The current administration’s cabinet personnel are all so similar it becomes, well, actually odd.

‘When this job came available, it was such an incredible opportunity to work so closely with the president. But everything’s a cost-benefit, right? And the benefits of this and the influence of this job are sufficiently great that there were more costs I was willing to take on the family side.’
– Samantha Power

No Samantha, actually it’s not a “cost-benefit analysis”, not even close.  It is actually just a matter of priorities.   We do that which is important to us, and we avoid or postpone, if avoidance impossible, that which is not seen as important.

New York – United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power has said that it is the thrill of a lifetime to be working at the international organization that she has idolized for years, but that doesn’t mean that she won’t be happy it’s over. (more…)

The only reason this is happening is specifically because the: Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Samantha Powers, Cass Sunstein, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett,…. crew of checked scarf wearing, Palestinian sympathizing, jew hating, left-wing, scum sucking progressives’ have been rebuked by the vast majority of Freedom Patriots in Egypt. Period.

US confirms holding back financial & military aid to Egypt over crackdown on supporters of ex-President #Morsi http://t.co/8zICwxI9oz

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) October 9, 2013

(more…)

Citing the unwillingness of Democrats in the Clinton Circle to give interviews, the Director, Charles Ferguson, claims he can’t go forward with the CNN sponsored movie about Hillary Clinton’s magnanimity…..   The more likely reason for the silence of the shams is they want a low profile for Hillary’s stealth candidacy….  Sunlight does not lend well to hiding lies and fraud.
(The Guardian) The Oscar-winning film director Charles Ferguson has cancelled his CNN documentary on Hillary Clinton after what he described as a private campaign against the film by prominent Democrats.

Ferguson said he had decided to pull the plug after being met with a wall of silence from more than a hundred people who refused to be interviewed for the documentary. (more…)

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”

No-one wants war.   If you look throughout modern history you will find a seemingly consistent view of conflict from the peaceful nations who often are forced to bear witness to regional conflicts driven by evil regimes.
The evil nations, who hold an ideological hatred, use the reflexive nature of conflict avoidance, held by most civilized nations, to advance their goals.    It has always been thus.
In 1938 Czechoslovakia suffered from the avoidance principle espoused by the British and the French; the Czechs became victim to Germany.
In 2013 while the globe is indeed smaller and more closely attached, the same mindset carries toward a league of nations watching Israel play the role of Czechoslovakia, and Iran taking the place of Germany.
What Germany needed in 1937/1938 was time and a British/French unwillingness.   What Iran needs in 2013 is time, and a U.S. unwillingness.    The key difference is this: in 1938 Czech could not defend herself…. In 2013, Israel can.
So Iran needs something else.
Something which President Obama just gave them. (more…)

Secretary Kerry, at the request, advice and consent of President Obama, has signed the United States up for the U.N arms treaty.

Defying warnings from the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John F. Kerry signed the United Nations Small Arms Trade Treaty Sept. 25 at the UN headquarters in New York City  (link)

One of the central components of the Treaty is to require domestic regulation of “small arms and light weapons.”  The treaty’s Article 5 requires nations to “establish and maintain a national control system,” including a “national control list.” (more…)

Sounds like David Cameron and Barack Obama have similar dispositions toward terrorism and Islam.   If they coordinate messaging, and work at it hard enough, the narrative stemming from the Kenyan Mall Massacre could be considered “angry shoppers resort to violence“….

[…]  The attack saw men, women and children slaughtered if they could not recite the Koran or name the mother of the Prophet Mohammed.  (link)

(Londonistan)  Speaking on Sunday, Cameron said he had offered the Kenyan authorities “every assistance” in a call to President Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost members of his own family in the attack.
The prime minister stressed that the perpetrators did not represent the majority of Muslims but had carried out the atrocity “in the name of terror, violence and extremism”.
He added: “These appalling terrorist attacks that take place, where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion – they don’t. They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism and their warped view of the world.”   (read more)
Meanwhile, in the real world, a good approach continues in Egypt…. (more…)

(UK Independent)  While the Assad regime in Damascus has denied responsibility for the sarin gas missiles that killed around 1,400 Syrians in the suburb of Ghouta on 21 August, information is now circulating in the city that Russia’s new “evidence” about the attack includes the dates of export of the specific rockets used and – more importantly – the countries to which they were originally sold.
They were apparently manufactured in the Soviet Union in 1967 and sold by Moscow to three Arab countries, Yemen, Egypt and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. These details cannot be verified in documents, and Vladimir Putin has not revealed the reasons why he told Barack Obama that he knows Assad’s army did not fire the sarin missiles; but if the information is correct – and it is believed to have come from Moscow – Russia did not sell this particular batch of chemical munitions to Syria. (more…)

I keep wondering when Edward Snowden’s risk to U.S. intelligence will surface in the discussions surrounding Russia, the U.S. and Syria.   {{crickets}}

Russia must be getting some value from harboring Snowden.   Snowden holds many understandings of the U.S. approaches to intelligence gathering, and I’ve yet to see any discussion about what advantage Putin may have from such knowledge.
It just seems odd.

UNITED NATIONS — Careful not to blame either side for a deadly chemical weapon attack, U.N. inspectors reported Monday that rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin had been fired from an area where Syria’s military has bases, but said the evidence could have been manipulated in the rebel-controlled stricken neighborhoods.
The U.S., Britain and France jumped on evidence in the report – especially the type of rockets, the composition of the sarin agent, and trajectory of the missiles – to declare that President Bashar Assad’s government was responsible.
Russia, Syria’s closest ally, called the investigators’ findings “deeply disturbing,” but said it was too early to draw conclusions. The Syrian government’s claims that opposition forces were responsible for the attack “cannot be simply shrugged off,” Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin insisted. (more…)

Riddle Me This:

If the Syrian “Rebels” are not *TERRORISTS* then why does President Obama need to provide a Terrorist Waiver for the ‘Armed Control Export Act’ to provide them weapons?

WASHINGTON DC – President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad’s regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah. (more…)