Tag: Trump

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Is the US About to Abandon Kurdistan?

With the Kurdish Independence referendum for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq coming on September 25th and Mosul now back in the hands of the Iraqi National Armed Forces due to the Kurdish Peshmerga, the international players are nervous over what the implications are for the region and the world if an independent Kurdistan truly rises.

The United States has urged the KRG to hold off on the referendum. The US Congress has even warned the KRG by threatening to withhold funds. The US Congressional Armed Services Committee released their annual National Defense Authorization Act. The language relating to the KRG appears problematic for an indpendent Kurdistan.

“The committee notes that funding provided to the [KRG] is to enhance Government of Iraq-KRG cooperation and support a unified effort to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),” the draft National Defense Authorization Act reads. “Such funding should be contingent upon KRG participation in the government of a unified Iraq and on their continued good faith cooperation in the anti-ISIL campaign.”

Although the USA has viewed the Kurdish Peshmerga as integral to the victory over ISIS it appears to be backtracking on backing an independent Kurdistan. With Mosul liberated, the Kurdish Peshmerga is less needed. An independent Kurdistan will create friction if not all out war with Turkey as well as a war with Bagdhad.

This was part of the show of strength by the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi as seen by his visit to a liberated Mosul.

Experts quote the Iraq Constitution in pushing back on the illegality of Kurdish independence. Article 1 of Iraqi constitution states: “The Republic of Iraq is a single federal, independent and fully sovereign state in which the system of government is republican, representative, parliamentary, and democratic, and this Constitution is a guarantor of the unity of Iraq.”

Keeping the above in mind, Kurdistan has for years been moving towards independence.  The KRG believes it is not only entitled to independence, but territory that the Peshmerga gained by fighting ISIS over the last few years.  One such place, Kirkuk, is a strategic Kurdish and Arab city, now fully in the hands of the Peshmerga. The referendum is being held to include Kirkuk in the future Kurdish state. Newly liberated Mosul is also a mixed Kurdish Arab city.

What Does Washington Want?

The USA has for years used the threat of an independent Kurdistan to push back on a chaotic central Iraqi government. Not only that, the Peshmerga has proven itself like its counterpart the SDF in Syria to be the best fighting force on the ground. At the same time the US has played both sides by trying to hold the Kurds back from going all the way.  This they fear will spark a regional war with Turkey, while plunging the rest of Iraq into chaos.

With this in mind, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson travelled to Turkey to discuss Ankara’s impending invasion of Syrian Kurdistan in Afrin as well as the coming KRG referendum on independence.

With Washington trying to slow down the drive towards indpendence, while at the same time giving tacit support for such a movement, the Kurds feel emboldened in their drive for a free Kurdistan.

Israel Already Backs an Indpendent Kurdistan

In 2014, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, stated that the Kurds were “worthy of their own independence”. Also in January of 2016, Ayelet Shaked, justice minister of Israel, called for an independent Kurdistan. She also expressed that Israel had to openly call for the establishment of a Kurdish state that separated Iran from Turkey, one which would be friendly towards Israel.

Israel has supported Kurdistan covertly, being the regions largest buyer of oil.

September 25th is coming.  With the US once again not clear on its attitude to a independent Kurdistan, the chaos that may result in Iraq and on the Turkish border may unravel the post ISIS celebrations.

 

 

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The PLO’s IDF Lobbyists

Not only did Abbas reject their demand, he reportedly accused the presidential envoys of working as Israeli agents.

Should the United States pay Palestinian terrorists? For the overwhelming majority of Americans and Israelis this is a rhetorical question.

The position of the American people was made clear – yet again – last week when US President Donald Trump’s senior envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt met with Palestinian Authority chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and repeated Trump’s demand that the PA cut off the payments.

Not only did Abbas reject their demand, he reportedly accused the presidential envoys of working as Israeli agents.

Abbas’s treatment of Kushner and Greenblatt was in line with his refusal to even meet with US Ambassador David Friedman, reportedly because he doesn’t like Friedman’s views.

The most amazing aspect of Abbas’s contemptuous treatment of the Trump administration is that he abuses Trump and his senior advisers while demanding that Trump continue funding him in excess of half a billion dollars a year, and do so in contravention of the will of the Republican-controlled Congress.

Abbas’s meeting last week took place as the Taylor Force Act makes its way through Congress.

Named for Taylor Force, the West Point graduate and US army veteran who was murdered in March 2016 in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian terrorist, the Taylor Force Act will end US funding of the PA until it ends its payments to terrorists and their families – including the family of Force’s murderer Bashar Masalha.

The Taylor Force Act enjoys bipartisan majority support in both the House and the Senate. It is also supported by the Israeli government.

Given the stakes, what could possibly have possessed Abbas to believe he can get away with mistreating Trump and his envoys? Who does he think will save him from Congress and the White House? Enter Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), stage left.

CIS is a consortium of 260 left-wing retired security brass. It formed just before the 2015 elections. CIS refuses to reveal its funding sources. Several of its most visible members worked with the Obama administration through the George Soros-funded Center for a New American Security.

Since its inception, CIS has effectively served as a PLO lobby. It supports Israeli land giveaways and insists that Israel can do without a defensible eastern border.

Last Wednesday CIS released a common-sense defying statement opposing the Taylor Force Act.

The generals mind-numbingly insisted the US must continue paying the terrorism-financing PA because Israel needs the help of the terrorism-incentivizing PA to fight the terrorists the PA incentivizes. If the US cuts off funding to the PA because it incentivizes terrorism, then the PA will refuse to cooperate with Israel in fighting the terrorism it incentivizes.

If you fail to follow this logic, well, you don’t have what it takes to be an Israeli general.

Moreover, if you fail to follow this logic, and you defy the position of Israel’s retired generals, then you may well endanger Israel.

After all, they know what’s best even better than the Israeli government because they are retired Israeli generals.

The CIS group would be bad enough for Israel on its own. But unfortunately, the radical politics of its members – and their anonymous funders – are all too resonant inside of the IDF itself.

And just as CIS members use the ranks they received in the past to undermine the powers of the government today, so the current crop of serving generals use their positions to advance policies that are contrary to the expressed position of the government.

This is nowhere more evident than in the behavior of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria.

Until Israel formed the PLO-controlled PA in 1994, the Civil Administration was responsible for governing Judea and Samaria as the governing arm of the military government that Israel set up in the area after the Six Day War.

In 1996, Israel transferred all Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria to the PA. Since then, the Civil Administration has been responsible only for Area C where all Israeli communities are located and where between 100,000 and 200,000 Palestinians also live.

The question of what the ultimate disposition of Area C will be is the top issue on the national agenda today. The majority of government ministers and the majority of the public support applying Israeli law to all or parts of the area.

Yet while the government debates the issue and formulates policies to advance whatever policies it adopts on this issue, the Civil Administration has for the past several years been acting independently to undermine and constrain the government’s ability to make strategic decisions relating to Area C.

Among other things, the Civil Administration has been independently initiating Palestinian settlement projects in Area C that undermine Israel’s ability to govern the areas. By the same token, the Civil Administration has used its powers to scupper, delay and prevent Israeli construction projects in the area.

The story of the Civil Administration’s rogue policy making was catapulted to the headlines last week when Channel 2 reported that it was advancing a plan to massively expand the Palestinian city of Kalkilya into Area C. Among other things, the plan endangers Israeli communities whose territory abuts the expanded boundaries of Kalkilya advanced by the plan.

Channel 2 reported that the Netanyahu government’s security cabinet had given the Civil Administration a green light to begin construction.

The story caused a political outcry not only from Likud voters but from the security cabinet members themselves. Led by Minister Ze’ev Elkin, the Likud ministers insisted that they had been misled by the Civil Administration which deliberately hid the nature of the plan from them when it brought it to the cabinet for approval.

The ministers’ protests ring true because the Civil Administration has a history of acting in this manner.

In 2008 for instance, the Civil Administration initiated a building scheme in the Jordan Valley that would have taken land from Moshav Tomer to build Palestinian settlements.

The head of the local council complained to the government only to discover that the ministers had no idea what he was talking about. The Civil Administration had undertaken the plan, which undermined Israel’s control over a strategically vital area, without government knowledge or approval.

In contrast, and again against the wishes of the government, the Civil Administration has repeatedly acted to block Israeli construction in Area C. For instance, the IDF insists that no land deal between Israel and Palestinians is final until the IDF approves it. The policy harms Israeli construction in two ways.

First, it gives the Civil Administration the power – which it uses – to delay Israeli construction indefinitely.

Second, by forcing parties to land deals to come forward publicly, the Civil Administration intimidates Palestinian land sellers. They know that if their land deals with Israelis become public they will face execution by the PA.

Returning to Abbas for a moment, the PLO chief may have overplayed his hand by insulting Trump and his senior envoys. All the politicized retired and currently serving Israeli generals together cannot convince Trump to send US tax dollars to a terrorism supporting leader who trashes him and his senior officials. Consequently, there is every reason to believe that the Taylor Force Act will soon be signed into law and the US will end its financing of Palestinian terrorism.

But even if Washington cuts off funding to the PA, Israel is still left to deal with its radicalized generals who exploit their rank to undermine the government.

The best way to end this situation is for the government to shut down the Civil Administration and get the IDF out of the governing business in Judea and Samaria. So long as the government continues to empower unaccountable generals to administer civilian areas instead of its accountable, civilian bureaucracy, we will continue to be confronted with the surreal spectacle of Israeli generals lobbying for Palestinian terrorists.

If the government applies Israeli law to Area C, it can still negotiate with the PLO, just as it has negotiated about the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. But in the meantime, it will remove one of the most corrupting and corrosive forces preying on our generals and our democracy for the benefit of the Israeli and Palestinian residents of Area C alike and indeed for Israel as a whole.

Originally Publised in Jerusalem Post.

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Nikki Haley…Enemy of the Deep State

The strategy of the Deep State and its globalist allies has always been to disconnect governing institutions from the citizens who supposedly have the power to replace their elected officials.  We have seen this in the EU as well as significant parts of the United States Federal government.  No where else has this been more apparent than the State Department’s career bureaucrats and their counterparts in the UN visa vi their treatment of Israel.

A large percentage of US citizens support the State of Israel, yet past administrations have ramrodded the Jewish state at both the UN and in the halls of Foggy Bottom. Part of the reason the Deep State has for targeting the State of Israel is because it provides symbolism of fulfilled Divine promise that inspires people around the world. For the Deep State and many of its globalist partners this hope acts a block against their machinations of world dominance and control.

In steps the Trump Administration, with its sworn purpose to take down the Deep State and “Drain the Swamp.”  While the State Department remains partially in the hands of the Deep State, Trump’s appointment of Nikki Haley to the UN has turned the International organization upside down.

Since becoming the US Ambassador to the UN, Haley has been direct about her support for Israel and her condemnation of the UN’s embedded anti-Israel outlook. During her recent trip to Israel she said the following to Prime Minister Netanyahu after he thanked her for her support.

“You know, all I’ve done is to tell the truth, and it’s kind of overwhelming at the reaction,” Haley said. “It was a habit. And if there’s anything I have no patience for it’s bullies, and the U.N. was being such a bully to Israel, because they could.”

Yet, it’s more than that.  By going after the UN the way she has Haley has essentially put the UN on notice, which takes away one of the main tools from the globalist forces and their Deep State counterparts.

During her trip last week to Israel, Nikki Haley visited the Western Wall. She had this to say:

“My heart is full, and my life will change after the visit,” she wrote. “It was a blessing to experience a holy place with spiritual people full of love. May God bless whoever comes to the Western Wall.”

The Deep State and the globalist forces want to carve up the Holy Land and reverse the liberation of Land of Israel by its rightful owners.  Anyone who sides with the rights of the Jewish people to live within its ancestral homeland has picked a war with the Deep State and has been marked an enemy.  Nikki Haley has chosen her side.

WATCH Nikki Haley at the Western Wall

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Iran Uses Syrian Chaos to Reach Israel

With reports flowing out of Syria that regime forces are close to recapturing Damascus, the situation in the rest of the country remains fluid and chaotic.  So why the fanfare over the successful Damascus operation?  The recapture of Damascus gives the Syrian-Iranian-Russian axis the ability to easily funnel Iranian troops from Shiite areas in Iraq into Syria proper and even up to the Israeli border.

Given the agreement put into place between Russia, Turkey, Syria, and Iran over the four ceasefire zones literally places the border between Jordan and Syria, as well as the Israeli Golan under range of an increasing Iranian troop presence, it is understandable that Israel and even the US is highly reluctant to embrace the agreement signed in Kazakhstan.

With the creation of four safe-zones, the four countries that have signed on have virtually created a no-fly zone for US fighters.  This has implications for two major spheres: Israel and Kurdistan.

Israel has been relying on tacit Russian allowances to fly over and strike shipments from Iran to Hezbollah. It remains to be seen whether Putin will continue to allow this.  Given the fact Iranian troops are increasing their presence on Israel’s Northern border, an absence of this agreement puts Israeli security in jeopardy.

The Turkish ceasefire zones are all focused on forcing the US-back Kurds from the Turkish border.  Without US -air support and supplies, the Kurds can be pushed back.  Unfortunately they have been the best armed force in combating ISIS.  With Kurds being threatened by Turkey, ISIS can and will grow in Northern Syria, after all it was Turkey that had been their original patron.

With Trump distracted in North Korea and domestic troubles, his team has been slow to react to what has become a fait accompli of near Russian-Iranian control over most of Syria. This not only imperils Israel and Kurdistan, but the broader Middle East.

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Beware of the Third American Revolution

Nearly 241 years ago a small band of colonists rose up and declared independence from the mightiest empire of their times.  They fought for self-representation and a government that would be built on power vested to it by the citizens. Their deeply held belief  that rights do not flow from Kings, but rather the Almighty Creator himself seemed to carry them to a predestined victory.

The American Revolution was more than just a formation of a new country.  The revolution was a revolution in human spirit.  No more would humanity be governed by earthly rulers, but by the innate realization that all of us are G-d’s stewards.

America continued on.  It fought a Civil War, abolished slavery, built a continental wide railroad, and expanded to reach the Pacific Coast.  Yet, at a time when Americans seemed to be unstoppable, something happened, a course change was secretly injected into the system.

President Woodrow Wilson did not see the founding fathers’ vision, of a country that would be set apart from others, but rather an America that would be reinterwoven into the fabric of European progressivism.

“It was the progressives who fashioned the new sciences of society, founded the modern American university, invented the think tank, and created the American administrative state, institutions still defined by the progressive values that formed and instructed them,” writes Leonard, a research scholar at Princeton’s Council of the Humanities.

It was with President Wilson and a Democratic Congress that progressive policies were first inserted into the American lexicon.  These policies saw an ever-growing administrative state that would be governed by intellectuals. Nevermind that Wilson and his cohorts were avowed racists, their progressive liberalism served as the foundation for the modern-day American left.

From Wilson’s initial overhaul, to FDR’s federal overtake of state’s rights through a variety of national programs, American citizens began to forget what it meant to govern one’s self. America fought in two world wars and created a global coalition that held out against the Soviet Union, yet Wilsonian ideals would eventually shine at their fullest post Cold War where a truly New World Order began to take shape.  Gone was the idea that America was an exceptional nation. No more did the American worker get first priority.

By the time of the 2016 elections, the American middleclass was dying as its economic engine ground to a halt do to over taxation, cheap foreign goods, and endless regulations the administrative state had piled on.

Trump, The Second Revolution

The 2016 elections were a watershed in American politics. For just over a century Americans had suffered from progressive policies that had led to a break down in the simple concept of a government for the people and by the people.  Americans had enough and they elected Trump to restore what once was. Drain the Swamp they called it. Trump and his base understood that America at its core was good, yet America had been hijacked by a bureaucracy gone mad and drunk with its own power.

Trump won a surprise victory against the elites in both parties and around world.  His young presidency has given hope that government for the people and by the people can still exist.  Not surprisingly the adminsitrative state has begun to fight back as the Trump administration seeks to wipe out 104 years of Wilsonian progressivism and return the USA back to its core principles.

Obama and the Globalists, the Third Revolution

With every revolution there is a counter revolution bound up within it.

A Daily Mail report says the following:

‘He is going to use his immense popularity with the half of the country that identifies as liberals and progressives,’ said the Obama family source. ‘Millions of Americans are energized and ready to take to the streets to oppose Trump, but they need to be organized and have their anger focused and directed.

The report indicates that Obama and his closest aides will use his residence, just blocks away from the White House as the “nerve center” for the upcoming insurgency.

With Soros funded chaos sure to erupt in the Spring and Summer, Obama will publicly lead a civil uprising against Trump, potentially tearing the country in two. Whether Obama succeeds in forcing Trump out right away depends on how much the middle of the road citizen buys into the left’s false narrative.  Trump’s push back and claim of wiretapping is the first attack back against Obama’s Deep State machine pumping out false evidence against Trump and his administration.

If the Republicans decide to turn on Trump chaos will reign and anything is possible.

A Hint of the Russian Revolution is in the Air

Most people assume Lenin and his followers simply over threw the Czar, but this was not the case.  After Nicholas abdicated, the Duma (parliament assumed control).  The Prime Minister was a young Alexander Kerensky who promoted free speech, freed political prisoners, and attempted to institute a variety of reforms.

While the Duma controlled the official levers of power another group played a dual leadership role. The Soviets controlled the rest of the country through a network of groups.  This dual control where the democratic forces within the Duma controlled the traditional levers of power and Lenin and his followers controlling the street as a sort of Shadow Government existed for about eight months until Lenin’s Bolshevik’s over threw the provisional government.

After Lenin’s Shadow Government took full control, there was a last attempt at a counter-revolution by democratic forces against Lenin, but this failed and the Soviet Union was born.

The similarities between USA 2017 and Russia 1917 are eerie.  Trump’s counter attack against the Obama/Soros Shadow government is a good first step in pushing back against the Deep State insurgency, but if the Trump administration believes it can resign itself to fightng the Shadow Government with Tweets, the 45th President may be doomed to be the country’s last.