Link – Hanson on Obama, Narcissism, and Appeasement

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in FTAC, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Political Psychology, Politics

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Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a “legitimate tenet of Islam.” And “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “man-caused disaster” better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency.

What is the point of such linguistic appeasement?

http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=8188 – 5/5/2015.

My response within The Awesome Conversation:

Not to nit, but the term “narcissist” belies a range of issues, some qutie normal and positive, or we should all be without Cadillacs, golf courses, and modern health care. “Malignant narcissism” may apply to the despotic, and in political psychology, that may have some basis in “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” (and a few other views of similar behavior) known to psychology proper. On the branch opposite that may be a “reparative narcissism”, the quality of a meaningful empathy returns.

While Obama’s de facto policy of “least war possible” may divert to other levers, e.g., energy independence, which card he’s playing now; continuing DoD-IDF cooperation and deliveries; and perhaps separation of the Muslim community from “the terrorists” to shear the moderate away from the lost (while a comparatively young fleet for leader emerges to “work the issues” with large religious cohort), the same brushes against old Jewish wisdom: He who is kind to the cruel will in the end become cruel to the kind.”

The Obama Administration’s foreign policy has been deeply opaque from the start but not necessarily in the manner proposed but certainly in a way that invites speculation. Less remarked in total has been the “Red Brown Green” cooperation defined by Putin-Assad-Khamenei, Putin-Orban, and Putin-Erdogan. It’s been much easier isolating conflicts, pointing at the President, and overlooking what amounts to a broad assault on North American power, NATO, and westward-looking alliances. Quiet incursions into government and intellectual assets have not been overlooked but have perhaps been less explored and the underplayed. That’s another subject, and I will stop here.

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Link – Argentina – Nisman Murder – Document Implicates Kirchner

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

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The 26-page document, whose discovery was unveiled by an Argentine news organization in an open feud with Kirchner, is a flourish on a story already packed with intrigue. Nisman was found dead just hours before he was planning to deliver testimony against the Argentine government. Nisman claimed Kirchner had tried to strike a deal with Iranian officials to safeguard them from prosecution in the 1994 attack on a Jewish community center known as AMIA in Buenos Aires.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/Warrant-for-Argentine-President-Cristina-Fernandez-de-Kirchner-Reportedly-Found-in-Garbage-of-Dead-Prosecutor-Alberto-Nisman/385136/ – 3/3/2015

 

FTAC – Navigational Marker

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars

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. . . the hardware is going to move around. Perhaps what’s important to track are four elements: 1) Red Brown Green Alliance (Opposition) that has flowed forward from the breakup of the Soviet Union; 2) Islamic Jihad, Shiite and Sunni both, serve that opposition and its chain of dictatorships; 3) we’re being squeezed — the whole world — between the perception of vicious and sadistic jihadists — I call them “JiSadists” — and a “velvet infiltration” by the same interests into every government and intellectual asset. On our plate is not just a “different kind of war” — it’s an immense war, and it is a war for control by the despotic among or within humankind; 4) all on the web and engaged in or around the Islamic Small Wars and and post-Soviet and Chinese New Imperial activities occupy the frontline of this war’s intellectual battlespace. Shalom

That’s a little large, even for BackChannels.

🙂

However, BackChannels has been privileged to overview a large tapestry, one that has been made officially as small as “al-Qaeda”, grown out to a nefarious 20th Century infusion of a philosophy-of-control associated with Islam — “Political Islam”, “Islamism”, Islamist” — and then that too has grown out to become a civilizational challenge to classical liberalism in concert with “state capitalism” as promoted by a piratical Russia and then joined by resurgence in national socialist talk headed by men who prefer investing in palaces than addressing their constituent’s lifestyle issues.

Call this one a dark new day.

Its symbol: the burning to death of a Jordanian pilot by Daesh.

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Obama’s State Department and Campaign Staffers Accused of Meddling in Upcoming Israeli Elections

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Politics, United States of America

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Screen capture shows emblem of the United States Department of State as a partner in an organization with offices in Israel supporting a campaign against incumbent President Benjamin Netanyahu.

Screen capture shows emblem of the United States Department of State as a partner in an organization with offices in Israel supporting a campaign against incumbent President Benjamin Netanyahu.

OneVoice is the civil society partner for peace, and the spectrum of our partnerships reflects the validation our work on the ground has received from like-minded organizations. We leverage a broad network that includes membership organizations, government agencies, charities and foundations, academic institutions, corporations, and thought leaders to mobilize support for the two-state solution, not just in the Middle East but across the globe. See below for a complete list of our current partners.

http://onevoicemovement.org/partners – as viewed 2/2/2015.

V15′s complete takeover of OneVoice’s Tel Aviv offices, however, may raise some questions not only about the grant usage, but also about the State Department’s current partnership with OneVoice.

Indeed, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has called for an investigation into the State Department’s ties to OneVoice and the group’s anti-Netanyahu effort.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/netanyahu-fires-back-at-ex-obama-team-plotting-his-defeat/#rxFfbzKAPKPdKszP.99 – 2/1/2015.

The anti-Netanyahu campaign organization “Victory 2015” AKA “V15” has reportedly filled the offices fronted by the left wing base that is One Voice International.

United States Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY-1) have called for an investigation into the Administration’s “partnership” with One Voice International and its tenant “V15”.

Journalist Aaron Klein’s above-cited article in World Net Daily lists three major funders for the effort to unseat Netanyahu.

Billed as an “ardent Zionist” by Ben Caspit in a Jerusalem Post op-ed published in February 2013, this is how financial mogul S. Daniel Abraham appears to practice his version of people’s diplomacy:

“Then he turned to Abu Mazen and asked, what do you want of Netanyahu? At this point, Erekat intervened and said, in Hebrew, the following: One, nine, six, seven. 1967. Abu Mazen approved. That’s what we want. That’s what we insist on.

Abraham said he returned to Jerusalem, but Netanyahu was already in Tel Aviv.

One Voice International founder Daniel Lubetzky (the link is to his Peaceworks biography) appears to have little political profile apart from encouraging business partnerships between Israelis and the refugees of 1948.  From the bio “At Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, the seeds of PeaceWorks were planted as Mr. Lubetzky wrote his 268-page thesis, “The Influence of Economic Factors in Resolving the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”

One might wish the partnerships entrepreneured in the Qualifying Industrial Zones programs and those fostered by Mr. Lubetzky would take hold already and modify, transform, or remove Hamas and the remnant PLO (which remnant “Abu Mazen” represents), so that the residents of Gaza and Ramallah might indeed go about their lives in peace, secure from the roaming shadows of political mafia.

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Related and still recent in the news:

A leaflet, issued by a hitherto unknown pro-Abbas group called Protectors of Legitimacy, threatened to kill 80 Dahlan supporters. The group published the names of the supporters, claiming they worked for Israel.

“Your threats will not intimidate us,” the group said. “You are beginning to play with fire. But we are made of fire, which will burn you. The language of dialogue with you has ended and as of today we will start talking to you with the language of weapons and skull-breaking.”

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/28811/why-is-hamas-smiling-opinion/#QHvC1TH3q9Ypu0Tr.99 – 2/2/2015.

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The third notable mentioned by Aaron Klein, Alon Kastiel, wealthy by way of real estate, appears in the news as a quiet enabler, merely a host to connections:

It is still unclear whether any legal entity stands behind the establishment of V15, but the story of its establishment is intrinsically linked to two Meretz activists, Itamar Weizmann (formerly an activist affiliated with Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz), and Nimrod Dweck (who has managed Meretz’s campaigns since 2012 via the marketing company he owns, Dice Marketing.)

The two met at a gathering organized by real estate mogul Alon Kastiel.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23239 – 2/2/2015.

From Israel Hayom:

The issues surrounding the establishment of OneVoice have begun to become clear, raising difficult questions that will possibly require an investigation. Two possible avenues have emerged from this affair, showing a sophisticated system of election propaganda for the Leftist bloc, in a manner that allegedly intended to bypass the country’s Parties Financing Law (which prohibits parties from receiving campaign donations from foreign sources). It could very well be that the judicial system will have to determine its legality.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23239 – 2/2/2015.

A closer look at Bird’s consulting firm as well as its working relationship with the Israeli groups finds he is just one of scores of former senior Obama election campaign staffers now working on the anti-Netanyahu effort.

Besides Bird, the 270 Strategies team includes the following former Obama staffers . . . .

http://israelnewsagency.com/obama-seeking-netanyahu-defeat-sends-campaign-elections-team-israel/ – 2/2/2015.

The Israel News Agency filing goes on to list 13 Obama campaign staffers now placed in the “Victory 2015” and pursuing the mission, so it appears to BackChannels, of ousting an independent Israeli president and replacing the same with an American puppet.

Addendum, July 13, 2016

Brynes, Jesse.  “Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported.”  March 22, 2015.

Gefen, Micha.  “American Desire for Control over Israel is Uncovered through its Funding of OneVoice.”  Israel Rising, July 13, 2016.

Johnson, Natalie.  “State Department sent taxpayer funds to group trying to oust Netanyahu.”  Fox News, July 12, 2016.

 

 

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Link – Zionism, “Post-Zionism” – Anti-Semitism

01 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Links

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It can be said, with considerable accuracy, that the unlikely and unseemly “androgynous hybrid” of the “Zionist Union” is – with the possible exception of the Arab-majority parties in the Knesset – the most anti-Zionist party to emerge on the Israeli political landscape in decades.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Into-the-fray-The-demise-of-Israeli-patriotism-389454 – 2/1/2015.

Link – Yemen – Analysis

30 Friday Jan 2015

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“The Houthis were advancing and no one was paying attention,” explained Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani, a Yemeni political analyst and opposition activist, by phone.

Yemen’s central government has never been strong or exercised full control over the country. Sheikhs, or tribal leaders, fill that void, as they’ve done for centuries, by arbitrating disputes, providing essential services like water, and enforcing customary law. Saleh had kept some semblance of control over the nation by pitting the sheikhs who could threaten his authority against one another, while making alliances with local leaders through an intricate patronage system. For decades, Saleh exhibited a genius for staying in power, but his style of rule never addressed Yemen’s fundamental problems, including poverty, conflicts over water resources, and a lack of basic services and education. He ignited resentment that flared into violence. Even before the Arab Spring, Western writers wondered whether Yemen was “the next Afghanistan” and pronounced it “on the brink of chaos.”

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/01/yemen-arab-spring-leaderless-nation/103692/ – 1/26/2015.