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John Bolton: Obama is the worst president regarding Israel

by Mojambo ( 106 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, Palestinians at July 14th, 2011 - 8:30 am

I guess you can call that stating the obvious. Actually Obama is the worst president regarding the Free World ever, too. While George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Dwight Eisenhower can be classified as not great friends of Israel (to put it mildly), Obama due to his days hanging around Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and Father Michael Pfelger, does seem to have a special animus towards the Jewish nation. I agree with Bolton that Israel should not over exaggerate power of the UN General Assembly.

By the way Bolton would be a perfect Secretary of State.

by Herb Keinon

US President Barack Obama is “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question,” John Bolton, the former US envoy to the UN and a man considering entering the presidential race against Obama, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“If you think that this is just a misunderstanding of where the green crayon went in 1949, then think again,” Bolton said of Obama. Bolton’s comments came during a meeting he had with the Post’s editorial board.

Bolton, who is currently a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News commentator, said that Obama bought in to what he said was the “European line” that if you make progress between Israel and the Palestinians “sweetness and light” will break out in the region, and every other problem from Iran to terrorism will be easier to solve.

“I think that is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope,” he said.

Bolton, in the country along with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar and Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble from Northern Ireland as part of a delegation of international dignitaries involved in an organization called Friends of Israel Initiative, said he was considering running for the Republican nomination, and would made a decision by Labor Day.

“The problem is that we haven’t had an adequate discussion of national security issues for two and a half years,” he said, explaining why he was thinking about entering the race.

“It is not a priority for Obama, and I think that is a big mistake for the United States.”

[…]

Some of Bolton’s harshest criticism of Obama had to do with the administration’s Iran policy, with Bolton saying he believed the Obama administration’s “real Plan B for the Iranian nuclear weapons program is that it can be contained and deterred, much as we contained and deterred the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

“I think that is fundamentally wrong,” Bolton said, adding that the only way to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons was through military action.

[……]

Bolton had equally strong words to say about the Palestinian bid for some type of statehood recognition at the UN in September, something he said should not – as it is in Israel and elsewhere – be getting more attention and energy than the Iranian nuclear threat.

Israel’s proper response to the move, he said, is “not to pay any attention to it, and to care no more about it than the grass you tread beneath your feet.”

Without referring directly to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s oft-quoted comment that Israel faced a “diplomatic tsunami” in September, Bolton – who served as US envoy to the UN from 2005-2006 – said “if you make the General Assembly into something more than what it is, than you are giving it authority and legitimacy it doesn’t have.”

His comments were made against the backdrop of what is almost certain to be a US veto in the Security Council, the body whose approval is necessary for a state to become a UN member. In that case, the Palestinians are likely to take their bid to the General Assembly, which has no binding authority.

Bolton acknowledged, however, that the move did have political significance, similar to the “Zionism Equals Racism” declaration of the mid-1970s.

Leaning on past experience when he was head of the international organizations department in the State Department from 1989-1993, Bolton said that the only way to get this move stopped in the UN was for the US Congress to pass legislation saying that if the move did go through, Washington would cut off funding to the international body.

[…]

Read the rest: Bolton: Obama worst president for Israel

Tags: Herb Keinon, John Bolton
Posted in Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, Palestinians | 106 Comments »

Americans reluctant to intervene in Libya

by Phantom Ace ( 174 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Islamic Supremacism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Libya, Military, Muslim Brotherhood, Progressives, Republican Party, Tranzis at March 16th, 2011 - 2:00 pm

The Republicans really botched an opportunity to destroy the Tranzi Progressives. Many leftists like John Kerry, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and others were calling for the US to set up a no fly zone over Libya. Instead of hammering the Democrats for wanting us to get involved in conflict where there are no US interest, Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol, Mike Huckabee and others agreed and even tried to use this to paint Obama as weak. Despite all this bipartisan propaganda most Americans are against getting involved.

The public by a wide margin says the United States does not have a responsibility to do something about the fighting between government forces and anti-government groups in Libya. And while opinion is divided over enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, this view is undercut by the fact that Americans overwhelmingly oppose bombing Libyan military air defenses.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 10-13 among 1,001 adults, finds that 63% say the United States does not have a responsibility to act in Libya; fewer than half as many (27%) say the U.S. has this responsibility. Opinion about U.S. responsibility to take action in Libya is comparable to views about the conflict between Serbs and Bosnians in 1995; just 30% said the U.S. had a responsibility in that case. By contrast, far more Americans said the U.S. had a responsibility to take action in Kosovo in 1999 and in the Darfur crisis of 2007.

[…]

Roughly half of Americans (54%) say that the best argument for not using military force in Libya is that U.S. military forces are already overcommitted. Far fewer (19%) say the best argument for not using force is that opposition groups in Libya may be no better than the current government or that Libya is not of vital interest to the United States (13%).

Read the rest: Public Wary of Military Intervention in Libya

The American public wants no part of the Libya mess. It saddens me that the editorial review board of the National Review is pushing for American intervention in Libya. I really don’t get why the Conservative foreign policy establishment is so gung ho on getting involved in Libya. Well the answer is that the foreign policy establishment of the GOP is not Conservative, but Wilsonian Progressive. These same clowns push for the US to get involved in Bosnia when the majority of Americans were against it. The result was the creation of an Islamicstate in Europe. These same fools continued to demonized the Serbs was able to convince enough Americans to go along with Clinton’s illegal bombing of Serbia. The result of this shameful act was the creation of an Islamic criminal state in Europe involved in drug trafficking, child sex slavery and organ harvesting. Now they want to get involved in Libya, the result of which will produce an Islamic state. These same fools turned the War on Islamic-Imperialism into a war to spread Muslim democracy. The result is 5,000 dead Americans and Islam more powerful now than before 9/11.

I am disappointed that Conservatives like Sarah Palin, John Bolton, the National Review and others are cheer leading a leftist idea. America is broke and our economy a mess. We should be focused on fixing our own problems and not getting involved in an internal Arab conflict. Clearly the leaders of the Conservative movement are being mislead by people with a Progressive agenda. We should oppose any involvement in Libya and use it as a club to beat the Left with. Clearly the elites of both parties are going against the will of the American public.

Although I am a small voice, I will do all I can to oppose the Tranzi-Wilsonian foreign policy alliance. There were no blogs during Bosnia or Kosovo to spread the truth about the situation. I was mislead in the run up to Iraq the real reason for the invasion. I will not sit idly by and stay quiet over Libya. I will oppose this Progressive based foreign policy with all my fiber in my being.

No American blood for Islamic Democracy!

Update:

Here is a good analysis by Michael Totten on the hypocrisy of the Arab world. Although I disagree with Totten’s WIlsonian ideology, he is intellectually honest in realizing Americans have had enough of dying for the Islamic world.

As forces loyalto Libya’s cruel and de ranged tyrant Moammar Khadafy re conquer one rebel-held city after an other, the Arab League and the Arabic press are calling for a no-fly zone over the country to tip, or at least even, the odds. While I’m inclined to help the Libyans on humanitarian grounds and to advance our own national interests, the American public’s appetite is low for intervening on behalf of the rebels — and it’s largely the Arab world’s fault.

Last time Americans led a coalition to topple a mass-murdering dictatorship in the Middle East, the Arab League and the Arabic press hysterically denounced us as imperialist crusaders fighting a war for oil and Israel. Egged on by al-Jazeera, they cheerleaded the “resistance” that killed thousands of our soldiers with roadside bombs in the years that followed.

[……]

Few expected Iraq to transition smoothly to a stable democracy after so many years of repression, sanctions and war — but if Iraqis hadn’t responded with such a vicious campaign of violence against our soldiers and each other, the thought of helping Libyans who suffer under similar circumstances wouldn’t frighten or disgust quite so many of us.

[…]

They might find that if they treated us more like the Kurds do, more of us will be willing to help them in the future — rather than shun them as hostiles who deserve to be left to their fate

Totten is spot on here. Why is the opinion of the Arab Islamic world more important than the opinion of that of Americans? For the last 20 years, America’s military actions freom Bosnian to Iraq, have been involved in the Islamic world, while we ignore the fires in our own hemisphere. Containmnet of the Islamic world should be our foreign policy.

It is time for America to leave the Islamic world to its own devices and we should pursue a policy of arming Israelto the teeth. We should be allying ourselves with Non Islamic powers on the borders of Dar al Islam. The US should support the destruction of Hizballah and the establishment of Lebanon as a Christian state to provide refuge for Middle East Christians. We should assist genuinely Pro Western people like the Kurds or Persian Nationalist wanting to get rid of their Arabized Ayatollah regime. All aid to Kossovo should be withdrawn and we should allow the Serbs to take back their rightful province. Bosnia should be dived between Serbia and Croatia, thus ending a 600 year wrong caused by the Islamic Turks. We should support European anti-Islamic movements an undue the Pro-Islamic European Union. The US also should seek to stabilize Mexico and dominate our own hemisphere once again.

The tme for a realistic foreign policy based on American interest and preservation of Western civilization is needed. Americans have bled enough for Islam. If we need to make sacrifices then let it be for American interests, allies and Western Civilization in general.

Tags: Col. Mumar Qaddafi, Islamic Democracy, John Bolton, Saraha Palin, Wilsonian Progressives
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Islamic Supremacism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Libya, Military, Muslim Brotherhood, Progressives, Republican Party, Tranzis | 174 Comments »

John Bolton “thinking very seriously” about running for President in 2012

by Bob in Breckenridge ( 200 Comments › )
Filed under Elections 2012, Politics, Republican Party at October 8th, 2010 - 4:30 pm

Would you vote for him?

John Bolton 2012?
Thu, Oct, 07, 2010

“Who was our last moustached president?” I ask John Bolton as we chat in his American Enterprise Institute office in downtown Washington, DC. “Taft,” he responds without hesitation, “And the last candidate was [Thomas] Dewey—not a comparison I’m excited about.” With a twinkle in his eye, he deadpans, “I think the American people would say it’s a complete non-issue.” The former US Ambassador to the United Nations may be willing to joke about his trademark facial hair, but as the 2012 election cycle looms, he sounds like a man who is seriously evaluating his own presidential aspirations.

Up to this point, Bolton has merely piqued the chattering class’ interest by refusing to foreclose the possibility of a presidential bid in a recent Daily Caller profile piece, and again during a Fox Business Network interview. Citing his chief priority of ensuring Republican gains in the 2010 midterm election, Bolton still won’t say if he’s planning to toss his hat into the ring, but now at least allows that he is “thinking about it very seriously”—a fairly significant rhetorical step toward to taking the plunge. It isn’t a new consideration either, he says. “I’ve been thinking about this really since it became clear early in the Obama administration that [the president’s] national security policy would be as bad as we feared it would be.”

Although Bolton denies he’s doing any heavy groundwork to set up a 2012 campaign, he’s not sitting still either. “What I am doing is talking to people who are experts on presidential campaigns because I’ve never run for elective office before,” he explains, before parenthetically pointing out that he is familiar with campaign finance law by dint of his work on the landmark 1976 Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo. I ask if he’s planning any trips to Iowa in the relatively near future, a question that he adroitly sidesteps with a chuckle and a change of subject.

If anyone doubts Bolton’s ability to withstand the rigors of a presidential bid, they ought to look no further than his grueling daily regimen. The 61-year-old Yale graduate wakes up every morning at 4 to read newspapers from across the globe, write, and prepare for media appearances and speeches. By the time most Americans slog into work, Bolton has already been absorbing information and generating content for five hours. As someone who requires very little sleep to function at a high level, Bolton finds the very early morning to be an especially productive period in his day because “the phone doesn’t ring at that time.” According to colleagues, Bolton also possesses a near-photographic memory, a quality he denies. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he says, chalking up his ability to retain enormous amounts of information to his training as a litigator.

Read the rest here

Tags: John Bolton
Posted in Elections 2012, Politics, Republican Party | 200 Comments »

Hanging Israel out to dry, and a flying pig moment in Britain

by Mojambo ( 106 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Israel, Media at June 8th, 2010 - 11:30 am

The recent performance of the Obama administration on three occasions concerning Israeli security and self defense is an absolute disgrace. I hope that the Jews who supported him (like Martin Peretz) are happy. John Bolton (whom should have been Sec. of State instead of the underwhelming Condoleeza Rice) lays it out for us.

by John Bolton

In less than a week, the Obama administration left Israel hanging out to dry three separate times.

Media coverage of the “flotilla” incident has ignored this critical shift in US policy. But it’s a safe bet that America’s adversaries, especially the terrorists, understand it all too well. Worse yet, President Obama’s visible discomfort in defending hard-pressed US interests around the world is only growing — with implications America hasn’t experienced since Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Let’s recap the Obama “defense” of Israel.

First, in the UN Security Council, the administration succumbed to the rush to criticize Israel in a statement that, albeit watered down, nonetheless greatly intensified international pressure on Jerusalem. The correct approach was to resist the diplomatic peer pressure and bar any council action until tempers cooled and more facts were available — meaning at most a day or two’s delay. This America could easily have done. Failure to withstand the short-term heat only feeds the impression of White House weakness, and will come back to haunt us.

Second, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, America, joined only by Italy and the Netherlands in dissent, overwhelmingly lost a vote to establish an international investigation of the Gaza incident. Even as the Obama administration touted its success preventing a Security Council investigation, it was losing precisely the same issue in Geneva — demonstrating why concessions in New York did absolutely nothing to stem the anti-Israeli tide. So much for Obama’s idea that he could reform the palpably illegitimate Human Rights Council by having the United States rejoin it.

Third, just a few days previously, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, the United States joined the consensus on a statement condemning Israel (which is not even a party to the treaty) and its nuclear program, while failing to condemn Iran, an NPT signatory that has been happily violating its treaty obligations. After the vote, National Security Adviser James Jones condemned the reference to Israel, utterly overlooking the fact that the Obama administration could readily have blocked it.

All three cases demonstrate deep-seated White House weakness. It would be a stunning admission of administration incompetence if diplomats in three separate venues had made these decisions entirely on their own (although that does happen too often at the State Department). Instructions to the US negotiators in all three likely came from either Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, so there is no dodging White House responsibility here, or the unmistakable pattern it represents.

Read the rest here: Letting Israel hang – US undercuts ally

Meanwhile if you can believe it, the British press lead by al-Guardian are impressed by Israeli Public Relations! I guess getting those videos and pictures out was a good idea.

Hat tip Israellycool

by Herb Keinon

While conventional wisdom in Israel holds that the government’s public diplomacy (hasbara) efforts following the Mavi Marmara incident last Monday were an unmitigated disaster, the picture painted in some circles abroad is that of a vast, smooth, efficient propaganda machine that has effectively dominated and controlled the flotilla narrative.

“Israeli PR machine won Gaza flotilla media battle,” ran a headline Friday in the Guardian, a British newspaper extremely critical of Israel.

The article was one of a number of stories the National Information Directorate had gathered and sent to reporters to combat the widespread narrative here that last week was an utter hasbara failure.

“In an operation reminiscent of the first week or so of the Israeli offensive against Gaza in winter 2008-2009, the Israeli PR machine succeeded in getting the major news outlets to focus on its version of events and to use the Israeli authorities’ discourse for a crucial 48 hours,” wrote Antony Lerman in the Guardian.

“This Israeli version of events was very often given an uncritical airing,” Lerman wrote. “The news imbalance may have been partly redressed, but the Israeli version of the events and the presentation of legal arguments to justify Israel’s actions by friendly commentators continues to occupy significant media space.”

The Independent, another British newspaper hypercritical of Israel, published an article the day after the incident headlined “Israel ruled the airwaves as it did the seas.”