Like Slimey Cockroaches & their crooked President, Liberals Spread Disease

[Warph]

Don't Misplace Blame for Middle Eastern Mayhem

http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2012/09/14/dont_misplace_blame_for_middle_eastern_mayhem
By Jonah Goldberg
9/14/2012

An incendiary video about the prophet Muhammad, "Innocence of Muslims," was blamed for the mob attacks on our embassies in Libya and Egypt (and later, Yemen). In Libya, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered. The video stirred some passion here in America as well.

Over at MSNBC a riot of consensus broke out when contributors Mike Barnicle and Donny Deutsch as well as University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler all agreed that the people behind the video should be indicted as accessories to murder. "Good Morning," declared Butler, "How soon is Sam Bacile [the alleged creator of the film] going to be in jail folks? I need him to go now."

Barnicle set his sights on Terry Jones, the pastor who wanted to burn the Koran a while back and who was allegedly involved in the video as well. "Given this supposed minister's role in last year's riots in Afghanistan, where people died, and given his apparent or his alleged role in this film, where ... at least one American, perhaps the American ambassador is dead, it might be time for the Department of Justice to start viewing his role as an accessory before or after the fact."

Deutsch helpfully added: "I was thinking the same thing, yeah."

It's interesting to see such committed liberals in lockstep agreement with the Islamist government in Egypt, which implored the U.S. government to take legal action against the filmmakers. Interestingly, not even the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egyptian government demanded these men be tried for murder.

Now, I have next to no sympathy for the makers of this film, who clearly hoped to start trouble, violent or otherwise. But where does this logic end? One of the things we've learned all too well is that the "Muslim street" -- and often Muslim elites -- have a near-limitless capacity to take offense at slights to their religion, honor, history or feelings.

Does Barnicle want Salman Rushdie, the author of "The Satanic Verses," charged with attempted murder, too? That book has in one way or another led to several deaths. Surely he should have known that he was stirring up trouble. Perhaps the U.S. Justice Department and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security could work together on a joint prosecution?

Perhaps Rushdie's offense doesn't count because he's a literary celebrity? Only crude attacks on Islam should be held accountable for the murderous bloodlust they elicit.

One might ask who is to decide what is crude and what is refined? But that would be fruitless because we know the real answer: the Islamist mobs and their leaders. Their rulings would come in the form of bloody conniptions around the world.

Are we really going to hold what we can say or do in our own country hostage to the passions of foreign lynch mobs?

If your answer is some of form of "yes," than you might want to explain why U.S. citizens aren't justified in attacking Egyptian or Libyan embassies here in America. After all, I get pretty mad when I see goons burning the American flag, and I become downright livid when a U.S. ambassador is murdered. Maybe me and some of my like-minded friends should burn down some embassies here in Washington, D.C., or maybe a consulate in New York City?

Of course we shouldn't do that. To argue that Americans shouldn't resort to mayhem, while suggesting it's understandable when Muslims do, is to create a double standard that either renders Muslims unaccountable savages (they can't help themselves!) or casts Americans as somehow less passionate about what we hold dear, be it our flag, our diplomats or our religions. (It's hardly as if Islamists don't defame Christianity, Judaism, moderate forms of Islam or even atheism.)

But, I'm sorry to say, that may in fact be the case. After all, with barely a moment's thought these deep thinkers on MSNBC were willing to throw out the First Amendment for a little revenge. It was a moment of voluntary surrender to terrorism.

Within 24 hours, however, it became increasingly clear that the video wasn't even the motive for the murders; it was a convenient cover for them. In effect, the terrorists behind the Libyan attack not only successfully played the Muslim street for suckers, they played Barnicle & Co. for suckers, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Innocence of Muslims - Muhammad Movie - FULL HD

     

Al Qaeda in Yemen urges Muslims to kill U.S. diplomats over film


http://www.infowars.com/al-qaeda-in-yemen-urges-muslims-to-kill-u-s-diplomats-over-film/

news.yahoo.com
September 15, 2012

The Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda urged Muslims to step up protests and kill more U.S. diplomats in Muslim countries after a U.S.-made film mocking the Prophet Mohammad which it said was another chapter in the "crusader wars" against Islam.

"Whoever comes across America's ambassadors or emissaries should follow the example of Omar al-Mukhtar's descendants (Libyans), who killed the American ambassador," the group said, referring to Tuesday's attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

"Let the step of kicking out the embassies be a step towards liberating Muslim countries from the American hegemony," a statement posted on an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) website on Saturday said.

Read more:  http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaeda-yemen-urges-muslims-kill-u-diplomats-070834271.html?_esi=1

[Warph]

The media protects Obama by assaulting Romney

By: John Hayward
9/13/2012 08:51 AM

Rarely have we watched a false media narrative assembled and deployed so quickly, right before our eyes and ears. The Right Scoop has incredible open-mike audio, plus a transcript, of reporters at Mitt Romney's press conference on Wednesday comparing notes to ensure that no matter who Romney called upon for questions, the "gaffe" narrative would be pushed.

"I'm just trying to make sure that we're just talking about, no matter who he calls on we're covered on the one question," says a CBS News reporter. Another "journalist" clarifies what that "one question" should be: "Do you stand by your statement or regret your statement?"

Somehow this "Romney gaffe" narrative became more important than anything said or done by the actual President... who received absolutely zero criticism from the press herd for running away from his "press conference" without taking any questions at all. Isn't that amazing? If the parties were reversed, the most widely viewed video clip in America right now would be a robotic Barack Obama mumbling through the end of his prepared statement and trotting away with Hillary Clinton at his side, while a reporter tries to ask him if the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya should be viewed as an act of war.

If Romney had accepted no questions at his press conference, he would have been pilloried. If he'd said nothing about the conduct of the Obama Administration during the hours of developing crisis on Tuesday night, the press would be running stories about how he might as well wrap up his campaign right now, because he has no critique to offer of Obama's masterful foreign policy.

It seems as if some are buying into the media spin without really knowing what Mitt Romney said, or what he was responding to. The second-stage boosters have already fired on this manufactured narrative, boosting it into a stable orbit in which angry sentiments are forcefully expressed by people who literally do not know what they are talking about. This is made worse by the media's remarkable willingness to ignore the statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that kicked off the whole affair. The embassy outrageously, and perhaps illegally, deleted its most offensive messages, and the press has obligingly forgotten about them, even though plenty of copies are preserved across the Internet.

So let's take it from the top, and remind anyone coming in late what this whole kerfuffle is all about. Here is the now-deleted statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that Romney was responding to:

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."
                           
If you're falling for the spin that the Administration didn't "apologize" for anything, I've highlighted the parts you're not supposed to remember.

Here is what Romney said in response, after it was known that trouble had spread to Libya, and there had been at least one American casualty, but before the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens was reported:

"I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks. I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi."

There's a weird new permutation of the "Romney gaffe" meme going around that says Romney's big problem was getting the "timing" of events wrong. This is based on interpreting his second sentence – "It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks" – as a reference to something the State Department or White House might have done after crises had erupted in both Libya and Egypt. In truth, he's talking about the very first response from an official source at the beginning of the crisis in Egypt: the statement from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

This is not difficult for anyone who was following events closely on Tuesday night to understand, and that's when Romney issued his statement, during a period when Obama was completely silent (and, according to reports today, might have actually turned in for the night, with the fate of the American ambassador in Libya still unknown.) There's only room to complain about the "timing" of the statement, or Romney's understanding of the "sequence of events," if you're inadvertently or willfully ignorant of what actually transpired during the night, and rely entirely on media narratives cooked up the following morning. It's not Mitt Romney's fault that the goalposts were moved after he spoke, and the media-certified "first response" of the Obama Administration became something the White House or State Department said hours after Romney's statement was issued.

If Romney made a "gaffe," it was his failure to insert another sentence quoting the Cairo embassy statement he was criticizing, to make it impossible for his words to be twisted later. He made the political mistake of assuming that people reading his statement eight hours later would know what he was referring to.

Bear in mind that some of the people whining about Romney's "timing," based on distortion of one sentence in his statement, are the same people who think Obama's notorious "You didn't build that" statement cannot be understood without a hundred pages of "context."

Let it not be forgotten that the White House initially tried to distance itself from the Cairo embassy remarks, saying they were "not cleared by Washington," even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially stood by those remarks. Foreign Policy reports that numerous sources within the State Department agree with Romney's critique – they just haven't been willing to put their names on public statements, released as events unfolded in real time. The Obama campaign's media allies are hammering Romney for publicly saying something much of the Obama Administration is saying off the record.

Hours after Romney called out the Administration for its response to events in Cairo, Twitter messages were being deleted left and right, as a new unified narrative was deployed by the White House and State Department. But in just a single day, the media has rewritten history to the point where many who criticize Romney's comments don't know when he made them, or what he was denouncing. He made it all fairly clear during his Wednesday morning press conference... but by then, he was talking to the oncoming horns and hooves of a media stampede.

There's a good reason for the swift and coordinated response from the Obama-friendly press corps, and it's not just the urge to score some points against Mitt Romney. They are scared to death that the Obama Administration's conduct during the crises in Egypt and Libya will be examined closely. They believe, correctly, that shifting attention completely away from Obama is imperative, and they knew it had to be done quickly.

Why has President Obama been skipping more than half of his daily intelligence briefings – including, evidently, all of the briefings in the week leading up to September 11? Why wasn't the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya – a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity – better protected on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, especially since there were numerous warnings of possible reprisals for the recent liquidation of al-Qaeda bigwigs? Why were Libyan forces entrusted with so much responsibility for the physical security of that consulate, given how much trouble we've been having with compromised local security forces in the Middle East?

How was this Administration so completely blindsided by an orchestrated mob action across multiple Middle Eastern nations? Why have so many of its public statements, including what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton said after they had plenty of time to process the events of Tuesday night, playing into the narrative that it's all a spontaneous outburst of rage against a "blasphemous" YouTube video? What about the Administration's rapidly deteriorating relationship with Israel? And why is the President politicking in Las Vegas – and making explicit use of the crisis to score political points – even as embassy attacks spread out to Yemen, and perhaps beyond?

Never have so many "journalists" simultaneously decided to avoid asking such important questions. They don't even seem upset that Obama won't give them a chance to ask.

[Warph]

Israel Provides "Intelligence" That May Prompt US to Join Iranian Strike



Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
September 15, 2012
http://occupycorporatism.com/israel-provides-intelligence-that-may-prompt-us-to-join-iranian-strike/

         

In the manufactured war concocted in Syria, al-Qaeda has become a US asset .
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/alqaeda-now-a-us-ally-in-syria-20120910-25oby.html

Using advanced tactics in terrorism and suicide bombers, as well as recruiting young and impressionable men to fight with the FSA.

Mainstream media is declaring that the Syrian government is weakening because they are preparing heavy artillery such as military aircraft, helicopters and tanks. The Obama administration is behind the propaganda, with Jeffrey White, fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a globalist-controlled think-tank) and veteran of the US Defense Intelligence Agency saying that "[Assad does not] have enough combat maneuver units to deal with the rebellion."

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has decided that credible intelligence coming from Israel that Iran has advanced their work on nuclear technology and are calculating their "destructive power" through computer models – and have for the last 3 years. IAEA is now convinced that Iran will have nuclear capability by November.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/11/un-receives-new-intelligence-on-iran-nuke-work/

The Obama administration is hoping to exact some pressure on China and Russia to persuade them to stop supporting Iran militarily. In a bogus resolution, combined with influence from Israel, the Obama administration is feigning diplomatic talks, while the persistence of Zionist-controlled Israel demands violent strike against Iran.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-09-12/us-russia-bridge-differences-on-iran-at-nuke-meet


(Broom Hilda) Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State has met with her counterparts representing Germany, China, Britain and France to negotiate a secret deal. Behind closed doors, these nations are unifying against Iran.

David Albright, member of the Institute for Science and International Security, which is a globalist think-tank that has strong influence over Congress and various forms of the US government, has voiced that the US government would "want to have a theoretical understanding of the working of a nuclear weapon that is then related to the experiments you do on the various components." Albright goes on to say that "the two go hand-in-hand."

Based on this new "evidence" provided by the Zionist-controlled Israeli government, a military strike against Iran appears to be imminent.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, has asserted that the US has "no right to stop" Israel from striking Iran. Netanyahu declared: "The world tells Israel 'wait, there's still time'. And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?' Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel."http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us-israel-iran-netanyahu-idUSBRE88A0FO20120911

According to the Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's Nuclear Activity published in 2007, Iran was cited as "halting its nuclear weapons program" while "keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." This ending of Iran's endeavors for nuclear weapons was prompted by a "response to international pressure".
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/washington/04itext.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print

Even the US State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research concluded that "Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013."

Netanyahu is publicly becoming tired with the Obama administrations want to pursue diplomacy with Iran. Clinton has explained that the US will not "set a deadline" on talk with Iran, while Netanyahu is calling for a military strike before US November elections.

And then suddenly the "intelligence" appears that would be the decision maker between going to war and continuing talks.

Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary, asserted that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, the US would have less than 12 months to make a choice about attacking. Panetta said: "It's roughly about a year right now. A little more than a year. And so ... we think we will have the opportunity once we know that they've made that decision, take the action necessary to stop (Iran)."

Netanyahu clearly says that: "If Iran knows that there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it's doing. It's continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining a nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs."

Jay Carney, White House spokesperson, explains that "the line is the president is committed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and he will use every tool in the arsenal of American power to achieve that goal."

Dan Shapiro, US Ambassador and Netanyahu minced words over Netanyahu's frustration with Obama's Iranian policy.

However, this tiff is part of the propaganda surrounding Iran and the US/Israeli attack on the sovereign nation. Behind closed doors, Obama and Netanyahu have laid out plans to use military and propaganda to justify and cover their agenda against Iran.

In their scenario, Obama will request permission of Congress in writing for the of use military force against Iran in response to their alleged nuclear weapons program.

Regardless of his obtaining approval from Congress, Obama will go ahead with the plans to attack Iran.

(Obuma playing politics)  Obama has agreed to speak in Israel just weeks before the US elections wherein he will promise the US military to Israel's plan to attack Iran. Paralleling this strategy, the federal intelligence and surveillance agencies in the US will be "upgraded" so that regardless of who is elected this November, the US government will be equipped with the necessary resources to attack Iran.

This scheme is scheduled for the spring of 2013.

[Warph]

         


Obama's Daily Intelligence Brief... Who Cares?
By Paul Kengor on 9.14.12 @ 6:09AM


Our president should have studied Ronald Reagan more closely.
The last week has generated many shocking moments, not a few of which involve our commander-in-chief. Conservatives are certainly taking their shots at President Obama. Some of these are justified; others perhaps less so. I say this sympathetically as someone who studies the Middle East, and realize what a damned mess it presents for any policymaker, let alone a president.

That said, the news that President Obama has been absent from so many of his daily intelligence briefings is a stunner. There's simply no good excuse for it. It comes on the heels of reports from Bob Woodward that Obama doesn't regularly attend "security briefings."

According to a study by the Government Accountability Institute, based on the publicly available White House calendar, Obama failed to attend a single Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) in the week leading up to 9/11 and the chaos that erupted in the Arab world. The mere fact that we were approaching 9/11 was itself a crucial reason for attending not one but all of the briefings. Obama attended none.

Worse, this is apparently nothing new. Obama attended only 43.8 percent of his Presidential Daily Briefs in the first 1,225 days of his administration; that's less than a majority.

Again, this is shocking, and there's no excuse for it.

Marc Thiessen, who worked for President George W. Bush, pressed NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor for an explanation. Thiessen reported:

Vietor did not dispute the numbers, but said the fact that the president, during a time of war, does not attend his daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis is "not particularly interesting or useful." He says that the president reads his PDB every day, and he disagreed with the suggestion that there is any difference whatsoever between simply reading the briefing book and having an interactive discussion of its contents with top national security and intelligence officials where the president can probe assumptions and ask questions. "I actually don't agree at all," Vietor told me in an e-mail. "The president gets the information he needs from the intelligence community each day."

Thiessen continued: "Vietor also directed me to a [Washington] Post story written this year in which Obama officials discuss the importance of the intelligence meeting and extol how brilliantly the president runs it. 'Obama reads the PDB ahead of time and comes to the morning meeting with questions,' The Post reported. 'One regular participant in the roughly 500 Oval Office sessions during Obama's presidency said the meetings show a president consistently participating in an exploration of foreign policy and intelligence issues.'"

Yeah, right. More nonsense from a scandalously biased media that refuses to do real reporting on Barack Obama.

Likewise disputing the PDB report is White House spokesman Jay Carney, who dismissed the charge as "hilarious." No, no, said Carney, the president "gets it every day." By "it," Carney was apparently talking about the briefing papers, not the actual meetings.

Naturally, "journalists" happily accepted Carney's explanation. CNN helped out by posting Carney's comments under a photo of a pensive Obama sitting at (allegedly) an intelligence briefing.

Ah, yes. There you go.

All of this is crazy. Simply crazy. Only the most unquestioning dupes and sycophants in Obama's base (and media) could accept these defenses.

To my knowledge, as a presidential historian, this is extremely unusual -- probably unprecedented for a president. Has there ever been a president, certainly in the post-WWII period (when the CIA was established), who has blithely missed so many intelligence briefings? I don't think so. George W. Bush didn't. He attended the PDB six times per week, as Thiessen notes.

Personally, I can speak with authority on the case of Ronald Reagan, who liberals, ironically, portrayed as an uninformed idiot who didn't pay attention in meetings or read anything.

Reagan, in fact, attended the daily intelligence briefing. I could lay this out at great length, but here I'll offer just two Reagan sources, both still living, who can speak to this:

One source is Herb Meyer, special assistant to CIA director Bill Casey and vice chair of the National Intelligence Council in the 1980s. Meyer was Casey's right-hand man. I emailed Meyer. He wrote back: "Of course Reagan attended all those daily briefings. And after the briefers returned to CIA headquarters, Bill [Casey] would meet with them just to be sure the President (and Haig & Weinberger) got answers to whatever questions they may have had. In short, it was a very -- very -- serious business."

Another source is Bill Clark. Clark was Ronald Reagan's right-hand man in foreign policy, the head of the National Security Council during a pivotal time. No adviser was more closely involved in helping Reagan take down the Soviet Union. Clark and Reagan saw Poland in particular as vital to a strategic plan to collapse the Soviet empire and bring freedom and democracy into the communist world. I know Clark very well. I'm his biographer. Clark is 80 years old and lives in California. Clark told me this about Reagan and the PDB:

Bill Casey would, by courier, send the President's Daily Brief each morning at about 5:00 a.m. to our war room downstairs in our [National] Security Council. It was a very limited edition, five colors showing the activity across the globe for the preceding 24 hours. It would be delivered to the president in his residence before he came over [by 7:00 a.m.]. His first question for a long period of time was usually, "What is happening in Poland this morning?" He'd write questions all over the margins about things that weren't clear in the briefing. And, of course, the agency [CIA] would come down with further explanations.

Clark recalls how Reagan craved that regular morning update. He would read it and then they would meet. Reagan ate up these briefings. He didn't skip them. He asked questions of his advisers. He probed for ideas. There was give-and-take. Reagan attended the briefings and used them as presidents should and always have -- until now, apparently. That's presidential decision-making.

When Reagan finished his presidency, after two terms, genuine freedom and democracy were surging all over the communist world, beginning in Poland.

As for Obama, if he's in the process of finishing his presidency, after one term, he's facing a surge of radical Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, and the dashing of hope for freedom and democracy. Can any of that be blamed on Obama's failure to attend these routine briefings? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly can't help.

But do enough Americans even care?

[Warph]

There is a remarkable piece in today's Washington Post by the paper's Ruth Marcus.

Titled "Romney Owes an Apology," it's a stunning example of leftist appeasement that exhibits precisely the reasons appeasers from Neville Chamberlain to Jimmy Carter always wind up getting their nations in trouble.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-romney-owes-an-apology/2012/09/13/893b5eac-fdd1-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html?hpid=z2

Ms. Marcus is upset that Governor Romney has previously described President Obama in this fashion:

"There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them."

This, says Marcus, is a "falsehood."

Then she linked -- seriously -- to a timeline of events that emphasize -- hello? -- exactly how dumbfounding not to mention naïve is Marcus's reading of events.

Marcus triumphantly quotes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this way:

"Let me be clear," Hillary Clinton's statement said. "There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

What Marcus deliberately leaves out, of course, is the apologetic sentence that preceded those words. The full Clinton quote reads like this:

"Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

In other words, Clinton begins her statement by doing precisely what drew Romney's ire in the first place. She apologizes to a group of Islamic fanatics by trying to say "By the way...really...we're so sorry...we really believe in religious tolerance...we're not anti-Muslim. Honest. Please don't be mad at us. We like you."

Is Marcus truly that naïve that she doesn't understand the signal of weakness statements like Clinton's send to American enemies who are, as always, probing for weakness in the American leadership? Does she not understand why, years ago, no less than Osama Bin Laden famously said of America: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."

Answer: Yes, Ruth Marcus, like liberals everywhere, really is that naive.

The idea of America as the weak horse plays perfectly with statements like those not only first issued by the Cairo Embassy -- but by the words and actions of both Secretary Clinton and President Obama. These people are telegraphing... OK, make that texting.... weakness to the world.

Marcus's column is exactly the famous rationale behind Neville Chamberlain's perpetual annoyance with Winston Churchill. If he could just get Churchill to shut up, Chamberlain believed, things would just be fine with Herr Hitler.

Marcus ends her column by saying, "There is something disgraceful happening here..."

Marcus is right. There is something disgraceful happening here. But it isn't Mitt Romney's Reaganesque willingness to stand up for freedom.

It's Ruth Marcus's inability to understand that weakness leads inevitably to disaster.

Should Mitt Romney apologize?

Of course not.

What Mitt Romney should do is press the point -- just as Ronald Reagan pressed the very same point against Jimmy Carter.

What Mitt Romney needs to do is get on with winning this election... before a government that thinks like Ruth Marcus brings on complete disaster.

[Warph]

This Is What A US Strike On Iran's Nuclear Facilities Could Look Like
by Robert Johnson
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-what-a-us-strike-on-irans-nuclear-facilities-would-look-like-according-to-csis-2012-9#ixzz26lwv4w5Q


Washington D.C. foreign policy think tank the Center For Strategic & International Studies took a long hard look at what it really means to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions, what it would take, and what it could lead to in a report released yesterday.

The speculation that Israel can go it alone against Tehran remains, but the specifics of what's required by a US attack to put the nuclear program in the dust is outlined in detail. At least 16 F-18s, and 10 B-2 bombers carrying 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, would initially be required by US forces.

Iran's retaliation would be another story entirely with a massive incoming missile salvo directed about the entire region. When that happens a full Ballistic Missile War could ensue with untold US space, air, sea, and land elements coming into play.

Some illustrations of the possible outcomes are below:



10 B-2 Bombers and at least 16 F-18s would go in after Iran's air defenses were as
neutralized as possible



Whatever Iranian launch sites remain will respond in force



And if a full-blown missile war begins it could look something like this

[Warph]

         

President Obama's General Motors hypocrisy

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/09/17/obamas-broken-gm-promise/

By: David Harsanyi 
9/17/2012 01:09 PM

Wall Street Journal reports today that General Motors executives have asked the Treasury Department to sell its stake in the giant automaker. The administration has refused.

Oddly enough, today we also learned that the Obama administration is launching a complaint at the World Trade Organization over China's allegedly unfair subsidizing of its auto industry. The United States will charge the Chinese government with subsidizing auto and auto parts producers from 2009 and 2011 to the tune of $1 billion. (Protectionism, it seems, always becomes a vital component of economic policy when a candidate is campaigning in Ohio.)

Remember, when President Barack Obama pursues nationalization, he's making a gutsy call and "saving" the American auto industry. Democrats brought up the bailout 150 times during the Democratic National Convention.  It was such a gutsy call, in fact, that U.S. taxpayers, who rescued the heavily unionized automaker, now own around 26.5 percent of the company.

Yet back in June of 2009, President Barack Obama claimed taxpayers were only "reluctant shareholders" after the government took its stake in General Motors. "What we are not doing — what I have no interest in doing — is running G.M."

He went on:

"They, and not the government, will call the shots and make the decisions about how to turn this company around. The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions."

If General Motors believes it needs to extricate itself from government to be successful, why would reluctant shareholders stand in the way?

GM executives reportedly feel the company is tainted by the stigma of bailouts.  It has also reportedly struggles to institute pay caps imposed by Washington during the bailout, as they undermine the company's ability to recruit top candidates. Pay caps might be wonderful for populist messaging, but they make no sense in the real world. Moreover, this entire situation is another example of why government shouldn't own companies: Even when it's not involved, it is.

So why won't the Treasury Department sell the remaining shares? Well ... November.

If the Treasury sold its stake, it would have to admit, despite all its big talk of  success , that the venture cost taxpayers a bunch of money.

As I write GM's shares stand at around $24. If the U.S. sold it shares today it would lose another $15 billion on the bailout. GM stock would need to reach $53 a share for the U.S. to break even. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Treasury Department will start thinking about unloading shares when it hits the $30s. Well, G.M.'s 52-week high is $27.68 and its value has been halved in the past two years.

And for those who believe that the Treasury Department is really waiting for a more favorable stock price; you're probably going to be waiting a long time.  With demand in Europe and China weakening, Moody's Investors Service recently lowered its growth forecast for global auto sales next year.

Moreover, the Treasury Department itself estimates that government will lose more than $25 billion — 15 percent higher than its previous forecast. So why wouldn't it move now?

[Warph]

The Fantasy Presidency Melts Away on the Arab Street
By: John Hayward
9/17/2012 09:28 AM

During much of the Bush presidency, we were constantly told that the "Arab street" was going to explode because of some aggressive statement our unilateralist cowboy president had made, or some action he was about to undertake. It never really happened. No, it took four years of Barack Obama's Nobel-prize-winning apologetic open-hand "smart power" to make the Arab street explode.

What you're seeing across the Middle East today is the result of Obama's fantasy presidency colliding with international reality, leaving shattered illusions to burn as Molotov cocktails slam into the walls of the U.S. embassy in... Jakarta.

When did we lose Indonesia? Who knows? Nobody in the Obama Administration pays attention to such things. They run foreign policy exactly the same way they handle domestic affairs: by imposing a manufactured political narrative that bears little resemblance to reality.

Story at:
http://www.humanevents.com/2012/09/17/the-fantasy-presidency-melts-away-on-the-arab-street/

[Warph]

I know that this piece is long... Lord is it long.... but, well worth the read if
you can stay with it! ...Warph




Obama's Rumsfeld: (Broom) Hillary Clinton Should Resign
By Jeffrey Lord on 9.18.12 @ 6:10AM

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/18/obamas-rumsfeld-hillary-clinto/print

Naïveté, weakness, and incompetence lead to death, disaster: Did the Three Stooges cause World War II?

"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
---- Member of Parliament Leo Amery quoting Cromwell on the Long Parliament to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain -- May 7, 1940. Three days later the Chamberlain government fell, Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain -- and Hitler invaded France.


It was a good week for Islamic fascists.

Hillary Clinton has become Barack Obama's Donald Rumsfeld.

The murders of Benghazi have become Clinton's Abu Ghraib.

And by the way, did you know the Three Stooges caused World War II?

In the event, this Secretary of State has irrefutably proven herself to be naïve, weak, and grossly incompetent. And no, it doesn't matter that the Secretary has said she wishes to leave the Obama administration if the President is re-elected.

Hillary Clinton has to go. Now.

Like Rumsfeld, Clinton is the Cabinet officer whose tenure began as a political rock star -- and ended amid a chorus of controversy. In Rumsfeld's case, by November of 2006 the besieged Secretary of Defense did in fact get the request for his resignation from President George W. Bush. And he left.

After repeated calls for that resignation from -- Senator Hillary Clinton. Not to mention Senator Joe Biden.

Calls like this one, demanded directly of Rumsfeld by then-Senator Clinton at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in August of 2006:

"Under your leadership there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are.... We hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration's strategic blunders -- and frankly the record of incompetence in executing -- you are presiding over a failed policy."

Errors in judgment, she said. Happy talk, she said. Strategic blunders, she said. Incompetence in executing policy, she said. Presiding over a failed policy, she said.

What happened in Benghazi meets every one of the Clinton standards for Rumsfeld's resignation. What has been happening with assaults on American embassies around the world meets every one of the Clinton standards for Rumsfeld's resignation. Now, those same standards should demand her own leave-taking. Not in January. Now.

Biden didn't even wait until 2006. In 2004, as the revelations of abuse of Iraqi detainees at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison exploded in the media, Biden went on CBS's Face the Nation to demand Rumsfeld's resignation, saying that Rumsfeld needed to resign because Abu Ghraib, an operation that was the responsibility of the Pentagon, "....has jeopardized our troops. It's jeopardized our mission."

Biden added: "Imagine what Ronald Reagan would be saying today."

Indeed.

Imagine what Ronald Reagan would say if he knew an American Ambassador and three State Department employees were dead because of a feckless global strategy conceived by the President and all too willingly executed by this Secretary of State.

As a direct result of the policies devised and executed by Secretary Clinton, as seen here in this Google mapping of anti-American explosions taking place in the last few days...
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201645180959880549419.0004c9a894dfb66defab9&msa=0&ll=26.273714,58.798828&spn=42.034439,53.613281

....U.S. embassies, State Department personnel, local authorities or some combination thereof are under assault in the following countries:

Israel (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv)
Bangladesh
Yemen
Egypt
Libya (Tripoli and Benghazi, the latter where Ambassador Stevens and the three State Department personnel were murdered.)
The Gaza Strip
Indonesia (where President Obama famously grew up.)
Sudan
Kashmir
Iran
Iraq (in Baghdad, Basrah, Kut)
Lebanon (Tripoli and Sidon, mere miles from the visiting Pope Benedict)
Pakistan (Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore)
Afghanistan (Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province and Helmand Province, the latter where two Marines were killed in a Friday attack)
Somalia
Tunisia
Algeria
Great Britain
Kuwait
India (Chennai, Hyderabad and Srinagar)
Holland
Maldives
Sri Lanka
Qatar
Sinai
Nigeria
Morocco (Sale, Casablanca)
Syria
Jordan
Mauritania
Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Batu Caves and  Ipoh)
Bahrain
Turkey
The West Bank
Australia
Kenya (the home of the President's father, Barack Obama Sr.)


And the Secretary of State's explanation for this carnage?

"We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."


This would be a joke if the thinking behind this statement -- the thinking behind the Obama-Clinton policies -- were not so deadly serious. Worse, the utterly laughable lapdog media rushes to defend this utter nonsense.

Was this Internet video responsible when American embassy personnel were taken hostage in Iran in 1979?

Was this Internet video responsible for killing six and wounding over a thousand when the World Trade Center was bombed in the second month of Bill Clinton's presidency in 1993?

Was this Internet video responsible for killing almost 3,000 when the World Trade Center, the pentagon and United Flight 93 were attacked on 9/11?

Was this Internet video responsible for the 2002 Bali, Indonesia bombings that killed over 200 people?

Was this Internet video responsible for the bombing of the London subway and bus system that killed 52 and injured over 700 in 2005?

Was this Internet video responsible for the September, 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan that killed over 50 people and injured over 250 more?

Was this Internet video responsible for the multiple attacks in Mumbai, India that killed 164 people and wounded over 300 in a single day in November of 2008?

Was this Internet video responsible for Nidal Malik Hasan killing 13 and wounding 29 others at Ft. Hood, Texas in 2009?

Was this Internet video responsible for Iran being, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a mere six to seven months from being able to build a nuclear bomb?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/16/us-iran-nuclear-netanyahu-idUSBRE88F06P20120916

A wretchedly lousy video....

....created by some loon in California has done all this? Not to mention caused the legion of global attacks by this or that Islamic group or individual that date back decades?

The Secretary could not possibly be serious. Not to mention the White House. Did I forget the Ambassador to the United Nations? Alas, the party line of "willful blindness" (as Andrew McCarthy calls it) has been set. Nothing to see here. Blame the film maker and move on.  http://astore.amazon.com/theamericansp-20/detail/1594032130#_

Worse still, violate the film maker's fundamental First Amendment rights. How? By having local authorities drag him out of his home after midnight for a meeting with federal officers and the purpose of filming a much televised "perp" walk designed to appease Islamic fanatics. A spectacularly thuggish attempt designed to intimidate this man into silence.

This policy is not simply feckless, it's grossly irresponsible. And combined with the inattention to the security of State Department personnel in Benghazi the results have been literally murderous.


LET'S BEGIN in the beginning.

As in the beginning when the new President-elect appointed Senator Clinton as Secretary of State because, in the new President's words:

"To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example,"

Ahhhhhhhhhh the new strategy. But of course! And why was that new strategy needed?

Why, it was explained in the very first week of the Obama presidency. The need for the new strategy came clear when Secretary Clinton's friends at the New York Times glowingly reported:

Less than a week into her job, Mrs. Clinton seemed energized. She traveled to the White House on Monday to help send off the administration's special envoy to the Middle East, George J. Mitchell, and she has racked up a list of calls to nearly 40 foreign leaders or foreign ministers.

The world, Mrs. Clinton asserted, was yearning for a new American foreign policy:

"There is a great exhalation of breath going on around the world," she said. "We've got a lot of damage to repair."

Ahhhhh yes. All that damage to repair from George W. Bush and his unblinking insistence that Islamic fascism was at the root of the problem. That "great exhalation of breath going on around the world" at this marvelous new Obama- Clinton strategy.

And why was everyone so giddy?

Because of President Obama, but of course.

There he was in his inaugural address saying:

"To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

There he was on Al Arabiya giving the symbolic very first interview of his presidency. Which was reported this way:

In his first interview since taking office, President Barack Obama told Arab satellite station Al Arabiya that Americans are not the enemy of the Muslim world and said Israel and the Palestinians should resume peace negotiations.

"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama told Al Arabiya's Hisham Melhem in an interview broadcast Tuesday morning.

This Obama-Clinton strategy was different. Unique. Brilliant. A sure-fire repairer of the damage done by the damnable Bush. This was so, Al Arabiya rhapsodized, because:

During the presidential election campaign last year, Obama vowed to improve U.S. ties with the Muslim world and after he won promised to give a speech in a Muslim capital in his first 100 days in office. The President repeated this pledge in the interview but did not give a time or specify the venue.

Obama pointed out that he had lived in the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia for several years while growing up, and said his travels through Muslim countries had convinced him that regardless of faith, people had certain common hopes and dreams.

And so the much ballyhooed speech in a Muslim capital came to pass.

The speech was delivered in Cairo. It was an appalling pottage of moral equivalency, historical revision and outright apologetics. Or, as Senator Clinton once said of Rumsfeld, the speech was "happy talk"... sending the inevitable signal of weakness.

Weakness. The underlying message sent over and over again by the foreign policy of the United States government that was under her direction.

Weakness exemplified when going along with a White House decision to ban words like "jihad" and "Islamic extremism" from all national security documents.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/07/obama-bans-islam-jihad-national-security-strategy-document/

Weakness exemplified by the disreputable treatment accorded the Prime Minister of Israel, a longtime American ally.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/7521220/Obama-snubbed-Netanyahu-for-dinner-with-Michelle-and-the-girls-Israelis-claim.html

Weakness exemplified by the decision -- cited by the Hoover Institution's Paul Sperry here in the New York Post -- to order American troops into "Muslim sensitivity training."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/blaming_our_troops_gsNkgSOnejhkmabM2KA6TI
(To avoid offending them, US commanders are putting troops through intense Muslim sensitivity training. Among other things, they've been ordered to:

* Wear surgical gloves whenever handling a copy of the Koran.

* Never walk in front of a praying Muslim.

* Never show the bottom of boots while sitting or lying across from a Muslim, which in Islam is considered an insult.

* Never share photos of wives or daughters.

* Never smoke or eat in front of Muslims during the monthlong Ramadan fasting.

* Avoid winking, cursing or nose-blowing in the presence of Muslims — all viewed as insults in Islam.

* Avoid exiting the shower without a towel.

* Avoid offering and accepting things with the left hand, which in Islam is reserved for bodily hygiene and considered unclean.)


Weakness exemplified in Obama defense budget cuts.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/01/obama-defense-cuts/1

One could go on and on here to illustrate the point. The use of moral equivalence, bows to foreign heads of state etc., etc., etc.

All of this, of course, was a distinct and quite deliberate change from the Bush era, in which the National Security Document specifically said: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."

Not to mention this changed attitude by the Obama administration looked at the Fort Hood shootings as an incident of "work place violence." And replaced the term "global war on terror" with "overseas contingency operation."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html

Can you imagine if the Roosevelt administration sent the Secretary of State in front of newsreel cameras to insist that in fact there was no need for war on December 8, 1941, because there was no connection between the previous day's Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the aggressive desire of the Japanese for military expansion? That the whole problem revolved around the film portrayal of an Asian (Chinese) detective named Charlie Chan? Then banned the U.S. government from using words or phrases that might offend the Shinto religion which proclaimed the Japanese Emperor was a god?

What if the Secretary of State of the day insisted there was no connection between Nazism's anti-Semitic ideology and the ongoing Holocaust? That all those death camps for Jews were really the fault not of Nazi ideology but a mocking, tasteless anti-Nazi film (excerpt here) made in America called "I'll Never Heil Again". A film made by three Hollywood Jews named Louis Feinberg, Moses and Jerome Horwitz? Known professionally by the names of Larry, Moe and Curly -- The Three Stooges?:

Any Secretary of State who insisted on this reaction to Pearl Harbor or Hitler would have been laughed out of Washington. Replaced on the spot.

Yet that is precisely the stance being taken by Secretary Clinton. She has willfully signed on to a doctrine that insists an anti-Islamic YouTube video is somehow responsible for the death of State Department personnel not to mention all the destruction of the last few days.

She has made the deliberate decision to conduct American foreign policy based on the idea of "soft power." The silliness that soft power combined with the President's personal biography would somehow change the world view and the actions of those who believe Jihad is their duty and Sharia not simply their law but a global goal. To see how foolish this was, take a look here at this 2008 Huffington Post article by -- you can't make it up -- a Harvard professor. The opening of this foolish, foolish business is, no kidding -- this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-nye/barack-obama-and-soft-pow_b_106717.html

I have spent the past month lecturing in Oxford and traveling in Europe where Barack Obama could be elected in a landslide. I suspect that this fascination with Obama is true in many parts of the world. In fact, as I have said before, it is difficult to think of any single act that would do more to restore America's soft power than the election of Obama to the presidency.

Soft power is the ability to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than using the carrots and sticks of payment or coercion.

How's this idea working for the Obama-Clinton team now, Professor Nye?

Let's be clear.

The reason four American diplomats were brutally murdered, the reason for all these eruptions of violence has a cause. And it isn't a video.

The cause for this is Islamic fascism. And the idea that appeasing this Islamic fascism will do anything other than encourage it is appallingly bad history not mention disastrous policy. What it will do -- indeed has already begun to do -- is open a vacuum in the world for a whole series of bad actors to fill the void.

We began with a reference to a Member of Parliament, finally fed up with the failed appeasement policies of then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940. But there was another, earlier, clash in Parliament that occurred after the 1938 Munich Agreement negotiated between the appeasement-minded Chamberlain and Hitler.

That clash came when Chamberlain's own First Lord of the Admiralty, Duff Cooper, took such exception to Chamberlain's policies that he delivered his opposition speech in the House of Commons -- and resigned.

Said Cooper:

"That is the deep difference between the Prime Minister and myself throughout these days. The Prime Minister has believed in addressing Herr Hitler through the language of sweet reasonableness. I have believed that he was more open to the language of the mailed fist."

In other words, Cooper was accusing Chamberlain of what Hillary Clinton once called "happy talk."

Islamic fascism isn't going to disappear. No matter what Hillary Clinton says, or how many videos she blames or how many Americans are dragged from their home to appease the unappeasable.

There is a war going on here. A war declared on freedom -- on Western Civilization -- by fanatic adherents of one of the world's oldest religions.

And the Secretary of State has dealt with this threat by responding with what she once called "happy talk."

This is no happy matter. There is no room for more happy talk.

The Secretary of State should take responsibility for the utter failure of the policies she has been conducting -- and the incompetence that accompanied the execution of those policies.

Hillary Clinton should take her own advice to Donald Rumsfeld:

"Under your leadership there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are...We hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration's strategic blunders -- and frankly the record of incompetence in executing -- you are presiding over a failed policy."

Exactly.

It's time for the Secretary of State (Broom Hilda) to resign. [/font][/size]

[Warph]

           

Obama's Foreign Policy Fraud Has Come Undone

by Dan Greenfield
Sep 18th, 2012

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/daniel-greenfield/obama%e2%80%99s-foreign-policy-fraud-has-come-undone/

The mass riots and attacks on embassies do not mark the moment when Obama's foreign policy imploded. That happened a long time ago. What these attacks actually represent is the moment when the compliant media were no longer able to continue hiding that failure in bottom drawers and back pages.

The media successfully covered for Obama's retreat from Iraq, and the weekly Al Qaeda car bombings and rush to civil war no longer make the news. The media have also done their best to cover for Obama's disaster in Afghanistan which has cost thousands of American lives while completely failing to defeat the Taliban.

Obama had hoped to cover up his defeat in Afghanistan by cutting a deal with the "moderate" Taliban, but the Taliban, moderate or extreme, refused to help him cover his ass. Attacks in Afghanistan have escalated, but the media have avoided challenging the bizarre assertions from the Obama campaign that the mission has been accomplished and Karzai will be ready to take over security in a few years.

And then the Islamists did something that the media just couldn't ignore. They staged a series of attacks on American embassies and foreign targets beginning on September 11. These attacks, the most devastating and public of which took place on September 11, were accompanied by Islamist black flags and chants of, "We Are All Osama" in countries across North Africa and the Middle East.

The media have done their best to avoid dealing with the implications of Islamists carrying out a coordinated series of attacks on everything from foreign embassies to peacekeeping forces in the Sinai, by focusing on a Mohammed movie which the Egyptian Salafists exploited for propaganda purposes, rather than on the tactical support and level of coordination required to launch such a broad series of attacks and what the attacks and their scope say about the transformation of the conflict from stray attacks by terrorist groups to armed militias taking control of entire regions.

Rather than doing their job, the media seemed to be dividing their attention between reporting on the carnage without any context and putting out talking points to prevent Mitt Romney from taking political advantage of the disaster. The media's accusations that Mitt Romney was politicizing the conflict were absurd, especially coming after the New York Times ran an editorial on September 11 attacking George W. Bush for not preventing the attacks of that day and after five years of Obama and his media allies politicizing every suicide bombing in Iraq.

While American embassies burned, the media were determined to go on doing what they had been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had covered for Obama in three disastrous wars, one of which he had begun and which had exploded in the faces of staffers at the Benghazi consulate. And they are still covering for him, but the conflict has moved beyond the point where it can be relegated to the back pages of the daily papers.

Obama had hoped that the Islamists would see the advantage of allowing him to save face and give them another term of the same inept appeasement disguised as diplomatic soft power. Instead the Islamists seized on his weakness and trumpeted it to the world to humiliate him and the country that he had been temporarily placed in charge of.

If Obama had really understood Muslims, the way that he claimed he did during the election, then he would have known that this was coming all along. The way of the desert raid is to catch the enemy at his weakest and most vulnerable, and to humiliate him for that weakness in the eyes of his peers. In the honor-shame culture of Islam, there is only room for honor or shame. Obama tried to cover his shame and retain his honor and his enemies tore that façade of honor away from him and left only shame.

As Churchill said to Chamberlain, "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war." Obama tried to have it both ways; he wanted the appearance of being a strong honorable leader who wins wars, while pursuing a cowardly and dishonorable policy. Obama chose dishonor in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now finds that he has a war to deal with anyway.

Perhaps it was the empty bragging of a weak man about killing Bin Laden that infuriated them, but most likely it was the weakness that he showed by relying on drone attacks while cutting the military that led the Islamists to launch a series of global raids on American targets. What looked like smart strategy to the DC technocrats told the Islamists that the United States was no longer willing or able to send troops into combat. Drone strikes might take out Al Qaeda leaders with minimal collateral damage, but were useless when crowds of Islamist raiders in major cities were overrunning American embassies and consulates.

It would have been in the interests of the Islamists to let Obama save face, retreat from Afghanistan and give them another four years of a free ride. But the Salafis carrying out the raids are not the cunning variety that Obama bows to when meeting with the Gulf royals, nor are they even the businessmen of the Muslim Brotherhood. What they want are military victories in the old Mohammedan style, rather than winning elections or tricking the West into overthrowing regimes for them.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudis would not have chosen to humiliate Obama because they need him. The Salafis carrying out the raids, as opposed to the ones shaking hands with US officials in Cairo, don't care about American elections; they care about blood in the streets and swords in the air. These are the sorts of people who fly planes into buildings without considering what this will do to the plans to use immigration to change the demographic balance of Europe and set off bombs near NATO bases without caring that this will slow down the withdrawal of the infidel troops. They are true believers and they believe that it is their unthinking commitment to Islam that will give them victory, rather than the calculations and manipulations of their more upscale Salafi brethren in Riyadh and Cairo.

The attacks have exposed the naked failure of Obama's foreign policy. The sight of American embassies burning across the Muslim world has done what the deaths of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan and a near civil war in Iraq could not do.

Obama has lost the wars, he has lost the peace and now he has also lost the lies.
...and hopefully, the Nov. 2012 Election!