Military Personnel Being Disarmed

Note- the terms "Base" and "Post"(not to be confused with a blog post) Naval and Army respectively, should be considered interchangeable.
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The shooting at the Washington DC Navy Yard brought yet another nagging thought of mine back to the fore.

The national (Our structure is actually not Federal and never was) government has been steadily pushing our military into a position of impotence (Unless it is being unleashed on a foreign power of course). In addition to being subjected to the agendas of radical gays and feminists, and atheists, our armed forces have been placed - to a great degree, under the control of civilian law enforcement authorities. When I was on active duty in the Marine Corps in the late 1980's, the only two civilian law enforcement agencies of which I knew was the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) and the Department of Defense (DOD)Police . This former handled criminal matters that warranted investigations of criminal cases that went past the levels normally handled my military law enforcement and the latter seemed to be tasked with base security where there was no military police unit of appreciable size. At the time, I only saw DOD police on Army posts Even then, I was not pleased with this arrangement; the US military has always had a multi-level system of  well-trained and qualified members that policed the ranks more than well enough. At the time, though, I contented myself with the notion that these civilians were useful for matters that may include civilians that may have been involved with crimes on, or otherwise associated with, military bases.

Since I have not followed the agency since I left the Marines, I cannot say for certain how much their mission has changed, but the   NIS of today appears to have their hands in all sorts of operations:

http://www.ncis.navy.mil/Pages/publicdefault.aspx

After my honorable discharge and subsequent time in the Army national Guard in the early 1990's (The Clinton era), I began to notice, particularly on Army posts, the increase in the amount of DOD police. It was then that I began to wonder what was being done with the military police units; it was if (In flora and fauna terms) they were disappearing like a native species being displaced by a new invasive species.

Today, the military police of out military has been relegated to, at best, a secondary status. In the Fort Hood Terrorist (Obama's "workplace violence)" attack by Major Nadal Hasan, it was a DOD police officer who first returned fire - I don't know of military police had been completely removed from the post, severely reduced in strength, or had been restricted from responding to a violent crime, but again my hackles were raised - something was wrong.

The details about who actually shot and killed the shooter, Aaron Alexis, n Washington DC today, are still murky. All I have been able to gather is that he was killed by police. I don't know if these were Washington DC Metropolitan, DOD, or Military Police, but what is clear is this:

The Navy Yard, like all US military bases, is a gun free zone (Does anyone notice that shooters like gun free zones for slaughters?) , non-police military personnel are strictly prohibited from being armed, and no military police personnel appear to have been present. Armed response may have been only from civilian police and, after orders were approved, the Marine Corps barracks personnel from nearby Headquarters Marine Corps.

Today I thought about another piece of the puzzle of the big picture. This the neutering of our military and its personnel in the face of an ever-growing threat of national and other police that operate under the umbrella (including Task Forces) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If our military is not actively engaged in combat operations (away from home), it can now barely do anything to protect its own personnel and others on a military base.

I  have little doubt that this is no accident - the military is being rendered utterly unable to protect the People in the event that the Hydra that is DHS and its attached agencies/task forces are used to put down an uprising (even a peaceful one like the beginning of Obama's celebrated :Arab Spring") of the People against a government that is unrecognizable to one who adheres to our Constitution.

I have been on active and reserve military duty and am a retired law enforcement officer. I can assure you that military personnel consider themselves more like the People than do many cops. The latter are much more likely to have an "us against them" mindset than members of our military.

Excerpts from a previous post:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/08/retired-marine-colonel-on.html

The militarization of police, at all levels of government, in the United States is certainly an issue of great concern. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 effectively prohibited US military personnel from being employed to enforce criminal/civil law within the nation. Federal troops can be deployed in situations in which a state of emergency has been  declared, such as with the Los Angeles riots of 1992, but these are to be used in a support status and coordinated with civil authorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

Law enforcement personnel, including those under the supervision pf the Department of Homeland Security (a body seemingly growing in scope and authority by the day), are in contrast specifically charged with the task of enforcing the Law. Historically, these agencies were not well-equipped to handle situations such as barricaded suspects. Enter the SWAT team; the officers units had training and equipment that would enable them to do what the officer on standard patrol duty could not.

After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps and being hired by a local law enforcement agency, I served on my agency's SWAT team from the early to late 90's. During that period, I noted that our equipment, training, and structure was becoming quite militarized. We also began to acquire equipment and training from the Federal government. A change in mindset accompanied this development. Officers who had never served in the military started to labor under the impression that their level of training not only approached* (Which was not even close) but surpassed that of actual military personnel. One in particular had big plans - he had designs to make his unit "....better than the SEALS". That claim left me utterly speechless. I mean, he just no clue whatsoever.

The response to the Columbine slaughter exemplified both the drawbacks of overt militarization of our cops and the fact that cops simply do not think like soldiers do. Waiting for backup and the arrival of sufficient numbers if SWAT personnel to conduct a textbook SWAT  operation, the responding patrol and later SWAT officers waited - for a very long time, while students were being killed and. Once enough arrived to do things "by the book", they crept through the school ever-so-slowly while severely injured students went without medical attention. To them, every nook and cranny needed to be cleared before the unit moved to the next room or hallway.

Militarily personnel are trained with a Mission First -Troops Second mentality, cops are not. An infantry unit, if given the order, will attempt to accomplish the mission with the troops and and equipment available at the time. They will move through hostile forces if need be. Police dogma does not even come close to this. 

SWAT teams do not have the same level of training as do military personnel, but they think that they are actually more highly trained, and that its frightening.

Also frightening is the fact that, as the Colonel noted, police agencies are not only acquiring armored vehicles and other types of equipment that one would expect to see at a military base, it is also standardized, often down to the same exact model. With the streamlining of Emergency Incident Response procedures and Mutual Aid agreements, it is guaranteed that officers can be detached and and reassigned to units comprised of officers from other agencies quite seamlessly. In a scenario in which the People are being targeted for standing  up for their rights, officers would not even have the advantage of working with officers with whom they are familiar, something which often provides a natural "braking mechanism" when given orders that are problematic. Old friends have ways of letting their partners know that they see something wrong without saying a word - a good start if officers need to decide on their own to "stand down".

When equipment is issued or subsidized at state or national level, local agencies are obligated by contract to dispatch that equipment, along with trained officers, to large-scale events. These are referred to as "Task Forces". Several  cops from your town or county could be away for days or weeks at a time. Following September 11th, officers from across the nation were assigned to and received training for a rapid reaction force, the name of which escapes me at the moment, for deployment to emergencies anywhere in the state or nation. Jurisdictional authority would be provided simply for "swearing in" the responding offers to give them powers of arrest in that state. They were used in events such as Katrina, but an "emergency" is subject to interpretation, and your officers could well be two or more thousand miles away dealing with a body of Americans who are standing up for their rights.

The Colonel was correct in noting that the Federal Government is effectively creating an army that is not restricted by the Posse Comitatus Act, which brings me to the most frightening part:

In order for military units to go into action, be it to destroy an opposing force, suppress a movement of the People, or prevent a necessary movement of the People from being suppressed, a tremendous amount of steps need to be followed. Orders must be given to all combat and support units. This includes issuing of operation orders, weapons, transportation, equipment, fuel and other necessities. A military unit, even if its command staff and troops know that something is dreadfully wrong and that action must be taken, is almost powerless to act if an order has not been sent via the chain of command. Virtually an entire battalion of staff officers has to be of the same mind in order for such an act to have a chance of happening. A smaller unit attempting such a move will see its officers relieved of command and detained and the troops confined to barracks - prohibited of course from any contact outside of the base or post.

In a similar scenario involving the dispatch of police forces, it is far easier. Police agencies have their equipment on hand, and their operational procedures are much more conducive to an immediate deployment at the word of a Chief or other superior officer. Federal and State agencies are massive in size and have sufficient assets to operate for weeks. The mind-boggling amount of ammunition that has been purchased and stored across the nation by the Department of Homeland Security allows for an almost unlimited supply. Add the call for to-be-attached officers from local agencies with their issued equipment, and the new army, which takes its orders from Civil authorities, is a tool that can be wielded in an unchecked  manner against the People. When the cops are told that the targets are in violation of the Law, their minds are geared towards making arrests. They also have not been educated to appreciate their mission to protect the People, Constitution, and the nation as have military personnel. I was in both worlds, and I can assure you that the mindset is as different as can be.

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Islam Remark Brings Punishment to County Employee

In the Western variant of Socialism, saying the prohibited things will not result in a night visit by the secret police to appear in a kangaroo court and sentenced to death of a labor camp, but the chilling Orwellian effects are nonetheless quite apparent.

You will be ostracized, financially ruined, and/or subject to the media-fueled anger of the mob.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/14/county-employee-faces-discipline-for-post-critical-of-islam-he-made-on-his-private-facebook-page/

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/muslim-groups-demands-public-records-after-county-/nZwpQ/

One thing to note is that using social media while at work ( lunch and breaks excepting) , particularly if the media is being accused on employer-owned computers (not the case with this employee), is not the most prudent of decisions. For the record, I am not sure if the employee did this during work hours or after.

The preceding was just unsolicited advice.

-From The Blaze:

"A Florida public servant may be disciplined for posting a message critical of Islam on his personal Facebook page, a county official said this week.

Palm Beach County Administrator Bob Weisman said the county is still deciding whether or not to discipline public information officer John Jamason for a 9/11 Facebook post skewering Islam,according to the Palm Beach Post."

This is what brought on the call for disciplinary action - a remark clarifying that to truly practice Islam is to accept violence and hatred. 

“Never forget. There is no such thing as radical Islam. All Islam is radical. There may be Muslims who don’t practice their religion, much like others. The Quran is a book that preaches hate,” the message said, according to WPTV.

The County Administrator was clear that, if the employee had not been tenured and by extension not protected by civil service-type laws, he would have been terminated from his employment without benefit of a set process for matters of discipline. In other words, if he had been a new-hire or in a non-protected position he would have been fired arbitrarily; no hearing, no graduated levels of punishment or reprimands, just sent packing due to exercising his rights of free speech. From the administrator's words I understand this to mean that having the gall to speak accurately about Islam (gay marriage, illegal immigration, etc, presumably included) will bring trouble at work even if it is done on your own time in your own home.

"Weisman said that if Jamason were not a “merit system employee who is protected by State law from arbitrary termination” he may have been fired by now.

“If he was an at-will employee, for which I do have more discretion, I would be considering his termination today for the ignorance of his comments and that they are hurtful to part of our community,” Weisman told WPTV."

I have little doubt that Mr. Jamason will win any court case that follows an attempt to reprimand or disciplinary him an another manner, but the point is clear - if you say or write something that the Left has declared to be verboten, the powers that be will  - at the very least, go through the motions of charging you with a violation of the rules and regulations that govern the conduct of employees. You will have attorney fees, possibly be out of work for months, and sleepless nights. 

We steadily approaching the specter of the Hate Speech laws that gag our elder cousins in culture of Western Europe. There, the mere act of describing the realities of Islam or the details of Mohammed's life will bring - as Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff* learned, the possibility of imprisonment and fines.

*http://english.savefreespeech.org/

For now, the Left will have to be content with a more grass-roots (but quite effective nonetheless) sort of oppression. If you speak or act in contradiction of that has been established by "consensus" as the correct way of thinking and acting, you will face the threat of a loss of your employment, (or business if you are self-employed), verbal abuse, vandalism to your home, and sometimes physical assaults. You will have some supporters, but they will assert that they cannot say what they believe do to the fear of experiencing that which befell you. You will be effectively alone. 

That is, unless the People begin to employ the traditional Western manner of thinking and worry more about the future of the grandchildren than their own fortunes. That's what caused people to leave the comfort and security of their ancestral lands and build (by hand) homes and farms in regions in which they were subject to privations and attacks by people who did not want them there. 

We need to start thinking like those who sold themselves into years of indenture servitude just for the chance to - once free of the terms of the contract, to get a freely-held piece of land to bequeath to their children.

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The Siege of Vienna -1683 and Today

The space bar on my keyboard is giving me problems, which makes typing quite maddening. I will have to make this post short.


Hat tip to Gates of Vienna:

As a compulsive reader, particularly in all aspects of Western history, a certain event or date about which I had read on numerous occasions often suddenly strikes me as having real significance.

The place in time of the 1683 siege of Vienna (the 330th anniversary of the Christian victory was yesterday), envisioned and lead by by the Korprulu Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, was one that took a long time to penetrate my thick skull. About five years ago the relevance of the Islamic invasions with our problem with Islamic aggression today hit me like a hammer.

Previously, when contemplating modern-day Islamic aggression,  I had concentrated on the seizures of American shipping, successful demands for tribute (of European states also), and enslavement of American seamen followed by the Barbary Wars of the late 18th-early 19th centuries. That made sense as the US had been targeted due to her non-Islamic nature while in her infancy, but one day the year 1683 hit home-

-It was exactly one hundred years prior to the Treaty of Paris, the document that officially recognized the independence of the American republic from the United Kingdom.

One hundred years. That means that, when the news of the Treaty broke out, there would have been people alive whose fathers had read or heard accounts of the horde of  troops of Ottomans and tributary states coming close to plundering the capital of the Holy Roman (German) Empire.

- sitting well inside the borders of Western Europe.

The taking of the rest of modern-day Austria would not have been out of the question. The Ottomans had an immense and powerful army, but their continual advances were made practical by the augmentation of troops from Ottoman-ruled or vassal states (The siege force included elements as diverse as Crimean Mongols and Christian Moldavians). In addition to the Constantinople-like rape of the city and her people, future Ottoman armies would include components of former Hapsburg soldiers. France, who was complicit in the Ottoman attack (among other things, Hapsburg-held regions bordering France were being plucked away  while Hapsburg energies were being directed at the protection of  the Eastern front) would have found herself faced with an enemy far more destructive and rapacious than anything that a 18th century European state could dish out - this now much closer and with no appreciably strong  state to act as a buffer.

This was the third time that Austria was threatened, and the second time that Vienna herself was besieged.

The answer to the call for surrender or enslavement was clear - Vienna would fight.

The siege progressed, and until the main relief army of Poles and Germans arrived and caught the overconfident attackers off-guard, the walls of Vienna had been close to being breached.

To me, the heavily-armored winged Hussars (Their uniform included wooden-framed wings) led by Polish King Jan Sobieski are the focus of the relief army. Crashing into the now-fleeing Ottomans, they - along with their German allies, made short work of those who would carry Jihad into the heart of Western Europe.

The Korprulu Grand Vizier's fate? He - in Mafia style, was "sent for" and strangled for his botched mission.

The excerpts from the following post note the tragic irony that has befallen Vienna since that momentous day (as with other Western European cities) by the policies of her Socialist leaders. Referred to here as "red", Leftists and their so-called conservative opposition have knowingly allowed Turks to invade Europe again -this time without having to risk a single life.

http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/09/330-years-after-the-victory-over-the-turks/

"What the Turks lost at that time, the red city government has been returning to them a thousandfold for decades now. Vienna has roughly 1.7 million inhabitants; of these somewhat less than half are immigrants. Those of Turkish origin rank third in number behind the Germans and the Serbs and constitute about 10% of the migrants in Vienna. Nevertheless they are the ones that demand the most and arguably spread themselves around with the most audacity.

Vienna already has 45 mosques, and the ATIB Union, Association of Turkish-Islamic Union for Social and Cultural Cooperation in Austria, still does not have enough of them. The ATIB is directly under the control of Turkish authority for religious affairs [Directorate of Religious Affairs], from which they presumably receive their instructions...........

Politically Incorrect reader Robert Hubac has now let off steam in an open incendiary letter to the red Mayor Michael Häupl:

[…] My challenge rests on statements and explanations which I am able to base on facts. I received assistance with specialised knowledge about Islam from professionals in Austria, Europe and even overseas. My self-employment in the real estate sector assisted me in making assessments pertaining to real estate law, location issues etc., as well in the appraisal of influences which a large project of this kind has on the neighbourhood, with all its negative effects. […] Large platforms of this kind will not be off limits to hate preachers. That can be shown by examining other so-called Islamic cultural centres in Europe. There is also the fear that Muslims, who are living here by virtue of so much tolerance and support on the part of the authorities, will be encouraged to seek “more”, which, as shown by events in England’s Blackpool and Sweden’s Malmö, can reach the point where Sharia is introduced for specific areas. […] If the association becomes operative, that will amount to the acceptance of political and religious views and practices which are not in any way consistent with our conception of the world, the Geneva Convention on Human Rights or such matters of immorality as the degrading treatment of women, absence of free choice in religion, dress regulations, the genital mutilation of minors under unsterile conditions, cruelty to animals through halal slaughter and so on.
Should a stop not be put to the Islamisation project soon in Austria, Germany and the whole of Europe, then we mock the action of Sobieski, Karl von Lothringen, Prince Eugene and other victorious warriors against the Turkish and Islamic claim to world domination. And not least we violate the future of our children and grandchildren."

Indeed.

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Revised:Assad Now Makes Demands - Amanpour Plays Drama Queen

Added 9/14/13 -Glenn Beck provided us with a glimpse of the outlook of Christiane Amanpour (Quoted below) The Link and text at bottom will help the reader make understand her motivations for supporting an attack on Syria
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/13/playing-with-us-assad-piles-on-demands-amid-chemical-weapons-talks/


I don't know if Bashar Assad accurately senses how much Obama is backpedaling after his clarion call for military strikes was dealt a serious blow or if the Syrian President is taking a terribly  risky roll of the dice.

"U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he expects a soon-to-be-released investigative report to show chemical weapons were used last month in Syria -- though U.S. officials claim it will not assign blame. The predictions come after an emboldened Bashar Assad began upping his demands in talks over relinquishing the Syrian government's chemical weapons to international control......

The dynamic could change next week, when U.N. inspectors release their report on the alleged Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack as early as Monday. The secretary-general said the findings will likely be an "overwhelming report that the chemical weapons (were) used."

"(Assad) has committed many crimes against humanity," he said.

At the same time, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf reiterated that the report will probably not say who used chemical weapons. Assad and his allies in Russia have used that opening to claim the opposition may have been responsible -- an allegation strongly denied by U.S. officials who have their own intelligence and say Assad's government was to blame.......

Sensing perhaps that the threat of a U.S. strike is no longer imminent, Assad is publicly trying to strengthen his hand. In an interview with Russian television, he not only demanded the U.S. drop the threat of military action -- he also said the Obama administration must stop arming the opposition.

"When we see that the U.S. genuinely stands for stability in our region, stops threatening us with military intervention and stops supplying terrorists with weapons, then we will consider it possible to finalize all necessary procedures and they will become legitimate and acceptable for Syria," Assad said, according to the translation by Russia's RIA Novosti. "Terrorists" is the term Assad often applies to members of the Syrian opposition."

Since I have been calling for the same thing almost from the beginning, I can't blame Assad for wanting the US to stop providing support to the rebels, but I do wonder how this move will end for Syria.

Obama essentially staked his reputation on getting support for strikes against the Syrian and has until this point lost - and badly so. Long ignored and denigrated-in the West, Putin has emerged as a voice of both influence and reason. Many, in spite of Obama and Kerry's increasingly frantic insistence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, are now less fearful of publicly voicing their suspicions as to the identities of actual perpetrators. The US, thankfully, was left with no viable option other than to step aside 

But for how long?

A narcissist like Obama perceives a loss - any loss,as a personal insult. Russia may or may not be able to maintain her current momentum for much longer if Assad can't extract any more concessions from the US but stands firm with his demands.

Obama may rant, rave, and back down again, but he also may fly into a knee-jerk reaction and bring the US right back to the precipice. If Obama generally keeps his mind but refuses to stop arming the rebels, Russia may increase her aid to the Syrian government to offset the advantage provided by the US. The best case scenario could be a proxy war reminiscent of the 1970's and 1980's. 

The US still has her fair share of sickos who so desperately want an Islamist state in Syria that they will engage is shameless drama to sway public opinion:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/13/cnns-christiane-amanpour-explodes-on-fellow-panelists-over-syria-i-can-barely-contain-myself-at-this-point/

“I can barely contain myself at this point. … How many more times do we have to say that weapons of mass destruction were used and as bad as it is to decapitate somebody it is in no means equal?,” she rhetorically asked.

Note that Christiane Amanpour employs the timeworn method of proving her point by references to claims that are now held suspect by - if not most, at least many, using the false assumption that quantity equals quality (and credibility).  "How many more times do we have to say..." proves precisely nothing. Like a Christian Fundamentalist who slings Bible verses en masse, despite their actual meaning or context, in the hopes of winning by sheer volume, Amanpour tries to get people to forget that chemical weapons may well have been used by the side that the US is not proposing to attack. She also tries to cloud the picture by conflating the situation n Syria with other conflicts. Neither the horrors of the slaughters in Rwanda, nor shameful indifference that the world displayed towards the plight of people in that nation, can be compared in any way with the Syrian conflict or our current decision-making, but Amanpour hopes that we won't notice her ruse. Note that she cares so little about the Christians and other non-Sunnis in Syria that she wants to whip Americans into a frenzy to call for actions that will result in even more violence for an already terribly suffering minority]

“We can’t use this false moral equivalence about what’s going on right now. They tried to do it in the Second World War, they tried to do it in Bosnia, they tried to do it in Rwanda and they tried to do it now. There is no moral equivalence,” continued Amanpour, noting that former President Bill Clinton is still apologizing 15 years after the Rwanda crisis.........

“I’m so emotional about this,” she said after a pause"

The People of the United States have been saddled with what has become a rare task - to think for themselves and see that there is a powerful lobby that will play on our feelings to support the creation of a state far more cruel and oppressive than Syria has had in a long time. They need to, literally, brush drama queens like Amanpour aside and insist that the US refrain from taking part in creating another Sharia state.

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Added 9/14/13:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/13/beck-reveals-why-he-has-such-disdain-for-cnns-christiane-amanpour/

“..........Amanpour is the biggest fraud I’ve ever met,” Beck said on the radio Friday. “She is somebody who has a distinct anti-Israel, anti-Western approach. And how do I know? Well, let’s just say that while we were at CNN…Christiane was one of the people that was instrumental in making my life a living hell trying to tell the truth about Islamic extremism.”
“We had all the video tapes. We had all the translations, and she made our life a living hell,” he reiterated. “This woman is so anti-Western and so anti-Jew, [it is] remarkable, remarkable that this woman has any credibility at all.”

Beck and his radio co-hosts also tore into the specifics of Amanpour’s argument, that “as bad as it is to decapitate somebody,” it is “by no means equal” to death by “weapons of mass destruction.”

“Let me give you that scenario: You’re snatched off the street, you’re bundled up, thrown into the back of a car. You’re held hostage. They torture you, or if you’re a woman, they rape you, repeatedly,” Beck said. “Then you get to hear them make their ‘Allah Akbar’ videotape in the other room, sharpen the machete, get it all ready, then put your head down in front of them while they make the other videotape and then they behead you.”

It is horrific to die either way, Beck said. “Murder is murder…I don’t care how you do it.”

Beck co-host Pat Gray [Noted that]  she didn’t seem as affected by the horrific use of chemical weapons in the case of Iraq.

“She couldn’t care less about the Kurds and what happened to Saddam Hussein,” Gray said. “Poison gas, sarin gas meant nothing to her, as it applied to Iraq. Nothing.”.........

Beck asserted: “Those 100,000 people were slaughtered because people like Christiane Amanpour were all celebratory about the great Arab Spring…which some of us with common sense…said, ‘don’t do it. It will destabilize the Middle East.’ Instead our president got up — along with the support of people like Christiane Amanpour — and they heralded the great Arab Spring. And our president said ‘More people should rise up!’ and they did.”........"

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Putin's Open Letter Bruises Hearts of Cocky Americans

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?_r=2&


Instead of going to go into detail on the contents of Russian President Vladimir Putin's open letter to the American people, I will simply make a few notes and add some responses from assorted overconfident American bigwigs.

Putin called for a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict in Syria, which was a good move. The American people needed to hear a voice of reason.

I think that he skirted the issue of bit when he declared that Russia was supporting International Law rather than the Syrian government. There would have been nothing wrong with explaining his reasons for also supporting the latter - current gains by the rebels provide a clear picture of what awaits the rest of Syria if they win. Until the point if/when the use of chemical weapons can be conclusively pinned on the Syrian government, the rest of the world does not really have a say in how the conflict should end anyway.

Putin noted that the UN Security Council, which includes the US as a permanent member, has a purpose - one that was codified with the approval of the United States. I like the way he asked the Americans consider whether such actions are in the best interest of our nation. One wonders if Americans have started to comprehend that, if the US continues with this type of unilateral action, the day will come when the US will be left alone with no supporters when she is the target of a major attack. No empire is immortal.

I would have preferred that Putin went into a little more details on the plight of non-Sunnis in rebel-held areas. The media in the US utterly ignores this sad reality.

His mention about the consequence of other nations seeking nuclear weapons to render them off-limits to nations that use their conventional militarily forces in an arbitrary manner had to have hit a raw nerve among many. Our "John McCain" types, who swagger about with the easy confidence of people who live in a prosperous and (for a little longer) powerful nation that has been the beneficiary of a great degree of geographic isolation, have no problem speaking with with the political equivalents of the scrawny guy with a tough friend to back him up or "beer muscles". That type of bluster has got to be more than annoying to the rest of the world and leaves our grandchildren open for the same treatment in reverse from similar-minded individuals in other nations. Putin's point is spot-on; the whole idea of non-proliferation is that the days of military aggression against weaker states is supposed to be over (That includes the continual saber-rattling of China against virtually any East Asian state that doesn't toe her line), therefore making nuclear weapons superfluous. It may not be realistic, but why provide Iran an argument to use in defense of their own nuclear program?

On his comments about American Exceptionalism (Note that Obama did grossly misuse the term in his Tuesday speech), I say "So what?" In the days before "Eurocentrism" became the academic inventive to be hurled at anyone who takes pride in Western Culture, students in the 1970's US learned about "Ethnocentrism", which means that most people think that the way their people or nation does things is the best. China certainly believes that her methods are the best, and I have no doubt that people from other nations would rather that we, instead of shouting our beliefs from the international rooftops, keep our opinions to ourselves. If somebody wants to debate the topic, then fine, but don't bring it up yourself. It was weird that the Leftist Obama even was willing to (mis)use the term anyway.

As Putin truthfully noted:

"We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."
The response from many on the US was laughable to say the least:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/politics/putin-syria-editorial-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_bn3


[Crybaby] "John Boehner said he was "insulted."

[Senator Robert Melendez -this one is just precious]  "I almost wanted to vomit," he said. "I worry when someone who came up through the KGB tells us what is in our national interests and what is not. It really raises the question of how serious the Russian proposal is." 

When are people in the US going to drop the KGB thing? Again, so what? He was a Soviet Citizen, he worked to strengthen his former nation, and he does not adhere to Marxism, be it the Soviet or the Western Socialist types. Are we supposed to assume that only the old Soviet dissidents or a worker from a former collective farm should eligible to run for office in Russia? 

Nancy Pelosi forgot that the rest of the world is not fooled by her conflating of the radical gay agenda with equality and a belief in God..

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi questioned Putin's views on equality.

"What I found interesting was the closing -- when he says when we pray to God he judges us all - I don't know exactly what his words are but he says `we are all God's children.' I think that's great. I hope it applies to gays and lesbians in Russia as well," Pelosi said."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/12/gingrich-putin-is-a-dictator-and-a-thug/?hpt=hp_c2

[Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich] "And frankly, we should laugh at him when he tries to lecture America about exceptionalism, because he ain't exceptional. He's just one more in a long tradition of dictators and thugs.".....

"This is a guy who, for public relations purposes, wrestles bears. He shoots tigers, stripped to the waste, to prove he's a tough guy," he said 

And what exactly do you do, Newt? And please Newt, by all means do keep your shirt on. 

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European Hostages - Rebels Spoke of Chemical Attack

I put off treating this report on Monday to concentrate on the Russian and Syrian reactions to John Kerry's offer/(whether it was sincere, insincere or planned to save face for Obama - I don't know) for Syria to avert an attack by surrendering their chemical weapons stores. By Tuesday, I had completely forgotten to mention it at all.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/11/teacher-and-journalist-held-hostage-in-syria-claim-they-overheard-explosive-skype-conversation-about-chemical-attack-during-captivity/

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/504735/20130909/syria-chemical-attack-assad-rebels-blame-hostage.htm

-From the International Business Times:

"A Belgian writer held hostage for five months in Syria has said that his own rebel captors denied that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the Ghouta massacre.

Pierre Piccinin said that he and fellow hostage Domenico Quirico, an Italian war reporter, heard their jailers talking about the chemical weapon attack and saying that Assad was not to blame........

"It wasn't the government of Bashar al-Assad that used sarin gas or any other gas in Ghouta," Piccinin told Belgian RTL radio after he was released.

"We are sure about this because we overheard a conversation between rebels. It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

"We were prisoners, stuck with this information and unable to report it," he said....."

This development is interesting. The Belgian journalist, Pierre Piccinin, while noting that he has been fully supportive of the rebel cause, declares that he is firmly convinced that the use of chemical weapons was not an act of the forces of the Syrian government. His fellow former captive, Domenico Quirico however affirms that he heard the conversation between his captors, but steadfastly refuses to draw any conclusions from what he heard. Later in the article, he even later uses the word '"madness" to label any inclination to assume that the rebels may have been speaking truthfully among themselves. 

But, Quirico did make a very telling comment.

-From The Blaze:

"Italy’s Quotidiano Nazionale reports Quirico as saying: “I am extremely surprised that the United States could think about intervening, knowing very well how the Syrian revolution has become international jihadism – in other words Al-Qaeda.”

The 62-year-old journalist was highly critical of the opposition in Syria in another interview, claiming that radical Islamic groups operating in Syria want to take down Assad and “create a caliphate and extend it to the entire Middle East and North Africa,” the Russia-friendly RT reports."

The article in The Blaze (also linked above) notes that the conversation on which the the journalists eavesdropped was in English. That part is admittedly strange and may be difficult to believe, but what would even more strange is the possibility that the rebels would have intentionally held a conversation - in a language that many Europeans know,  that that would make a US attack less likely.

If the captors did purposely speak in English so that the journalists may have been able to understand the content of the conversation, and then released them, they would have known that reports of what the captives heard would eventually make it to the press. Any claim that the rebels used chemical weapons would be another reason for the rest of the world to tell Obama, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and their cronies who currently run France to refrain from launching attacks from which the rebels would be the beneficiaries. 

Could this be a move by one rebel group to buy time while it attempts to gain ascendancy over other rebel groups? If the Syrian government was attacked  in the near future, the group that has the most personnel and equipment under its control at the moment would have the best chance of seizing power if the government is toppled. A group that needs to increase in size and strength would probably prefer that the end be put off for a while longer.

The idea of the re-creation of a unified pan-national sphere of Islam, be it a confederacy of regions or a restored Caliphate, is not something that the Left wants people discussing.  The reason for that is that they would very much want it that way. Nation-states and free peoples are anathema to committed Leftists, and an Islamic world under one government is a good start for - if not a worldwide government, at least a world of four or five super-regional governments.  

-From a previous post:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/02/israel-her-sense-of-nationhood-is-bane.html

"The post at top tells the tale perfectly; the Left has no problem with Islam as it is geared towards a "transnational" outlook. Nation-states are not a part of the Islamic system.When a Leftist envisions the world order that he would prefer, that world does not contain sovereign nations. It may be a one-world government, it may be one where nations are but shadows of their former selves that have surrendered their right to govern themselves and answer to a world-wide version of the European Union, or it is a world divided up into a few regional spheres. The latter could have a Latin American-dominated union of North and South America, an EU, an Islamic sphere, and and Asian one dominated by China.

......[The people of] many Western nations allow themselves to be lead like sheep into this oncoming loss of sovereignty, a notion which many now hold to be as obsolete as that of the ancient Greek city-states*.........'

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Kerry Refuses Allowing Testimony of Benghazi Survivors

Syria brief:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/10/we-just-got-played-shep-smiths-brutal-summary-of-what-just-happened-in-the-syria-conflict/

I do not agree that the US was cheated, fooled, or "played". What I think happened may have happened was that Russia had been prepared to offer a solution (Surrendering chemical weapons). Whether John Kerry actually made a diplomatic tactical error by his "offer" for Syria to do the same with the Russians grabbing the chance to take him up on it, or if the entire move had been orchestrated by Putin and Obama earlier at the G20 Summit, we will probably never know. According to a good friend who commented on yesterday's post on this subject, Obama claims that he came up with the idea with Putin at the summit. Either way, we have a chance to avoid committing forces in a campaign that would have one goal - to topple the Syrian government and create a vacuum that would be filled by the same scum (Moderates almost always lose once the autocrat is gone) that have murdered, raped, bombed, and burned their way through non-Sunni (and especially non-Muslim in general) regions that had at least been stable and free of war and terror prior to the conflict. Obama gets to save face (crucial for a narcissist) and maybe Assad can focus on driving the rebels out.
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Main post:

The White House is still determined to bury the Benghazi scandal. Although some survivors/witnesses have spoken publicly, testifying on record before Congress leaves the administration and State department open for trouble:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/10/cbs-reporter-kerry-tells-congress-he-wont-make-benghazi-survivors-available-for-questioning-subpoenas-could-be-coming/

"Secretary of State John Kerry has informed Congress he “will not honor the request to make Benghazi survivors available for questioning,” CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Republicans in the House Oversight Committee reportedly plan to issue subpoenas if Kerry does not reverse his decision and provide congressional investigators access to Benghazi survivors.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday sent Kerry a formal letter demanding access to the survivors of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“I must receive confirmation that the [State] Department will makes these witnesses available to Committee investigators by September 24, 2013,” the letter reads.

“Otherwise, I will have no alternative but to consider the use of compulsory process,” the letter adds.

The congressman points out that this is not the first time that the Committee has demanded access to the Benghazi survivors. In fact, he notes, the State Department has dutifully ignored or denied earlier requests for access.

The State Department told the Committee on Aug. 23, 2013, that it was not “prepared to support the [Committee’s] request for transcribed interviews.”........"

The suppressing of witnessing from Benghazi, along with with the use of  Executive Privilege by the White House in the "Fast and Furious scandal, leaves us with situations that can only be successful picked apart by the appointment of Special Prosecutors. Not all elected officials are lawyers, and those Congressmen who do hold law degrees do not necessarily have trial experience and thus are unable to engage in the right lines of questioning. 

True and tested trial lawyers have the knowledge and "feel" that can be gained only by years of schooling and experience, both of which are needed to draw out the information that is necessary to prevent an investigation from being stymied by recalcitrant and uncooperative witnesses. Many Police detectives have, through training and experience, developed their abilities and intuition in the same manner. 

A good interrogator can make a witness (Not talking about a victim/witness) feel that he needs to provide enough information to protect himself. In short, the one asking the questions knows how to give the witness "enough rope to hang himself" or will allow him a means of providing sufficient information - with the intention of making himself appear innocent, that will be used in  later examinations before the same body. Often the witness, in an effort to avoid being the scapegoat, provides information that will enable to question another witness further, which can create an "every man for himself" environment in which every witness tries to redirect the focus of the interrogator to another. 

We are faced with a Presidential administration that has all the earmarks of a criminal enterprise. Clinton had his numerous scandals and possible targeted witnesses*, G.W. Bush had his VP's cronies making money hand over fist with lucrative post-war Iraq contracts and attempts to suppress hunting accidents, but this current administration makes the former two look like also-rans. The medical industry -wrecking Obamacare disaster, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS and NSA scandals barely scratch the surface; what is being done to our nation is an act of destruction. Our own laws and machinery of government are being used to destroy both our own society and those of others. They do what they want, suppress evidence and witnesses, ignore Congressional orders and, what is worse, they have been getting away with it. 

When the administration was ready to accept monies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to attack Syria, we became an image of post-Peloponnesian War Sparta. Having finally disposed of a longtime opponent (Athens, for us the USSR) Sparta ran about the Greece (for us, the world insisting that things be done their (our) way. Sparta, with her primitive economy no longer able to keep up with a developing Greece and the small land holders liquidated, was left with little choice but to allow her citizens to be hired out as mercenaries. Sparta, like the US, made a lot of enemies. What is even worse for us, as I have noted on numerous occasions, was that we made no effort to befriended and make a business partner of Russia. In time, Sparta succumbed to the rising power of Thebes. While she was not destroyed, she never recovered her old power and influence. She eventually lost her freedom to the Kingdom of Macedon and later to Rome. We are moving in a very similar direction.

*http://www.etherzone.com/body.html

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