Report: Iran shipping arms and personnel to Syria through Iraq

From left-leaning Reuters.

Excerpt:

Iran has been using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to Syria to aid President Bashar al-Assad in his attempt to crush an 18-month uprising against his government, according to a Western intelligence report seen by Reuters.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials said they were questioning Iraq about Iranian flights in Iraqi airspace suspected of ferrying arms to Assad, a staunch Iranian ally. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John Kerry threatened to review U.S. aid to Baghdad if it does not halt such overflights.

Iraq says it does not allow the passage of any weapons through its airspace. But the intelligence report obtained by Reuters says Iranian weapons have been flowing into Syria via Iraq in large quantities. Such transfers, the report says, are organized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“This is part of a revised Iranian modus operandi that U.S. officials have only recently addressed publicly, following previous statements to the contrary,” said the report, a copy of which was provided by a U.N. diplomatic source.

“It also flies in the face of declarations by Iraqi officials,” it said. “Planes are flying from Iran to Syria via Iraq on an almost daily basis, carrying IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) personnel and tens of tons of weapons to arm the Syrian security forces and militias fighting against the rebels.”

It added that Iran was also “continuing to assist the regime in Damascus by sending trucks overland via Iraq” to Syria.

I was recently having a conversation with someone who was all in favor of regime change in the Middle East, but thought that the best way to achieve that was by abandoning our military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. I didn’t say anything to him about it, but I do think it’s important to understand that any kind of intelligence gathering, covert operations, interdiction, espionage, etc. depends on having military bases nearby to support such operations. In particular, covert operations often require military support. You can’t wish the Middle East well, and then pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to be there to stabilize the region, just like we did in Japan, South Korea, etc. after other wars.

Related posts

• Obama is skipping over half of his daily intelligence briefings (PDBs)
• The top 10 foreign policy failures of the Obama administration
• Russian attack submarine operates undetected in Gulf of Mexico for a month
• Defense cuts to an already weakened military exposes us to aggression
• Richard Miniter: Obama canceled Bin Laden kill mission THREE TIMES
• Can the Democrats be trusted to protect our national security?
• Obama administration leaked name of British agent who stopped Al Qaeda attack
• Obama overrides Congress to send $192 million to Palestinian Authority
• Obama’s neutrality on the Falklands dispute puts special relationship at risk
• Obama’s Arab Spring: Rockets fired from Egypt hit Israeli city
• Is the Obama administration behind the leak of Israel’s plan to strike Iran?
• Top Iranian official assisting Syria to crackdown on protestors
• Former DEA chief warns of cooperation between Hezbollah and drug cartels
• Iran launches Spanish-language TV channel in Venezuela
• Obama’s defense cuts undermine our national security
• Iran set to steal military technology from the drone Obama gave them
• Iraq plunges into chaos as U.S. troops withdraw
• Iran laughs as Obama pleads for return of unmanned drone

Filed under: News, Arab Spring, Assad, Assad Regime, Bashar Assad, China, Civilian, Democracy, Diplomacy, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Free Syria, Iran, Islam, Libya, Military, Muslim Brotherhood, Protest, Protestor, Qods Force, Quds Force, Radical Islam, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UN Security Council, War, World

Top Iranian official assisting Syria to crackdown on protestors

Map of the Middle East

From Haaretz.

Excerpt:

A top Iranian military official is activily aiding the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in suppressing popular unrest throughout the country, a top member of the National Syrian Council said on Monday.

According to the Syrian official, Kassam Salimani, commander of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard special forces unit, has arrived in Syria recently and has taken up a spot in the war room which manages army maneuvers against opposition forces.

[...]The Quds Force includes 15,000 elite soldiers who operated, among other locations, in Iraq during the war, and the specialty of which is engaging in unconventional warfare on foreign soil. Among other duties, the Quds Force is in charge of traning and funding Hezbollah.

Salimani’s presence in Syria serves as an indication of the kind of battle that Assad is planning against opposition forces, with the Syrian army reportedly planning to wage all out war against the rebel city of Homs.

[...]The report also claimed that the Syrian army for the first time has been using rockets in order to target houses as well as mortars to hit populated areas. So far, 60 people were reportedly killed and hundreds wounded in this battle, as well as reports of the demolition of seven houses, residents and all.

[...]Syrian opposition organizations that are active internationally are currently trying to gain a political front bypassing the UN Security Council, where a resolution underwritten by the Arab League failed due to Russian and Chinese vetoes on Saturday.

At this stage, opposition leaders are trying to find a way forward, as it is clear that Turkey and the Arab states oppose military action against the Assad regime, and the imposing of economic sanctions will not stop Assad.

Facing Russia and Chinese opposition, and the Iranian threat to open a new front, there is doubt whether a western coalition will agree to act directly against Syria. The question is whether the Free Syrian Army will be able to get additional military assistance, and to arm itself with heavy artillery, tanks and shells so that it will be able to pose a real challenge to the Syrian army, and change the civilian resistance into a real military struggle, much like the rebel forces in Libya.

Where’s Obama? Why isn’t he supporting the civilians and the Syrian resistance?

Well, Obama only commits the US armed forces to wars that are likely to result in radical Islamist governments – as in Libya and Egypt. That’s “smart diplomacy”. America would benefit if the Assad regime were replaced in Syria – and that’s why Obama isn’t going to lift a finger to make that happen.

Filed under: News, Arab Spring, Assad, Assad Regime, Bashar Assad, China, Civilian, Democracy, Diplomacy, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Free Syria, Iran, Islam, Libya, Military, Muslim Brotherhood, Protest, Protestor, Qods Force, Quds Force, Radical Islam, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UN Security Council, War, World

Should the Occupy Wall Street protesters move their protest to Washington, D.C.?

From the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Still, if anyone in the Occupy Wall Street movement wants an intellectually honest explanation for why they can’t find a job, they might start by considering what happens to an economy when the White House decides to make pinatas out of the financial-services industry (roughly 6%, or $828 billion, of U.S. GDP), the energy industry (about 7.5% of GDP, or $1 trillion), and millionaires and billionaires (who paid 20.4% of all federal income taxes in 2009). And don’t forget the Administration’s rhetorical volleys against individual companies like Anthem Blue Cross, AIG and Bank of America, or against Chrysler’s bondholders, or various other alleged malefactors of wealth.

Now move from words to actions. Want a shovel-ready job? The Administration has spent three years sitting on the Keystone XL pipeline project that promises to create 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 “spin-off” jobs. A State Department environmental review says the project poses no threat to the environment, but the Administration’s eco-friends are screaming lest it go ahead.

Then there are the jobs the Administration and its allies in Congress are actively killing. In June, American Electric Power announced it would have to shutter five coal-fired power plants, at a cost of 600 jobs, in order to comply with new EPA rules. Those same rules may soon force the utility to shutter another 25 plants. Bank of America’s decision last month to lay off 30,000 employees is a direct consequence of various Congressional edicts limiting how much the bank can charge merchants or how it can handle delinquent borrowers.

These visible crags of the Obama jobs iceberg are nothing next to the damage done below the waterline by the D.C. regulations factory, which last year added 81,405 pages of new rules to the Federal Register, bringing the total cost to the U.S. economy of regulatory compliance to an estimated $1.7 trillion a year.

Less easy to quantify, but no less harmful, are the long-term uncertainties employers face in trying to price in the costs of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the potential expiration next year of the Bush tax cuts, the possible millionaire surcharge, the value of the dollar and so on. No wonder businesses are so reluctant to hire: When you don’t know how steep the trail ahead of you is, it’s usually better to travel light.

If you want to know who is really to blame for poverty, try looking at the Obama administration.

Filed under: Commentary, Economy, Hippies, Jobs, Occupy Wall Street, Protest, Protestor, Unemployment, Wall Street

Obama’s weak foreign policy may lead to WAR in the Middle East

Map of Middle East

First article from the left-wing Huffington Post. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

In its first year, the Obama administration cut funding for democracy and governance programming in Egypt by more than half, from $50 million in 2008 to $20 million in 2009 (Congress later appropriated another $5 million). The level of funding for civil society programs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was cut disproportionately, from $32 million to only $7 million. Though funding levels for 2010 are not yet available, they are expected to show an increase to $14 million, says Stephen McInerny, the director of advocacy at the Project on Middle East Democracy. He notes that the Bush administration slashed economic aid to Egypt in the 2009 budget but kept the funding for democracy and governance programs constant, while Obama cut funding to those programs in an effort to make the cuts more proportional and under pressure from the American embassy in Cairo.

Second article, from the LA Times. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government.

[...]The statement was an acknowledgment that any popularly accepted new government will probably include groups that are not considered friendly to U.S. interests, and was a signal that the White House is prepared for that probability after 30 years of reliable relations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Third article, from National Review. (H/T Hyscience)

Excerpt:

Hamas’s overt intervention in Egypt is an alarming development, although a predictable one. It is worth pointing out that Hamas is not merely colluding with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. That, of course, will not be what you hear from our foreign-policy experts, such as Obama adviser Bruce Riedel, who are busily sculpting their narrative about how the Brotherhood — the font on modern jihadist terror — has renounced violence and is really nothing for us to be very concerned about. But the stubborn fact is that Hamas is the most prominent of the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branches, whose operations long predated Hamas and brought Hamas (a/k/a, the Islamic Resistance Movement) into being.

So that’s what’s happening in Egypt… Hamas is moving in to take control, just like Hezbollah controls Lebanon (now). But why now? Why didn’t this happen when George W. Bush was President?

Well, Barack Obama is no George W. Bush.

Let’s review:

• Obama insulted our British allies
• Obama insulted our Afghan allies
• Obama backed Iran’s suppression of pro-democracy protestors
• Obama did nothing when Russian tanks rolled through Georgia
• Obama did nothing when Hezbollah took over Lebanon
• Obama backed the socialist Zeyala in Honduras
• Obama met with Chavez, Ortega and Morales and kept silent while they insulted the United States
• Obama did nothing while Turkey became increasingly Islamicized
• Obama cut funding to democracy and governance programs in Egypt

And what is the end game of all of this weakness and moral equivalence?

Excerpt:

The circle is now complete. This week Barack Obama truly became what many people believe he was all along, the long lost second term of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

[...]First he criticized the weakened leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. Next Obama threatened to emasculate Mubarak’s standing with the Egyptian military by reducing US financial aid if Mubarak didn’t allow the protests and revolution in the streets to continue.

Obama followed up by tacitly signaling that he supports the violent Islamic protests which are backed by the Shariah-compliant extremists of the Moslem Brotherhood, which is the only real opposition party in Egypt to the thirty-year dictator Mubarak. After that, like Carter, Obama showed constant indecision and weakness, which is having the result of undermining our allies and empowering the forces of insanity and evil on the ground in Egypt and other destabilized countries in the region like Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan.

Just like Carter, Obama got us to this point by undermining our only ally in the area, Israel, and empowering all of her regional enemies for the first two years of his presidency. That undermining has led us directly to these out of control events.

At this moment, of the four nations that border Israel, two of them, Syria and Lebanon, are client states of Iran waging constant war and the other two which both have brokered peace are facing internal turmoil, Jordan is facing Islamic protests in her streets and the relatively stable tourist destination Egypt, is exploding in revolution.

The way Obama is handling the Egyptian crisis there can only be one outcome. The Moslem brotherhood will seize total control of the nation and turn the Arab world’s most populace country into a totalitarian Islamic theocracy just like Iran. Egypt’s fall will be a strategic disaster for the US because Egypt borders Israel and controls the vital Suez Canal which connects the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. The Suez is one of the most vital water-ways in the entire world because it is the shipping lane that allows Middle East oil to get to the consumer countries in Europe.

If Egypt falls to this kind of governance total war will quickly come to the Middle East with catastrophic strategic and economic consequences for the whole world.

Strength doesn’t cause wars – weakness causes wars. When you are strong, aggressors know that aggression will cause them plenty. Obama, and his constant apologizing and appeasing and siding with terrorists and dictators, is what REALLY causes wars.

Filed under: News, Afghanistan, Appeasement, Cowardice, Democracy, Democrat, Diplomacy, Egypt, Election, Failure, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizbullah, Hosni Mubarak, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jimmy Carter, Jordan, Lebanon, Middle East, Moslem Brotherhood, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Protest, Protestor, Shariah, Shariah Law, Suez Canal, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, War, Weak, Weakness

MUST-READ: Woman who threatened pro-life protester cancels abortion

Story from the Duluth News Tribune. (H/T Stop the ACLU via ECM, Neil Simpson)

I’ll cite the full article:

Mechelle Hall dabbed tears from her eyes Tuesday as she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for brandishing a knife and threatening a woman who urged her not to get an abortion.

Yet, she revealed later, she never got it.

Hall, 26, of Superior, admitted her crime in a St. Louis County courtroom under questioning by county prosecutor Nathaniel Stumme. Public defender Laura Zimm told Judge David Johnson that, under terms of a plea agreement, Hall would receive probation and wouldn’t have to serve any jail time. It was a routine, perfunctory court hearing.

The surprise came when Hall was reached by phone at her Superior home Tuesday evening. She said she never had the planned abortion. Hall said she decided to keep the baby after being confronted by anti-abortion protesters Leah Winandy and her mother, Sarah, on Nov. 24. She said she was stressed out and they made her realize that she didn’t want to end the life she was carrying inside her.

Hall was asked if there was anything she’d like to say to the Winandys.

“Thank you for being there,” she said. “If they weren’t there, I probably would have gone through with it and regretted it for the rest of my life. It probably would have gone the other way. I’m sincerely sorry for doing that to her.”

Reached at her northern Wisconsin home Tuesday evening, Leah Winandy, 21, said she was protesting abortions on behalf of Pro Life Ministries of Duluth and handing out pamphlets on First Street outside the Building for Women when confronted by Hall.

“I was there to ask mothers not to kill their babies at the abortion clinic,” she said. “She [Hall] was walking toward me. She pulled out a knife and waved it at me saying ‘Don’t come near me.’ I said, ‘Please don’t kill your baby. Fear God.’ I came to the edge of the courtyard. I said, ‘Look and listen to your ultrasound.’ She turned around and came back with a knife and held it up to my throat.”

Winandy said she was contacted by the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office and asked if she would be agreeable to Hall receiving probation instead of a guideline prison sentence. She agreed.

“I forgive Mechelle for what she did; I do forgive her because God has given me forgiveness in my heart for her,” Winandy said.

Hall said she will learn the sex of her child at her next ultrasound next month.

The abortion issue is the slavery issue of our time. Abortion is the way that we treat people like property today. The abolitionists of our time are pro-lifers. I often hear people talking about how moral they can be without God and how they would oppose slavery if they had lived in those times. Well, here is your big chance to oppose something even worse than slavery. Get to work, and let’s see that vaunted secular humanist morality in action.

If you’re shy and shadowy like me, then pick a pro-life debater and send them some money. I like CCBR Canada and the Life Training Institute. Or pick up a copy of the Case for Life and read it, and then talk about these issues to your neighbor. Any sort of plan to make ultrasounds available is also a good thing. And don’t forget chastity. I’m chaste, and one of the major reasons why is because I don’t want to be part of killing any unborn children! I think it’s important that we also work on promoting marriage, which reduces unplanned pregnancies. And we should support school choice the de-funding of public schools that promote pre-marital sex.

Related posts

• Audio: Scott Klusendorf’s 35-minute case for the pro-life position
• Audio: A 55-minute discussion featuring two great pro-life debaters, Greg Koukl and Scott Klusendorf
• My own religion-free case for the pro-life position in plain English
• A comparison of embryonic and adult stem cell research
• Video: Cute 12-year old girl makes the pro-life case in a short speech
• Ethically-sound adult stem cell research cures paralysis in human patients
• Chinese scientists announce stem-cell research breakthrough
• Comparison of ASCR vs ESCR: which one produces real cures?
• Michele Bachmann opposes Obama’s plan to fund ESCR
• Major breakthrough in adult stem-cell research

Filed under: News, Abortion, Abortion Clinic, Clinic, Clinic Violence, Feminism, Forgiveness, Leah Winandy, Mechelle Hall, Pro-Abortion, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, Protest, Protestor, Ultrasound