Can We Trust President Obama to Win War on ISIL?

On Sept. 10, President Obama finally announced his "strategy" for dealing with ISIL:

"We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL. ...

"That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq.

"It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and support from partner forces on the ground. It's a strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, the same targeted strategy that the United States has been using in Yemen and Somalia."

The President stated his justification for his strategy: "If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including the United States....

"This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."
Do you have any confidence in the President's strategy?

I have no confidence because he either is unable to identify the enemy, or refuses to do so. The president began his Sept. 10 remarks by saying, "Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not 'Islamic.' No religion condones the killing of innocents."

But if ISIL, which now simply calls itself the "Islamic State," is not "Islamic," why does it call itself "Islamic?" Why is it proclaiming itself "as a caliphate with religious authority over all Muslims across the world?" Why does the Islamic State compel people in the areas it controls, under the penalty of death, torture or mutilation, to accept Islam and live according to its interpretation of Sunni Islam and Sharia law?

Why are its warriors beheading infidels who refuse to convert to Islam? Why is It directing violence against Shiite Muslims and Christians and other non-Muslims? And who, other than Muslims, calls for jihad?

When the President refuses to call Islamic terror "Islamic terror," who can have an iota of confidence that he will "do what is necessary" -- over the long term -- to win this war? Indeed, it is Mr. Obama's "deadline" for the removal of U.S. troops in Iraq that has made the Islamic State's "resurrection" in Iraq possible.

To deny that there is also a violent strain of Islam in the face of daily violence across the Mideast since the time of Mohammad and especially since WWII, at best suggests the president is closing his eyes to reality and seeing Islam as peaceful through rose-colored glasses. It is impossible to win a war if you can't size-up your enemy.

Then too, if The Islamic State (ISIL) poses a "growing threat to the U.S.," why would any rational American president believe that "other nations" will provide ground troops to fight and die? If President Obama isn't willing to risk American lives to protect the U.S., how can we expect France, Canada, England, Australia or Saudi Arabia to send their sons to do so?

The president proposes to employ "the same targeted strategy that the United States has been using in Yemen and Somalia." But in Yemen and Somalia we are killing a handful of terrorists with drone strikes. In Iraq, the Islamic State has seized Iraq's second largest city, a tract of land as large as Belgium and the oil revenues of the Sunni regions of Iraq, and has disappeared among the civilian population. Is the president willing to kill civilians to exterminate terrorists living and hiding among the civilian population?

President Obama has only one choice: exterminate ISIL, or do something less. It is not an easy choice. But he cannot simply sit by while the Islamic State becomes an Islamic Nation.
With oil revenues and the power of taxation, the war will only become harder and more costly for us to win.

Vice President Biden has said "we'll follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice." President Obama now says "if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven." But these are sound-bites, not a strategy. If you corner them at the "Gates of Hell," then what? Kill them? Transport them to New York for jury trials?

The real question is:

Can America win a war, if America fights a civilized, limited war, while the Islamic State fights war rejecting all rules and conventions? Can we successfully fight a limited war, while they fight a war to destroy us? Will half-measures do the job?

So, is the president really taking America into a war he intends to win? Not if you listen to his team.
Less than 24 hours after the president's speech, Secretary of State John Kerry re-muddied the waters: "The U.S. is not at war with ISIS. ... The fact is, it's a major counterterrorism operation."

Even worse, again less than 24 hours after Mr. Obama's address, his press secretary Josh Earnest, when asked, "What does destroy mean?" responded, "I didn't bring my dictionary."

If the president can't enunciate a "strategy," without his secretaries immediately walking back his remarks, why would our enemies fear us? Why would our allies send their sons into ground combat?

Posted Online:  Sept. 19, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

America's Open Southern Border is a Red Carpet for Terrorist's

 On Aug. 28, President Barack Obama told the whole world -- including our enemies! -- he has not yet developed a strategy to combat ISIS. His remarks come weeks after ISIS has seized Iraqi cities and village and declared war on all "infidels," and more than a week after it has beheaded an American journalist.

To quote Mr. Obama: "We don't have a strategy yet." But you can be sure that ISIS does. Their strategy is "We are coming for you" to "kill Americans any way we can."

The beheading of two American journalists should indicate to any president, that ISIS is serious. Connecting the dots in this instance isn't that difficult. Try it yourself.

-- Dot 1: On Feb. 26, Gen. John F. Kelly, the U.S. Marine Corps commander of the U.S. Southern Command testified before the House Armed Services Committee. Here are the remarks by the commander responsible for all Department of Defense security cooperation in the 45 nations and territories of Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea remarks concerning the convergence of transnational" drug crime and terrorism:

"Criminal networks can move just about anything on these smuggling pipelines. My concern ... is that many of these pipelines lead directly into the United States, representing a potential vulnerability that could be exploited by terrorist groups seeking to do us harm. Supporters and sympathizers of Lebanese Hezbollah are involved in ... the region ... in ... drug trafficking. ...

"Terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even quite easily bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States."

-- Dot 2: A July/August 2014 Mother Jones headline states "70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year?"

The article tells the story of "Adrian," a 17 year-old boy from Guatemala, who found his way to a dessert safe-house in Northwestern Mexico. There, the drug traffickers "asked him" to strap on a load of marijuana and walk across the border into Arizona. Adrian" agreed to do so.

Mother Jones said, "When the Border Patrol caught Adrian a week later in the Arizona desert -- he'd ditched the pot at a drop point along the way -- he became one of the 38,833 unaccompanied minors apprehended by the Board Patrol in fiscal year 2013. That was a 59 percent jump from the year before, and a 142 percent increase from fiscal 2011; no one knows how many more kids avoided Border Patrol detection... . This year, officials have told advocates they anticipate the numbers to double again, to as many as 74,000 unaccompanied children. That's equivalent to every single student in Dallas' 81 public middle and high schools." (motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/child-migrants-surge-unaccompanied-central-america)

-- Dot 3: Now King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is warning the U.S. that jihadists could target the Europe and the U.S. if world leaders do not react to the growing terrorist threat from ISIS.

"If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America.

"These terrorists do not know the name of humanity and you have witnessed them severing heads and giving (the heads) to children to walk with in the street."

 -- Dot 4: According to senior U.S. officials, the United States government is tracking as many as 300 Americans supposedly fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. "We know that there are several hundred American passport-holders running around with ISIS in Syria or Iraq."

Washington is worried that these radicalized American fighters, presently fighting abroad, could create havoc in U.S. if they return and carry out jihad in the U.S. (washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/26/us-citizens-joining-islamic-state-pose-major-threa/)

So, if 300 American jihadists opt to come home to fight "holy war" here, how are they going to get here? Use their passports to re-enter? Enter illegally from Mexico?

If 70,000 unaccompanied children can walk across our open southern border (and if no one knows how many of those aren't being caught by the Boarder Patrol), it should be duck soup" for 300 trained terrorists try to infiltrate. And if kids can slip past the Border Patrol, is there any reason to believe that trained terrorists will fare any worse?

Our open southern boarder is a red carpet to Muslim terrorists to pull off a second — and perhaps worse -- 9/11. But if it happens, rest assured President Obama will quickly advance a strategy: Blame George Bush!

We elected a president to preserve and protect" the Constitution and the country. We don't need an "Ethelred the Unready," or "Nero fiddling while Rome burns."


Posted Online:  Sept. 8, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right in Ferguson

Eighteen year-old Michael Brown, a black teenager, was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. State and federal prosecutors will investigate to determine whether the officer used "excessive force." If he did, he should face prosecution.

So, what legal or moral principle justifies the looting? (I am not talking about lawful "peaceful protesting." I am talking only about "looting" and destruction of neighborhood stores).

When I was a boy, my mother taught me that "two wrongs don't make a right."

During the 1858 Galesburg Debate, Abe Lincoln said "Judge Douglas declares that if any community want Slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in Slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong."

The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution says. "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Riot, on the other hand, is not peaceably assembling; it is an assembling to do violence.

So assume, for purposes of argument, that Michael Brown, a black teenager, has been wrongfully shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson. I say "assume" because at this point no proof has been shown before any competent tribunal that the officer did anything whatsoever wrong.

A shooting if wrongful can be murder or manslaughter. But a shooting can be done with legal justification, if it is done in self-defense or in defense-of-another. Illinois law provides that a person "is justified in the use of force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another, or the commission of a forcible felony."

In Illinois "forcible felonies" include first- and second-degree murder, aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement, and any other felony which involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

The facts will determine whether the officer was legally right or wrong. Facts adduced in court will show whether the officer used excessive force, or justifiable force.

Riots won't help. Nor will lawful, peaceful protests.

The key idea found in the statute is that deadly force can only be used where that use of force is "necessary" to "prevent "imminent death or great bodily harm" to the person or another, or the commission of a forcible felony."

Did Michael Brown use or threaten deadly force against the officer?

The statute nowhere authorizes the use of deadly force for "revenge"or any other purpose.

So, what then is the justification -- legal and/or moral -- for burglarizing, looting and wrecking neighborhood stores? They are owned by whites? They are owned by blacks? They are owned by strangers? They are convenient to destroy? They are owned or operated by people who had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Brown's death?

"The only good cop is a dead cop?" It's great fun to destroy a community? The unemployment rate is too high in the community? We are poor? We dropped out of school? We are living in one-parent families. There are drugs in our community? Reparations for slavery? Cops pick on young black men? The store owners are rich? We looters are merely helping ourselves to our "fair share?" Revenge? Hatred? Black racism? The end ("more" for me) justifies whatever means I choose to get "more," including burglary, looting and wanton destruction of my neighbors' property.

Personally, I can see no justification for the rioting in Missouri. If each faction in a society is free to achieve its own perceived (good( ends by resorting to evil means, the society degenerates into chaos, if not civil war. If riot is an acceptable means for a black minority, riot is also be an acceptable means for a white majority.

My mother was right: "Two wrongs don't make a right." And President Lincoln was right when he said "nobody has a right to do wrong."

Since the time of Moses, the law has been, "Thou shall not steal; thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods." If that is God's law, how do the looters justify their conduct? And if the command is "love your neighbor as yourself," how is this rioting justified?

And if someone else is killed during the rioting, will that justify more rioting?

Posted Online:  Sept. 2, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea

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

Immigration Policy Unconstitutional, Incoherent

Politics aside, I can think of only three possible reasons we are accepting 90,000 illegal immigrant children from Central America:

-- 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

Israeli Response Purely a Matter of Self-Defense

How should Israel respond when Hamas fires 2,100 rockets into Israel from Gaza? How should Israel react when Hamas refuses cease-fire offers? Is Israel justified in bombing or shelling the rocket launchers? Rocket launching sites?

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

When Citizens Lose Respect for Courts, Revolutions Follow

A sizable majority of the American people have lost virtually all respect for Congress. Every day more and more Americans are losing faith with a president whose administration seemingly lies about everything from Benghazi, to the IRS scandal, to unemployment statistics.

Only one branch of the federal government retains the respect of the American people: the judiciary. And now the president and his supporters are doing their best to undermine that support by misstating the U.S. Supreme Court's holding for crass partisan advantage.

Whether you agree with the court's holding or not, it is dangerous, either intentionally or through carelessness, to misstate what the court has said. When its holdings are misstated, the court is most often portrayed in a pejorative light. That is why I have written a number of op eds quoting the court at length, to show readers what the court has actually said, and to show the care with which their opinions are crafted.

In this op ed, I discuss the Hobby Lobby decision allowing two closely held corporations to refuse to pay for four out of 20 forms of contraception that they consider to be abortifacients --— drugs that terminate conception after conception (not before). I do so because I believe you need to see exactly what the court said, and how carefully they said it. I do so because too many people who should know better are undermining respect for the court by misstating what the court said.

"Fifty years ago, Norman Hahn started a wood-working business in his garage ... This company, Conestoga Wood Specialties, .... now has 950 employees ... the Hahns believe that 'human life begins at conception.' It is therefore 'against (their) moral conviction to be involved in the termination of human life' after conception, which they believe is a 'sin against God to which they are held accountable.' The Hahns have accordingly excluded from the group health-insurance plan they offer to their employees certain contraceptive methods [four out of 20] that they consider to be abortifacients.

"The Hahns and Conestoga sued the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ... under Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) ... seeking to enjoin application of ACA's contraceptive mandate insofar as it requires them to provide health-insurance coverage for four FDA approved contraceptives that may operate after the fertilization of an egg. These include two forms of emergency contraception commonly called "morning after" pills and two types of intrauterine devices.

"Forty-five years ago, David Green started an arts-and-crafts store that has grown into a nationwide chain called Hobby Lobby. ... the Greens believe that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point. ... They specifically object to the same four contraceptive methods as the Hahns .... They have no objection to the other 16 FDA-approved methods of birth control. ...

"We must decide in these cases whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) ... permits HHS to demand that three closely held corporations provide health-insurance coverage for methods of contraception that violate the sincerely held religious beliefs of the companies' owners. We hold that the regulations that impose this obligation violate RFRA, which prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially burdens the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.

"In holding that the HHS mandate is unlawful, we reject HHS's argument that the owners of the companies forfeited all RFRA protection when they decided to organize their businesses as corporations rather than sole proprietorships or general partnerships. The plain terms of RFRA make it perfectly clear that Congress did not discriminate in this way against men and women who wish to run their businesses as for-profit corporations in the manner required by their religious beliefs.

"Since RFRA applies in these cases, we must decide whether the challenged HHS regulations (1) substantially burden the exercise of religion, and we hold that they do. The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients. If the owners comply with the HHS mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions, and if they do not comply, they will pay a very heavy price -- as much as $1.3 million per day, or about $475 million per year, in the case of one of the companies. If these consequences do not amount to a substantial burden, it is hard to see what would.

"Under RFRA, a Government action that imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise must (2) serve a compelling government interest, and we assume that the HHS regulations satisfy this requirement. But in order for the HHS mandate to be sustained, it must also constitute (3) the least restrictive means of serving that interest, and the mandate plainly fails that test. There are other ways in which Congress or HHS could equally ensure that every woman has cost-free access to the particular contraceptives at issue here and, indeed, to all FDA-approved contraceptives.

"In fact, HHS has already devised and implemented a system that seeks to respect the religious liberty of religious nonprofit corporations while ensuring that the employees of these entities have precisely the same access to all FDA-approved contraceptives as employees of companies whose owners have no religious objections to providing such coverage. The employees of these religious nonprofit corporations still have access to insurance coverage without cost sharing for all FDA-approved contraceptives; and according to HHS, this system imposes no net economic burden on the insurance companies that are required to provide or secure the coverage.
"HHS has provided no reason why the same system cannot be made available when the owners of for-profit corporations have similar religious objections.

"The effect of the HHS-created accommodation on the women employed by Hobby Lobby and the other companies involved in these cases would be precisely zero. Under that accommodation, these women would still be entitled to all (20) FDA-approved contraceptives without cost sharing."

Not withstanding the loss of respect for the president and Congress, our system bumbles on. When citizens, however, lose respect for their judicial system, revolutions follow.

Posted Online:  July 18, 2014, 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2014
John Donald O'Shea