March 1st Press Conference in Harrisburg Introducing State Immigration Enforcement Package

March 1^st Press Conference Introducing State Immigration Enforcement Package

Although this is not a NumbersUSA event, information is being forwarded to members in Pennsylvania who may be interested in attending or watching the live web cast.

Dear Pennsylvania activist,

The message below is from Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a champion of state immigration enforcement legislation, who will hold a press conference on Tuesday, March 1^st to introduce a package of enforcement bills for the 2011 session. He is encouraging those who live in the Harrisburg area to attend the event. You also may watch the live web cast.

Within the next few days, we will forward more information on his package of bills and ask you to contact your state legislators about becoming bill co-sponsors.

------

MEDIA ADVISORY

State Lawmakers to Deliver Solution to Halt Pennsylvania’s Illegal Alien Invasion

WHAT:    State Representative Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) and other prime sponsors will officially introduce the National Security Begins at Home illegal immigration reform package for the 2011-12 legislative session.                               

WHO:   Other invited speakers include: Reps. Jim Cox (R-Berks), Tom Creighton (R-Lancaster), Rob Kauffman (R-Cumberland/Franklin), Jerry Knowles (R-Berks/Schuylkill), Ron Marsico (R-Dauphin), Mark Mustio (R-Allegheny), Scott Perry (R-Cumberland/York), Harry Readshaw (D-Allegheny) and Sen.  Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland).                

WHEN:       Tuesday, March 1, 2011

TIME:        10 a.m.

WHERE:    State Capitol Media Center, Harrisburg

LIVE WEB CAST:   Log on to RepMetcalfe.com, beginning at 9:55 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Email from:
Numbers USA

1601 N. Kent Street

Suite 1100

Arlington, VA 22209

Shooting Liberal Fish in a Barrel

By Burt Prelutsky

It isn't merely that they're always wrong about everything that makes leftists so damn obnoxious, it's their unshakeable belief that they're always right.

In a world that calls for logic, they have an endless supply of emotion. Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight, these lunkheads bring a crying towel.

They talk incessantly about the need to raise taxes, mainly to provide for the poor. But, one, it's the taxes that are making more and more people poor and, two, they themselves retain an army of accountants and money managers to keep their tax bite to an absolute minimum. Or, better yet, they arrange things so that they receive their money through trusts, tax shelters and offshore accounts. Or, best of all, they simply cheat on their taxes. So it is that in one of those categories you will find George Soros, Tim Geithner, John and Teresa Kerry, Charlie Rangel, Alex Baldwin and all of the Kennedy's except George.

Time and again, man-made global warming has been shown to be a man-made hoax, but the true believers on the Left will continue promoting it, even when someone like Al Gore curiously changes the nomenclature and begins referring to climate change or climate disruption.

Some liberals are so gullible, I have even been tempted to place an ad in the NY Times or the Washington Post, promising to provide people with guaranteed winners at the race track if they'll send me, say, a hundred bucks. If they did, I'd send them this morning's newspaper with yesterday's race results.

If leftists had the slightest ability to reason, wouldn't they question why Obama and those of his cronies who promote the redistribution of wealth aren't standing on the corner redistributing all of theirs? Obama had millions of dollars when he became president, and today he has even more. George Soros had billions of dollars in January, 2009, and today he has even more. Why is that? It can't be that hard to find poor people who will gladly take the money off their hands. Heck, I'd take it, and I'd even give them the names of some winning horses. But the question remains, why is it only my dough and yours that needs to be redistributed?

Also, why is it that liberals are always talking about social justice? What ever became of plain old justice? So far as I can tell, when so-called progressives tack on "social," what they mean is that there should be two kinds of justice, separate and unequal, one for rich people and one for poor, one for white people and another for everybody else.

The problem is that when Eric Holder, for instance, refuses to prosecute New Black Panthers for intimidating white voters, he is in fact practicing social justice. Which is no justice at all. If anything, it should be called injustice.

Worse yet, it is the sort of thing that Sonia Sotomayor pledged to promote, as a wise Latina, on the Supreme Court.

Which reminds me -- as we begin the long, slow slog to the 2012 presidential election, it is essential that Republicans keep their eye on the prize. It will be a rough, even at times dirty, fight for the GOP nomination. Even without Mike Pence in the running, it promises to be a very crowded field. There are some potential candidates I like a lot, some others not so much. But I vow that whoever emerges victorious from the primary wars will have my support, even if I don't agree with him or her on every last issue.

The essential thing for all Republicans to keep in mind, whether they're RINOs or Tea Party patriots, is that Obama has already appointed two justices to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan and Ms. Sotomayor. The only good thing I can say about them is that, aside from their gender, it didn't alter the makeup of the Court because the ladies were replacing those equally liberal dodos, John Paul Stevens and David Souter.

But God forbid that Obama gets an additional four-year term and has the opportunity to replace 75-year-old Antonin Scalia or place a younger version of 78-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the bench.

Keep in mind that long after the Obamas have gone back to Chicago where they can vote for Rahm Emanuel, party with Bill Ayers and pray with Jeremiah Wright, his Supreme Court appointments could continue to hold sway over everything from health care and same-sex marriages to illegal immigrants and late term abortions.

If you think four years of Obama is bad, just try to imagine what 30 or 40 years would be like.

Read
more excellent articles at The Patriot Post
Opinion

Obama’s Defense of Gay Marriage

The National Center for Public Policy Research – Press Release

Obama’s Defense of Gay Marriage Over Rule of Law Challenged by Black Conservatives

Washington, D.C. -  Black conservatives with the Project 21 leadership network say President Obama's decision that the executive branch will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act because of its alleged unconstitutionality is unconstitutional in itself -- and point out that it sets a potentially dangerous precedent.

"At no time in the history of this nation has a president so openly shown such unabashed contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law," said Project 21's Jerome Hudson. "President Obama's decision to have the Justice Department ignore the Defense of Marriage Act removes all doubt that he has nothing less than a lack of respect and understanding for the founding principles of our nation. We are a nation of laws and not men."

On February 23, Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement announcing that the Obama Administration "will cease defense of Section 3" of the Defense of Marriage Act because Obama believes sexual orientation deserves "a more heightened standard of scrutiny" and that "[t]he President has concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional." Congress, which passed the law in 2000 by a 342-67 vote in the House of Representatives and 85-14 vote in the Senate, still has the ability to legally defend the law. President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law.

There are currently three major challenges to DOMA in the federal courts.

Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie added: "The pure arrogance of this man is incredible. We see a sitting American president functioning as a monarch juxtaposed to an elected representative of the people. Obama privately decided that he didn't like DOMA and -- on the authority of his conscience and opinion alone -- saw fit to disregard legislation that was drafted, passed overwhelmingly and signed into law by a preceding president of his own party."

"If President Obama is concerned about the constitutionality of laws, he should start with his own health care plan which has been determined to be unconstitutional by 26 state attorneys general and ruled unconstitutional by two judges," noted Project 21's Lisa Fritsch. "President Obama -- though he acts as God -- does not have the judicial authority to make his opinion and political agenda lawful. His political agenda supersedes any regard for constitutional law, American values and recognition of true discrimination."

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives since 1992, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

Contact: David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or (703) 568-4727 or dalmasi@nationalcenter.org
Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or jkent@nationalcenter.org

Read more informative articles at The National Center for Public Policy Research

John Quincy Adams, President and Congressman

American Minute with Bill Federer

On FEBRUARY 21, 1848, John Quincy Adams suffered a stroke at his desk in the House chamber, shortly after making an impassioned speech against the Democrat plan of extending slavery to the Western territories won in the Mexican-American War.

He died 2 days later without regaining consciousness.

A bronze marker on the floor indicates where Adams's desk once stood, known at the "whispering spot" in Statuary Hall.

John Quincy Adams was the only President to serve as a Congressman after having been President.

Nicknamed Old Man Eloquent for speaking out against slavery, he offered a plan for its elimination.

In 1841, John Qunicy Adams defended before the Supreme Court 53 Africans who had mutinied aboard the slave ship Amistad, gaining them their freedom.

As African slaves were purchased at Muslim slave markets, John Quincy Adams wrote in his "Essay on Turks" (1829): "The natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the infidels is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran...
The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion is the extirpation of hatred from the human heart. It forbids the exercise of it, even towards enemies..."

John Quincy Adams continued: "In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab...spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth...
He declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as a part of his religion...
The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust, to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature."

Read more at American Minute
P.O. Box 20163, St. Louis,
MO 63123, 314-487-4395

A Letter to the People of Egypt from an American Muslim

The following op-ed by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser appears online today at the Blaze and can be found at this link.

Understanding Egypt

Posted by Scott Baker

Editor's note: The Blaze is featuring some guest posts to help our readers gain a deeper understanding of the situation in Egypt. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) based in Phoenix, Arizona. He can be reached at info@aifdemocracy.org.

From: M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD, President, AIFD

To the People of Egypt:

I cannot even pretend to be able to fully relate to the courage and spirit your people have shown the world these past few weeks. As an American physician, a devout Muslim, and president of an organization founded on the concept of bringing the principles of liberty to Muslims, I applaud your fearless pursuit of liberty for the Egyptian people. I am hopeful that your courage will reach the doorsteps of all oppressed Arab nations.

I have watched with amazement and great respect what you have been able to accomplish. Without using violence, relying on only your courage, self-determination and unwillingness to compromise your principles, you forced a long-term autocrat to cede power. That is the power that freedom can bring, and I hope you will clench that feeling of victory from liberty close to your chest as you struggle through to the next path for Egypt. The actions you take in the next few months will define the destiny for your people and I respectfully offer a few ideas that I hope you'll find valuable to consider.

I am a first generation American-Muslim, Arab, and Syrian. My parents were forced to flee to America from the same terminal vortex of totalitarian Arab fascist rule that you are hopefully stepping out from under today. I so wish my father and grandfather were alive, to see what you have been able to accomplish so far. You've shown that the free will of the Arab people has not been interminably paralyzed by the fear of these entrenched despots and the henchmen of their police states.

In 1966, by becoming American, my parents got back their inalienable rights to their Creator that their motherland of Syria had long denied them. I remember my grandfather telling me prior to his death in 1976 how Arab societies were dying the slow deaths of their spirit. Later I would hear of some towns like Hama in Syria in 1981 actually being wiped out with over 30,000 people executed in a matter of a few days, while the world paid little attention.

Now, in this new age of 24/7 cable news coverage and the growing uncontrollable global village of social Internet networks and communication, such acts of genocide are no longer possible without an immediate global backlash. Had your demonstrations this month occurred in the 70's or 80's, they would have been met with mass murder and imprisonment, with little reaction from the West.

But as we saw last summer, with Iran's Green Revolution, when the West turned its gaze away after only a few weeks, the thuggish theocrats in charge began using savage violence against their own people, in order to smother the organic popular uprising.

Please know that there are many of us in the United States who have not forgotten our roots, and who know that the only way to defeat the two evils of Arab fascism and radical Islam in our motherlands is through the moral advocacy of another means of living - in liberty.

I hope your actions get us to "reboot" the lens though which America sees Middle Eastern countries. For all the good America has done and tried to do around the world, our foreign policy towards Egypt has not always been consistent with the advocacy of the liberty that our founding documents articulate. Too often, we have allowed our stance on Egypt to be governed by momentary expediency, and choosing between the lesser of two evils. I can only hope that your courage will re-inspire our political leaders to take a principled approach to advocating on behalf of your freedom, vigorously and without apology.

But while the road ahead is wide open for you, I can only pray that you will not succumb to the pressure of those who want you to vote yourselves into a tyranny of the masses, to replace the autocratic tyranny from which you just liberated yourselves. For as Thomas Jefferson, one of America's greatest Founding Fathers noted:

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. The concentrating of [legislative, executive, judiciary] power in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one."

While your courage and actions have inspired many of us here in America, I must tell you that many of us also fear that without a movement that embraces and clearly articulates the virtue of individual liberty, of the right of the individual to think and decide for himself and herself, Egypt may devolve into instability, chaos, or Islamism.

You have brought back personal accountability to the condition of Arabs in the Middle East. You have taken the first steps to walk Arabs out of the morass of conspiracy theories that blame everything in our condition on everyone else with little to no personal accountability. To see your demonstrations, free of anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Western propaganda, I am left with great hope that a pragmatic, responsible movement of advocates for freedom and self-repair can happen not only in Egypt but in every Middle Eastern nation.

You now have our attention and renewed respect for self-determination. What next? The transition from protests to pluralistic democracy is a great chasm. Do not be distracted by trying to settle sectarian or tribal disputes that have long festered in the oppressive environment from which you are arising.

I have never known oppression like you have lived, but my family has. I have known freedom and liberty and understand the underpinnings of a society necessary for that. Mubarak and his henchmen have prevented the growth of any institutions that would have fostered the ideas of liberty you now need while he also fueled the theocratic ideas of political Islam and its slippery slope of radicalization in order to keep your masses at bay.

In the coming weeks and months I pray that the military in control now in Egypt will actually step aside and allow a new organic Egypt to emerge. If they do not and all your efforts do is bring forth a new dictator from the old henchmen, you must return to the streets. I also hope that before elections you will endorse and move forward a set of universal principles of a new Egypt, codified in a new constitution that respects all equally before the law- a law based not in one faith but rather based in reason. I hope you embrace Western principles of liberty as humanitarian and not only Western.

I am under no illusions that this will happen overnight. Iraq is a testimony to how drawn out and complicated that process can be. You may take steps backward before you go forward.

While your movement does not appear to be Islamist, there is also no denying the fact that some fear over a future Islamist hijacking of your movement is valid. Islamists are well versed in using democracy and elections as a patient vehicle toward the Islamic state and the implementation of sharia law.

The freedom you seek will not come from a new-Mubarak like despot and it will not come from sharia law. Countering Islamists never works by pushing them underground, but that does not mean they deserve a "seat at the table." They may eschew violence in order to feign moderation but their ideology is at its core incompatible with a free Egypt or a secure Middle East. They must be confronted with this openly in a true battle of ideas towards Islamic reform the only way to diffuse their movement. I believe that a secular constitution founded in the inalienable equal rights of every individual, blind to faith and yet under God, is the only path that will fulfill the destiny you long for Egypt.

Recent polling shows a deep penetration of various draconian ideas of shariah law into the Egyptian mindset. We are thus deeply concerned how a people for whom over 80 percent believe in the murder of apostates can give rise to a modern democracy.

As your new leaders arise organically, I hope they marginalize Islamists and their ideas and form new reformist institutions to counter global founts of Islamist theocracy like Al-Azhar University in Cairo. A secular leadership in Egypt's new republic will not have staying power to succeed against Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and their insidious ideologies without genuine scholarly Muslim reform toward modernity and the separation of mosque and state.

As I sit in the comfort of my Arizona home in the warmth of this lap of freedom, I dare not make a suggestion that I know what direction you will take. But I do know that anything short of genuine pluralism and liberty in Egypt will remain an unstable society in conflict with the free world.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin: "A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."

Do not let the illusion of the Islamic state anesthetize your drive toward modernity as the only pathway to God. Remember that the Islamic State is still run by despotic theocrats and not God. The Islamic state by definition is doomed to failure. As an American Muslim I have come to love liberty and eschew the Islamic state. I know Egyptians can do the same. The world is watching.

---

M. Zuhdi Jasser, MD is the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a former US Navy Lieutenant Commander and can be reached at info@aifdemocracy.org

Harvard's Niall Ferguson Schools Her on Muslim Brotherhood and Caliphate

NakedEmperorNews1
See more NEN videos at http://www.theblaze.com!

"The events in the Middle East (as reported by the Media) are wonderful, exciting, fast-moving, and optimistic. It is the inspiring story of the sudden birth of democracy in the Middle East. One could only wish that it were true.

For an alternate view, and to see a moment of clarity pierce through the fog of Media wishful thinking, (view this) Interview with a Harvard historian."
---Dry Bones

Harvard's Niall Ferguson Schools Her on Muslim ..., posted with vodpod

New From Israel - Information NOT Being Released To American Public

SENTINEL INTELLIGENCE SERVICES, LLC
                   LYLE J. RAPACKI, Ph.D.
                             ____________
 
Sunday - February the 13th, 2011
1505Hrs; m.s.t. (Arizona)  (Received 18:29 EST)                                                                      Lyle@SentinelIntelligenceServices.com
_____________________                                                                        ______________________
Email Briefing Bulletin:                                                                        OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE//OSINT
 
FOR YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS:
I was asked to forward the below information, and upon reviewing the contents I understand why.  Once again Americans are deliberately being kept in the dark as to many of the more subtle happenings in Egypt, and throughout the Middle East.  A calculated effort is at work to create an ignorance to facts and events that surely will have a significant impact on Americans.  The content below is NOT political fodder or mere rhetoric.  The statements below are intended to be a WARNING TO AMERICANS as to the impending danger lurking just off the shores of the united States of America, but also the danger that has slithered into our country through borders that are still sieves regardless of what the political elites say.  Please be aware food and fuel prices are climbing, and more increases being reported to come within 120-days.  Seriously study your ability to withstand short-term disruptions (3-months) of food and other staples, lack of general supplies, climbing prices and their effect on your family budget. Please seriously study the effects of civil disturbances and your logistical ability to get to food and other supply stores, or to work, or to fuel your vehicle.  What contingency plans have you made?  How will you cope with disruptions in supply lines due to either shortages or transportation challenges delivering food and supplies, as well as significant price increases? 
 
While a dictatorship was stopped in Egypt there are dark and nefarious forces at work that are equally wrong, and worse.  These dark forces hate America.  These dark forces hate Christians and Jews and anything not complying with absolute Sharia Law.  These dark forces hate anything westernized.  These dark forces are ruthless and evil incarnate.  They now are openly on the march across the Middle East, and simultaneously have taken deliberate aim at America and are coming!  Disrupting food and fuel to bring down a country is not out of the question.  
 
Please consider this information carefully.  Please consider this warning without panic, but with all deliberate speed. 
 
LYLE J. RAPACKI, Ph.D.
Protective Intelligence and Assessment Specialist
Consultant at Behavioral Analysis and Threat Assessment
Private-Sector Intelligence Analyst
Member-ASIS International
FBI InfraGard-Arizona
Association for Intelligence Officers
_______
  
  NEWS FROM ISRAEL.....

Not to scare anyone... but please take some time to read this!    This is not hearsay; this comes from Israel.   This information is not being reported by State-run media in America.  The citizens of America are not informed: 

Given recent changes in the Middle East, Israel must prepare for a battle in several theaters, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi informed us this past Monday at the Herzliya Conference.

"The connection between the different players supported by the Obama regime requires us to contend with more than one theater of battle operations," he said. With the support of the Obama regime and the myriad of leftist organizations we know that are marching lock step with him are planning a regional Jihadist war against the State of Israel. Hosni Mubarak and his Intelligence Chief know this as well.  Under the banner of "Democratic Reform" Obama has organized a Chicago style machine in the Middle East that is being funded by US Tax dollars and private donations which are now collectively running into the billions of dollars. Left wing and Islamic charities are matching more than dollar for dollar to promote this political machine. 

Obama and other world leaders including Cameron of the UK, King Abdulluah of Jordan, and the Saudi's see this as a direct threat to not only world peace but the National Security of the United States. The left in the US has for decades prevented drilling for oil or the building of processing plants in order to insure when the dominoes fall, the US will have little to no fuel to combat internal riots, ship food and operate industry and civilian emergency services.

The Obama regime has also made an "open door" policy when it comes to immigration from Islamic states while blocking the immigration of others.  He has built up an army of insurgents in so doing.

The plan is well conceived and a secondary contingency has been brought into play. Obama is appearing to lean to the center in order to try to salvage his regime. This is orchestrated from Chicago as meeting between Unions, Leftist Non-Profits and Left Wing new manipulation masters have agreed to hold down the rhetoric so the American public will calm down and accept Obama's policies. It is our hope that the American people will see the direct similarities between the way the Democratic party "shoved" legislation down the peoples throats while calling it " the will of the people" and the way he is shoving "change" down the throats of the Middle East.

Mr. Obama is extremely mistaken in thinking that Israel will not resort to nuclear strikes. In the event that our borders would be over run a nuclear strike against the invading armed forces is a guarantee. We will not be subjected to another holocaust and this is our final word on the subject. "Never Again" is not a cute slogan, it is an oath before G-d.

Obama constantly speaks of "freedom" for people who are the singular biggest enemies of freedom, the Leftist and Islamics. Capitalism is NOT dead, it's only anemic from the parasitical attack from the Left. No Nation can ever continually feed the life sucking parasites known as the left. Islam cannot exist in a free society. Islam means submission and their favorite saying in the Middle East and other Islamic enclaves is; "Freedom Go To Hell".

Barak Hussein Obama has far surpassed the idiocy of Jimmy Carter and has brought the world to the brink of a regional blood bath that will in fact result in World War III. There is no avoiding it as long as Obama and Biden are in power. Removing Obama will not stop the train that has left the station. Biden will merely pick up where Obama left of, that is the reason Biden was chosen over Hillary Clinton. 

Currently Obama has the new Congress bogged down with the EPA and other irritations and he knows this takes up valuable time as he knows how to "run down the clock". I have said before and I will say again; "It will not turn out the way Obama thinks it will nor will it turn out the way he wants it to."

The Muslim Brotherhood has already begun it's "Cleansing" of Egypt by murdering Christians. It won't end now. US citizens have fled Egypt to Israel for safety, and Christians from Egypt are fleeing to Israel as well for safety. We know that the MB will come after them eventually but we will not give them up to a slaughter, we will fight and we will win. The MB is also planning massive attacks within the United States. Nepalitano can no longer liberalize it and deny it. She is begging for help to deal with it and yet, she claims to be an expert. It matters not how much advise we give her, she will not listen because it's not accompanied by a back up chorus singing "Cum Ba Ya".  G-d bless and G-d help America, they have disarmed you all and opened the doors.

The UK and Europe are both horrified, watch them closely and pay close attention to their actions. They too are arming themselves. They know what's coming. 

L'Shalom A'chotim,

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser Interview on the Sean Hannity Show

From AIFDtv
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser appeared on the Sean Hannity Show to discuss the situation in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Sean Hannity interviews, Dr. Jasser and Ahmed Fattouh (from Egypt) on the next step for Egypt and the hopes for Freedom.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser Interview on the Sean Hannity ..., posted with vodpod

Dr. Zudhi Jasser on Good Morning Arizona_Feb 12

From AIFDtv
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser appeared on Good Morning Arizona to discuss the situation in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dr. Zudhi Jasser on Good Morning Arizona_Feb 12, posted with vodpod

Washington’s Failure to Understand

Email from ACT! for America

A failure to understand

There are no ideal options in Egypt, but there is the worst option—a sharia government controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood

There has been a great deal of commentary and analysis on what is happening in Egypt. From where we sit, one thing seems clear: Too many officials in Washington, both the Obama administration and in Congress, don’t understand the Muslim Brotherhood—or don’t want to.

The column below published in the Jewish World Review (highlights added) is well worth the read.

Don’t forget that this Saturday the ACT! for America television program premieres at 2:30 PM ET on Family Net. It premieres Sunday at 4:00 PM ET on ALN. Our special guest will be Rep. Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Please spread the word!  If your provider does not carry either of these networks, stay tuned next week—you will be able to view the show online. Also, you can have a postcard sent to your provider asking them to carry Family Net or ALN by visiting www.supportfamilytv.com.

---

Feb. 1, 2011 / 27 Shevat, 5771

Clueless in Washington

By Caroline B. Glick

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0211/glick020111.php3

Does the US fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the region if the Muslim Brotherhood is the power behind the throne of the next regime?

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.

On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak's predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel's recommendations were applauded by its members' many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard's editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, "It's time for the US government to take an active role to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy."

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak's regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

According to a Pew opinion survey of Egyptians from June 2010, 59 percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics. When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion.

When given the opportunity, the crowds on the street are not shy about showing what motivates them. They attack Mubarak and his new Vice President Omar Suleiman as American puppets and Zionist agents. The US, protesters told CNN's Nick Robertson, is controlled by Israel. They hate and want to destroy Israel. That is why they hate Mubarak and Suleiman.

WHAT ALL of this makes clear is that if the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak's military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism. The US's greatest Arab ally will become its greatest enemy. Israel's peace partner will again become its gravest foe.

Understanding this, Israeli officials and commentators have been nearly unanimous in their negative responses to what is happening in Egypt. The IDF, the national security council, all intelligence agencies and the government as well as the media have all agreed that Israel's entire regional approach will have to change dramatically in the event that Egypt's regime is overthrown.

None of the scenarios under discussion are positive.

What has most confounded Israeli officials and commentators alike has not been the strength of the anti-regime protests, but the American response to them. Outside the far Left, commentators from all major newspapers, radio and television stations have variously characterized the US response to events in Egypt as irrational, irresponsible, catastrophic, stupid, blind, treacherous, and terrifying.

They have pointed out that the Obama administration's behavior — as well as that of many of its prominent conservative critics — is liable to have disastrous consequences for the US's other authoritarian Arab allies, for Israel and for the US itself.

The question most Israelis are asking is why are the Americans behaving so destructively? Why are President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charting a course that will necessarily lead to the transformation of Egypt into the first Salafist Islamic theocracy? And why are conservative commentators and Republican politicians urging them to be even more outspoken in their support for the rioters in the streets?

Does the US not understand what will happen in the region as a result of its actions? Does the US really fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the Middle East if the Muslim Brotherhood either forms the next regime or is the power behind the throne of the next regime in Cairo?

Distressingly, the answer is that indeed, the US has no idea what it is doing. The reason the world's only (quickly declining) superpower is riding blind is because its leaders are trapped between two irrational, narcissistic policy paradigms and they can't see their way past them.

The first paradigm is former president George W. Bush's democracy agenda and its concomitant support for open elections.

Bush supporters and former administration officials have spent the last month since the riots began in Tunisia crowing that events prove Bush's push for democratization in the Arab world is the correct approach.

The problem is that while Bush's diagnosis of the dangers of the democracy deficit in the Arab world was correct, his antidote for solving this problem was completely wrong.

Bush was right that tyranny breeds radicalism and instability and is therefore dangerous for the US.

But his belief that free elections would solve the problem of Arab radicalism and instability was completely wrong. At base, Bush's belief was based on a narcissistic view of Western values as universal.

When, due to US pressure, the Palestinians were given the opportunity to vote in open and free elections in 2006, they voted for Hamas and its totalitarian agenda. When due to US pressure, the Egyptians were given limited freedom to choose their legislators in 2005, where they could they elected the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood to lead them.

The failure of his elections policy convinced Bush to end his support for elections in his last two years in office.

Frustratingly, Bush's push for elections was rarely criticized on its merits. Under the spell of the other policy paradigm captivating American foreign policy elites — anti-colonialism — Bush's leftist opponents never argued that the problem with his policy is that it falsely assumes that Western values are universal values. Blinded by their anti-Western dogma, they claimed that his bid for freedom was nothing more than a modern-day version of Christian missionary imperialism.

It is this anti-colonialist paradigm, with its foundational assumption that that the US has no right to criticize non-Westerners that has informed the Obama administration's foreign policy. It was the anti-colonialist paradigm that caused Obama not to support the pro-Western protesters seeking the overthrow of the Iranian regime in the wake of the stolen 2009 presidential elections.

As Obama put it at the time, "It's not productive, given the history of US-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling, the US president meddling in the Iranian elections."

And it is this anti-colonialist paradigm that has guided Obama's courtship of the Syrian, Turkish and Iranian regimes and his unwillingness to lift a hand to help the March 14 movement in Lebanon.

MOREOVER, SINCE the paradigm claims that the non-Western world's grievances towards the West are legitimate, Obama's Middle East policy is based on the view that the best way to impact the Arab world is by joining its campaign against Israel. This was the central theme of Obama's speech before an audience dominated by Muslim Brotherhood members in Cairo in June 2009.

Like the pro-democracy paradigm, the anti-colonialist paradigm is narcissistic. Whereas Western democracy champions believe that all people are born with the same Western liberal democratic values, post-colonialists believe that non-Westerners are nothing more than victims of the West. They are not responsible for any of their own pathologies because they are not actors. Only Westerners (and Israelis) are actors. Non-Westerners are objects. And like all objects, they cannot be held responsible for anything they do because they are wholly controlled by forces beyond their control.

Anti-colonialists by definition must always support the most anti-Western forces as "authentic." In light of Mubarak's 30-year alliance with the US, it makes sense that Obama's instincts would place the US president on the side of the protesters.

SO THERE we have it. The US policy towards Egypt is dictated by the irrational narcissism of two opposing sides to a policy debate that has nothing to do with reality.

Add to that Obama's electoral concern about looking like he is on the right side of justice and we have a US policy that is wholly antithetical to US interests.

This presents a daunting, perhaps insurmountable challenge for the US's remaining authoritarian Arab allies. In Jordan and Saudi Arabia, until now restive publics have been fearful of opposing their leaders because the US supports them. Now that the US is abandoning its most important ally and siding with its worst enemies, the Hashemites and the Sauds don't look so powerful to their Arab streets. The same can be said for the Kuwaiti leadership and the pro-American political forces in Iraq.

As for Israel, America's behavior towards Egypt should put to rest the notion that Israel can make further territorial sacrifices in places like the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley in exchange for US security guarantees. US behavior today — and the across-the-board nature of American rejection of Mubarak — is as clear a sign as one can find that US guarantees are not credible.

As Prof. Barry Rubin wrote this week, "There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama administration may be adopting something close to the worst option."

Unfortunately, given the cluelessness of the US foreign policy debate, this situation is only likely to grow worse.

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