Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

The Global Corrupt Clinton Dynasty

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When it comes to Hillary, the challenge is to have an imagination and begin to ask peculiar questions. There are hedge funds, gold, hidden cable communications, affairs, people known only by an alias and more. But here are yet a few more items for the corruption dossier.

“If she gets in the race, of course this time will be different. And her team will reflect that,” said Nick Merrill, who is currently Clinton’s only on-the-record spokesman.

The expected campaign manager, Robby Mook, values organizing as much as he does data, strategy and messaging. He and campaign chairman John Podesta will be tasked with juggling competing interests and personalities within the campaign and outside of it, from the Clintons on down. Communications head Jennifer Palmieri, who left the Obama administration last week, is seen by reporters and operatives alike as someone who can disagree with those who cover the campaign but will do so respectfully and professionally.

During her last campaign, Clinton’s team was rife with backstabbing, credit claiming, and finger-pointing. Decisions were often put off indefinitely and then made under duress. Her communications staff could be abusive and uncooperative with reporters. For much of the campaign, she was cloistered from voters, reluctant to even hint at the historic nature of her candidacy. And Bill Clinton, at times one of his wife’s greatest assets, was also often huge liability, letting his anger toward Barack Obama show throughout the early months of 2008.

*** While there is a team of Republicans that have a Hillary war-room assigned to researching her entire history, Hillary is hiring a legal team to fend off political attacks. Questions are bubbling to the surface with what media and operatives are uncovering and with good reason.

Emails and Benghazi

Hillary Clinton emailed with her top advisers at the State Department about the 2012 attacks in Benghazi on their own personal emails, despite repeated assurances that she contacted employees on their official addresses, The New York Times is reporting. Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, as well as senior aides Huma Abedin and Philippe Reines, all occasionally emailed Clinton with personal email addresses of their own, the newspaper reported.

The news comes as Clinton continues to face controversy related to her exclusive use of a private email address while at the State Department. Clinton’s team partly justified that email address, which remained on a private server outside the grasp of State, by assuring reporters that it was “her practice to email government officials on their .gov accounts” in order to be sure that they were “immediately captured” as public records.

On top of the more than 30,000 emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department, the House Select Committee on Benghazi is reviewing about 300 that could be related to its investigation. While those emails are not yet public, the Times report sheds light on their content.

The emails reportedly do not lend credibility to allegations of a cover-up of the Benghazi attacks, but they do show her correspondence after a House hearing about a month after the September attacks. Clinton didn’t testify until January, but another State Department official appeared at that hearing.

“Did we survive the day?” Clinton reportedly wrote in an email to an adviser.

“Survive, yes,” the adviser responded, adding that he’ll monitor the public’s reaction, according to the Times.

The emails also reportedly show that Clinton’s camp had initially been worried that she had publicly blamed the attacks on a spontaneous protest instead of an orchestrated terror attack. That initial characterization dogged then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, who made the Sunday show rounds connecting the attacks to outcry from an anti-Muslim YouTube video.

Rice was criticized for playing down the attack once the administration began to refer to it as an act of terror. Sullivan emailed Clinton to assure her that she never “characterized the motivation” of the attackers as “spontaneous.”

House Republicans, specifically in the select Benghazi committee, continue to spar with Clinton over her private emails.

Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C) officially requested that she turn over her private server so that an independent investigator can explore whether she deleted any official emails to hide them from public scrutiny.

Mezvinsky, the Son-in-Law

The NYTimes suggesting that Mezvinsky–who is married to Chelsea Clinton–has been able to gain access to investors with ties to the Clintons for the hedge fund he cofounded that’s had “underwhelming returns.”

Back in 2011, Mezvinsky, now 37, and two former Goldman Sachs colleagues–Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon–began raising money for Eaglevale Partners LP.

Some of Eaglevale’s investors include hedge fund billionaire Marc Lasry and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, the report said.

Lasry, a longtime Clinton friend, runs Avenue Capital where Chelsea previously worked after graduating from Stanford. Lasry told the NYTimes that he “gave them money because I thought they would make me money.”

A Goldman spokesman told the NYTimes that Blankfein invested in Eaglevale because of his relationship with Grau, the fund’s chief investment officer. At the DealBook Conference in December, Blankfein, who has been a strong supporter of Democrats in the past, said he’s “always been a fan of Hillary Clinton.” Hillary is expected to announce her presidential campaign soon.

One source said Mezvinsky didn’t raise that much money though.

From the NYT:

A person briefed on the matter and close to the firm said the amount of investor money recruited by Mr. Mezvinsky is not large, amounting to less than 10 percent of the firm’s total outside capital. Clinton supporters also say there are more direct ways to cultivate favor with the family, such as giving to the foundation, where Chelsea Clinton is vice chairwoman, than by investing with a hedge fund that her husband co-founded.

Eaglevale currently manages around $400 million in assets.

Haiti, Gold and Hillary’s Brother

It also has become a potentially problematic issue for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she considers a second presidential run, after it was revealed this month that in 2013, one of her brothers was added to the advisory board of the company that owns the mine.

Tony Rodham’s involvement with the mine, which has become a source of controversy in Haiti because of concern about potential environmental damage and the belief that the project will primarily benefit foreign investors, was first revealed in publicity about an upcoming book on the Clintons by author Peter Schweizer.

In interviews with The Washington Post, both Rodham and the chief executive of Delaware-based VCS Mining said they were introduced at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative — an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation that critics have long alleged invites a blurring of its charitable mission with the business interests of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their corporate donors.

 

 

Can you be Arrested by an Immigrant?

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The death of sovereignty. The death or outrage. The death of moral clarity. The death of allegiance. Remember as you read below, police officers must attend a police academy at their own expense and purchase a weapon of their own choice. Now ask yourself, who is paying the tuition and for the firearm?

Police departments hiring immigrants as officers

Law enforcement agencies struggling to fill their ranks or connect with their increasingly diverse populations are turning to immigrants to fill the gap.

Most agencies in the country require officers or deputies to be U.S. citizens, but some are allowing immigrants who are legally in the country to wear the badge. From Hawaii to Vermont, agencies are allowing green-card holders and legal immigrants with work permits to join their ranks.

At a time when 25,000 non-U.S. citizens are serving in the U.S. military, some feel it’s time for more police and sheriff departments to do the same. That’s why the Nashville Police Department is joining other departments to push the state legislature to change a law that bars non-citizens from becoming law enforcement officers.

Department spokesman Don Aaron said they want immigrants who have been honorably discharged from the military to be eligible for service.

“Persons who have given of themselves in the service to this country potentially have much to offer Tennesseans,” he said. “We feel that … would benefit both the country and this city.”

Current rules vary across departments.

Some, like the Chicago and Hawaii police departments, allow any immigrant with a work authorization from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become an officer. That means people in the country on temporary visas or are applying for green cards can join.

Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Justin Mullins said the department usually struggles to fill trooper positions in less populous corners of the state, including patrol sectors high up in the mountains. He said immigrants from Canada, the Bahamas, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Central America who are willing to live in those remote places have helped the agency fill those vacancies.

“People that want to live there and build a family there and work there is a little more difficult to find,” Mullins said. “People moving from out of state, or out of the country, if they’re willing to work in these areas, then that’s great for us.”

Other agencies, like the Cincinnati Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, require that officers at least have a pending citizenship application on file with the federal government. And others, like the Burlington, Vt., and Boulder, Colo., police departments, require that officers be legal permanent residents, or green-card holders.

With more immigrants moving to places far from the southern border or away from traditional immigrant magnets like New York City or Miami, agency leaders say it’s important to have a more diverse police force to communicate with those immigrants and understand their culture. Bruce Bovat, deputy chief of operations in Burlington, said their immigrant officers help the agency be more “reflective of the community we serve.”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said he has no problems with green-card holders becoming police officers because they’ve made a long-term commitment to the country and have undergone extensive background checks. But he worries about the security risks associated with allowing any immigrant with a work permit to become an officer, especially considering that the Obama administration has given hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants work permits.

“We’re handing over a gun and a badge to somebody whose background we don’t really know a lot about,” Krikorian said.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said any immigrant authorized to work in the U.S. has already undergone a thorough background check and will undergo even more screening in the police application process.

“The security risk is a straw man,” he said. “This is about people who have gone through criminal background checks, who are meeting the very high standards that we set as a country to stay here and who only want to serve and protect their communities.”

Now we should take a look at small town Iowa.

For small-town America, new immigrants pose linguistic, cultural challenges

A new generation of immigrants is arriving in Midwest towns from far-flung places such as Myanmar, Somalia, and Iraq. The communities are trying to adjust.

Marshalltown, Iowa — The voice was frantic – and unintelligible to the 911 dispatcher. “Ma’am, I cannot understand you,” she said. After 80 seconds, one word leapt out: “Riverview.”

On a warm July evening in 2012, while Marshalltown, Iowa, celebrated Independence Day, three refugee children from Myanmar (Burma) drowned in the Iowa River. The drownings at Riverview Park cast a grim light on the challenges facing both the city and its newest immigrants, most of whom spoke little English and had scant understanding of life in their new home – including the perils, known to more established residents, of the river’s treacherous currents.

“We preach to kids all the time: You don’t swim in the river. You don’t play around the river,” says Kay Beach, president of the Marshalltown school board. “But they didn’t know that.”

For two decades, rural communities across the Midwest have been finding ways to absorb Latino immigrants. Now, a new generation of immigrants arriving from far-flung places such as Myanmar, Somalia, Iraq, and West Africa has brought a bewildering variety of cultures and languages. Many towns are struggling to cope.

Experts say the changing face of immigration in the rural Midwest reflects stricter federal enforcement. Tighter border security has slowed the influx of immigrants from Latin America entering the United States illegally. Meanwhile, the meatpacking industry has looked to refugees, who enjoy legal status, as a way of avoiding problems with undocumented Hispanic workers.

Much of the difficulty surrounding the new immigration is linguistic. Language barriers complicate services from law enforcement to health care. Ms. Beach recalls a school expulsion hearing that required two interpreters – the first to translate from one dialect of Myanmar to another, the second to translate into English.

Cultural differences can cause problems, too. “Back where we come from, people used to live how they want,” says Nyein Pay, who was a guerrilla fighter against the Burmese government and now cuts pork at a local meatpacking plant. “We used to grow up in the forest. Here we live in a city. It’s different. Here they have tight laws.”

Communities are trying to adjust. After the Marshalltown drownings, the schools and the local YMCA organized swimming classes. In Columbus Junction, Iowa, the town started a community garden for immigrants from Myanmar; the local health clinic hired an interpreter.

Mallory Smith, director of the Columbus Junction Community Development Center, says police have grown experienced at dealing with language barriers. “You know when you’ve got to use sign language, to use simple words, to draw a picture, or get a translator.”

Hillary Obstruction, Secrecy Called Out in Ad

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvHGDSCvi00&feature=player_detailpage#t=23

Exclusive: Despite Hillary Clinton promise, charity did not disclose donors

(Reuters) – In 2008, Hillary Clinton promised Barack Obama, the president-elect, there would be no mystery about who was giving money to her family’s globe-circling charities. She made a pledge to publish all the donors on an annual basis to ease concerns that as secretary of state she could be vulnerable to accusations of foreign influence.

At the outset, the Clinton Foundation did indeed publish what they said was a complete list of the names of more than 200,000 donors and has continued to update it. But in a breach of the pledge, the charity’s flagship health program, which spends more than all of the other foundation initiatives put together, stopped making the annual disclosure in 2010, Reuters has found.

In response to questions from Reuters, officials at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and the foundation confirmed no complete list of donors to the Clintons’ charities has been published since 2010. CHAI was spun off as a separate legal entity that year, but the officials acknowledged it still remains subject to the same disclosure agreement as the foundation.

The finding could renew scrutiny of Clinton’s promises of transparency as she prepares to launch her widely expected bid for the White House in the coming weeks. Political opponents and transparency groups have criticized her in recent weeks for her decision first to use a private email address while she was secretary of state and then to delete thousands of emails she labeled private.

CHAI, which is best known for helping to reduce the cost of drugs for people with HIV in the developing world, published a partial donor list for the first time only this year.

CHAI should have published the names during 2010-2013, when Clinton was in office, CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley acknowledged this week. “Not doing so was an oversight which we made up for this year,” she told Reuters in an email when asked why it had not published any donor lists until a few weeks ago.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton declined to comment. Former President Bill Clinton, who also signed on to the agreement with the Obama administration, was traveling and could not be reached for comment, his spokesman said.

Because Hillary was a Federal government employee, the Department of Justice has stepped in to defend her on the email scandal.

DOJ defends Clinton from email subpoena

The Justice Department is defending former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from a motion to subpoena her private emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

“Such action is unnecessary and inappropriate under FOIA,” DOJ officials wrote in a legal briefing filed Thursday. Officials were responding to a case launched by Larry Klayman, the founder of the conservative watchdog group Freedom Watch. Klayman is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to subpoena Clinton’s computer server where she housed the private email address she used while serving in the State Department.

Clinton has turned over 55,000 pages of emails that she believed could be considered official government communications, but she deleted 30,000 emails that she considered to be personal.

The Justice Department describes Klayman’s call for a subpoena as “speculation” in its brief.

“Plaintiff provides no basis, beyond sheer speculation, to believe that former Secretary Clinton withheld any work-related emails from those provided to the Department of State,” the agency says.

Iran’s History on Shipping Weapons

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Could this be accurate? Historical patterns says yes.

In part and translated: Sources said that the ship, which arrived at the port carrying military equipment up to more than 180 tons of weapons and military equipment, the second after he arrived late in February last ship to the port of Hodeidah coming from Ukrainian and is loaded with Russian arms shipment and quality related to aviation and the air force.

Observers believe that enhanced houthis weapons indicates that there is a future in Yemen battle, especially after huthi achieved their desire to grab the second largest port in Yemen to be the now full control only in the North Sea port to Iran of supporting the huthis with arms through the port to receive huge ships from Iran carrying all kinds of massive uncontrolled weapons.

Iranian ship unloads 185 tons of weapons for Houthis at Saleef port

Friday, 20 March 2015

An Iranian ship unloaded more than 180 tons of weapons and military equipment at a Houthi-controlled port in western Yemen, Al Arabiya News Channel reported on Friday, quoting security sources.

The ship had docked at al-Saleef port northwest of the al-Hodeida province on Thursday, the sources said.

The Houthi militias reportedly closed the port and denied entrance to employees there. Al-Saleef port is considered the second most vital in Yemen.

The news follows last week’s economic partnership agreements between Iran and the Houthis, including a deal that promises a year’s worth of oil supply from Iran.

Iran has also agreed to provide Yemen with a 200 megawatt power plant, according to Yemeni news agency Saba.

Yemen is torn by a power struggle between the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in the north, and the internationally-recognized President Abedrabbu Mansorur Hadi, who has set up a rival seat in the south with the backing of Sunni-led Gulf Arab states.

The Shiite Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in September last year before tightening their grip and prompting President Hadi to submit his resignation. Their rise to power has deepened division in Yemen’s web of political and religious allegiances, and left the country increasingly cut of from the outside world. *** Then there was a very similar shipment in 2013.

Yemen says intercepted ship carrying weapons was Iranian

Feb 2 (Reuters) – Yemen confirmed on Saturday that a ship intercepted last month off its coast was an Iranian vessel trying to smuggle explosives and surface-to-air missiles to the country, the state news agency Saba reported.

Officials in Washington said earlier this week that the seizure of the ship on January 23 had been coordinated with the U.S. Navy and that the intercepted shipment was believed to have been from Iran and destined for insurgents, likely to be Shi’ite Muslim Houthi rebels mainly based in northern Yemen.

Saba quoted a source at Yemen’s higher security committee as saying the weapons including Russian-designed SAM 2 and SAM 3 anti-aircraft missiles, were hidden inside four containers concealed by a diesel tank with a capacity of 100,000 litres.

“The source said that the ship, with its cargo, was handed over to eight Yemeni crew in Iran to deliver it to the Yemeni shores,” Saba said.

The agency said the weapons were now being unloaded and sorted and the crew questioned.

“The results will be published after the contents of the ship are unloaded and sorted,” it added.

Gulf Arab governments and Sunni clerical allies accuse regional Shi’ite Muslim power Iran of backing co-religionist communities around the region, and Sanaa has also accused Iran of trying to meddle in Yemeni affairs.

Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi snubbed a visiting Iranian envoy last year to signal “displeasure” after Sanaa said it uncovered an Iranian-led spy ring in the capital.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the seizure of the ship demonstrates “ever pernicious Iranian meddling in other countries in the region”.

Iran denies any interference in Yemen’s affairs.

Analysts and diplomats believe the Houthis, named after their leaders’ family, have turned Yemen into a new front in a long struggle between Iran and Western powers and the Arab regimes they support.

Earlier in January, the U.S. envoy to Yemen, Gerald Feierstein, was quoted as accusing Iran of working with southern secessionists seeking to restore the country that merged with North Yemen in 1990. Yemen is also grappling with an al Qaeda insurgency in the centre and south of the country.

Its location flanking top oil producer Saudi Arabia – Iran’s Sunni Muslim regional adversary – and major shipping lanes have made restoring its stability an international priority.

Yemen’s government said in a statement issued by the Yemeni embassy in Washington last Monday that the shipment was intercepted in Yemeni waters, close to the Arabian Sea. It said Yemeni Coast Guard officials boarded the vessel, which flew multiple flags and had eight Yemeni crew members on board.

“Authorities are continuing to investigate the vessel’s shipping route by analysing navigation records found on board the ship,” the statement said. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari, writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Jason Webb)

POTUS Admin Loyalty to Islam and Iran

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General Petraeus penned an Op-Ed today declaring that Iran is a worse enemy than Islamic State. So it defies explanation that the Obama regime would cozy up to Iran and continue his loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood without media notice.

Recently, an interesting article in US Military by Sasha Toperich at the Center for Transatlantic Relations (Johns Hopkins), noted how “skeptics in North Africa are now convinced the Arab Spring was nothing but a Western conspiracy to divide and fragment the Middle East and give authority to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean, one can see how the Obama administration’s actions may appear to support these claims.

US-sponsored Muslim Brotherhood ‘Democracy’

In Libya for example, despite citizens voting them out of office in June 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to hand power over to the new internationally recognized government in Tobruk in eastern Libya.

Both US and UK seem to back the Brotherhood and blocked the government’s request to ease an arms embargo after ISIS slaughtered 21 Egyptian Christians, while Britain’s UN representative credited the Brotherhood-backed Fajr Libya as the only group fighting ISIS despite heavy Libyan army losses.

Meanwhile Qatar and Turkey continue to supply arms to the Brotherhood-backed Libya Dawn militia battling the Libyan government for power, even as the latter is bogged down in joint military operations with Cairo to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups.

In Egypt, now an embattled al-Sisi faces ISIS and terrorism both in its eastern Sinai flank and the western Libya flank, but the Obama administration continues to embargo desperately needed military aid in Cairo’s hour of need, despite supplying aid to Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi when he was in power.

The sense of betrayal is further deepened when after Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, State Department hosted a Brotherhood delegation that two days later called for war against fellow Egyptians.

Likewise in Syria, the Brotherhood has hijacked Syria’s revolution with the most dominant profile in the Syrian National Council (SNC) supported by US, and especially Turkey and Qatar that also back Hamas.

Now in Israel, while the Muslim Brotherhood may not replace Prime Minister Netanyahu, perhaps Bibi’s concerns regarding foreign meddling to topple the Likud government for regime change have some merits.

Media reports abound that Obama deployed his campaign strategist Jeremy Bird and his team to Israel to run an anti-Netanyahu election campaign, reinforced by Biden and Kerry’s s meeting with and endorsement of Herzog on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, while boycotting Netanyahu’s visit to the US in March.

It is well known President Obama prefers a more pliant regime for the next two years that is amenable to making concessions with the Palestinians, and perhaps open to have Turkey and Qatar weigh in.

Ankara and Doha are seen as important regional players as they host US military bases in the fight against ISIS, and given their influence over Hamas, Secretary Kerry had endorsed an Ankara-Doha ceasefire plan during Operation Protective Edge.

With Obama appointing Robert Malley as new middle east envoy, known for his support of the Brotherhood and Hamas, this option of being open to Turkey and Qatar’s role in the peace talks is a nonstarter should Prime Minister Netanyahu remain in power.

So with the US seemingly backing the Muslim Brotherhood in the region, quo vadis the Middle East?

Ironically, it is Russia and China that are arising to stem the expansion of the Brotherhood–backing Assad in Syria, supplying arms and investments to al-Sisi in Egypt–and calling US out in its foreign meddling with Beijing accusing US of using “democracy” and “human rights” as fig leaves for regime change, while Putin calls US-sponsored regime change as “missile-bomb democracy.”

And when the Obama administration criticized China for not backing western blueprints for regime change in Syria, a Chinese ambassador questioned US wisdom and influence in the mideast and retorted ‘you cannot even protect your own ambassador,” following US-sponsored regime change in Libya and the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Security is a human right, not just free election and political expression

Beijing and Moscow may have a point in prioritizing security and stability over western “democracy” and “human rights.” In the Mideast, living in security is a basic human right.

China, for example, is a successful economic powerhouse soon to surpass the US because the regime understands that security and maintaining stability (维稳 weiwen) are the sine qua non to foster trade, commerce and ultimately economic development, with eventual spillovers to the social and political sectors.

Although the US often condemns Beijing for lack of democracy and human rights defined narrowly by free election and political expression, looking at US attempts to promote democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya where ISIS and jihadi groups run rampant, this is not an attractive option for a country of 1.36 billion people.

Moreover, China’s protests that it does support human rights by preserving stability and lifting 700 million Chinese citizens out of poverty deserve some credit. A country traumatized by its history of violent instability that killed millions of Chinese—estimated 3.5 million in the Chinese civil war, 30 million in the Great Leap Forward, 1.5 million in the Cultural Revolution—stability and gradual economic and social development, rather than western model of instant democracy, is the rightful path for the Chinese people.

Furthermore, human rights should also encompass the right to live in security and freedom from fear of terrorist attacks.

In the West, a false dichotomy has arisen between the need for security and the protection of human rights within the context of the fight against terrorism. However, security itself is a fundamental human right, and as former UK Home Secretary David Blunkett argued: “I believe in civil liberties—I believe in the liberty of the individual to walk freely on the streets, and to be safe in their homes.”

A later Home Secretary Jacqui Smith similarly argued that the first freedom is “the freedom that comes from security,” something that Egypt’s al Sisi and Israel’s Netanyahu deeply understand.

Indeed Bibi deserves much credit for maintaining security in a volatile region and preserving a stable economy, despite criticism that he focused on security issues to the detriment of economic concerns.

One ponders how well an economy will perform when 3,500 rockets are raining down within one month, or if additional missiles fired at population centers in Israel come from the West Bank in addition to Gaza.

Similarly, al Sisi also understood Morsi’s collaboration with Sinai jihadi groups threatened Suez Canal stability that is key to Egypt’s economic future, and took over the reins in order to secure and stabilize the region.

With Egypt earning $5 billion a year in Suez Canal revenues, al Sisi is now enlarging the Canal to increase revenues to $13 billion by 2023, a vital source of hard currency for a country that has suffered a slump in tourism and foreign investments since 2011.

And despite the Obama administration’s good intentions of promoting ‘democracy’ by defining it narrowly as free elections, it seems to operate with a blind spot to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate agenda towards an undemocratic theocracy under Shariah law.

As Turkey’s President Erdogan had declared, “democracy is a train that you get off once you reach your destination.” Egypt’s Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood indeed sought to enshrine Islamic Shariah law in its new constitution after gaining power by democratic elections, and it is difficult to see how encroaching on women, religious, and other minority rights under Morsi’s constitution would have advanced democracy or human rights.

Thus regardless of who wins the election on 17 March, the Obama administration should reset US-Israel relations and fully support Israel, as well as Egypt and Jordan’s fight against radical Islam in the region.

President Obama already missed a chance to stand with the free world in the Paris unity march. Rather than focusing solely on regime change to install the Muslim Brotherhood that is destabilizing the mideast, Obama now has a second chance to stand with regional allies in their battle against terrorism, and have US stand on the right side of history.

Courtesy of Times of Israel.