There is little doubt that the Islamic Republic of Iran is building nuclear weapons within its borders. Even the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog agency has finally publicly acknowledged the same concern that most intelligence experts have stated for years. And it has been reported that North Korean scientists are onsite assisting with the efforts.
With lunatic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly threatening to wipe the State of Israel off of our planet at his earliest opportunity, the world has to be concerned that Ahmadinejad will actually launch such nuclear weapons at Israel. Or others fear he will use the weapons to blackmail the world into looking the other way while he more prominently and overtly meddles in the affairs of other Arab nations.
Some like Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul have no fear of a nuclear Iran because he believes Iran has as much right to nuclear weapons as other countries in the world. Unfortunately Representative Paul is not alone in his thinking. There are other notable politicians worldwide who share his views.
President Obama has been more of an ostrich than a hawk in dealing with Iran as he continues to rattle his mouth about what he might do instead of actually doing something. You will recall that Obama sat back when the first “Arab Spring” took place in Iran early in his Presidency instead of giving public support to those Iranian youths whose goal was a more democratic Iran. Since then Obama has continued to flap his gums while Iran continues to perfect its weapon design.
Thankfully the State of Israel has not taken its eye off of the ball and has been quietly considering its alternatives to rid the world of the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. That is until dissident members of its own leadership leaked word of such plans. Amazingly it has been reported that the former head of Israel’s intelligence agency was among the leakers.
So with the United Nation’s recent acknowledgement of Iran’s nuclear intentions and Israel’s plans to act on its own if necessary to protect its country, what should America and the world do now?
In my opinion this Iranian situation is not unlike the Syrian challenge in 2007 when the world feared that Assad was perfecting plans to build nuclear weapons which caused much unrest in the rest of the Arab world and in Israel.
According to former President George W. Bush, after he had received intelligence that Syria had secretly built a reactor with North Korean help, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked Bush to bomb the compound. Bush told Olmert that the US had low confidence that the nuclear reactor was capable of producing weapons grade plutonium and preferred to publicly urge Syria to dismantle it. So Israel took out the facility by itself without asking for a green light from Bush. It has since been learned that most Arab leaders were privately thankful for that action to neutralize Syria from having nuclear weapons to attack its enemies.
You may also recall that Israel took out the Osiris nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981 being built with help from our French friends. The world reacted in horror that Israel would go after Sadaam Hussein’s peaceful nuclear energy program since he claimed it would be used for energy production rather than relying on his country’s billions of gallons of oil. Thankfully he did not have those weapons when he invaded neighboring Kuwait years later.
Flash forward to the Iranian situation. It has been reported that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently flew to Israel to ostensibly talk about the Palestinian peace process but actually went to discuss Iran. It was reported that Panetta wanted advance notice of any Israeli military action against Iran and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him no.
Once again the world is warning Israel not to attack another dangerous nuclear weapons plant. And once again it appears Israel is preparing to defend itself. Certainly Iran has a more powerful army than did Syria or Iraq at the time of the Israeli attacks. But if the United States, its NATO Allies, or the other Arab nations will not step up to the plate before it is too late with other than the usual diplomatic or economic threats, then the future of our world depends on Israel.
The hourglass is running out of sand and hopefully President Obama will succeed in getting the world community behind such efforts. Unfortunately, I do not think he has it in him.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Who Is Occupying Wall Street? - November 2011
It is almost laughable. If our economy was not badly suffering from Obamanomics and if unemployment was not already well over the reported 9%, the Occupy Wall Street movement would be a great Saturday Night Live skit.
The OWS movement is a combination of 1960 hippie revivalism, spoiled kids not taking responsibility for their life choices, unions looking for new members, anarchists always looking for a venue to protest against our great country, and political operatives hoping for the next great sound bite to use against their opponents.
But the reality is that our economy is suffering, millions of people are under or unemployed and the Obama administration has failed miserably in its attempt to apply academic theories to managing a dynamic economy in need of multiple solutions. Obama has created the crisis but would rather campaign against it now than solve it.
As former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once said, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” So whether or not Obama operatives and sympathizers organized the OWS protesters from the beginning, they are certainly ensuring that the movement has traction as even President Obama has now added the 99% slogan of the protesters to his 2012 campaign stump speech to malign the supposed 1% who profit from their misery. Of course there is nothing that Obama the community activist extraordinaire likes better than to divide and conquer his opponents.
Depending on who in the media you ask, the OWS movement is a protest against our banking industry, against millionaires and billionaires, against greedy corporations, or against our capitalist way of life. The protesters – some of whom have been paid to participate in the OWS marches – claim to not have any organizational structure but somehow various liberal celebrities always seem to have the major media around when they give a formal holler of support. Obama’s friends in the Service Employees International Union seem to be at the right place at the right time for major events. And somebody is paying for all of the free food and sleeping gear.
Certainly in any populist protest, there will be issues which appeal to those on the left, right, and in between so it is not surprising that the American public currently supports the generic OWS “movement” when not asked for their support on specific OWS complaints. Who is not against getting rid of corruption in our economy? Who is not against a Congress unable to implement strong solutions to our economic malaise?
Even I support the OWS complaint about the big Wall Street banks that put short term profits from creating and betting on mortgage-backed securities over sound policy of making sure they only gave or backed loans to credit worthy individuals and corporations. But of course the OWS crowd does not remember that Democrats in Congress wrote the laws to encourage such behavior by forcing red line loans nor do they want to remember that Wall Street gave tens of millions of campaign contributions to candidate Obama in 2008 and that the Obama administration is full of Wall Street cronies.
And while the OWS crowd is complaining of the 99% of citizens being screwed by the so-called rich 1%, the OWSers have not mentioned the 47% of Americans who are taking advantage of the 53% who pay all of the federal income taxes. They would rather rally to have their loans written off by the big banks than worrying that their failure to pay such loans will ultimately affect bank shareholders including plenty of retired Americas.
The big question now is whether the Occupy Wall Street movement has the potential to form into a voting block to help their embattled Community Organizer In Chief next November. David Axelrod, Obama’s 2012 Campaign Chief certainly knows that a large percentage of Occupiers are the same college crowd which voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008. And with most of them now under or unemployed, the Obama campaign cannot chance being blamed for that situation so they need to ensure that youth vote now rallies around the OWS banner and votes for continued change in 2012.
In my opinion, the American public will soon get tired of an organic Occupy Wall Street movement with no practical solutions to the many problems they cite. And with a movement that is becoming politicized and organized to benefit one political party over the other.
Most Americans relish those that are successful. The OWS obsession with class warfare will soon be the reason for its demise. And if President Obama continues to support the movement with his stump speeches, he will only be hurting himself come next November.
The OWS movement is a combination of 1960 hippie revivalism, spoiled kids not taking responsibility for their life choices, unions looking for new members, anarchists always looking for a venue to protest against our great country, and political operatives hoping for the next great sound bite to use against their opponents.
But the reality is that our economy is suffering, millions of people are under or unemployed and the Obama administration has failed miserably in its attempt to apply academic theories to managing a dynamic economy in need of multiple solutions. Obama has created the crisis but would rather campaign against it now than solve it.
As former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once said, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” So whether or not Obama operatives and sympathizers organized the OWS protesters from the beginning, they are certainly ensuring that the movement has traction as even President Obama has now added the 99% slogan of the protesters to his 2012 campaign stump speech to malign the supposed 1% who profit from their misery. Of course there is nothing that Obama the community activist extraordinaire likes better than to divide and conquer his opponents.
Depending on who in the media you ask, the OWS movement is a protest against our banking industry, against millionaires and billionaires, against greedy corporations, or against our capitalist way of life. The protesters – some of whom have been paid to participate in the OWS marches – claim to not have any organizational structure but somehow various liberal celebrities always seem to have the major media around when they give a formal holler of support. Obama’s friends in the Service Employees International Union seem to be at the right place at the right time for major events. And somebody is paying for all of the free food and sleeping gear.
Certainly in any populist protest, there will be issues which appeal to those on the left, right, and in between so it is not surprising that the American public currently supports the generic OWS “movement” when not asked for their support on specific OWS complaints. Who is not against getting rid of corruption in our economy? Who is not against a Congress unable to implement strong solutions to our economic malaise?
Even I support the OWS complaint about the big Wall Street banks that put short term profits from creating and betting on mortgage-backed securities over sound policy of making sure they only gave or backed loans to credit worthy individuals and corporations. But of course the OWS crowd does not remember that Democrats in Congress wrote the laws to encourage such behavior by forcing red line loans nor do they want to remember that Wall Street gave tens of millions of campaign contributions to candidate Obama in 2008 and that the Obama administration is full of Wall Street cronies.
And while the OWS crowd is complaining of the 99% of citizens being screwed by the so-called rich 1%, the OWSers have not mentioned the 47% of Americans who are taking advantage of the 53% who pay all of the federal income taxes. They would rather rally to have their loans written off by the big banks than worrying that their failure to pay such loans will ultimately affect bank shareholders including plenty of retired Americas.
The big question now is whether the Occupy Wall Street movement has the potential to form into a voting block to help their embattled Community Organizer In Chief next November. David Axelrod, Obama’s 2012 Campaign Chief certainly knows that a large percentage of Occupiers are the same college crowd which voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008. And with most of them now under or unemployed, the Obama campaign cannot chance being blamed for that situation so they need to ensure that youth vote now rallies around the OWS banner and votes for continued change in 2012.
In my opinion, the American public will soon get tired of an organic Occupy Wall Street movement with no practical solutions to the many problems they cite. And with a movement that is becoming politicized and organized to benefit one political party over the other.
Most Americans relish those that are successful. The OWS obsession with class warfare will soon be the reason for its demise. And if President Obama continues to support the movement with his stump speeches, he will only be hurting himself come next November.
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