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Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Our new German problem: lack of effort. Have you really considered how little #Germany has been doing and is prepared to do in the future against #ISIS? Why is this topic continuing to be ignored in Washington and by the U.S. news media?

Our new German problem: lack of effort. Have you really considered how little #Germany has been doing and is prepared to do in the future against #ISIS? Why is this topic continuing to be ignored in Washington and by the U.S. news media?

Have you really considered how little #Germany has been doing and is prepared to do in the future against #ISIS? Why is this topic continuing to be ignored in Washington and by the U.S. news media?

For months I've closely followed the glacial pace of things in Germany largely via DW,
Deutsche Welle, both on TV and in print, since the U.S. news media has seemed to decide to give Germany and their current Ambassador to the U.S., Peter Wittig, a 'hall pass' on all controversial topics, like #Ukraine #Russia #sanctions #ISIS. 
Any one of which, Once Upon a Time in the '70's, '80's or '90's, would have gotten him an invite he could not really turn down.

If you didn't know it, even for something as insignificant as sending 100 German military 
"advisors" to Iraq who would never be put in a position to actually face the enemy, there
was months and months of Sturm und Drang in the Bundestag, in the country 
where Sturm und Drang was born.

As someone who spent LOTS of time over at the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. pre and post Fall of the Berlin Wall, on trade and economic issues, and who made enough 
friends there to attend the party at the Embassy celebrating the unification in 1991 -even bringing a German chocolate cake with the German flag's colors on it that I ordered at the #1 German bakery in greater DC, not far from my house in Arlington County- I was especially aghast last year that Germany's policy was, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to be firmly against arming Ukraine so that it could better defend itself.

Which is how it came to be that back on February 8th, before Chancellor Merkel's visit to DC, I asked the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, @SenBobCorker - 
How is #Merkel #Germany an ally vs. Isis if sending 100 Bundeswehr 2 TRAIN Iraqis is political crisis? 

Condescending, patronizing pols in Germany acted like their troops were almost too important to actually deploy them to the Mid-East to accomplish something tangiblethat was in the West's best interests. But did you see anything about this in the newspaper or on network TV at the time?

And not once in all the many long months since the shoot down of the Malaysian flight 
MH17 over Ukraine last August by Russian-armed and trained separatists has the Ambassador Wittig gone on a single American Sunday morning TV chat show to lay out the position of Germany to the American people, whose own sons and daughters, husbands and wives continue to be stationed in Germany in the tens of thousands to defend Germany against the existential threat that President Obama claimed in one of his 2012
debates with Mitt Romney did NOT exist -Putin's Russia.

Well, history has shown us who was right about that question, haven't they?
And the Russia reset, too.

No, these days, the Foreign Ministry geniuses at the German Embassy on Reservoir Road prefer to employ their old standby, checkbook foreign policy, and simply pay for ads on Foreign Policy magazine's email newsletters, like this one I received, below, so they aren't forced to explain or defend their policies in-person to people who know the facts and could pin them down.
Yes, it sort of explains a lot about the current Foreign Policy Establishment and what it just winks at:

And paying for ads also means they don't have to deal with curious ethical issues like this:
#Germany hires ex #Stasi to check #Facebook for critics of #immigration policy. 

So, to sum it up, Peter Wittig, the German Amb. to the U.S. has not appeared on one of the most guest-friendly forums he could possibly appear on in all of DC, esp. for an important ally like Germany, Sunday morning chat shows, and been forced to defend Germany's feckless position on all these important matters, even while smaller countries with much less resources are continuing to punch above their weight.

Meanwhile, Germany, the European economic giant opts largely to stay on the sidelines as a spectator in the fight against ISIS, preferring to play the role of pit-crew grease monkey,
and not be one of the actual participants.
How much longer is this kind of unhelpful behavior going to be allowed to continue -and continue to be unremarked upon by the American press?




















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Friday, November 20, 2015

Tighter security checks on refugees in U.S.? At least for one night, U.S. Rep. @GerryConnolly's concise and to-the-point logic and reason (re refugees) actually triumphed on American TV last night. Sensible people across the U.S. should enjoy it while we can...; #Syria #refugees #Paris #terrorism #ISIS





PBS NewsHour
Does the U.S. need tighter security checks on refugees? 
November 19, 2015 at 7:07 PM ET

Highly recommend you watch this video from last night's PBS NewsHour, and not just because it may be the only fair-minded discussion of the  Syrian/Iraqi refugee debate I've seen on American TV this year, where someone who was arguing for both logic and accountability from the federal government wasn't sandbagged.

It features the insightful comments of Rep. Gerry Connolly, the new Democratic Congressman 
who represents Northern Virginia, and specifically, Arlington County, where I lived for 15 years, roughly about 5 miles from Georgetown.

 Rep. Connolly replaced bombastic, combative and often over-the-top longtime Rep. Jim Moran, 
Moran, not unlike Mayor Joy Cooper in beleaguered Hallandale Beach, was considered by even 
people who voted for him, to often be an insufferable egomaniac with a deep-and-abiding love for TV camera lights that challenged New York Senator Charles Schumer's widely-known love for the limelight, fancied himself a shoot-from-the-hips pol whose shortcuts with facts and logic often resulted in him shooting himself in the foot and getting into un-necessary and petty fights. 
And for good measure, just like Mayor Cooper in Hallandale Beach, Moran has a pugnacious son with a penchant for criminality and mischief but who -surprise- considers himself above the law.

Gerry Connolly was a generally respected politician who stood out among Northern Virginia's lock-step liberal mindset when I lived in Arlington, back when I was still a DLC Democrat, because he was the sort of principled Democrat whom we have far too few of these days in DC, to wit, someone who thinks that well-thought out, fair-minded results that actually solve real problems mattered more than ideology or party. (Usually.)

This is the sort of TV performance that catches people's attention outside of his immediate area, and not just because you have to know that there were NOT exactly many among the 47 Dems who, having voted against President Obama yesterday on refugee resettlement in the U.S., didn't relish the idea of going on national TV and telling everyone why he and his supporters were wrong -again.
Especially when it's so much easier to just toe-the current DNC mindset and blithely assume the federal "bureaucracy" will handle everything correctly without any genuine accountability or benchmarks from Congress.
Like that's ever happened with positive results for most Americans.

Rep. Connolly's performance is also noteworthy precisely because he didn't fall for the usual trap of allowing the news media's own narrative to dominate the discussion, nor did he allow the discussion to drift off into other areas that would allow him to be trapped into a corner and painted as a heartless pol by the other guest, Erol Kekic of Church World Service.

Something that as I have gone on at length about here before many times, seems to frequently happen to most GOP members of Congress appearing on that sort of TV show pretty much without fail.
Usually because they are dumb enough to act like they will be treated fairly instead of aggressively by both host and fellow guests. 
The recent history of the GOP, even when they are in power, is, seemingly, to never learn from history.

Rep. Connolly's concise and to-the-point logic and reason (re refugees) actually triumphed on
American TV.  For at least one night anyway...
Sensible people across the U.S., like so many of you readers of this blog, should enjoy it while we can...
You can be sure there there won't be many more such examples before the end of the year.

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Monday, November 4, 2013

Baltimore Sun's savvy TV critic David Zurawik zeroes-in on Beltway political class & MSM's tacit agreement on unethical conduct and asks rhetorical question: "Is it wrong for CNN's Paul Begala to ask me to give money to Al Franken?" Yes, let me count the ways...but let's not forget to throw Stephanie Cutter on the fire, too; @davidzurawik


Baltimore Sun
Z on TV blog
Was it wrong for CNN's Paul Begala to ask me to give Al Franken money?
To me, this is how the channel's news identity is demeaned by mixing politics, money and media
By David Zurawik The Baltimore Sun
6:58 a.m. EST, November 4, 2013
Maybe it's just me, but a fundraising letter I received from CNN's Paul Begala last week struck me as emblematic of what's wrong when media are mixed with money and politics -- as they increasingly are these days at cable TV news channels in Washington.
Here's the letter. And you tell me if this is appropriate for someone listed as "commentator" at CNN -- someone who also appears on the channel's website under the heading "Anchors/Reporters" as Begala does
Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/bal-cnn-paul-begala-money-fund-raising-20131031,0,6011421.story

As for Stephanie Cutter, well, she merely proves that the sort of unethical behavior we've been force-fed by America's Mainstream Media and been forced to expect from certain Democratic Party & GOP consultants and strategists is not a Male-Only preserve:

 http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/cnn-lowered-its-ethical-standards-make-things-easier-newt-gingrich/69959/

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/obama-guys-were-too-afraid-demote-stephanie-cutter/69384/

Fox News Channel
White House getting advice on Syria from former Obama campaign advisers 
By Ed Henry
Published September 03, 2013 FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/03/white-house-getting-advice-on-syria-from-former-obama-campaign-advisers/

 Sure, why not get advice from people who don't actually know anything original about the country or speak French and Arabic, and who only know what other people have told them or what they've read.
Just like your neighbor or the person who hands you your coffee at Panera Bread.

 My recollections of September are that President Obama's policy on Syria was a disaster from beginning to end and something that everyone, regardless of political ideology, agreed upon on from coast-to-coast.
You remember, the policy that even the Washington Post's Editorial Board strongly criticized and which I mentioned last Tuesday, here:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.be/2013/10/obamas-bad-foreign-policy-from-start.html

 The one time in five years that Obama really brought the country together -in opposition to his own policies.

 Sure, of course, that result is to be expected when you've got such great consultants and advisors.
Just don't say anything bad about Valerie Jarrett and her lack of knowledge or else...

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/
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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Obama's bad foreign policy from the start shows little sign of improving, as Washington Post Editorial Board lashes out Sunday : "Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria": "So what does the Obama administration propose to do to stop this barbarism? The simple answer is: nothing, other than issue strongly worded statements..."; #stonecoldfacts, @washingtonpost

Obama's bad foreign policy from the start shows little sign of improving, as Washington Post Editorial Board lashes out Sunday : "Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria" 
In case you were still on your summer hibernation when this happened a few weeks ago, the only time that President Obama has brought the country together this year on a policy is when nearly the entire country stood-up in opposition to his ill-considered ideas, plans and policies over Syria, one of his major weaknesses since coming into office in January of 2009.
That hasn't changed.
Think about that for a minute.

 The Washington Post
Washington Post Editorial: Mr. Kerry’s empty words on Syria
By Editorial Board
Published October 28, 2013
ACCORDING TO Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad now is waging “a war of starvation” against his own people. In a robustly worded op-ed column posted Friday on ForeignPolicy.com, Mr. Kerry denounced what he said was “the systematic denial of medical assistance, food supplies and other humanitarian aid to huge proportions of the population.” The regime’s tactics, he said, “threaten to take a humanitarian disaster into the abyss.” They are “intolerable,” and “the world must act quickly.”
So what does the Obama administration propose to do to stop this barbarism? The simple answer is: nothing, other than issue strongly worded statements. 
Read the rest of the editorial at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-kerrys-empty-words-on-syria/2013/10/28/d422b6c4-3feb-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html
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Friday, August 30, 2013

Syria: Plain and True, Fact and Fantasy, Past and Present, but ever since it's artificial creation by the French and the British, it's always been an artificial 'Line in the Sand'. For President Obama, though, it's now 'a red line' in the sand




Awesome Sean Lee @humanprovince! "An open letter on Syria to Western narcissists."
http://humanprovince.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/an-open-letter-on-syria-to-western-narcissists/">http://humanprovince.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/an-open-letter-on-syria-to-western-narcissists/</a>





















































































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Monday, August 26, 2013

On Syria, this week I think Obama is going to redefine yet another word and that word is "imminent," as per our purported upcoming bombing of Syria. Per what George F. Will has said previously about Obama's over-blown rhetoric on the campaign and at The White House, now I think even normal words will start losing their true meaning if he says them too often

Not that you asked, but on the issue of Syria, I think that this week, President Obama is going to redefine yet another word and that word is "imminent," as per our purported upcoming bombing of Syria because of the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons to clear areas of Syrian rebels who want Bashar al-Assad out of power, dead or alive.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

Just like MLB's so-called "imminent" decision on suspending Alex Rodriguez that was two weeks that seemed like two months!
And thus far, meaningless, since he continues to play.

Laura Ingraham interviews George F. Will. Uploaded March 2, 2013. 

Per columnist George F. Will's recent spot-on comments that Obama's over-blown rhetoric was having a negative effect on both American citizens and the American lexicon, a line of thinking that for all sorts of reasons I admit will always have appeal to me, regardless of whom it is being said about
I think Obama is going to redefine yet another word and that word is "imminent," the
word of choice for newspaper headline writers and U.S. Senators.

Under him imminent is going to come to mean the combination of "one-of-these-days 
when I get around to it," PLUS, "I really wish you hadn't done that because now I have
to do something I really don't want to do but will because you gave me no choice."

I am now starting to come around to the idea, more than ever, that anything Obama does
makes things worse, regardless of intentions, regardless of the issue.

 In that sense, he's like like many South Florida pols I could name, who don't properly prepare for public meetings and seem to have no remorse for NOT fighting harder for their own residents and taxpayers, and are are chronically unprepared to engage in genuine oversight and accept some personal responsibility for asking hard questions when necessary, not just roll-over for city or county mangers and their staffs.
You know the names!
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Saturday, August 17, 2013

Obama's passivity in U.S. foreign policy, esp. in Egypt, is setting-off alarms in D.C. Old Conventional Wisdom: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. CW for 2013: Obama golfs while Egypt burns. Even while majority within pro-Obama U.S. Mainstream Media continue giving him a free pass, many at The Washington Post and other D.C. foreign policy centers are VERY ANXIOUS about Obama's lack of concern or influence, witness WaPo's Jackson Diehl's devastating column, "Obama’s Dangerous Passivity on Egypt and Syria on Display." Consider this but a taste: "Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office." Diehl is 100% correct!





Obama's passivity in U.S. foreign policy, esp. in Egypt, is setting-off alarms in D.C. Old Conventional Wisdom: Nero fiddled while Rome burned. CW for 2013: Obama golfs while Egypt burns. Even while majority within pro-Obama U.S. Mainstream Media continue giving him a free pass, many at The Washington Post and other D.C. foreign policy centers are VERY ANXIOUS about Obama's lack of concern or influence, witness WaPo's Jackson Diehl's devastating column, "Obama’s Dangerous Passivity on Egypt and Syria on Display."
Consider this but a taste: "Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office." Diehl is 100% correct!


The Washington Post
Obama’s dangerous passivity on Egypt and Syria on display 
By Jackson Diehl
August 15, 2013 
There was hope a few months ago that mounting chaos in the Middle East, and a revamping of President Obama’s national security team, would prompt the president to snap out of what looked like a deepening torpor in foreign policy.  
Instead, this president’s extraordinary passivity in the face of crisis may have achieved its apotheosis this week. On Wednesday, as Egyptian security forces gunned down hundreds of civilians in the streets of Cairo, an unperturbed Obama shot another round of golf at Martha’s Vineyard. His deputy press secretary was left to explain to reporters that the administration remained firmly committed to not deciding whether what had happened in Egypt was a coup.
Read the rest of the column here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-obamas-dangerous-passivity-on-egypt-on-display/2013/08/15/69d085fc-0522-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

 @JacksonDiehl https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

 Jackson Diehl archives at Washington Post: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html







The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
Egypt erupts as security forces attack Morsi supporters
August 14, 2013

 The Post's powerful mince-no-words editorial includes this passage;
This refusal to take a firm stand against massive violations of human rights is as self-defeating for the United States as it is unconscionable. Continued U.S. support for the Egyptian military is helping to push the country toward a new dictatorship rather than a restored democracy. Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, the coup leader, increasingly is styling himself as a national savior in the mode of such former dictators asGamal Abdel Nasser;
Read the rest of the editorial at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/egypt-erupts-as-security-forces-attack-morsi-supporters/2013/08/14/f230a080-04fa-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html



















When one of the most-dependable and prominent Obama supporters in the Washington new media, Eugene Robinson, an actual Pulitzer Prize winner, takes him to task and personally attacks his morality and lack of backbone, that's more than just news within the Beltway. 

 The Washington Post
A lack of spine on Egypt
By Eugene Robinson
August 15, 2013
There may be little the United States can do to end the savage bloodletting in Egypt, but at least our nation can be loyal to its ideals by bearing witness and telling the truth. In this, President Obama has failed.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-a-lack-of-spine-on-egypt/2013/08/15/33a7bc80-05df-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html













Christian Science Monitor
Why Mahmoud Badr is pro-Army, anti-Muslim Brotherhood
Interview: Mahmoud Badr, the activist whose online campaign helped to bring down Egypt's president, now supports the army attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood. Why?
By Yasmine Saleh, Reuters
August 17, 2013
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0817/Why-Mahmoud-Badr-is-pro-Army-anti-Muslim-Brotherhood

More at: http://www.csmonitor.com/content/search?SearchText=Egypt



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Friday, October 19, 2012

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria


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 I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

 Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

 I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

 Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.


The Washington Post
How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution
By Jackson Diehl
October 14, 2012
Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.
The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html
Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

 Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

 The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.
U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 
Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

 As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

 And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

 How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

 Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV
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