to create these provocations." The obvious question is, how in the world could they know this? It took the CIA and the FBI almost a month before they figured out the terrorists that attacked and killed our Libyan Ambassador in Benghazi on 9/11*, were not a local group protesting a YouTube video almost no one has ever saw, but now they tell us they have identified hundreds Ukrainian protestors and know where they came from. Perhaps the real reason is, like Egypt and Syria, the Obama Administration can not accept that world does not revolve around President Obama, and people in other countries may want something other than what President Obama believes is to his best advantage. So true to form, when reality doesn't present Obama with the narrative that suits him, he simply tries to create a different reality.

 *I mean who would have thought that a terrorists group linked with al Qaeda would attack an US embassy on the anniversary of 911? Of course it might the unsubstantiated story the CIA was smuggling arms  to the Syrian Rebels (used by both sides of the Libyan war), also linked with al Qaeda on the same night, and simply did not want to explain they what they were up to.

Another reason is the shore up what has been seen as a lack of any cohesive foreign policy in the region. Libya is in tatters (the President and NATO seems to have done the impossible of making Lybia worse than it was under Gaddafi). While President Obama had courted the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi as the new President of Egypt, two years later the  people took to the streets by the millions (possibly 30 million; labeled by many as the largest public protest in history) to oust President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood; branding them as a terrorists organization (something President Obama has still refused to do despite atrocities carried out by the organization world wide). There is also the Syrian "problem" were President Obama promised Saudi Arabia he would dethrone Assad. But even with supplying al Qaeda and al Qaeda aligned  Syrian "rebels" and atrocities on both sides (evidence of poison gas used by both sides) Assad has not so easily dethroned (and it appears President Obama has moved on).  As the war was about to devolve into a proxy war  with the US (representing Saudi Arabia), al-Queda and the Sunnis on one side and Russia, Assad, Hezbollah, and  the Shiites on the other ( My Enemy's Enemy),  Russia brokered a cease fire giving Obama an out, leaving Saudi Arabia feeling like an American who thought he could keep their healthcare plan and doctor under ObamaCare, and then being told by the President, "I never said that."

As is typical, the authoritarian regime that has been constructed by Obama and the Democrats seek to control reality, knowing that any government that seeks to institute collective control, must be seen as trustworthy and infallible. This means the government must constantly fight the war against reality; never before has an American President told so many lies and never has the main street press ignored so much; both of which is part and parcel of any collective government (the truth is we are facing  fascism but most don't understand the meaning) Creeping Fascism.

President Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy

The main stream press is not reporting much of this, but the Arab spring of last year has turned into civil war and turmoil in both Libya and Egypt. Libya has now become the main base of the terror group in the region (al Queda), heightening the instability of what is already a volatile country. The al Qaeda Headquarters in Lybia and Egypt is embroiled in another civil war in an attempt to oust the Muslim Brotherhood that took over after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak. Anti-government protesters say that now that the Muslim Brotherhood has its hands on the levers of power, it's using them to enforce its version of Islam on society. In particular they say the constitution, forced through by Morsi, needs rewriting.
Egypt Teeters On The Brink Of The Future
And of course the attempt by the US to undermine the Bashar al-Assad in Syria has led the US to arm al Qaeda, created tensions between the US and Russia on the lack of proof that the Assad used chemical weapons, and has turned in to a Shite/Sunni holy war with the inclusion of Hezbollah. Regardless of the facts of who is using the sarin gas, we clearly have a proxy war building in Syria, with the US , al Qaeda and the Sunnis on one side and Russia, Assad, Hezbollah, and the Shiites on the other. Is Obama Going Down The Same Path of G. Bush and WMDs? .

Probably the most laughable moment in the President Obama's foreign policy (laughable in a very overtly propaganda sense) is Director of National Intelligence James Clapper telling congress that the Muslin Brotherhood in Egypt is "largely secular". Obama Administration Corrects Clapper's Claim That Muslim Brotherhood Is 'Secular . Of course the reality was once the Muslim Brotherhood took power is was business as usual for the (now?) non-secular Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, the Constitution was not inclusive and it did not consecrate the values of citizenship, freedom and human rights. Rather, the Constitution limited freedoms and human rights, and canceled the equality between men and women
Muslim Brotherhood’s Unilateralism Harmed the Egyptian Revolution

This appears to be the legacy of President Obama; the over throwing (or attempt) of the sovereign states of Egypt, Libya and now Syria and handing the countries over the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood. As in Iraq, the removal of a strong man/ dictator has resulted in sectarian violence and civil war. While the Presidential rhetoric has always been the need for Democracy in these countries, the reality is the citizenry in these Arab states are simply ignorant when it comes to the responsibilities of a Democracy and the end result always turns to Islam and Sharia law. One has to wonder why the President of the United States, the Land of Liberty is so apologetic towards Eastern Islam (ie the Muslim Brotherhood), which is violently misogynic, vehement anti-gay and anti-education and overtly antidemocratic; as the saying goes, an Arab democracy means 1 man, one vote, 1 time.

Update: in a story the American Media has refused to run, a Catholic Priest was beheaded by Syrian freedom fighters linked to al Queda. Catholic Priest Beheaded in Syria by Al-Qaeda-Linked Rebels as Men and Children Take Pictures and Cheer These are the rebels the US is arming to take down the "murderous" al-Assad Syrian rebels accept help from US,pledge loyalty to al-Qaida If nothing else it shows that the Obama Administration once again views itself above the law, the providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations 18 USC § 2339B

Libya; The Humanitarian Misdirection

It should come as no surprise that our president is being less than honest regarding the US and NATO's attack on Libya. What started out looking like a humanitarian action, is now looking like one of those sponsored coup-d’etats the CIA so busied itself with in the 50s, 60s and 70s. According to the UK Daily Mail, British Special forces have been in Libya for over a month. What is now becoming clear however is the coalition has been given some strange rules of engagement; the rebels (usually called a Liberation Army) are now civilians. So any attempt by the Gaddifi to repel the ad-hoc rebellion is met with accusations that the Libyan army was using "indiscriminate" use of force and was killing civilians; it doesn't seem to matter that these protesters and civilians are armed to the teeth with RPG's, anti-aircraft missile and are even driving tanks. There also seems to be a lot of evidence that this military effort is far from a humanitarian affair.

The humanitarian label was used to describe the so-called, NFZ (No Fly Zone); the idea that Libyan military aircraft was bombing and strafing civilians (aka anti-government forces). The NFZ, is to simply stop Libya from using aircraft against the rebel forces. The positive side of a NFZ is keeping Libyan aircraft on the ground is easily accomplished. While Libya has a rather formidable looking airforce on paper, reality is a different story. Yes, Libya has some 200 military aircraft including 23 Mig-21s,109 Mig-23s and 38 SU-22s, the truth is we don't know how many are actually airworthy. It may not be common knowledge, it it takes more more maintenance to fly these jets than actual flight time. We do know it was the SU-22s Gadiffi was used to bomb the protesters, resulting in one crew intentionally crashing the plane and the civilian rebels have claimed to also shot down a number of them (as I said these civilians mean business). The fact is that coalition forces were acting beyond a NFZ almost from the beginning. After taking out command and control, radar installations and anti-aircraft batteries, they started hunting for Libyan army forces; bombing troops, armament, or anything else that looks like a military target. Further, The Saudis have been arming the rebels for months in anticipation of this uprising and the US is publicly weighing the option of openly arming the rebels against Libya. This of course has led to much more collateral damage than just a NFZ and has led to dissension within the coalition, especially amongst the Arab League, where chief Amr Moussa on Sunday condemned what he called the "bombardment of civilians."

On “This Week,” ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper asked Gates, “Do you think Libya posed an actual or imminent threat to the United States?”

“No, no,” Gates replied to ABC’s Jake Tapper, “It was not — it was not a vital national interest to the United States, but it was an interest and it was an interest for all of the reasons Secretary Clinton talked about. The engagement of the Arabs, the engagement of the Europeans, the general humanitarian question that was at stake,” he said. And of course President Obama did not notify Congress; from ABC NEWS

During his campaign for the Presidency, in December, 2007, Barack Obama told The Boston Globe that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Earlier in 2007, then-Senator Hillary Clinton said in a speech on the Senate floor that, “If the administration believes that any -- any -- use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority.”

When Secretary of State Clinton asked in regards to Libya, “Why not got to Congress?” she replied, “Well, we would welcome congressional support,” the Secretary said, “but I don't think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention where we are one of a number of countries participating to enforce a humanitarian mission is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama was speaking of several years ago.” “I think that this had a limited time frame, a very clearly defined mission which we are in the process of fulfilling,” Clinton said.

Clinton's response seemed especially dishonest as #1 the US had a much larger coalition under Bush in Iraq and one of the main criticism of Obama's foray into Lybia is a seemingly total lack of definition, beyond pulling out and handing over control to Canada and NATO, allowing Obama to be lead but not be in charge; something which seems to define the Obama presidency. Further, the idea that there was not time to inform Congress is absurd in the fact that Obama stated the “When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” as far back as Feb 26.

So here are the lies. This military action is humanitarian; no we have taken sides in a civil war and are bombing and invading Libya. There will be no boots on the ground; no, we already have coalition special forces working with the rebels on the ground. From The Nation“We do not provide close air support for the opposition forces.” he said, “We protect civilians.” But he followed that immediately by noting that since the opposition, even armed, are civilians, the United States will protect them, too.” Does that include sharing military intelligence? “I’m not going to talk about sharing intelligence with the Libyan opposition.”

Here is where we have an obvious dis-connect. The Obama Administration denies using coalition war planes as air support for the rebels, and British officials say "the UK force is under very clear directions not to get drawn into close combat operations with regime forces unless their own lives are threatened or in extreme circumstances in which Gaddafi forces are killing unarmed civilians" and senior official said, "Our aim is maintain a low profile, and simply deliver information and facilitate the situation for other agencies to splash (destroy) the targets." So we are meant to believe that even though the British Commandos and Rebels have the same military goals and the coalition is supplying close air support for the British Commandos on the ground, they are not for the rebels, even though the two are fighting side by side. Further the Obama Administration fudges when asked if the British Commandos and Rebels are sharing military intelligence, as if it were possible for them not to.

In the final analysis, I will leave you with another exchange that demonstrates the absurdity of the so called Humanitarian rational for the attacks on Libya; again from the UK Daily Mail,

“Q: If opposition forces are trying to take back a city that Gadhafi holds, couldn't you argue that they would be attacking civilians; and therefore, would they be targeted as well?

“GENERAL HAM: Again, I'm not crazy about...answering the hypothetical questions. We would have to look at that situation as it was unfolding. We do have a mission to protect civilians. And we would have to make an assessment as that unfolded as to what our actions might be, consistent with 1973 and consistent with our mission.”

The UK writer editorializes with, "It stretches credulity, of course, to imagine that the United States would bomb the opposition if it tried to capture a city."

So no one has been able to explain how defining all those opposed to the Gaddifi regime as civilian victims, regardless of their level of armament and how the US and NATO are simply taking sides in a civil war to remove Gaddifi from power. If not humanitarian reasons then why did President Obama involve the US? Here one has to turn to conjecture. Libya only supplies .63% of US oil, however 85% of Libyan oil goes to Europe. So it appears this is another blood for oil battle, but this time Obama is demonstrating his willingness to engage in European discretionary battles outside the national interests of the United States; bypassing congress in the process. Further, while the uprisings in Libya and other Arabic nations have been titled Democratic, there is a lot of evidence that the uprising also have an Islamic Sharia bent. It is no secret that the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized political party in the region and it is likely the Democratic uprising will result in a "vote once" for the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia Law. If this materializes it would result in accolades for President Obama from from the Arabic nations; something the President has been openly pursuing to the detriment of the United States previous allies such as Britain and Israel.