Germans Say Afghan Forces Unready for West's Withdrawal

At Der Spiegel, "Ineffective and Unsustainable: Failure Threatens Afghan Police Training Mission":

German officials have been training police in Afghanistan for a decade, but a visit to their training center in Mazar-e-Sharif creates major doubts about the effectiveness of the mission. Afghan police remain poorly prepared to tackle the mighty challenges they will face as Western forces withdraw.

The Afghan national sport is called buzkashi. It's a game in which horsemen battle over a goat carcass. There are no established teams.

During a match, the competitors forge brief, continuously shifting alliances. They only work together until they have gained a short-term advantage. The game can last for hours, even days. The winner is the rider who manages to carry the carcass to the goal. Buzkashi is a mirror of Afghan society.
By contrast, the German police officers who train local recruits in Afghanistan have brought soccer balls and nets to their base in Mazar-e-Sharif. Football is all about teamwork and team spirit. The goal is to form a team and achieve an objective together.

In a corner of the training center, on a patch of parched earth, there is now a soccer field where the next generation of Afghan police officers is learning the game.

"What we want to achieve with the recruits is a change in mentality," says a German instructor. More team spirit, a better sense of community, more loyalty. More soccer, less buzkashi.

Over the past 10 years, Germany has instructed some 56,000 Afghan police officers at four training centers in the region. The training is part of Germany's responsibility as a member of NATO, and so far the project has cost some €380 million ($503 million). As many as 200 German police officers are regularly stationed in Afghanistan, most of them in Mazar-e-Sharif.

But anyone who accompanies the German security aid workers for a few days is bound to doubt the mission's effectiveness after observing the mood among the officers and reading between the lines of official statements. Even now, when Western security forces have entered their 11th year of training, the police in Afghanistan don't stand for public order and security -- but rather for helplessness, arbitrariness and corruption.

Oh boy.

This won't be good, as I reported on Thursday: "An Uneasy Separation in Afghanistan."

In any case, an interesting role the Germans have played as part of the NATO contingent. Continue reading at the link.

Zero Dark Feinstein

At the Wall Street Journal, "When a Hollywood script is more accurate than Senate Intelligence":

'Zero Dark Thirty," the film from director Kathryn Bigelow that opened this month, is garnering rave reviews for its unblinking portrayal of what it took the United States to track and kill Osama bin Laden. But a trio of Beltway critics are all thumbs down.

They would be Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican Senator John McCain of John McCain. "We write to express our deep disappointment with the movie Zero Dark Thirty," the three wrote in a recent letter to Sony Pictures. "We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden."

You know it's a bad day in America when Hollywood seems to have a better grip on intelligence issues than the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the top two Members at Armed Services. The film depicts the "enhanced interrogation techniques," or EITs, used on the detainees held at the CIA's so-called black sites, and hints that the interrogations provided at least some of the information that led to bin Laden's killing.

What Ms. Bigelow intended by depicting the EITs is not for us to explain: This is an action flick, not a Ken Burns documentary. Yet the mere suggestion that such techniques paid crucial intelligence dividends—as attested by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA Director Michael Hayden, among many others—has sent Mrs. Feinstein and her colleagues into paroxysms of indignation. They even have a 5,000-plus-page study that purports to prove her case.

We say "purports" because, so far, hardly anyone outside the Senate Intelligence Committee has laid eyes on this white whale. The report began four years ago as a largely bipartisan effort to examine the CIA's post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs....

As for the report's methods, we got a taste of them in April when Sens. Feinstein and Levin issued a statement denouncing claims by former senior officer Jose Rodriguez that coercive interrogation techniques were in fact effective.

"CIA did not first learn about the existence of the UBL courier [Ahmed al-Kuwaiti] from detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques," they write in one characteristically slippery passage. Yet there's no small difference between knowing some piece of information and knowing why that piece may be significant.

"In the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarding produced misinformation," journalist Mark Bowden noted in an interview with the Daily Caller about the hunt for al-Kuwaiti, whose discovery ultimately led the CIA to bin Laden's Abbottabad hideaway. But Mr. Bowden also notes that "in this case the lie, contrasting so sharply with other detainee statements, actually proved helpful."

Mr. Bowden, by the way, is an opponent of coercive interrogations and a sympathetic observer of the Obama Administration who nonetheless can distinguish a moral objection from a practical one....

One day, perhaps, some of our liberal friends will acknowledge that the real world is stuffed with the kinds of hard moral choices that "Zero Dark Thirty" so effectively depicts. Until then, they can bask in the easy certitudes of a report that, whatever it contains, deserves never to be read.

Right. And compare that to the excitable Andrew Sullivan, "The Zero Dark Debate, Ctd."

An Uneasy Separation in Afghanistan

It seems weird that we're approaching the full withdrawal date for the Afghanistan war, and I personally don't think it's going to go well when we're gone. But Barack Hussein will get all kinds of kudos for bringing another war to an end, and because he's all about scoring political capital in national security policy (compared to actually making Americans safer), it's all to be expected.

More on this throughout the next year. Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, "Hard feelings on both sides as U.S. winds down its Afghan role":

SUROBI, Afghanistan — Col. Babagul Aamal is a proud veteran of 28 years in the Afghan National Army. Short and fit, with a thick black beard, he's a leader who blurts out exactly what he's thinking.

"I don't talk politics — I talk facts," Aamal said, wearing a sweater beneath his uniform in his unheated command office on a dusty base 40 miles east of Kabul.

It shames him, Aamal said, that he is not allowed to wear his pistol when he enters the fortified gate of the new American military base next door. Though he's a brigade commander, he's required to stand before an airport-type scanner with his arms raised, almost in surrender.

Yet when Americans visit Aamal's base, they are not searched. They are offered chai tea. And they bring half a dozen soldiers armed with M-16s, so-called Guardian Angels on the lookout for "insider attacks" by Afghan soldiers.

"Afghan generals get searched by low-ranking foreign soldiers," Aamal said. "Our soldiers see this, and they feel insulted."

As American troops shift from combat to advising, the ominous specter of insider attacks has strained the relationship between the two armies.

Sixty-two Western coalition troops have been killed this year in 46 such attacks, leaving many American soldiers deeply suspicious of their erstwhile allies.

At the same time, some Afghan officers and soldiers say they feel abandoned and patronized. After 11 years, they say, certain Americans still don't respect Afghan customs.

Moreover, they complain that the United States is pulling out without providing the weapons and equipment needed to hold off the Taliban.

"The Americans have the weapons, so they go wherever they want. It's like this is their country," the brigade's public affairs officer, Maj. Ghulam Ali, said with a weary shrug.

RTWT.

RELATED: At the New York Times, "Motive Unclear in Killing by Woman in Afghan Force."

And the Biggest Lie of 2012 Is ...

The Benghazi clusterf-k, highlighted by Aaron Klein:

JERUSALEM – Information surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi has been so distorted by the Obama administration and so misreported by the news media that the issue was selected as WND’s “Biggest Lie of the Year.”

Immediately following the attacks, President Obama and other White House officials notoriously blamed supposed anti-American sentiment leading to the violent events on an obscure anti-Muhammad video on YouTube they claimed was responsible for supposedly popular civilian protests that they said took place outside the U.S. mission in Benghazi – protests, they claimed, that devolved into a jihadist onslaught.

However, vivid accounts provided by the State Department and intelligence officials later made clear no such popular demonstration took place. Instead, video footage from Benghazi reportedly shows an organized group of armed men attacking the compound, the officials said.

‘Consulate’?

Media coverage of the events has been so dismal that even the most basic understanding of what happened is being distorted. The vast majority of all news media coverage worldwide refer to the U.S. facility that was attacked as a “consulate,” even though the government itself has been careful to call it a “mission.”

WND has filed numerous reports quoting Middle East security sources describing the mission in Benghazi as serving as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East.

Among the tasks performed inside the building was collaborating with Arab countries on the recruitment of fighters – including jihadists – to target Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, the officials said.

Whether the news media report on what was allegedly transpiring at the mission or not, their calling the building a “consulate” is misleading.

A consulate typically refers to the building that officially houses a consul, who is the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another. The U.S. consul in Libya, Jenny Cordell, works out of the embassy in Tripoli.

Consulates at times function as junior embassies, providing services related to visas, passports and citizen information.

On Aug. 26, about two weeks before his was killed, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens attended a ceremony marking the opening of consular services at the Tripoli embassy.

The main role of a consulate is to foster trade with the host and care for its own citizens who are traveling or living in the host nation.

Diplomatic missions, on the other hand, maintain a more generalized role. A diplomatic mission is simply a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organization present in another state to represent matters of the sending state or organization in the receiving state.

However, according to a State Department report released last week, the U.S. facility in Benghazi did not fit the profile of a diplomatic mission, either.

According to the 39-page report released this week by independent investigators probing the attacks at the diplomatic facility, the U.S. mission in Benghazi was set up without the knowledge of the new Libyan government, as WND reported.

“Another key driver behind the weak security platform in Benghazi was the decision to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility, not officially notified to the host government, even though it was also a full-time office facility,” the report states. “This resulted in the Special Mission compound being excepted from office facility standards and accountability under the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999 (SECCA) and the Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB).”

The report, based on a probe led by former U.S. diplomat Thomas Pickering, calls the facility a “Special U.S. Mission.”

The report further refers to the attacked facility as a “U.S. Special Mission,” adding yet another qualifier to the title of the building.

Violated international law?

WND also exclusively reported the facility may have violated the terms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which governs the establishment of overseas missions.

Like most nations, the U.S. is a signatory to the 1961 United Nations convention.

Article 2 of the convention makes clear the host government must be informed about the establishment of any permanent foreign mission on its soil: “The establishment of diplomatic relations between States, and of permanent diplomatic missions, takes place by mutual consent.”

According to the State report, there was a decision “to treat Benghazi as a temporary, residential facility,” likely disqualifying the building from permanent mission status if the mission was indeed temporary.

However, the same sentence in the report notes the host government was not notified about the Benghazi mission “even though it was also a full-time office facility.”

Article 12 of the Vienna Convention dictates, “The sending State may not, without the prior express consent of the receiving State, establish offices forming part of the mission in localities other than those in which the mission itself is established.”

If the Benghazi mission was a “full-time office facility,” it may violate Article 12 in that the mission most likely was considered an arm of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, which served as the main U.S. mission to Libya...

Continue reading.

Image Credit: Posted exactly two months ago, via A.F. Branco, "Blockbuster Report Contradicts Panetta's Claim of 'No Real-Time Intel' During Libya Attack."

Obama Expected to Name Sen. John Kerry as Secretary of State Nominee

On television, CNN has all kinds of reporting, loaded with shameless plaudits.

But see the Los Angeles Times, "Obama to nominate Kerry to be next secretary of State."

A traitor at Secretary of State. Perfect.
— Melissa Clouthier (@MelissaTweets) December 21, 2012

Also at Memeorandum.

I'll have more on this...

U.S. Policy is Making Syria Into an Anti-Western, Antisemitic Islamist State

From Barry Rubin, at PJ Media, "Proof of a Scandal":

In his article “The Revolt of Islam in Syria” (Jerusalem Post, December 12), Jonathan Spyer — senior fellow at the GLORIA Center — points out compelling information about the new Western-backed leadership in Syria.

The bottom line: if this is Syria’s new government, then Syria now has an Islamist regime.

This is happening with the knowledge and collaboration of the Obama administration and a number of European governments. It is a catastrophe, and one that’s taking place due to the deliberate decisions of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders. Even if one rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due to internal events, this one is U.S.-made.

As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows:

To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.

The new regime, recognized by the United States and most European countries as the legitimate leadership of the Syrian people, is the Syrian National Coalition, which has also established a military council.

Spyer’s detailed evidence for these arguments — much of which comes from raw wire service reports, for which praise is due to Reuters in this case — is undeniable. And if we know about these things, there is no doubt that the highest level of the U.S. government does as well.

Why is this happening? Because Obama and others believe that they can moderate the Muslim Brotherhood and this will tame the Salafists, despite massive evidence to the contrary. This is going to be the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last century, and the cost for it will be high. It should be stressed: such a strategy is totally unnecessary; the alternatives have been ignored; and the real moderates are being betrayed...

Continue reading.

Well, they don't call him President Clusterf-k for nothing.

Chuck Hagel Under Fire as Possible Defense Sec. Nominee

It's no surprise that he's O's favorite for Defense. They're like brothers in their Israel bashing.

The New York Times reports, "Comments on Israel by Top Contender for Defense Secretary Are Scrutinized."

And see Bret Stephens, at the Wall Street Journal, "Chuck Hagel's Jewish Problem."

Also at Pamela's, "Jew-Hater for Defense?"

NBC's Richard Engel Says Captors Were Assad Loyalists

At the Wall Street Journal, "Freed Reporter Links Captors to Assad":

BEIRUT—Richard Engel, the NBC News foreign correspondent freed with colleagues Monday after five days of captivity in Syria, on Tuesday said he believed his kidnappers were Shiite militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad who planned to exchange the U.S. news team for prisoners held by the rebels.

NBC said on Tuesday that Mr. Engel and his production team returned unharmed to Turkey, from where they had crossed into northwestern Syria on Thursday.

Read the whole thing.

Susan Rice Bemoans Partisanship in Whiney Withrawal as Secretary of State Nominee

It's all partisan politics with these people, all the time. And keep in mind it was moderate Senator Susan Collins who was the most implacable opponent to Rice's confirmation in the Senate. (And it was a chorus of leftist Democrats and journalists who've been leading the weeks-long opposition to Rice, but the White House never lets the truth get in the way of an epic smear against the right.)

And Rice took to the pages of the Washington Post to explain her withdrawal? She's a backbench bureaucrat. Nobody needs an op-ed to figure out what happened. Democrats are just horrible people. We watch it roll before out eyes every day. See: "Why I made the right call." (At Memeorandum.)

Provocative North Korean Rocket Launch

At Fox News, "Defiant North Korea releases photos from its 'provocative' rocket launch."

And there's an ABC News video report here, "North Korea Missile Launch Successful."

Draft Army Handbook Wades Into Divisive Afghan Issue

Both fascinating and troubling, at the Wall Street Journal:

* * *

Cultural Awareness:

Flashpoints/Grievances Some U.S. Troops Have Reported Regarding Afghanistan National Security Forces:

To better prepare [coalition forces] for the psychologically challenging conditions in Afghanistan, familiarize yourself with the following stressors some U.S. troops have reported concerning [Afghan security forces] behavior during previous deployments. Bear in mind that not all [coalition] troops have reported such experiences or beliefs.

Some ANSF are profoundly dishonest and have no personal integrity
ANSF do not buy-into war effort; far too many are gutless in combat
Incompetent, ignorant and basically stupid

Bottom line: Troops may experience social-cultural shock and/or discomfort when interacting with [Afghan security forces]. Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [coalition forces] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead towards green-on-blue violence.

* * *

*****

WASHINGTON—American soldiers should brace for a "social-cultural shock" when meeting Afghan soldiers and avoid potentially fatal confrontations by steering clear of subjects including women's rights, religion and Taliban misdeeds, according to a controversial draft of a military handbook being prepared for troops heading to the region.

The proposed Army handbook suggests that Western ignorance of Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, has helped drive the recent spike in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the coalition forces.

"Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member," according to the draft handbook prepared by Army researchers.

The 75-page manual, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, is part of a continuing effort by the U.S. military to combat a rise in attacks by Afghan security forces aimed at coalition troops.

But it has drawn criticism from U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, who aides said hasn't—and wouldn't—endorse the manual as written. Gen. Allen also rejected a proposed foreword that Army officials drafted in his name.

"Gen. Allen did not author, nor does he intend to provide, a foreword," said Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. "He does not approve of its contents."

Gen. Allen hadn't seen the proposed foreword until a portion of the handbook was called to his attention by the Journal, Col. Collins said. Military officials wouldn't spell out his precise objections. But the handbook's conclusion that cultural insensitivity is driving insider attacks goes beyond the view most commonly expressed by U.S. officials.

The version reviewed by the Journal—marked "final coordinating draft" and sent out for review in November—was going through more revisions, said Lt. Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., whose Center for Army Lessons Learned wrote the manual.

The proposed foreword was prepared by Army staff for Gen. Allen's eventual consideration, and the general's concerns will be taken into account as the military moves ahead with more revisions, he added.

The proposed handbook embraces a hotly debated theory that American cultural ignorance has sparked many so-called insider attacks—more than three dozen of which have claimed the lives of some 63 members of the U.S.-led coalition this year. The rise in insider attacks has created one of the biggest threats to American plans to end its major combat missions in Afghanistan next year and transfer full security control to Afghan forces in 2014.

Afghan leaders say Taliban infiltrators are responsible for most insider attacks. U.S. officials say the attacks are largely rooted in personal feuds between Afghan and coalition troops, though not necessarily the result of cultural insensitivity.

Last year, the U.S.-led coalition rejected an internal military study that concluded that cultural insensitivity was in part to blame for insider killings, which it called a growing threat that represented "a severe and rapidly metastasizing malignancy" for the coalition in Afghanistan.

The study was reported last year by The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. military at the time said the study was flawed by "unprofessional rhetoric and sensationalism."

The 2011 report—"A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility"—is now a centerpiece of the draft handbook's advice to soldiers heading to Afghanistan, and it is listed under the draft's references and recommended reading. The report's findings also informed the current manual for troops in Afghanistan, which was released in February, according to Gen. Perkins.

U.S. Army officials didn't make the current version of the manual available for review.

No doubt there is a cultural disconnect, which is why many conservatives have been calling for withdrawal for some time.

The full piece is also at Current.Mil-Tech.News.

And see Atlas Shrugs, "NEW ARMY MANUAL ORDERS SOLDIERS NOT TO CRITICIZE TALIBAN, PEDOPHILIA, 'ANYTHING RELATED TO ISLAM' OR 'ADVOCATE FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS'."

Morsi Imposes Martial Law in Egypt

At Weasel Zippers, "Egypt: Morsi Imposes Martial Law In Run Up To Constitutional Referendum…"

This RT video has the developments from over the weekend. And see Barry Rubin, "A Turning Point in Egypt: Not on Direction But on the Speed of Islamist Transformation."

Morsi Backs Down — For Now

At the Los Angeles Times, "Egypt's Morsi backs off decree that expanded his power":

CAIRO — In a political reversal to calm weeks of unrest, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi early Sunday rescinded much of last month’s decree that expanded his powers and exposed a dangerous divide between the nation’s Islamists and the mainly secular opposition.

The announcement reverses most of the declaration the Islamist president issued Nov. 22, including putting his office beyond judicial oversight. The peeling away of that power was a major demand of protesters. But Morsi continued to defy the opposition by refusing to cancel a Dec. 15 referendum on a proposed constitution drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

The turnaround by Morsi, who in a national address Thursday had refused to budge on his decree, was a signal that he wanted to ease tension that has resulted in clashes between his supporters and opposition groups that have left at least six people dead and hundreds injured.

It was unlikely, however, that reversing the decree but sticking to the referendum vote would appease the tens of thousands of protesters who have marched on his palace in the capital and in cities across Egypt.

“This is not a compromise; the president got all that he wanted,” said Bassem Sabry, an activist and writer. “What the Muslim Brotherhood wants [is to] get the constitution rammed through in a quick referendum before anyone gets a chance to properly discuss it.”

Morsi’s concessions came as news reports indicated that he was preparing to reimpose emergency law to allow soldiers to arrest civilians in response to the latest unrest.

More at the link.

It won't last. Morsi will come up with something else, some other extra-constitutional measures to consolidate the Muslim Brotherhood's choke hold on the state. See Eric Trager's piece from a couple weeks back, at TNR, "Shame on Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was a Moderate."

Egypt Sees Largest Clash Since Revolution

At WSJ:

CAIRO—Tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt's president clashed Wednesday, hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails and brawling in Cairo's streets, in the largest violent battle between Islamists and their foes since the country's revolution early last year.

The confrontation started in the evening after Islamist protesters marching in support of President Mohammed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, moved to break up a demonstration by the president's non-Islamist opponents outside the presidential palace in Cairo, where Mr. Morsi has his offices.

Supporters of the rival camps, spurred by public defiance by influential figures on each side, waged back-and-forth battles in side streets outside the palace walls as night fell, shutting down major thoroughfares. Around midnight, police formed a barrier between the camps, with thousands of demonstrators on each side, as gunshots rang out and each side accused the other of firing live rounds.

Those allegations couldn't be confirmed. The Muslim Brotherhood said at least one of its supporters had been killed, while opposition officials said two of their supporters had died. An early Thursday report by state television quoted the Health Ministry as saying five people were killed and 446 people were injured, according to the Associated Press.

The Obama administration exhorted the sides to respect each other and refrain from bloodshed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Brussels, called for a two-way dialogue. She also expressed dismay at the constitutional process, saying Egyptians "deserve a constitutional process that is open, transparent and fair and does not unduly favor one group over any other."

Also in Cairo, crowds besieged the Brotherhood headquarters in the al Moqatam neighborhood, ONTV said. Protesters also burned down a Brotherhood headquarters in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya, Egyptian media reported.

The conflict between Islamists and their opponents has been behind some of the Middle East's bloodiest civil wars. Those who battled in the shadow of Cairo's presidential palace mirrored Egypt's secular-Islamist divide—with a crowd of mixed-gender and mainly young Egyptians, many in tight jeans and hipster haircuts, facing off against men in conservative dress shirts or robes and skullcaps.

Egypt's opposition was galvanized last month when Mr. Morsi issued a decree granting him nearly unrestricted powers and placing him above the judiciary. The decree paved the way for hurried approval of a constitution that was drafted by an Islamist-dominated body that the opposition says was working illegitimately and produced a charter weighted with Islamic law. The government has set a referendum on the draft for Dec. 15.

Anti-Morsi Egyptians took to the streets. On Tuesday, they marched on the presidential palace to denounce Mr. Morsi, the first time in recent memory that protesters made it to the palace walls. On Wednesday, Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Eryan, speaking on al-Jazeera, called on millions of Egyptians to go to the presidential palace to "defend the state and its legitimacy."

And see Telegraph UK, "Hundreds call on President Morsi to step down." And Instapundit, "JUST LIKE OBAMA AND THE “FISCAL CLIFF:” CBS News: Egypt’s president offers nothing to defuse crisis."

White House Data Debunk Myth Bush Cuts Built Deficit

A lovely chart, via Instapundit:

Also at Bizzy Blog, "Graphs of the Day: The Fiscal Mess Is Not the Fault of Bush’s Tax Cuts" (via Memeorandum).

Barack Obama: Worst. President. Ever.

I missed this clip when it came out in September, but William Jacobson's got it: "Disheartened Obamaphiles should just stop talking."

And following the links there takes us to Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Emboldened Obama now even more reckless with America's future":

Again and again, the first term revealed Obama’s idea of bipartisanship: Dissenters are unpatriotic and must surrender. Compromise is a one-way street for him.

As polarizing and ineffective as that approach was, he was rewarded with four more years. A different man might see that as a mulligan — a second chance to get it right.

Not Obama. His behavior now is even more troubling.

That he’s willing to risk sending the economy back into recession and killing even more jobs leads me to believe his second term will be far more radical than the first. A stranger to humility, he thinks re-election confers a blank check.

His demand that spending cuts and entitlement reform be put off, while Republicans give him the tax hikes and the stimulus he wants, suggests he’s not serious about facing the mountain of debt. In that case, no progress is possible as the nation hurtles toward disaster.

The fear is reinforced with his sudden bid to have sole and permanent authority to raise the debt limit. As it stands, Congress’ power to set the ceiling serves as a practical check and balance.

His effort to eliminate it is something that happens in a banana republic. Is that where Obama wants to take America?

Sadly, many Americans believe the answer is yes. A friend wrote to express that view forcefully:

“Obama has deliberately destroyed the world’s best medical system. He is deliberately destroying the world’s strongest economy and currency. He has destroyed the world’s best political system by governing by executive order. He has started destroying the world’s best military.”

I don’t accept the idea that the president is intentionally trying to destroy America, but I do believe his policies are weakening it.

Well, I do.

Obama's deliberately perverting the Constitution and amassing enormous power at the expense of the public good. Most people on the left don't care. Even the so-called antiwar freaks that wanted Bush administration war crimes trials have hooked their wagon to this administration --- obediently falling in line in the service of raw power. It's disgusting. Folks like Kevin Gosztola are epic hypocrites even while make a living foisting themselves off as civil libertarians. What they want is progressive power, more damned power. I'm no longer a fan of Ralph Nader, but the guy's got creds. He's run presidential campaigns against both parties. He's consistently spoken out against abuses no matter whom the occupant in the White House. As for President Obama, he's the worst hypocrite of all, and now the biggest tyrant in American history.

Egypt Is Collapsing Thanks to Obama Foreign Policy

At IBD:

The democratic "New Beginning" President Obama announced in Cairo in 2009 becomes a new, bold Egyptian tyranny. An imperfect ally was swept away by what has generated into an Islamist perfect storm.

Apparently confident that an eloquent mea culpa would prompt an abundant supply of Islamic goodwill, Barack Obama in his first year as president appeared at Cairo University before an audience that included leaders of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and gave a speech meant to shake the world.

He apologized for the "overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government" during the Cold War and sought "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" based on "common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."

Keep reading...

'The ideology of Islamism has been on the rise for generations and now aims to expropriate the Arab Spring...'

From Charles Hill, at The Caravan, "World Order in the Age of Obama" (via WSJ):

The ideology of Islamism has been on the rise for generations and now aims to expropriate the Arab Spring. The ambitions of the1979 Iranian Revolution and Sunni fanaticism are transmogrifying into the kind of major religious war that the Treaty of Westphalia sought to forestall.

Thucydides traced the war that ruined ancient Greece to Sparta’s fear that Athens’ growing power was crossing the line where it would be impossible to contain. Israel faces that threat from Iran, as today’s international structures for the maintenance of international security have failed to halt Iran’s drive, propelled by religious ideology, to possess nuclear weapons. Israel, bereft of its traditional sense of American support, is making ready to act against Iran’s menace to its existence. President Obama’s priority must repair relations with Israel by visiting the Jewish state and convincing its leaders that the U.S. understands Israel’s uniquely dangerous position.

And there now grows a deepening appetite for gain. America, perceived as eager to shed the burdens of world order in order to be “fundamentally transformed” through European-style social commitments, talks of engagement even when Iran’s “diplomacy” is a form of protracted warfare. The enemies of world order translate the American election results into the lexicon of abdication, telling themselves that their time has come: there is a world to be gained.

Only America’s return to world leadership can halt this deterioration. “Sequestration” will relegate the U.S. to a second rate power and must be reversed to enable American strength and diplomacy to be employed in tandem. Without this the prediction of a Kepler for today must be grim. As the biographer of Augustus Caesar wrote in the years just before the Second World War, “Once again the crust of civilization has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of primeval fires. Once again many accepted principles of government have been overthrown, and the world has become a laboratory where immature and feverish minds experiment with unknown forces. Once again problems cannot be comfortably limited, for science has brought the nations into an uneasy bondage to each other.”

In this maelstrom lie opportunities not for idealism but for the cold, austere use of power, soft and hard, in order to, as Augustus was advised, teach the arts of peace to all. The old platforms for the region, including the “peace process,” are gone. New structures must be built and only the US can lead the construction job. Peace is not at hand, but statesmen can see the possibility of laying foundations for a new Middle East in Syria-Lebanon, Egypt-Gaza, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and even, should we finally get serious, in Iran.

U.N. Gives Palestinians 'State' Status

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Nearly 140 countries voted in the U.N. on Thursday to recognize the Palestinian territories as a "nonmember observer state" over the strenuous objections of Israel and the U.S., marking a milestone with potentially far-reaching consequences for the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.

The 138-9 vote, with 41 abstentions, came on the 65th anniversary of the assembly's resolution calling for the partition of British mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

The new status, which is akin to the Vatican's own stature in the world body, marked a rare victory for the Fatah party's diplomatic path toward statehood after its rival Hamas's military strategy had taken the spotlight during the recent Gaza conflict.

Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah, who were crowded around outdoor television screens during the vote in New York erupted into applause, whistles and hugs, as some people fired guns into the air and beeped car horns in celebration.

"We didn't come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, told the assembly to a standing ovation.

The immediate question was whether the vote spurs or further delays the resumption of talks between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel says are needed to finalize the status of the West Bank and Gaza territories.

While Mr. Abbas argued the vote would create the momentum to resume moribund talks, the U.S. and Israel denounced the vote as a "unilateral" move in the multilateral assembly.

"Today's unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles to peace," said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. "No resolution can create a state where none exists."

She added, "Palestinians will wake up tomorrow and find that little has changed saved the prospect of direct talks have receded."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the vote as an empty gesture that makes little difference for Palestinians, and makes peace prospects more remote.

"The decision at the U.N. today won't change a thing on the ground,'' he said prior to the vote. "Peace will be reached through agreements reached between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and not through declarations passed at the U.N.''

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "“defamatory and venomous speech that was full of mendacious propaganda”."

Even Far Left New York Times Slamming Obama's Unprecedented Violations of Constitutional Law and International Human Rights

Well, this is interesting, at the Old Grey Lady, "Rules for Targeted Killing":

The White House reportedly is developing rules for when to kill terrorists around the world. The world may never see them, given the Obama administration’s inclination toward unnecessary secrecy regarding its national security policy. But the effort itself is a first step toward acknowledging that when the government kills people away from the battlefield, it must stay within formal guidelines based on the rule of law — especially when the life of an American citizen is at stake.

For eight years, the United States has conducted but never formally acknowledged a program to kill terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban away from the battlefield in Afghanistan. Using drones, the Central Intelligence Agency has made 320 strikes in Pakistan since 2004, killing 2,560 or more people, including at least 139 civilians, according to the Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks counterterrorism operations. Another 55 strikes took place in Yemen.

Administration officials have never explained in any detail how these targets are chosen. Are they killing people only associated with groups that participated in the Sept. 11 attacks, the limitation imposed by Congress when it authorized military force in 2001? Or are they free to remove any threat to the United States they perceive? Officials insist they go after only actual belligerents covered in the 2001 legislation, but the public and the world have no way of knowing whether these decisions are made ad hoc, or how they would be interpreted by future presidents.

Before the election, when it looked as if Mitt Romney had a chance of winning the White House, administration officials began codifying these rules, according to a recent report in The Times by Scott Shane. Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, one official told Mr. Shane anonymously.

That impulse was right, even if the reasoning was wrong. The rules for killing shouldn’t be amorphous simply because Mr. Romney might have taken over; they need to rigorous and formalized for Mr. Obama, too. If he sets proper boundaries, it would create a precedent that his successors would have to justify breaking....

Mr. Obama has acknowledged the need for a “legal architecture” to be put in place “to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in.” Yet his administration has resisted legal efforts by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to make public its secret legal opinions on these killings. Once the rules are completed, they should be shown to a world skeptical of countries that use deadly force without explanation.

This is the most secretive presidential administration in history, and the Times would do well to push as hard against Obama as it did against President Bush. Recall that the Times was willing to sabotage the Bush administration's foreign surveillance programs, so no doubt such treasonous undermining of national security would be hard to match. I'll simply concede that the Times is on the right track in highlighting the unprecedented violations of law and international norms under this president. But to be consistent the paper should be calling for congressional action, and in the event of executive branch resistance, stonewalling, and cover-up, the initiation of impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.

PHOTO: PressTV, "Survey reveals US covers up civilian victims of drone strikes in Pakistan."