Israeli Housing Developments in Judea and Samaria -- West Bank -- are legal. Here is why.

As President Obama recently betrayed Israel at the UN in a marked departure from conventional US foreign policy, now appears a fitting time to highlight why Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory are both legitimate and legal.

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The Orlando massacre is yet another example of the consequences of Obama and Hillary’s foreign policy

Obama and Hillary do not want to discuss the role that they played in creating the global conditions that led to the Orlando attack. It’s more convenient for them to blame it on Republicans by emphasizing gun control or homophobia, but discussing an ISIS attack without mentioning ISIS is like talking about WW2 without mentioning Nazi Germany. It’s intellectually dishonest and strategically senseless.

The Orlando massacre was not a local event, but a global one. It must be viewed within the context of a series of ISIS attacks in Europe and America. And ISIS became a global threat on Obama’s watch.

During these pivotal years, Hillary Clinton was the highest ranking foreign policy figure in the country. It is absurd for her to argue that she bears no responsibility for the rise of ISIS. And Hillary Clinton has even defended Obama over his “JayVee” dismissal of ISIS as a direct threat to America.

The Orlando massacre is yet another example of the consequences of Obama and Hillary’s foreign policy. It is not the first such consequence and it will not, by any means, be the last.

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Best of the foreign policy blogs (1/4-1/10)

Marc Thiessen's list:

Here is the best of what AEI’s foreign and defense policy scholars are reading this week...

History of the Muslim Brotherhood Penetration of the U.S. Government

Clare M. Lopez, a strategic policy and intelligence expert, is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Clarion Fund. She was formerly a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency.

4/15/13: Gatestone Insitute: International Policy Council

As we can see, as early as the George W. Bush administration period, the Muslim Brotherhood already had achieved an information dominance that, in coming years, would only intensify. Not only did figures associated and identified with the Muslim Brotherhood achieve broad penetration at senior levels of U.S. policymaking, but voices that warned of their true agenda (such as Stephen Coughlin's) were actively excluded. That information dominance has contributed to startling consequences, most evident in the U.S. policy towards the al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood-dominated revolutions that many call the "Arab Spring," but which in fact are more accurately termed an "Islamic Awakening." Under the Muslim Brotherhood-influenced Obama administration, U.S. policy has undergone such a drastic shift in the direction of outright support for these jihadist movements — from al-Qa'eda militias in Libya, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and both al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked rebels in Syria — that it is scarcely recognizable as American any more. The infiltration of individuals such as Magid, Hussain, and Abedin, to name just a few, with such close Muslim Brotherhood identifications, to positions of influence at the highest levels of U.S. policymaking must be considered, at a minimum, a contributing factor.

Worst foreign policy president ever

HotAir.com

Basic or elementary diplomacy seems beyond this bunch. And leadership is non-existent. Instead we get an administration that seems to think that just because they decide something has to happen, it is the duty of allies to do our bidding. That premise was rudely shot down in the UK yesterday. When your coalition is you and France, you’ve failed Diplomacy 101.

But it isn’t much different than how the administration acts domestically. At every turn and in reaction to any minor roadblock or setback, the administration is likely to whip out an executive order or just ignore the law to do what it wishes. And while that may be somewhat effective here, in the international arena, they just don’t play that game.

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Egypt: From someone who lives there

Obviously, it is a very complicated issue.

Morsi was elected in a fair and free election with the same margin of victory as Barack Obama. He was unpopular and autocratic but he was a democratically elected President. I am 100% against the military coup that threw him out.

The Constitution which was passed overwhelmingly with 64% of the vote has been dissolved as well, without a single vote being cast to do so.

Had the Army sided with Morsi, there was a possibility that he would have become more attentive to the wishes of the people. If not, there would be an election in three years and Egypt, while currently under Islamist rule, would have been a burgeoning democracy. It's very likely that a more secular President could have come to power legitimately in 3 years time.

Now the military and the Egyptian people have established a precedent where if you are not happy with the President after 100 days or 1 year or 2 weeks, you take to the streets and oust him. That is not democracy. It's chaos and leads to instability in a very crucial Arab country. That is bad for America and especially bad for Israel.

Beyond that, during Mubarak's 30 year reign and for the year and a half prior to Morsi's election, the Egyptian Military were essentially running the country. That was good for America because they were beholden to us for aid to the tune of about 2 billion dollars a year. However, that has all changed. Since Hillary and her BFF Barack made the decision to toss Hosni Mubarak under the bus and embrace the Muslim Brotherhood the Egyptian Military has gotten in bed with Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and no longer need or care about Obama or America's money. They now dance to the tune of a new and wealthier piper.

For sure behind the scenes Obama tried to pressure the Egyptian military into protecting Morsi to avoid this new mess, but we no longer have leverage.

So, what happens now? Immediately, there will be euphoria and excitement in Egypt. Then there will be a month of Ramadan. And then I predict sectarian and political violence all over Egypt, disappointment and disillusion with the Army rule, and even worse economic conditions in Egypt, not to mention more gigantic and deadly demonstrations.

In short: Hell to pay for this idiocy.

And who's to blame? Hillary. Were it not for her and her BFF, Obama, Mubarak would still be in power, Egypt would be stable, America would be safer, Israel would be safer, and the Egyptians would be far better off.

POSTCRIPT:

It should be noted that the objection to President Morsi was almost entirely economic based. The Egyptian economy is in the toilet. No tourism. No foreign investment. No hard currency. Long bread and gas lines. Power outages.

American television is portraying this as a rebuke of the Islamists. It is not. it is a rebuke of the Muslim Brotherhood, who happen to be Islamists, but more importantly to the Egyptian people, have done nothing to solve the economic problems and have in fact exacerbated them. If a different Islamist party arises or even just a different Brotherhood candidate, that person could easily get elected. Egyptians are not disillusioned with the Islamists, they just want Islamists who know how to build an economy.

Of course, the irony is that by causing this chaos and uncertainty the Egyptian economy will now spiral down even lower.

Now the Benghazi cover up makes sense

MORSI: Is he “The Butcher of Benghazi?”

Some new evidence surfaced on Wednesday that sheds further light on Mohamed Morsi as the likely mastermind of the Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead. I will get to that evidence in a moment but I quickly want to summarize the evidence that we have previously reported...

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Obama's little soldiers

BIG NEWS: Obama Waives Bush Law Banning Child Soldiers

Over the weekend, while most Americans were too busy spending time with their children and keeping up with the latest sporting events to worry about executive orders, President Obama removed the teeth from this law; effectively making it void in the nations most guilty. The result - thousands of children throughout the Middle East and Africa may be drafted into foreign militaries, with the full blessings of the United States.

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A very dark swan

The Daily Beast:

The overthrow of the Saudi royals is finally a possibility. In an excerpt from a new Brookings Institution briefing book for Obama’s second term, Bruce Riedel on what a catastrophe it would be for Obama.

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Barack Obama Warns the Jewish State: "Israel Doesn't Know What It's Own Best Interest Are."

And I suppose your Muslim ass does??

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BENGHAZI: COLD WAR SPY REDUX

An inappropriate relationship with top ranking military officers is one thing. An inappropriate relationship between a woman with ties to foreign governments, some of whom are in league with enemies of the United States, and top military officers operating in a theater against terrorists with ties to some of those same countries is wildly problematic.

We are talking Cold War era stuff here.

Jill Khawam Kelley acted as “Go-Between” for Central Command Officers and Muslim Leaders

Via Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish

BLACKFIVE: The second worst feeling in the world...

The second worst feeling in the world has to be the platform crew being desperately asked for help, given a clear target and then having to stand down and watch your fellow Americans die.

The worst has to be the team on the ground knowing that the President just left you to die.

There are six updates here...one commenter posted twice in a row with great points about Update #6 which is important since it seemed to confirm Leon Panetta's version of events on 9/11/12 in Benghazi, Libya where we lost our American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans: RIP Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty.

10/26/12 (11:43 PM):

Re Update 6: "Marine resources were in the middle of a rotation" Does a rotation take more than 7 hours? Wouldn't you have a policy of "make-before-break" when rotating forces?

10/26/12 (11:47 PM):

Would you time a rotation for Sep 11?

Bigger than Watergate: Proof that the President is Lying about Benghazi?

Understanding Obama's Pro-Islamist Policy

What must be said...

Endnote: It must also be said--on the eve of the Jewish New Year--that there are people inside and around the Obama administration who consider Israel's very establishment to have been a mistake. These individuals regard Islamism as pliable and useful and in sync with history's "moral arc." Israel, the reborn Jewish state--thriving, against all odds--and Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which successfully solved the problem of Jewish political homelessness, are considered by such officials and advisers as at best anachronisms to be tolerated. At worst, they long for Israel's step-by-step dismantlement, or sudden destruction, and effectively--functionally--aid and make common cause with the enemies of the Jewish people who work night and day to complete Hitler's genocidal project.

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Obama's Middle East mess

The American Interest: The Day The Roof Fell In

Russia Threatens Pre-Emptive Attack on U.S. Installations

PowerLine's John Hinderacker just nails it about our president and about Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. special envoy for strategic stability and missile defense:

Am I missing something, or did she just tell the world that Obama will have more flexibility after the election?

One wants to resist the temptation to politicize everything, but really: is there anyone who imagines that the Chief of the Russian General Staff would threaten an act of war against the United States if we had a real president?

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Egyptian Official: War with Israel, US in Three Months

Pamela Geller: The media's lack of objective reportage on Obama's disastrous foreign policy is a staggering betrayal of the American people.

REPORT: Increase in anti-Semitism in the Middle East since "Arab Spring"

Why did so many of us "non-Experts" know this would happen, and why did so many of the Left simply make fun of us for predicting this?

The answer happens to be the primary reason that The Left is so dangerous when it is in charge of our foreign policy.

Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein

Ron Paul wrong again

Ron Paul: Wrong On The Taliban
By Andrew C. McCarthy

Ron Paul knows even less about the history of our enemies than he does about their proper treatment under the Constitution. He actually interrupted Monday night’s Republican candidates’ debate so he could interject the following:

I would like to point out one thing about the Taliban. The Taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the Russians. So Taliban are people who want — their main goal is to keep foreigners off their land. It’s the al-Qaeda — you can’t mix the two. The al-Qaeda want to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says, “We don’t want foreigners.” We need to understand that, or we can’t resolve this problem in the Middle East. We are going to spend a lot of lives and a lot of money for a long time to come.

Everything in this statement is wrong. Everything. Let’s start with the most basic point. The Taliban most certainly were not “our allies when we were fighting the Russians.” How could they have been, considering that the Taliban did not exist at the time of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan?

I won’t belabor the point that it was not the United States but the Afghan mujahadeen, with the help of non-Afghan Muslims (mostly Arab), who did the actual fighting against the Soviets. We did, after all, fuel the anti-Soviet jihad with billions of dollars in materiel and other assistance — through our intermediary, Pakistani intelligence, with the Saudis matching our aid dollar-for-dollar. Presumably, this is what Representative Paul was talking about. Nevertheless, while a number of the Taliban’s eventual founders were veterans of the anti-Soviet jihad, the fact is that the Taliban was not established as an organization until 1994. That is five years after the Soviet Union skulked out of Afghanistan and three years after it collapsed.

Paul’s claim that the Taliban is just opposed to foreign interference in Afghanistan is patently absurd. To begin with, the Taliban’s creation was a direct result not of foreign invasion but of Afghanistan’s internecine tribal warfare after the Soviets left and the Americans lost interest. Its unabashed goal was to crush Afghan factions that impeded its establishment of a retrograde sharia state.

Moreover, the Taliban craves foreign interference, without which it would never have come to power. A Pashtun movement driven by Islamic scholars and spearheaded by Mullah Mohammed Omar in Kandahar, the Taliban owes its existence to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. These Muslim nations, two of the only three nations in the world to recognize the Taliban-led government in Kabul, nurtured, armed, and financed the Taliban in its origin. They did so precisely because the Taliban was an effective ally in their machinations against regional rivals — India for the Pakistanis and Iran for the Saudis. The alliance was also grounded in the Taliban’s espousal of Deobandism, an uncompromising construction of Islam propagated in Afghan madrassas built by the Saudis’ Muslim World League in conjunction with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s supremacist Islamic movement.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the Taliban willingly gave al-Qaeda safe haven, knowing full well that bin Laden’s network was engaged in a global jihad that targeted the United States as its primary enemy. Al-Qaeda struck American interests several times while it had sanctuary from the Taliban, attacking American embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole in Yemen before orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. By quite consciously accommodating and protecting an international terrorist organization that was at war with the United States, the Taliban joined al-Qaeda and became an enemy of the United States. It was thus every bit as much a part of al-Qaeda’s attacks on the U.S. as was al-Qaeda itself. That is not only how war works, it is a straightforward application of the criminal-law principles that Representative Paul claims to like so much — a conspirator and an aider-and-abettor is responsible for the actions of his confederates.

How Obama completely f*cked up our relations with Mexico

Key question in scandal: Why?

But why stop at Mexico: can you think of ANY country where our relationship has improved since Obama took office???

IRAN180

HUMAN RIGHTS. NOT NUCLEAR RIGHTS.

www.iran180.org

(Just added to "Terrorism & International Affairs" in the right panel--scroll way down.)