Friday, August 22, 2014
When Will U.S. See that ISIS Is Fighting Total War?
America -- and the rest of the world -- has a problem. It has many faces: radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, Hamas, al-Qaida, the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS), etc.
Israel is presently trying to deal with Hamas -- one face of that problem.
Too many Americans seem oblivious.
The real question is how does a civilized people fight an enemy that hides and makes war, fires rockets and stores weapons among the civilians population -- an enemy that sends suicide bombers to indiscriminately kill men, women and children at weddings, funerals and in churches? And in the case of ISIS, how do we deal with an enemy that beheads Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, while seizing cities and towns, wealth and war materiel throughout Iraq and Syria? How do we counterattack a mortal enemy who brags "they are coming for us," without killing innocent men, women and children in the areas that they have captured and in which they are building their strength?
In the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, we find a description of how wars were fought in the Middle East in the time of the prophet Samuel and King Saul, 3,000 years ago.
"Samuel said to Saul, ... Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys."
Three thousand years have now passed, and that is the way wars are still fought in the region. Except for the case of Israel, war in the Middle East, is total war. But if Hamas rockets begin inflicting massive casualties on the Israeli civilian population, Israel will have a choice: respond with total war using overwhelming force to win (regardless of civilian casualties), or lose.
If you doubt that Mid-East war is total war, just look at the slaughter in Syria. No distinction is made between combatants and civilians. All are killed indiscriminately. Here are a few excerpts from a timeline for the Syrian Civil War to illustrate: http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/pages/articledetails.aspx?aid=579
"June 13, 2013: White House announces ... that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons multiple times over the past year....
"July 25, 2013: UN Secretary-General ... says that more than 100,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict.
"August 21, 2013: (T)housands of social media messages report a chemical attack on Damascus suburbs; Western media publish images of bodies of purported victims; opposition accuses Al-Assad regime of toxic gas attack ....
"August 23, 2013: Two car bombings in Tripoli kill at least 42 people.
"January 21, 2014: Guardian and CNN cite a report by former international war crimes prosecutors accusing the regime of the 'systematic killing' of 11,000 detainees ....
"February 1-5, 2014: Barrel bombs reportedly dropped by security forces kill at least 246 civilians in Aleppo."
And if you still have doubts, look at the utter barbarism occurring in what is euphemistically called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Here is an Aug. 11 excerpt from CBN News World http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/August/ISIS-Swallowing-Iraq-Theyre-Beheading-Children-/
"ERBIL, Kurdistan -- Islamic terrorists in Iraq are beheading children and burying people alive, and it won't stop there. They have a message for America: We're coming for you. ... "They say if anyone (doesn't) become like Muslim, 'we're going to kill them, each one, from baby to women to old man.' ...
"ISIS was shooting the kids and people, and they were laying them on the ground and they bring tractors that they drive over them in front of their families ... They take women out of their houses so if a family had three daughters, they would take one. They are using the sword to cut off hand(s) and also beheading other(s) so I don't think this is the behavior of human beings, but wild animals do that."
President Obama has now ordered surgical air strikes to slow the ISIS advance, and to support America's Kurdish allies in northern Iraq. Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Schaffer appearing on Fox News has called the president's present strategy "a joke." Schaffer has stated his own view: "You've got to make it clear that we are in it to win. ... it has to be very overwhelming. If it were up to me, I would be using B-52s in addition to F-18s."
But it is one thing to use B-52s to attack ISIS fighters in open country; at present it would horrify most Americans to use them to obliterate innocent men, women and children in order to exterminate ISIS forces operating among them.
But now CNN has reported that Iraq's ambassador to the UN has reported to the UN sources that "90 pounds of nuclear materials" have now fallen into ISIS hands. If true, this threatens America directly. This is the stuff from which dirty bombs are made. http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/world/meast/iraq-crisis/
At the minute, American public opinion will not allow President Obama to obliterate cities and towns occupied/controlled by ISIS to defeat ISIS. The American public has not been shown the justification for B-52 carpet-bombings likely to kill innocent men, women and children. But if a dirty bomb is detonated in an American city, the justification will be apparent. If that happens, like Israel, we will have a choice: (1) Use overwhelming force to win quickly and minimize long-term casualties, or (2) Fight a limited war against an enemy who is fighting total war against us.
President Obama, quite understandably, doesn't want to use overwhelming force against population centers while he has any other choice. Nevertheless, our president faces the most difficult of challenges: he needs to discern and do what must be done now, must be to avoid a worse war latter.
The hard question is this: Is there any effective way to extirpate terrorists fighting a total from among a civilian population for a president viscerally opposed to deploying ground troops?
Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Immigration Policy Unconstitutional, Incoherent
-- The Constitution requires it;
-- We need more children in the U.S;
-- Christian charity.
The purposes for which our federal government was established are set out in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
"... to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
Is there anything in the Preamble about "securing the blessings of liberty to children of Central America?" Iraq? North Korea? In the Constitutions' enumerated powers, Congress was granted no power to provide for the welfare of children of foreign nations. The only power granted to Congress related to immigration is the power "To establish an uniform rule of naturalization."
The president is granted no power whatsoever relative to immigration. His duty is limited to faithfully enforcing the laws made by Congress.
If the U.S. has a duty to the children of Central America, it must be as an incident of the congressional power to "provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States." But Article I, specifically states Congress has power "provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States" -- not of Central America.
If the administration's open border policy is premised on the argument that we need 90,000 more children in this country each year, then why in the name of God have we aborted -- killed -- more than 50 million of our own children? And why are liberals demanding that the government, insurance companies and employers provide abortifacients under Obamacare so that we might kill more of our own fetuses and have fewer live births? If America needs more children, why are we killing our own?
If we admit Central American children as a matter of Christian charity our priorities are out of whack.
The liberal left in this country is apoplectic over the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. They rant that it is impossible for a family-owned corporation -- or any other corporation -- to have religious rights and/or religious beliefs. They shriek that it is utterly inappropriate for such corporations to deny abortifacients to their employees on account of the religious beliefs of owners. But how can the same people who contend that it is wrong for owners of a corporation to use the corporation to carry out their religious beliefs insist that it is right for them to use the government -- a enormous corporation -- to act upon their religious notions of "Christian charity?" How is the latter logically consistent with opposition to the Hobby Lobby decision?
Do not misunderstand. I am in favor of individuals practicing Christian charity. I believe it is meritorious for a person to use his own goods to help those in need.
I also am in favor of Congress using tax dollars to provide for the "general welfare of the people of the United States;" e.g., Social Security.
But there is an egregious double standard at work here. As an act of love -- of Christian charity -- we are told that we must accept and care for thousands of children illegally crossing our borders, while at the same time we are killing millions of American babies who are doing nothing at all illegally, and seek only to pass through their mothers' "border" to life. Where is the love for these fetuses? Where is the "Christian charity" toward them? Is it an act of love -- of Christian charity -- to kill them?
There is a grotesque intellectual inconsistency in nurturing thousands of illegal immigrant children while at the same time killing native unborn children by the millions.
Every morning on TV we hear pleas from the Wounded Warriors Project for "$19 per month" to provide funds for our soldiers who incurred horrible wounds defending our liberties and our country. If Christians insist that the government should go into the business of Christian charity, why aren't they insisting that the government do more for our horribly wounded soldiers? Why do illegal alien children have a greater claim to our nation's resources than our disabled soldiers?
We have a VA crisis. Could the dollars being spent on illegal immigrant children be better used to fix the VA? To provide timely and adequate treatment for our veterans?
And how are things going in Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit? Are the kids from Central America in any greater danger of drug violence, gang violence or being shot than the kids on the south side of Chicago? Are there more one-parent families in Central America than in Chicago, Washington or Detroit? Why do the children from Central America have a greater claim to our tax dollars (our Christian charity) than kids living in our inner-cities? Is there any truth to the maxim that "charity begins at home?"
And what about our citizens with mental and physical disabilities? Every dollar spent on an illegal immigrant is a dollar that can't be spend on an American child. The $3.7 billion that President Obama wants to take care of children illegally coming across our border, is $3.7 billion that won't go to organizations that care for Americans with special needs.
Space precludes me from mentioning the needs of our elderly.
There are 7.25 billion people in this world. If America, as a matter of Christian charity, has a duty to provide for 90,000 children who will be shipped/smuggled across our southern border this year, where does that duty stop? There are 1.35 billion people in China. If the government of China decides that it is in their national interest to ship a billion of their citizens here, do we as a matter of Christian charity have a duty to receive them, provide them with housing, schooling, medical care, cellphones and food stamps?
I suggest Congress was given power "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization" to "provide for the common defense, and the general welfare" of our nation; not to practice Christian charity to the world. The resources of our nation are finite.
Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Israeli Response Purely a Matter of Self-Defense
Buildings where the rockets are stored?
According to the Israeli Defense Force Blog, "Over 5 million Israelis are currently living under threat of rocket attacks. Even worse, "More than half a million Israelis have less than 60 seconds to find shelter after a rocket is launched from Gaza into Israel. Most rockets launched from Gaza into Israel are capable of reaching Israel's biggest cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem."
But what if Hamas sets up its rocket launchers next to hospitals? Stores its rocket inventories in schools? What if it places and fires its rockets from densely populated civilian areas? From among women and children? Is Israel barred from retaliating because women and children are likely to be killed?
Two recent reports from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) -- hardly a pro-Israeli organization -- should make clear to every American the Hamas propaganda tactic of using Palestinian women and children as human shields.
On July 17, its site reported under the heading "Agency demands full respect for the sanctity of its premises in Gaza":
"Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA strongly condemns the group or groups responsible for placing the weapons in one of its installations. This is a flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law. This incident, which is the first (U.N. documented) of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA's vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza. ...
"Palestinian civilians in Gaza rely on UNRWA to provide humanitarian assistance and shelter. At all times, and especially during escalations of violence, the sanctity and integrity of UN installations must be respected."
Then, on July 22, 2 UNRWA reported in "UNRWA condemns placement of rockets, for a second time, in one of its schools. Agency demands full respect for the sanctity of its premises in Gaza":
"Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets.
The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons."
In a July 24 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, retired U.S. Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. James T. Conway wrote, "Earlier this month Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri appeared on Al-Aqsa TV and encouraged Gaza residents to act as human shields. They appear to have heeded the call: Israeli Defense Forces combat video has shown Palestinians rushing to rooftops after receiving warnings from Israel -- via phone calls, text messages and unarmed 'knock-knock' projectiles striking a target building -- that a missile attack is imminent.
"Since the beginning of ground operations into Gaza, the IDF has uncovered approximately 30 ... tunnels leading into Israel, in addition to the more than two dozen discovered prior to Operation Protective Edge. Hamas operatives have been intercepted emerging from such tunnels in Israel carrying tranquilizers and handcuffs, apparently hoping to replicate the successful 2006 kidnapping of IDF soldier ... for whom Israel exchanged 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in 2011."
To me, this isn't complicated. Israel has a right to act in self defense. As long as Hamas opts to make war from behind women and children, Israel has a right to do what is reasonable and necessary to protect its people from the Hamas' rocket and tunnel attacks -- even if Palestinian women and children are killed in the process of Israeli self-defense.
Hamas can stop this "collateral damage" very easily and quickly. It can end the rocket attacks, or it can move the rockets away from civilian areas -- away from schools and hospitals. And it can stop building tunnels into Israel. As long as Hamas tries to kill Israelis using women and children a "human shields," it bears 100 percent of the blame.
American news organizations which blame Israel every time a Palestinian child is killed, are intentionally portraying Israel in a pejorative light. Writing simply that "1,000 Palestinians have been killed" suggests that Israel is responsible for indiscriminately killing women and children. But if Israel was being "indiscriminate" instead of "surgical" the deaths should by now number in the tens of thousands. Gaza is small (141 square miles) and densely populated (1.8 million). If the Israelis are really trying to kill women and children, they are not very good at it.
Perhaps they need lessons from Russia's president. Comrade Putin and his henchman in the Ukraine were able to kill 298 civilian passengers aboard a Malaysian airliner in less than two minutes!
Posted Online: Aug. 08, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea
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