RUSSIAN FORCES MOVING INTO UKRAINE

Headline in WAPO column written by Jennifer Rubin:  "Russia Invades, Obama Expresses 'Concern'". "Concern" is a rather low-key response to a major step in Russian involvement in the Ukraine.  It is a rather tepid word and I am sure Putin is not particularly alarmed.  Putin is going to keep pushing since there is no resistance from Washington or Europe.

“These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway in Donetsk and Luhansk. Clearly, that is of deep concern to us,” a State Department spokeswoman said yesterday. She could not have been more inoffensive. Oh, the administration is also “concerned by the Russian Government’s unwillingness to tell the truth even as its soldiers are found 30 miles inside Ukraine. Russia is sending its young men into Ukraine but are telling – are not telling them where they’re going or telling their parents what they’re doing.” The spokeswoman further indicated that we wouldn’t change our policy of refusing to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons.

STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY

Der Spiegel has reported that Israel and another unnamed state eavesdropped on Secretary of State Kerry's telephone calls in the Middle East last year.  What I can't figure out is why was he making some calls over an unsecured line?  Does he do this regularly?  If so every respectable espionage agency is going to know what he and the State Department are thinking.

GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

Obamacare has been ripped by critics for its computer technology failures and huge cost overruns, but this seems to be a problem related to big government bureaucracies.  Now the Department of State computer has crashed and it has been impossible for a foreigner traveling to the United States to get a visa for at least two weeks. We are looking more like a Third World country.  The Bayern Munich football club has been prevented from coming to America to play!  But it also has deprived thousands of other legitimate travelers access to America.  But maybe they should fly to Mexico City and just cross the Rio Grande?

The US Consular Consolidated Database (CCD) at the State Bureau of Consular Affairs “is currently experiencing technical problems with our passport/visa system,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf revealed at a media briefing, adding that the database has actually been“experiencing intermittent performance issues for several months” now.

THE WEEK OF JULY13th

This is a week filled with tragedies and crises:  a Malaysian airliner is shot down over the Ukraine and Israel enters Gaza to stop the missiles from being fired.  And added to these events are the scandals and crises in Washington and the world ranging from the IRS destroyed hard drives to what is happening on the U.S. border with Mexico.

The reaction of the Obama administration to much of this is astounding.  Here is a video of President Obama speaking about the tragedy of the lost Malaysian airliner only to follow a few minutes later with jokes and humor (in public).  It makes his sorrow seem somewhat hypocritical.  And in addition the State Department ended the day with  tweets about fashion!  The world is in serious trouble and people are dying.

Victor Davis Hanson argues that this is the summer that "America fell apart".  Here is his list of "messes" Washington is facing:  1) get caught again spying on our ally Germany; 2) doing nothing with Chinese agressiveness in Asia and seeing relations with our ally Japan damaged; 3) Syria; 4) ISIS in Iraq; 5) Afghanistan; 6) Palestine and Israel; 7) Crimea and Ukraine; 8) Edward Snowden's release of U.S. spying activities; 9) foreign leaders don't trust the U.S.; 10) a shrinking economy; 11) immigration; 12) Benghazi; 13) Bowe Bergdahl; and 14) the IRS scandal.  He could have added a number of more such as Iran's nuclear program.  I don't recall a summer with as many scandals, crises, and problems.

And where is the media in all of this?  MSNBC is taken in by a fake report regarding the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner!--hardly sophisticated reporting.  Watching the mainstream media report on the firing of Hamas rockets into Israel has been interesting.  Hamas tends to be regarded as innocent in all of this and somehow it is Israel's fault for what is happening when it is Hamas that wants to "eradicate" Jews.  Charles Krauthammer has an interesting quote from a prominent Israeli in his column:

“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.

Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.

When Israel finds 20 rockets in a UN-run school in Gaza, I don't see a rush of reporters to discuss this. And a CNN reporter calls Israelis watching the missiles go into Gaza "scum."

MAKING FOREIGN POLICY

American foreign policy????

A Paris correspondent argues that "no one trusts the US anymore."  Wonder why?

How to fix it? Well, the first step is to admit you have a problem. But perhaps I can offer a suggestion, or just a wish. Perhaps if America actually had a strategy for how to deal with the world; perhaps if America viewed the world as something definite to embrace and work on, rather than an amorphous blob out there; perhaps if America actually had a sense of mission, rather than necessity, about its role in the world; perhaps then it would feel a bit ashamed to so rarely honor its commitments.

BENGHAZI EMAILS

In attempting to protect President Obama, an innocent film-maker was blamed for the embassy deaths.

Emails sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.

Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.

The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

Hotair has a copy of one memo.

POST WORLD WAR II US MIDDLE EAST POLICY

A review of Hugh Wilford's book, America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East. Truman stood alone in favoring Israel.

One of the most famous anecdotes of the Truman administration was first revealed by presidential adviser Clark Clifford in his memoirs. Secretary of State George Marshall and his undersecretary were called into the Oval Office to debate with Clifford the merits of recognizing Israel. After Clifford argued in favor of Israel, Marshall, whom Winston Churchill called the “Organizer of Victory” for his role as army secretary during World War II, made what Clifford called “the most remarkable threat I have ever heard anyone make directly to a president.” Said Marshall to Truman: “If you follow Clifford’s advice and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you.”

Marshall’s stunning comment reflected the viewpoint of “almost every member of the brilliant and now legendary group of presidential advisers, later referred to as the Wise Men, who were then in the process of creating a postwar foreign policy that would endure for more than forty years,” recalled Clifford. Those advisers included such luminaries as George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Dean Rusk, and Charles Bohlen. They were later dubbed the “Arabists” because they believed that the Arabs could be allied with America after World War II—and should be courted instead of Israel.

WHENCE OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY?

Using sources in the Washington Post, Richard Fernandez analyzes Obama's unwillingness to never admit a mistake.


Washington Post editorial editor Fred Hiatt hopes that president Obama will re-think his foreign policy after a series of failures, though deep down he conceded that Obama probably wouldn’t. Hiatt asks the rhetorical question: “defeat can lead to defeatism, or it can lead to constructive rethinking. Which path will President Obama take after setbacks overseas?” And he provides his own answer. Neither. It will lead to complete denial and more wishful thinking.

The instinctive White House response will be to head into the political bunker: to deny that it ever displayed isolationist tendencies while painting critics as wild-eyed warmongers. This reflexive belligerence is understandable given that Obama’s political enemies will happily use overseas setbacks to score points.

On Saudi Arabia:


Of course the pose of omnipotence and omniscience must be helped along by a little smoke and mirrors. Eli Lake at the Daily Beast notes the State Department is hiding what the Saudi’s teach their kids. “The most comprehensive study of Saudi textbooks ever commissioned by the U.S. government was completed at the end of 2012, but to this date the State Department has kept it from the public”, probably because it refers to Christians and Jews as “apes and pigs”.

MEDIA INCEST

Media execs have relatives working in the White House or State Department so the issue becomes one of whether media execs ignore or don't cover some stories well to protect these relatives.

STOPPING PUTIN

Robert Tracinski gives options for Washington to use in dealing with Putin.  He sums his analysis up with:

So far, Putin has been way inside our decision cycle, moving troops on the ground while our leaders are still just trying to figure out what’s going on. In the OODA loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act—Putin has been in the “A” mode, while President Obama can’t quite manage the first “O.”
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. We need to act in a way that is big, sweeping, complex, and fast, leaving Putin as the one who is confused and scrambling to catch up, So implement all of this fully, right away. If Putin wants us to reverse any of it, he can ask to negotiate after we’ve made our move.

These are the things we might do if we had real, decisive leaders in the Washington. Perhaps that’s too much to expect from this administration, but let’s at least stop pretending that good options don’t exist. They do, and if we don’t use them, the fault isn’t our resources. It’s our leadership.

OBAMA, KERRY AND ISRAEL

Secretary of State John Kerry's friends are saying his work on a Middle East peace was undermined by President Obama.  Obama got personal with Netanyahu in a personal telephone call according to the report.  Kerry was blind-sided.

"The timing could not have been any more deliberate — an assault on the prime minister’s policies delivered precisely as Netanyahu was flying in to meet with him, and on the first day, too, of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s annual tour de force conference across town,” Horovitz wrote. “At the very least, that might be considered bad manners, poor diplomatic protocol, a resounding preemptive slap in the face: I’ve just told the world you’re leading your country to wrack and ruin, Mr. Prime Minister. Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

 

IRAN SIMULATES NUCLEAR ATTACK ON ISRAEL

Secretary of State Kerry and President Obama are negotiating a nuclear inspection agreement with Iran, but the Iranian people are seeing pictures like this.

A report on Obama's secret negotiations to bring about detente with Iran.  Will Obama be able to outfox the ayatollahs?

Israel's view. Israel’s most painful lesson from the two-day Geneva conference on Iran’s nuclear program is that the man who guaranteed to defend Israel’s security, President Barack Obama, is now marching hand in hand with Tehran towards a nuclear-armed Iran.

THE TRUTH COMES OUT ON BENGHAZI

The Obama administration tried to blame the Libyan attacks on an anti-Muslim film produced in California and denied that al-Qaeda was involved.  But now it appears that al-Qaeda was heavily involved in the attack on the US embassy which resulted in the killing of the US ambassador. 

The direct ties to the Al Qaeda senior leadership undercut early characterizations by the Obama administration that the attackers in Benghazi were isolated “extremists" -- not Al Qaeda terrorists -- with no organizational structure or affiliation.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remark, "what does it matter?" is certainly undercut by this new information.  It matters because lives were lost and also it destroys the administration's talking point that al-Qaeda is defeated.

KERRY MOCKED

A Russian minister said he talked too much.  I like the Russian minister's gentle put-down:  Sometimes diplomacy demands silence.

RUSSIANS GLOATING!

The Russians feel they have won one over Obama and Kerry.

Watching one administration bungle after another unfurl, Alexi Pushkov , the chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, is publicly mocking Obama. Via Twitter, Pushkov wrote that this mess “knocks the ground out from under Obama’s plans for a military strike.”  

 Syria Backs Russia. I like Instapundits' comment on this article:  If the problem was minor enough that this solution is acceptable, then it wasn’t worth getting all heated-up about with bombing threats and Holocaust analogies to begin with.

From the liberal New Republic:  Obama got played by Putin and Assad.

There are two clear winners in this slow-motion train wreck, and they are not Obama or Kerry. They are Assad and Putin. Both wanted, for their own reasons, to avert a military strike, and a military strike was averted. Putin insisted on a diplomatic solution while doing everything to make a diplomatic solution impossible, and now he gets his phony, unenforceable diplomatic solution. Assad wanted to go on killing his opposition, and he will continue to do so.

From the Weekly Standard:   Putin didn't save Obama, he beat him.

In fact, it is the sound of American allies around the world—the Poles and Czechs, the Japanese and the South Koreans, the Saudis, Jordanians and Israelis, among others—gnashing their teeth. They now see that they are on their own, and that  he word of the United States means nothing. 

Norman Podhoretz.  A neocon writes:  The president may look incompetent on Syria.  But his behavior fits his strategy to weaken America abroad.

Israel is "laughing," too. 

9 Key Blunders. 

KERRY, A HYPOCRITE

Here is an old interview of Kerry denouncing humanitarian invasions.  He is against American "moralism." Now he is supporting a humanitarian intervention in Syria. (Look at his hair!)

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN EGYPT?

Michael Totten is one of the best reporters on the Middle East.  He calls it like it is.  The mainstream media has treated the Muslim Brotherhood as some kind of moderate Islamic force (ignoring the attacks on Christians and the destruction of Christian churches.  Unfortunately US policy toward Egypt has failed miserably under the Obama administration.

Here are some excerpts with his interview with Eric Trager (Washington Institute for Near East Policy):  I think Washington’s fascination with the Brotherhood is the product of a search for an Islamist organization that reflects the “culture” of the Middle East and isn’t violent. There is a lack of appreciation for the fact that just because an organization doesn’t lead with violence doesn’t mean it’s going to be moderate or democratic or capable of governing.

And too many analysts took the Brotherhood’s claim of moderation at face value. The Brotherhood says it views shura, an Islamic concept that means consultation, as democracy. Many analysts said the Brotherhood is not only adopting democracy, it’s finding an Islamic justification for it. My view is that far from finding an Islamic justification for democracy, they were simply redefining democracy in a way that wasn’t democratic but sounded good to the West. 

One other thing: the Brotherhood has a five-part motto. The last two components of that motto are “Jihad is our way” and “Death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.”

WATERGATE?

From Foreign Policy:

The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

With everything happening with Benghazi, the NSA, and other intrigues in Washington, this does look very suspicious.

Last month, her lawyers told The Cable that the department tried to intimidate her into silence. "They had law enforcement officers camp out in front of her house, harass her children and attempt to incriminate herself," claimed Schulman.

WHAT WENT WRONG IN EGYPT?

From Foreign Policy.  A discussion of the problems Egypt faces and will face and also a critique of the failures of Obama's foreign policy in Egypt.  The critique can also apply to other situations and even other administrations.  U.S. foreign policy is in serious trouble in the Middle East.

WHERE IS THE SECRETARY OF STATE?

July 3, 2013 and there is revolution in Egypt.  Where is Secretary of State John Kerry?  . . .on his yacht!  I am presuming he is on is telephone of skyping to stay up with events.

Update 7/5/2013:  The State Department reverses its early denial--Kerry only on boat for a brief period of time.