China Confidential

Seeking to calm markets, China says it will continue to buy dollars, even though it believes the dollar will lose value over the long run. Click here to read the report ... while considering gold as a hedge.

Appeasement fans the flames of aggression....

Iran now says it needs 20 nuclear plants. Click here for the story.


So much for Obama's perfidious policy of engagement (code for appeasement of and alignment with Islamism). Yet, the liberal mainstream media continue to defend him. He is the Anointed One, in their eyes. His only possible sin: not degrading American power, prestige and influence rapidly enough. Has the President bowed deeply enough to foreign leaders? Has he apologized loudly and clearly enough for American "imperialism?" The Left isn't sure.

Remember: the dirty, little, Left/liberal secret is that left-wingers and liberals really hate America, actually despise its institutions and traditions, especially its military might, which has time and again saved the world from totalitarian dominance. Not for nothing do liberals tolerate a Reverend Wright when he blames America for 9/11. Deep down, they agree with him; he and others like him say out loud what liberals believe.

Obama is their man; Islamism, their tool, or so they think. Incredibly, the Left backs barbaric, right-wing political Islam--clerical fascism--in order to destroy capitalism and America's ally, Israel, whose existence insults the Left's entire world view.

The Left did the same thing in Iran--backed the Ayatollah Khomeini (whom Jimmy Carter's UN envoy, Andrew Young, described as a "saint") against the modernizing, pro-American Shah--in an effort to ride the Islamist tiger to victory. Of course, the tiger turned on the Left and devoured it. But the Left learned nothing from that experience.

Domestically, the American Left is following the European example--counting on Islamism to wipe out capitalism. And Judaism and Christianity, too, for America's Judeo-Christian heritage stands in the way of a whole host (as Obama might say) of Left-fascist (Stalinist) schemes, programs, and plots. More mosques, fewer churches and synagogues ... more Muslim supremacists demanding segregated spaces and special privileges ... that is what the Left wants. Burqas and veils and headscarves .... in some sick sense, the Left sees these things as revolutionary, liberating.

And Barack Hussein Obama ...born and reared and educated as a Muslim ... in more ways than commonly understood ... is their man.

Heaven help us.

Why is this President different from all other Presidents?


Four questions no news reporter dares to ask Barack Obama:

1. Would you talk directly to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

2. If you could meet the Iranian Ayatollah, would you bow to him--deeply and submissively, from the waist--the way you bowed to the Saudi monarch?

3. If Iran develops nuclear weapons while you are in office, which seems increasingly likely, if not certain, owing to your engagement (appeasement) policy, which has given Iran another year to achieve its atomic aims, would you deter Iran from anonymously attacking the United States or Israel--through Hezbollah or Hamas or other Islamist terrorists or proxies--by warning the Iranian regime that any nuclear attack on the U.S. or Israel would trigger the immediate obliteration of Iran?

4. Why won't you put an end to the so-called birther issue for once and all by releasing your original, long-form birth certificate?

BETTER TIMES IN 2008: President-Elect Barack Obama with White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi; Randy Jackson, best known as a Judge on the American Idol TV program; and members of the Black Eyed Peas rock band.

Click here for the story. In fact, Obama is a Muslim, according to Islamic law, which traces religious identity through the father (unlike traditional Jewish law, which traces religion through the mother).

In addition to being born a Muslim, according to Islamic law, Obama studied and practiced Islam as a child in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where his Indonesian Muslim stepfather registered him for elementary school as a Muslim and an Indonesian citizen. Obama's apparent dual citizenship, which may have aided his acceptance to Occidental College and Columbia University, and, perhaps, even, to Harvard Law School, was ignored by the mainstream media throughout the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Since taking power, Obama has sought to appease and align with right-wing political Islam, or Islamism, addressing "the Muslim world" from Cairo University, encouraging Turkey's Islamist tilt, intervening in Europe on behalf of Turkey and Islamist agitation for barbaric burqa-wearing, bowing to the Saudi king, relentlessly pressuring Israel, America's strategic ally and the only democracy in the Middle East, to withdraw to indefensible borders and acquiesce to the creation of a Palestinian state in disputed parts of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem, and, most important, giving Iran at least another year to develop nuclear weapons.

Hamid Gul, who headed the ISI and worked closely with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, has resurfaced on behalf of the Islamist mass murderers. Click here for a solid exclusive by UPI editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Iran has reportedly successfully simulated a nuclear detonation, while a United Nations group has established an atomic blast detection center in Turkmenistan near the Iranian border. Click here and here for the accounts.

The Vienna-based, UN agency says on its website:

Located in Central Asia between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range and just a few kilometres from the border with the Islamic Republic of Iran, primary seismic station PS44 in the Republic of Turkmenistan has now been fully constructed and is currently undergoing testing. PS44 is one of the 337 facilities belonging to the International Monitoring System (IMS), which are being established around the world to monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions.

Following criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama's plan for an Afghanistan escalation and exit strategy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose administration role has been marginalized, denies that Washington intends to cut and run from the Taliban. Click here for the story.

Iran says it will only do the minimum required to cooperate with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency.

Tehran officials will only inform the International Atomic Energy Agency of its progress in building its 10 new nuclear enrichment sites 180 days before it injects gas into centrifuges, and not during the construction phase of the plants, as the IAEA had demanded, according to media reports.

"According to the safeguards, after installation of equipments and only 180 days ahead of injecting gas into centrifuges ... we should inform the IAEA," senior Iranian diplomat Abolfazl Zohrehvand told the official Iranian news agency IRNA. "And we will act within the framework of the safeguard."

The IAEA last week censured Iran for having built a second nuclear enrichment site in Qom.

Meanwhile, in an interview Thursday with Politico, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) said he intended to pass the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act by the end of the year, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Democrats that the bill would come to the floor in the next two weeks. That legislation would sanction companies that help Iran import or produce refined petroleum, which is seen as potentially having a large impact on Iran's economy because the country imports 40 percent of its refined petroleum.


-JTA

A remarkable Q&A session with one of the most important leaders in Russian--and world--history. Click on the video below.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has signed an important deal with Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, the same ultra-rich Saudi investor and Islamist propaganda sponsor who may have helped to send Barack Obama to Harvard Law School, according to remarks made by an aging New York politician during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Click here for the story.

Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, whom Percy Sutton refers to in the video below, is an advisor to bin Talal. Al-Mansour is a notorious Islamist and a rabid anti-Semite.

Food for thought: all the gold ever produced amounts to about 165,000 tonnes, which would barely fill two Olympic-size swimming pools.

The fix is in....

Afghanistan's so-called president, Hamid Karzai--a cowardly, corrupt clown connected to drug dealers--says he wiling to talk to Taliban leader and Al Qaeda ally Mullah Omar to bring "peace" to the hellhole that harbored and aided Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11. Karzai's comments come just two days after U.S. President Barack Obama announced a surge-and-run plan for the war in Afghanistan, which is going badly. Click here for the story.

Karazai insists Al Qaeda is not welcome back on Afghan soil. But it is only a matter of time before he and other notoriously unreliable Afghan leaders--and Islamist sympathizers in the West--discover "moderate" members of even that group, the only Islamist gang still considered beyond the pale of Obama's engagement (appeasement) policy.

Obama's "extremists"--Muslim terrorists bent on mass murder--put real assault weapons with live ammunition in the hands of toddlers and young children. Click here for the sickening story.

His name is Doku Umarov. He is the self-proclaimed Emir of the Caucasus Emirate.

Read all about him and his terrorist group here.

If and when U.S. President Barack Obama gets around to condemning the terrorist atrocity that is the bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train, he will probably describe it as a "tragedy" caused by "extremists."

A first-rate analysis from James Poniewozik at Time:

There is increasing talk about monkeying with the "window"—that is, the amount of time you have to wait after a movie is in theaters before you can see it on demand, download it, rent it, buy it, etc. Take away the window, and the next Twilight movie becomes a high-profile Friday-night TV show. Now, there are plenty of people arguing for preserving the window, but it's already started to erode for some movies. And what studio might be especially aggressive about experimenting with it? Why, a troubled movie studio... like Universal.

Read the whole piece here.

The old business models are dead or dying. Closing the window will open a new one for producers and talent, eliminating the need for costly and still risky investment in prints and advertising to support theatrical distribution and establish the value of a given movie. Fact is, younger audiences can be cost-effectively reached and influenced by online and TV advertising; the direct-to-video stigma is a thing of the past, which the studios have yet to recognize.

The New York Times reports from Islamabad:

In Pakistan, Mr. Obama’s declaration fed longstanding fears that America would abruptly withdraw, leaving Pakistan to fend for itself.

Many in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, argued that the short timetable diminished any incentive for Pakistan to cut ties to Taliban militants who were its allies in the past, and whom Pakistan might want to use to shape a friendly government in Afghanistan after the American withdrawal.

Click here to read the entire story.

America's Homeland Security chief bluntly warns that Al Qaeda sympathizers are in the country, plotting attacks. The context and content of the official's remarks are alarming. Click here for the story.

Click below to view the video report. Meanwhile, Obama's science advisor is pushing for climate change action amid the uproar, as reported here.

The Washington Times weighs in on the controversy ... here.

An "underground railroad" helps North Korean defectors, as reported here. Safe houses and secret border crossings....

The giant Wall Street bank says China and other emerging economies will lure capital for the next two decades. Click here for the story.

An Iranian arms merchant was caught on tape telling U.S. undercover agents "war is coming." Click here for the story.

U.S. President Barack Obama's only foreign policy achievements to date:

1. Helping radical Islam, or Islamism. Click here for the analysis.

2. Correctly pronouncing Pakistan, with a soft a, as in pok-i-ston. Pok rhymes with mock; ston, with the Jamaican Patois pronunciation of man--mon.

His showy pronunciation of Pakistan (a nuclear armed nation organized around Islam, which Obama oddly visited in 1981 as an undergraduate Columbia University transfer student) contrasts sharply with his distinctly American Midwestern pronunciation of Afghanistan. When referring to Afghanistan, Obama's "stan" sounds like the American nickname for Stanley.

By Chuck Hustmyre


The union between the American Left and fundamentalist Islam seems like a marriage made in hell.

The Left hates religion, particularly Christianity, and has succeeded in ripping nearly all vestiges of it from American public life. Through the legal machinations of its lapdog, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Left has banned Christmas from public schools, nativity scenes from City Hall, and the Ten Commandments from courthouses.

In liberal newspeak, "Happy holidays" has replaced "Merry Christmas." Holiday trees have replaced Christmas trees, and Christmas break has become "fall break."

Yet a few years ago, seventh-grade students in California were required to participate in a religious studies program during which they were told to wear Muslim clothing, memorize passages from the Quran, and choose an Islamic name for themselves.

Interestingly enough, the ACLU did not file a lawsuit.

The American Left champions causes such as gay rights (including gay marriage), equality for women (suffrage, the right to work, etc.), and religious freedom (usually in the form of freedom from religion). Yet, fundamentalist Islam opposes nearly everything the American Left stands for.

In many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. In Iran, a top government official recently said that torture followed by death is the appropriate punishment for being gay.

In Saudi Arabia, women can't vote, run for public office, or drive cars. Women are routinely jailed and beaten for merely being in the presence of a man not related to them. The Saudi version of Dr. Phil provides televised lessons to men on how to properly beat their wives.

In many Islamic countries, women are forced into arranged marriages and held as property by their husbands, something not exactly in line with progressive Western thinking. In some Muslim countries, women aren't even allowed to decide what clothes to wear. To reveal even the smallest patch of skin is a crime.

Religious freedom is often nonexistent under Islamic rule. In countries like Afghanistan and Iran, people who convert from Islam to another religion face public execution.

So why does the American Left hate Christianity yet love Islam?

In this country, a shadow army of apologists works tirelessly to provide alternative explanations for faith-based Islamic violence--shootings, bombings, stabbings, and beheadings. These shadow soldiers work in government, media, and on college campuses. Most are members of the American Left. The rest are bureaucrats who have been cowed by the omnipresent specter of political correctness. You hear these apologists every time a Muslim goes berserk and murders people in the name of Islam.

That's an important distinction I'd like to be clear about. Every week someone goes nuts in this country and commits a sensational crime that captures the attention of the media for a few days. Last weekend, a convicted felon from Arkansas murdered four Seattle-area cops at a coffee shop. Before that, some nut shot up an Orlando office building.

Truly impulsive and insane acts of violence are unpredictable. But when horrific violence is based on a theology that preaches hatred, intolerance, and global conquest, there are usually plenty of warning signs. According to the FBI, imams preach jihad in at least 10 percent of the United States' 2,000 mosques.

Certainly Army Major Nidal Hasan signaled his intent when he told fellow Army doctors that infidels (those who don't accept Allah as the one true God) should have their heads cut off and have burning oil poured down their throats. After telling everyone around him that non-Muslims should be killed and that the U.S. Army was engaged in a war against Islam, Hasan murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Practically before the sounds of the last gunshots had faded, professional apologists in government and the media were saying Hasan was not a terrorist and that the shootings had nothing to do with his belief in Islam. Of course, the exact opposite is true. Nidal Hasan is a jihadist and he committed mass murder because of his belief in Islam.

Nearly a month after the shootings, the American Left is blaming the Ft. Hood murders on everything but Islam. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took the opportunity of announcing the expansion of the city's Arabic language program in public schools to blame the killings on America's love affair with guns.

Other apologists blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming Hasan, a psychiatrist, suffered from "secondary trauma" after hearing of the horrors of war from the soldiers he was counseling. Still others invented a new psychological malady, pre-traumatic stress disorder, meaning the mere thought of going into a combat zone so traumatized Hasan that he snapped.

The proof that all of these excuses are just so much hot air is that Hasan himself told us why he shot more than 40 people before he did it.

Major Hasan's business card identified him as a "Soldier of Allah." He was in email contact with a militant Muslim imam who fled the United States and now operates in Yemen. He tried several times to contact al Qaeda.

To anyone but an American Left apologist, Hasan's motive for murdering 13 fellow soldiers and wounding another 30 is quite clear: He did it because he was fighting for Islam. As Hasan repeatedly told fellow Army doctors, he is a Muslim first, an American second.

In unambiguous terms, fundamentalist Islam has announced again and again that it despises the values, culture, and traditions of America. The American Left does too.

Consistent with the Arabic proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the American Left has formed an alliance with fundamentalist Islam to transform this country into something far removed from its Judeo-Christian origins and ideals.

The mistake the Left is making is that its so-called progressive goals have nothing in common with the medieval tenants of fundamentalist Islam. Militant Muslims have no respect for American progressives, any more than they respect the very existence of Israel.

Fundamentalist Islam is using the American Left to advance its own agenda. Militant Muslims want Islam and sharia law to dominate the West. Their goal is to subvert the U.S. Constitution and our way of life to the will of Allah. The word Islam means submission.

What members of the American Left seem blind to is the fact that in countries where Islam dominates, their progressive ideas would be crushed and many of them would be thrown in jail simply because of their lifestyle choices.

Yet, the American Left continues to serve as apologist-in-chief for fundamentalist Islam.

Why?

Because deep down American Leftists are terrified of Islamic fundamentalists.

Last year, publishing giant Random House canceled the publication of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel of Medina because it might be offensive to some Muslims. According to its own press release, the publisher feared Muslim violence against its offices and employees. Apparently, Random House's fears were well founded.

In September 2008, three Muslim terrorists firebombed the home and office of the British publisher who bought the rights to the novel.

In 2006, the Apple computer company drew howls of rage from Muslims who claimed the glass cube the company built outside its midtown Manhattan store was modeled on the Kaaba, the Muslim shrine in the Saudi city of Mecca, and was meant as an insult to Islam.

The American Left's affair with fundamentalist Islam is essentially a love-fear relationship. The Left loves Islam's hatred of America and its desire to radically change this country, but the Left also fears what militant Muslims are capable of, especially if they turn their murderous rage on their so-called friends.

So the Left, like Neville Chamberlain with the Nazis, walks a tightrope, appeasing Muslims at every turn, offering excuses for Islamic violence, and hoping Muslim fundamentalists won't bite the hand that feeds them their excuses.


Chuck Hustmyre is an award-winning journalist and a retired federal agent. He is the author of three books and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. For more information visit www.chuckhustmyre.com.

The President foolishly announced a date for commencement of withdrawal that he may well have to postpone. Click here for the story.

U.S. Senator John McCain is right: Obama's surge-and-run plan is "logically incoherent."

Iran is practically begging for a bombing--a nuclear bombing. Click here for the story.

The President's West Point speech was simply awful. Click here for the analysis.

U.S. Senator and failed Presidential candidate John McCain has been strangely silent on the Obama administration's persecution of Navy SEALs. Click here for the story.

America's appeaser-in-chief, Barack Hussein Obama, went to West Point tonight to deliver a rambling, confused and confusing speech, mixing military and economic concerns ... a talk worthy of a second-rate academic rather than the leader of the mightiest armed forces on earth and what remains of the free world in the face of Islamist aggression.

Obama's mishmash was a gift to the Taliban, with whom he wishes to reconcile, and Al Qaeda, whose terrorist networks he supposedly still wants to dismantle and disrupt. Obama made it clear to the enemy that America is economically weak, politically divided, determined to cut and run by a date certain.

A disaster like Obama hasn't been seen since Jimmy Carter. Like Carter, Obama will embolden and encourage Islamist aggression and terrorism. Even worse, whereas Carter was complicit in the Islamist takeover of Iran, Obama is complicit in Iran's acquisition of atomic arms.

Obamanation!

Hours before the first faux Christian, Muslim-born President of the United States addresses the nation on his surge-and-run plan for Afghanistan, an Ohio court appears to have condemned a teenage Muslim convert to Christianity to return to her fanatic parents, disregarding common sense and ignoring evidence that her life could be in danger as a result of the disgusting decision. Click here for the story, one more indication of growing Islamist influence and intimidation in the United States.

Merrill Lynch, which is owned by Bank of America, has advised investors to focus on Israel in view of the Dubai crisis. Click here for the story.

UPDATE: Obama will announce a deadline for beginning a pullout, undercutting the surge from the get-go. Click here.

U.S. President Barack Obama will talk tough tonight. But his address to the nation from West Point on Afghanistan will signal weakness and desperation.

The Obama plan for Afghanistan is to surge ... and run ... leaving the country's notoriously corrupt and unreliable government in charge ... until it is swept away like so much garbage by the resurgent Taliban. After dithering and delaying a decision for months on the need for more troops, Obama's 11th hour escalation is basically a big subterfuge--a desperate deception--for withdrawal and defeat.

Masochistic rules of engagement will continue to endanger American/allied lives and kill any chance of victory over the Taliban. Nation-building nonsense will drain American resources and sap political will; and stepped-up diplomatic initiatives by the Obama administration will strengthen the Islamist enemy, which, with the possible exception of its most senior leaders, including Mullah Omar, will be re-branded as "reconcilable."

Expect to hear more mumbo-jumbo about dismantling and disrupting Al Qaeda networks. Fact is, unless the pro-appeasement trend is reversed, it is only a matter of time before the White House and its supporters in the U.S. Congress and the liberal, mainstream media find "moderate" factions of Al Qaeda worthy of "engaging."


More than eight years after 9/11, the war against radical Islam appears to have been lost. Afghanistan is doomed. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are in danger of falling into overtly Islamist hands. Iran is about to cross the nuclear threshold. Its Lebanese proxy, Hitlerian Hezbollah, is bristling with ballistic missiles--enough to level Tel Aviv and Haifa. Hitlerian Hamas, Iran's Palestinian proxy, is developing its own arsenal of longer-range rockets. And Iranian and Hezbollah operatives and agents are working closely with Venezeula and, also, possibly, with Brazil in order to establish forward bases for terrorist attacks on the United States, including nuclear and biological terrorism.

Parallel to the above, Obama's election and outreach to "the Muslim world" has emboldened the Islamist fifth column in the U.S., as shown by the Fort Hood massacre and the media coverage of the atrocity, which Obama and his backers insist on referring to as "a tragedy."

Islamonazi Iran is threatening "harsh action" against five British civilian sailors--yet another indication of how Obama's appeasement of the turbaned tyranny has backfired. Click here for the story.

The Britons join three young Americans as Iran goes about building a bank of hostages to intimidate the West and deter possible last-minute military action against Iran's nuclear arms program. The Americans were detained after they strayed across the Iranian border from northern Iraq in July. The U.S. has insisted that they were innocent hikers who accidentally entered Iran. In response to the U.S., which Iran regards as a paper tiger, the Islamonazi regime has accused the Americans of espionage — a sign that they could be put on trial.

Stephen Brown on Obama's appeasement policy and Iran's defiance:

The Iranian announcement signals a defeat for President Obama’s ‘soft’ approach towards the Islamic Republic’s leadership. In an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television network last January, Obama said Iran’s leaders would find the extended hand of diplomacy if they “unclenched” their fists.

“As I said in my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” Obama said.

But as early as March there were already signs that Iran was in no mood to unclench and drop the rock it was holding in the form of its nuclear weapons program. That month, President Obama released a video, wishing the Iranians a happy New Year, which, in Iran, falls on the first day of spring. In return for his friendly overture, the American president received from the Iranian government nothing but a demand for apologies for America’s past transgressions, real or imagined, against Iran.

Sunday’s statement simply proves what most have suspected all along: One cannot talk to the Iranian leaders and that they are simply stringing out negotiations to complete their nuclear arms program. And the fact the Iranians still celebrate the 1979 American embassy seizure every November, a flagrant and criminal breach of international law, shows they do not want to talk to the United States in particular and are still willing to flout international norms.

Click here to read the entire essay.

China remains opposed to meaningful Iran sanctions, as reported here.

The Chinese statement is another sign that Obama's Asia trip was an utter flop. He failed to persuade or impress regional leaders, who view him as alarmingly weak and inexperienced in international affairs.

A former Russian army officer, Pavel Kosolapov, who has embraced Islam and was a close associate of the slain Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, is the main suspect in Friday's bombing of the Nevsky Express luxury passenger train.

At least 26 people, including two top federal officials, were killed and 96 injured when the super-fast train carrying hundreds of passengers from Moscow to St Petersburg derailed due to the terrorist attack.

Kosolapov, aged 29, is said to be the brain behind Moscow metro's deadly blast in February 2004 and a similar attack on the Neva Express in August 2007.

The appeaser-in-chief again bends in the face of Iranian defiance. Click here for the story. Obama is bent on appeasing and aligning with Islamism, including Islamist Iran. He clearly believes he can divide and rule the "Muslim world."

A U.S. Senate report blames U.S. military leaders for allowing Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and Talbian leader Mullah Omar to escape from Afghanistan in 2001 following the September 11 Al Qaeda attack on the United States.

The report says former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the top U.S. military commander General Tommy Franks rejected requests for a massive contingent of American troops to attack Tora Bora mountains, where the Islamist chiefs and their most senior commanders were hiding.

The report says Bush's top military leaders had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden in December 2001 in Afghanistan, but they failed to send enough American troops to attack his hideout. Only 100 commandos, working with (notoriously unreliable warlords) were actually on the ground. As a result, the report says, Bin Laden and Omar were able to walk into Pakistan, unmolested, with a mere handful of bodyguards.

The report, by staff of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, concludes that U.S. special forces, CIA officers and Afghan troops had chased the Al Qaeda leader and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahri, to the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan, but former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the top U.S. military commander, General Tommy Franks, rejected requests for a massive contingent of American troops to attack the area.

At the time, top officials said there was not conclusive evidence bin Laden was in the cave complex and there were fears that a large U.S. troop presence could spark a backlash among locals.

The report ignores the obvious: the U.S. could have obliterated Al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11 by adopting World War II rules of engagement, including use of nuclear weapons.

By Arnis R. Putrenieks


What if the recent news coverage regarding a proposed military strike—Israeli submarines traversing the Suez Canal, Israeli war games held in the Mediterranean at the same dimensional scale of an airstrike against Iran, delivery of bunker-buster bombs by the U.S. to Israel, threats/suggestions by Zbigniew Brzezinski for creating a no fly-over zone above Iraq, and the constant delay in imposing realistic sanctions—were all a red herring, diverting attention from the real plan to delay/destroy Iran’s nuclear weaponization program?

The prevailing Common Wisdom presupposes a military strike utilizing aircraft, cruise missiles and special forces by Israel and/or the United States in a last ditch attempt to halt Iran’s move to joining the nuclear club. But such a move is fraught with significant risks:

• Given that there are two dozen plus sites involved in Iran’s nuclear weaponization program (source: GlobalSecurity.org) there is no guarantee that an external military strike would sufficiently incapacitate Iran’s nuclear weaponization program.
• Recognizing Iran’s existing level of paranoia and preparedness, an external military strike would likely result in the loss of men and material for the striking forces.
• It would be relatively easy to identify and then demonize the source of the striking forces and result in likely retaliatory attempts against both Israel and the U.S. and their interests and allies worldwide regardless of the actual direct source.
• Iran, in retaliation or desparation, would attempt to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic choke-point in the worldwide movement of crude oil and thereby drive the price of crude oil skyward.
• Possible naval battles would result from an attempt to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, bringing other Middle-East nations, factions and proxies into the fray.
• Israel and the U.S. would be severely criticized/ostracized by the Arab Street and most likely, world community, even though no one else has the courage to ultimately do the dirty work.

But what if there was a better way to accomplish the task of delaying/destroying Iran’s nuclear weaponization program without a great risk of lost lives and material? And what if that way had even a greater probability of success?

A definite case can be made that an internal strike against Iran’s nuclear weaponization program, which would be directed against its hardware, software and intellectual-ware (scientists and methods, inverting the paradigm and turning the weaponization process against itself, could very likely be successful. How is this possible? Contrary to the prevailing Common Wisdom, the U.S. and Israel have long been aware of Iran’s objective and assuredly have kept close tabs on it through every Presidential administration, beginning with Ronald Reagan. Realistically, much of the material, machines and even technology has been imported from the West, primarily via Europe. As such, Iran’s program contains the blueprint of Western technical knowledge and therefore is highly susceptible to sabotage by Western agents during its design, manufacturing and delivery process.

What would an internal strike look like? Unlike an external strike, this internal strike would be initiated in the “belly of the beast.”

• Fatal flaws in metals and materials could have been introduced during the design, manufacturing and shipping process and at a pre-designated time, when combining certain materials or exposing the same to the radiation process could readily result in catastrophic consequences.
• Adapting and configuring detonators to the fission process could result in explosions or create radioactive/meltdown situations.
• Computer systems could be infused with worms and viruses instructed to disrupt or misdirect equipment and processes at their most critical juncture.
• Energy systems and air-handling systems could likewise be already compromised and infected and produce fatal consequences at pre-designated times when a great number of critical people are assembled..
• Hidden biological agents could be introduced to critical locations at times of highest concentration of key scientists.
• Or ,when in doubt, introduce to the equation, a homicide-bomber to a key facility at a critical time. Someone who lost a loved one during the June 2009 election protests in Iran would be an ideal candidate. Or, further yet, what loyal Israeli citizen wouldn’t give his/her life to spare the Jewish people a second Holocaust at the hands of another madman?

What makes an internal strike the weapon of choice? Using the analogy of the human body, we can see why the internal strike is the best solution. Picture a madman attacking you with full force. You don’t need to obliterate him to stop him, you just need a focussed pin-point attack at a critical body part or system, and he will literally be “dead in his tracks.” Following that logic, one can recognize that there are three primary critical points in the human anatomy—the heart, the lungs and the brain—they being the critical control centers of the circulatory, respiratory and nerve systems. Similarly, the nuclear weaponization program has its critical points—hardware, software and intellectual-ware. Going back to the times of the ancient Greeks, we recognize that every weapons system has its Achilles Heel. And the attacking madman of today is no different than back then. Thus a quick-acting poison, a biological or nerve agent, or a well-placed bullet or ice-pick can readily destroy a madman without having to obliterate his entire body. And this metaphor holds true for the nuclear weaponization program also. Someone, ages ago, in a far-off jungle, originated the phrase “cutting off the head of the snake” as the solution to stopping its attack and voracity. And that lesson still applies today.

Besides the obvious efficacy of an internal strike, Joshua Ramo Cooper, in his excellent book, The Age of the Unthinkable, titillates us with this telling clue regarding Israel’s strategy in dealing with terrorists by quoting Aharon Farkash, former Director of Military Intelligence in Israel as espousing: “Targeted killing is just what it sounds like: taking out only the most essential pieces of a network instead of trying to wipe away the whole system.”

Additional values attending an internal strike are:

• It affords Israel and the U.S. “plausible deniability” because their fingerprints would be nowhere to be found.
• A successful internal strike would setback the Iranian nuclear weaponization program for years, if not for decades, especially if it succeeded in destroying the intellectual property and the nuclear scientists associated with it.
• The loss in lives, physical destruction and the loss of billions of dollars in sunken costs of the nuclear weaponization program incurred at the expense of the Iranian economy could well bring down the tyrannical mullahs’ regime.
• The perceived “accident effect” would likely discourage any future Iranian government from renewing the nuclear weaponization program and also act as an emotional, but realistic deterrent for other wannabe nuclear powers. Not knowing if it was accidental or intentional would go a long way to stoking fear and uncertainty among our enemies worldwide.
• It still preserves the external military strike option as a valid potential deterrence without having been tried in action and found wanting—the ultimate high-stakes bluff.
• Without the evidence of Israeli or U.S. culpability, retribution against Israel or the U.S. on the part of Iran or its proxies becomes a harder case to justify in the world court of opinion, and also minimizes sympathy and action by China and Russia.
• The U.S. hopefully would be spared negative publicity. The price of crude oil would likely suffer only a very short-term blip until all the other Middle-Eastern states realize the beneficial impact of a successful internal strike.

Given Israel's commitment to the concept of "Never Again,” the Case for an Internal Strike is a very plausible scenario for terminating the Iranian nuclear weaponization program. Going back in time to the Summer of 1972, this would be akin to the Israelis knowing that the terrorists were coming to the Munich Olympics and being prepared for them.

Swiss voters have taken a courageous stand against the Muslim conquest of Europe. Click here for the story.

Prediction: America's first Muslim-born President will speak out on the Islamist side.

Obama's appeasement fans the flames of aggression.

Islmonazi Iran's maniac-in-chief announced Sunday that Iran plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants--a dramatic expansion of its nuclear program. Click here for the story.

Russian investigators are hunting the bombers of the Nevsky Express luxury train, as reported here. At least 30 passengers were killed, with scores injured, in Friday's attack on the Moscow-to-St. Petersburg train that is popular with Russian businessmen and foreign tourists.

Muslim terrorists and neo-fascist, ultranationalist groups are suspected. Their common bond: intense hatred of the Russian state, the West, democracy, modernism and pluralism, Jews and other minorities.

Neo-Nazis Could Also Benefit

Islamonazi Iran has earmarked an additional $20 million to support anti-Western "militant groups," as reported here.

China Confidential intelligence sources say that in addition to Hitlerian Hezbollah and Hamas, Islamonazi proxies already aided by Iran, European and South American neo-Nazi and fascist groups will also be backed. Iran has cooperated closely with Nazi/fascist groups in the past on Holocaust denial propaganda and related activities; and Hezbollah has operational ties to such groups. Hezbollah is believed to be planning terrorist bombings that could take advantage of its foreign relationships if Iran is attacked by Israel over its nuclear arms program.