More Political Lies from the Leftist Media

As leftist media sites go, Salon.com is high on the list.  Often, its articles spread hatred and anger, and it is certainly no slave to the truth.  Yesterday, however, Salon published an article lambasting Dr. Ben Carson for saying that a Moslem who wants to impose sharia law should not be president of the USA.  According to Salon, that is not common sense, but religious hatred.  Okay, that their view, but listen to what they say to refute Carson:

For example, far from Dr. Carson’s claim that in Islam women are subservient, Islam gave women equal rights in 610 that our own United States haven’t given even in 2015.

This is not some minor mistake in the article.  Indeed, Salon was so focused on this point that they sent it out as a separate tweet with a link to the article. 

It's actually hilarious to read this stuff.  Just imagine the reaction from the people who read Salon if a Republican candidate were to advocate putting women in exactly the same legal position that they hold in Saudi Arabia or Iran the centers of Sunni and Shiite Islam.  No doubt, the folks at Salon would get so angry that they would become unhinged.  Equal rights?  I can hear the woman in charge at Salon screaming in opposition.  Oh wait, I can't hear her because she would be stuck at home in a burqa unable to leave her house unless accompanied by a male relative who would drive her where she needed to go because she was prohibited from driving. 

The truth is that Salon is willing to say anything, whether true or not, to push its political positions.  Political debate is a good thing if people stick to the facts and try to convince each other of the merits of their arguments.  It is not a good thing if, like those at Salon, the debate is based upon lies rather than facts.

 

Ignoring the Gun Statistics

After the shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, we are back on the gun debate that normally follows one of these terrible events.  President Obama tells us how more people die from mass shootings here than anywhere else in the world.  Others on the left parrot this and the media accepts it as valid.  The problem, of course, is that it is not true.

First of all, there are many countries in South America, Africa and Asia where deaths in mass shootings are more common than in the USA.  Since there is no way to refute this reality, those on the left pushing gun control decided to just drop these countries out of the mix.  Instead of all countries, they talk about "advanced countries".  That means that countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico fall off the list because they are not "advanced".  But think about that.  The same people pushing for gun control are also pushing to bring a big chunk of the population of Mexico here.  If these people have a high level of mass shootings in Mexico, why wouldn't they bring that custom here?  And why should we only look at "advanced" countries.  Why not consider all countries with strict gun laws?  Isn't that the issue?  Mexico has very strong gun laws, but it has plenty of mass shootings.  Doesn't that mean that the gun laws aren't working in Mexico?

Second, there are even many "advanced" countries with higher death rates from mass shootings than the USA.  Finland, Switzerland and Norway are "advanced" by anyone's definition, but they all have higher death rates from mass shootings than the USA during the last fifteen years.  Those who push for gun control in response to mass shootings tell us to ignore the three countries because the statistics are colored by abnormally small sample sizes.  Get it?  Advanced countries don't count unless they have big populations.  The thirty million people in these three countries are just a small sample.  Think about that one now.  There is only one advanced country in the world other than the USA that has more than one third as many people as the USA, namely Russia (although some would dispute the use of "advanced" to describe that nation.  So if you boil down what the left is really saying, there are more mass shootings here than in Russia.  But how do they know?  For years, the Russians were under attack by Chechen terror groups.  They carried out attacks like the one in the Moscow theater that killed a great many people.  Aren't they mass shootings?  Not according to the people pushing gun control.  Terrorist attacks don't count in other countries.

The real truth is that those who push gun control want to move ahead despite the real statistics.  Ignoring these statistics might be good for a political argument, but it makes no sense if one is trying to come up with a plan of action to counter this problem.

 

The Ultimate Hypocrite Is Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is making news today by criticizing representative Kevin McCarthy for his remarks that seemed to indicate that the congressional hearings on Benghazi had a political purpose.  McCarthy has since walked those remarks back but for Hillary, the original remarks still stand and they are, according to her, an affront to the memory of the four men who lost their lives in the Benghazi terror attack.  It's worth a short review of the facts about Benghazi while considering what Hillary had to say.

1.  Hillary was secretary of state in 2012 when the Benghazi attack happened.  As such, she was responsible for making sure that our embassies and consulates were properly protected and secure.

2.  The American consulate in Benghazi was in a city filled with Islamic terrorist activity in 2012.  Because of this, the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, asked the State Department (and that means Hillary) for increased security at that installation.  The response from Washington was not to increase security but rather to decrease it because it would look better.

3.  As the anniversary of 9-11 approached, everyone knew that of all days of the year, the most likely one for a terror attack was 9-11.  Under Hillary's command, however, the State Department took no steps to increase security at any American embassy or consulate for that day.  Hillary did not even bother to arrange for a rapid response team to be ready should there something happen that required fast action.

4.  On 9-11-12, the Benghazi consulate was hit by a coordinated attack by terrorists from the local branch of al Qaeda.  Within thirty minutes, Washington was fully aware of what was happening and it knew that this was a terror attack.  There were no quick responses available to deal with the attack, however, since no one had bothered to prepare for this eventuality (despite the anniversary).

5.  On the evening of 9-11-12 in Washington, as the attack progressed on the consulate in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be found.  To this date, we don't know for sure where she was or what she was doing.  We do know, however, that she was not in any communication with the military to arrange for a rescue of the people stranded at the embassy. 

6.  Even though there was a way to get a force to the consulate in Benghazi within five hours, there was no action taken to send those soldiers.

7.  About seven hours after the first attack in Benghazi, a second one occurred at the CIA office in that city.  Many of the folks from the consulate had fled to the CIA office when the first attack took place.  When this attack began in Benghazi, it was again clear that this was a terrorist group launching an onslaught with the use of sophisticated and high power weapons.

8.  Washington and Hillary again sent no help to those under attack in Benghazi.  Nevertheless, the people at the CIA office were told that help was coming from the air.  Two men on the CIA security team went to the roof and used lasers to paint the sites from which fire was coming at the building.  This laser painting of the target would let jets sent smart bombs directly on the proper target.  There were, however, no jets, so the lasers were useless.

9.  The use of the lasers on the roof, however, helped the terrorists to target the CIA facility directly.  The two CIA security men were killed in the attack because the lasers gave away their location on the roof.

10.  All together four men, including the US Ambassador to Libya, were killed by the terrorists.  Before the terror attack, Hillary Clinton did nothing to improve security for the attack expected on the anniversary of 9-11.  As this attack continued over nearly nine hours, Hillary Clinton did nothing to get help for the Americans under siege by the terrorists.

11.  Starting on the next day (9-12), Hillary led the chorus of government officials who denied that this had been a terror attack.  Supposedly, the killers of the Americans had just been upset by a youtube video posted a few weeks earlier and which none of the attackers had ever seen.  Hillary knew that the video had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack, but she consistently lied to the American people and the world about what had happened.

12.  When the plane carrying the remains of the four murdered Americans landed in the USA, Hillary was there to receive them.  At the time, she actually told the families of these fallen men that their deaths were the result of a youtube video and that she would make sure that the creator of the video was punished.  She lied to the faces of the grieving families and made these fallen heroes out to be just victims of a crazy mob response to a youtube video.  To admit that this was a terror attack, you see, would have meant that Hillary had a chance to have avoided these deaths through better security or a faster response.  Hillary lied to avoid having any responsibility for these four deaths.

So, I ask you, who is it who dishonored the memory of the four men killed in Benghazi:  the congressman who misspoke and then walked back what he had said, or the politician who failed to protect the consulate, failed to respond to requests for increase security, failed to prepare for an attack expected on 9-11, failed to send forces once the attack began and failed to tell the truth of what had happened so that she could avoid responsibility?  It's an easy answer, don't you think?

Hillary is the ultimate hypocrite on Benghazi.

 

Reality Vs. The Media

I saw a headline today that says "Israel bars Palestinians from Jerusalem's Old City".  It was a true shocker.  After all, Palestinians make up about a third of the residents of Jerusalem, so barring them from the Old City would be a major move of international importance.  Then I read the article.  When I got more than halfway through the piece, I learned that people who live in the Old City are not included in the ban; they can enter or leave as they like.  People who work in the Old City are not included in the ban; they can enter or leave as they want.  People who attend school in the Old City are not included in the ban; they too are free to come and go.  The ban is also just for two days during an upcoming Jewish holiday when the Old City will be filled with visitors coming for the celebration of that event.  So, boiling it all down, for two days during a holiday, the Israelis are barring Palestinians who do not live, work or study from the Old City.  The measure is designed to prevent any more violent attacks by Palestinian terrorists of the sort that have seen four Israelis killed in the last week and others, including a toddler, stabbed by terrorists.

It's disgusting that the headline is so far from the reality.  But it was not the only misinformation in the article.  Here's my favorite bit:  "Some 300,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem, making up about a third of the city's population. They live in the predominantly Arab eastern district and have residency status in the city, but do not hold Israeli citizenship."  It sure makes it sound like the Palestinians live a second class existence, doesn't it?  It ignores reality, however. 

We have to go back to 1967 to understand this.  In that year, the Israelis recaptured the half of Jerusalem that had been under Jordanian rule.  The Israelis reunited the city as one.  All Palestinians who lived in Jerusalem were offered Israeli citizenship.  These people also had the option of retaining Jordanian citizenship or becoming Jerusalem "residents" but not Israeli citizens.  Residents have the same rights as Israelis, but they were not able to vote in the Israeli national elections.  They can vote, however, in local elections.  Residents also do not serve in the Israeli armed forces.  The large majority of the Arab residents of Jerusalem chose to be "residents" rather than Israeli citizens.  Their children have continued to be "residents", so saying that most Palestinians in the city "have residency status in the city, but do not hold Israeli citizenship" without explaining that this was the choice of those Palestinians, makes it seem like some sort of punishment for them, when that is not true.

There are many problems in the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians.  The media ought to write about those and not create phony ones that make things seem worse than they actually are.

 

The Stupidity of the West

Here's two events that need to be compared:

1.  Russia launches day after day of airstrikes in Syria.  Only one ISIS target was hit; all of the rest (over 50 in total) were not ISIS or ISIS related.  Massive numbers of people were killed and according to observers on the ground, roughly three quarters of the dead are civilians.  The other quarter are Sunni rebel fighters who are also fighting ISIS.

2.  The Taliban tries to take the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.  During the counterstrike by Afghan forces, American planes bomb Taliban positions.  One out of the many targets turns out to be a medical facility which may have been used by the Taliban; that is not clear.  In the strike on the medical facility, nine doctors and staff were hit.

So tell me, which of these two brings condemnation from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as a possible war crime?  Is it the one in which three days of relentless bombing at many locations kill over 100 civilians who were nowhere near ISIS positions?  Is it the bombing of one site where nine medical staff were mistakenly hit?  If you guessed that it was the second one, you are correct.  The UN is busy condemning the American airstrike, but it is totally silent on the large number of Russian attacks on civilians.

And what happens next?  It's easy.  The USA and other countries in the West will focus on investigating what happened in Kunduz and no one will say a damn thing about the Russian slaughter of civilians in Syria.  It's all part of the stupidity of the West.  Indeed, if you really want to see stupidity, take a look at the coverage of the Israeli attempts to stop Arab men from throwing stones at police and tourists in Jerusalem and the coverage of the Assad regime slaughtering over 200,000 people by using chemical weapons, air strikes with anti-personnel bombs and murder of civilians.  For the media, Assad may kill 200,000 people but those Israeli police stopping the stone throwing are the real bad guys.  It's stupid for sure, but what is worse is that no one stops it.

If America ever gets into a new war during the Obama years, most likely each army unit will have multiple lawyers assigned to it.  The lawyers will need to study and decide whether or not each shot can be taken.

 

Obama's Views of Syria Explained

Yesterday, president Obama repeated the mantra that has been his administration's view of the Russian entry into Syria.  First, Russia went into the fight "out of weakness" according to Obama.  Second, Syria will be a quagmire for the Russians which will cost them dearly while not letting them achieve much at all.  It's strange to think that the man who is president of the United States could be so off base in his thinking.

Let's start with this weakness/strength comparison.  The idea is that Russia was somehow forced into Syria; it was just too weak to resist the pull of the Syrian civil war.  The inevitable initial reaction to this claim is, to quote Hillary, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"  The Russians are in Syria.  That presents some clear problems.  What should America's response be?  That ought to be Obama's focus.  Instead, he and his people keep trying to point to supposed Russian "weakness" as if it were some sort of victory or positive for the USA.  It isn't.  It really doesn't matter.  Nevertheless, it you think about this Russian weakness, you find that what Russia has done here is to enter Syria together with the Iranians to help their embattled ally, Bashir as Assad.  Helping an ally is not a sign of weakness.  Think of it this way:  if Iranian forces were to invade Turkey, a NATO ally, and the USA sent armed forces to help defeat the Iranians, that's not a sign of American weakness.  It would be a sign of American resolve, of America's honoring its commitments, and of what would surely be portrayed as commitment to the world order.  When Russia does the same thing, it's not a sign of weakness.  Obama is just wrong.

Then there's the quagmire claim.  There's no reason why Syria should be a quagmire; that will be up to others like the Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians.  Certainly, if the non-ISIS rebels do not get substantial help from outside Syria, the Russian/Iranian/Hezbollah forces combined with the Assad forces will crush those rebels.  They may persist in the fight, but they will be more of a bother than a threat to Assad.  Of course, were the Saudis or any of the others to send weapons and maybe even troops to the Sunni rebels, there could be substantial costs for the Russians and Iranians.  A few handheld anti-aircraft missiles could bring down those big Russian transports that supply the Russian forces.  It would not take all that much to inflict real costs on the Russians.  But would the Saudis take on Russia and Putin?  More precisely, would Saudi Arabia take on the Russians and Iranians when the Saudis know that no help would be forthcoming from Washington?  I don't think any of the local Arab regimes would chance that.  So the Russians will be able to take out the non-ISIS Sunni rebels.  That leaves the rest of the world a choice between Assad and ISIS.  It's the one contest that Assad ought to have no problem in winning.  Somehow, this doesn't sound much like a quagmire.

But the USA hit a quagmire in Iraq, didn't we?  Obama certainly thinks so.  But he is wrong.  He forgets that in Iraq, America fought with different rules of engagement than the Russians are using.  We tried to avoid civilian deaths; the Russians are not.  Just look at the first three days of Russian bombing and you see that the majority of the dead are women and children.  America also faced Iranian efforts in Iraq to inflict death and destruction on our forces.  We did nothing to stop the Iranians due to restrictive rules of engagement.  The Russians will not be so kind to foreign intervention in support of their opponents.  And let's not forget the big point:  after the surge in Iraq, we won.  The war was over.  America won the Iraq War and then Obama lost the peace after it.  Our president was so insistent on getting out of the quagmire that he still saw, that he handed Iraq to ISIS and Iran.  We are all now paying for that delusional move.

An Update on the Russian Campaign in Syria

Today was the third day of air strikes by Russian planes in Syria.  For the first time, the Russians actually hit an ISIS base although most strikes were still on Sunni opponents of Assad rather than on ISIS.  In three days, the Russians have dropped one quarter the amount of bombs that the USA has dropped in Syria over the last 14 months.  It's not that the Russian campaign is massive; it is not.  Rather, the American bombing has been extremely minor.  The Russians also are not limiting themselves just to military targets.  They have already hit civilians areas and caused significant civilian casualties.  The Russians are actually at war and are not waging a legalistic public relations type of war.

We hear now that many countries are protesting the nature of the Russian campaign.  That's pretty funny.  Vladimir Putin will not care whether or not the Dutch think his forces are being too brutal or not.  The Russians will just keep on with their campaign.

It would be nice if president Obama were to learn something from watching what Putin is doing.  (For example, it would be great if Obama finally realized that nothing Putin says can be trusted.)  Sadly, that is not going to happen.  Obama will just continue to tell the Russians that they are on the wrong side of history, and Putin will laugh as he takes over the Middle East.