Good Bye Queen Hillary

Hillary Clinton stepped down as the United States Secretary of State, one of the highest positions in the American government. Where any mere mortal would have left in disgrace after the Benghazi tragedy, Ms. Hillary is leaving to high accolades and tributes walking out on a golden runway festooned with rose pedals, rousing peals of applause and graciously kind, loving tributes written into the books for history. This was the only possible result after the grueling and deeply probing questions reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition, well, almost. The truth be told, the Benghazi Hearings were closer to a Hollywood Roast than an honest inquiry. Ms. Clinton did not appear for questioning as much as the members of Congress either gave her the praises she demanded or were dealt with first by Hillary’s notorious anger driven tongue and later by her minions of the fourth estate. Ms. Hillary swept through the hearings leaving cheering fans and devastated opponents in her wake. She leaves for her retirement where she can write her memoirs and relax with her life-long partner in crime, President Bill Clinton.

We should be so fortunate. The initial rumblings of the 2016 Hillary for President campaign have already begun with the echoes from the chorus in the liberal press and protestations and eerie warnings from the other end. The most interesting thing about the whole affair is thus far we have not heard from the Queen herself as to her plans. Actually, this too may be part of her campaign, to allow the press and commentators to exalt or criticize as to their own proclivities as she sits quietly biding her time until the appointed time. The result of the coverage, whether supportive or damning, will provide her the one item she is unable to provide without declaring her intentions, her name constantly in the news cycle. We all know the old saying, any coverage is good coverage. This will be a definitive test of that adage. Meanwhile, Ms. Hillary can take a while out of the spotlight giving any bad press or other problems that might taint the Clinton name are dealt with and cleansed from the public memory. After all, the first volley in the Hillary campaign has already been given, it was the 60 Minutes powder-puff interview given Hillary and President Obama.

So, will Queen Hillary be the candidate to continue the Democrat Regal Presidency which has been started by President Obama and his many executive orders and circumventing the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution. One way of confirming or denying the idea of a Hillary run for the Presidency is to wait for her to announce her intentions which are what will be demanded of all her conservative detractors. A likely more accurate method would be to carefully watch good ole Bill Clinton and wait for his setting the way for Queen Hillary to return offering herself as the salvation for all the ills that plague the United States. She will have the only solutions and Bill will sell a willing public on that supposed truth. The really big question will be who from the ranks of the Republicans will have the audacity to run against Ms. Hillary? Will it be yet one more Bush and we can have the final Clinton vs. Bush contest? If that be the choice I can predict likely the lowest turnout for a Presidential Election in history.

Beyond the Cusp

What should We Learn from the Benghazi Investigations?

I don’t know about you but I have absolutely no sympathy for Ms. Clinton and she can simply hold her crocodile tears as such antics only serve to make me more angry. I do not want to know who is willing to fall on their sword by taking responsibility. I do not want to hear about the difficulties the situation presented or why executing a rescue was near impossible. The information I am looking for out of these hearings with the grandstanding by some and honest questions from others can be found with one simple question and one honest truth, “Who initiated the order to stand down?” That is all I need to know and once I know where the stand down order originated and who decided that these Americans were expendable and not worth even an attempt of rescuing, then I want to be there for their execution. Anything less would be an injustice and would leave a very wrong message for the world.

If it is allowed that we never are told who turned a cold heart and left those Americans to die in a dark corner of the world calling for help and wondering why they had been abandoned, then we will have sent a message to the world that there is little consequence for murdering Americans even those who hold the highest office in any foreign country which is what an ambassador holds. Not making the heartless scoundrel who watched these Americans die without lifting a finger get off without paying a price and having their name stand to only be whispered scornfully in conjunction with the likes of Benedict Arnold will encourage all other traitors of similar ilk free to perform their unpatriotic smears without fear of paying a price. It is paramount that we find the honest truth about who knew what and who refused to send rescue forces and as much support as could have been mustered and what reason they possibly could give for such dastardly traitorous act of abandonment. And once we have been given the truth and the miscreant has been identified, then we must tear every morsel of  reason for their refusal to provide any assistance, especially as we have since been informed that there were two special swift response units manned up and ready to be on station within two hours, an AC-130 Spectre Gunship ready and warm on a taxiway ninety minutes from Benghazi, and we had two unarmed drones on station watching a six hour plus firefight which included two separate locations and a transit between them and somehow someone deemed it impossible to send any assistance. Criminal is a word lacking in the treasonous and dastardly components necessary to describe the lowlife responsible for allowing four Americans including two highly trained military assets hung out facing superior armed forces yet managing to hold them off and offer heroic defense of the lives they were protecting until their lives had been extinguished.

The information that has been released about the actual siege makes the choice to refuse aid to be beyond questionable and into the realm of was this a set up that had gone wrong. I am loath to chase after rumor mill explanations and conspiracy theories, but the whole situation around the events from the Americans who, for all intents and purposes, appeared to have been sacrificed in order to assure their silence. When it is shown on the FLIR images from observation drones show laser painting of the mortar position which was the principle threat to the position at the safe house, one has to question why knowing that even the smallest of efforts was not permitted. Having a laser painted target only requires one round of smart munitions be it an artillery round, missile or cruise missile fired from a wide variety of platforms such as ships off shore, drones, fighter or other aircraft, or land fired variety missiles or artillery. The questions as to why no support reinforcements were deployed once one is provided with the entire range of actions taken on the ground in Benghazi from the Consulate and at the Safe House and that there was a transit between the two locations which covered approximately two miles along with the fact that there was intelligence from observation assets on location available to those tasked for support lasting for an extended period that there had to be a point where it became obvious even to the most uninformed individual that there was the time, opportunity, and availability of a number of various means of support which would have made a crucial difference and would have possibly saved lives.

Unfortunately, all these hearings will produce is the opportunity for Congressmen and Senators to make grand speeches and ask poignant and piercing questions only to receive deceptive sidestepping of the truth. There will be the admissions of culpability and reasons for inaction explained as the confusion and chaos during the heat of the situation and lack of certain and actionable intelligence which will sound as if much has been disclosed yet nothing new will be said or released. The reasons for Ambassador Stevens being in Benghazi on September 11^th without heavy military escort of all days will remain clouded and uncertain. The suspicions of the Ambassador being in some clandestine operation for the stealthy movement of military assets provided by NATO for rebel use against Gadhafi in order to provide these weapons systems and arms to the Syrian rebels will remain unverified. That will leave the suspicion that the al-Qaeda and other terrorist forces which were a vital part of the Libyan resistance had different ideas and destinations in mind for these weapons and other military assets, namely to go to Hamas in Gaza. There will even be those who will claim that this was a conspiracy gone horribly wrong and that the reason for the stand down order was to allow for the kidnapping of Ambassador Stevens in order to allow for his release to be gained by releasing the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman who was the mastermind behind the first World Trade Center bombing, in a prearranged prisoner exchange. There are always the outstanding, unbelievable and extreme conspiracies behind anything that is either tragic or left with even a smidgen of unexplained actions or lack thereof. All we are going to receive from these investigations in the House of Representatives and the Senate is sound bites for future campaigns, grandstanding representatives, evasions, excuses, prevarications and apparently a sobbing Secretary of State. Well, at least Secretary of State Clinton sobbing on the stand will prepare us for any hearing when the Secretary of State in the hot seat is John Kerry.

Beyond the Cusp

Mr. Abbas Goes to Paris

Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly heading to Paris in order to meet with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as new elected French President Francois Hollande as well as a possibility of meeting with European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton, and the British, German and Norwegian foreign ministers. Along with a group of representatives of several Arab Countries, this virtual cornucopia of diplomatic officials will be in Paris for a “Friends of Syria” meeting in hopes of bridging differences between Arab and Western positions over the Syrian Civil War. Mahmoud Abbas will be in Paris seeking assistance in placing pressure on Israel to surrender to as many of his plethora of unilateral demands as preconditions before he will deign sit and pretend to negotiate before, as was the precedent set by Yasser Arafat, stalking briskly from the negotiations claiming loudly and vehemently he will not continue to be insulted. Of course, should he not achieve gaining the full accommodation of pressuring Israeli compliance with his every demand, then he will still demand for every single precondition his imaginations can fancy accumulating them as each second passes. Saeb Erekat has stated that Mr. Abbas will stress the importance of releasing Palestinian Authority murderer, terror master, bomb maker, and violent jihadist all of whom have the blood of innocent Israeli civilians upon their hands who serve sentences, even those serving numerous life sentences, jailed in Israeli prisons. Maybe a quick look at a short list of some of the preconditions which Mr. Abbas seeks to have the entire world assist him in shoving down Israel’s throat should be up next.

The likely best known one was the one first introduced early in President Obama’s Presidency when President Obama stated that Israel should freeze all building of any sort anywhere in Judea, Samaria or East Jerusalem in order to entice the return of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians to the negotiations. This has never been previously mentioned or even dreamed of in anybody’s wildest imaginations and once stated there was no way in which Mahmoud Abbas or any other member of the Palestinian Authority could hold a position less favorable to the cause of the Palestinians than the President of the United States had shown to be. Under increasing pressures, Prime Minister Netanyahu relented and met the demand placed upon him by President Obama and announced a complete building freeze on Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) but not East Jerusalem maintaining that Jerusalem will remain the undivided Capital City of Israel. The building freeze was not set to be open ended as was initially implied by President Obama in his speech but was set for ten months as a preliminary time frame to observe what developed. What developed was absolutely nothing anywhere near as was claimed would result should Israel simply comply with this one small stipulation. Instead, for almost nine full months all that was heard from both Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and Saeb Erekat, lead negotiator for the Palestinian authority, were a series of additional preconditions and some extremely inventive definitions of the idea of preconditions. The additional preconditions were defined as anything except a demand, simply obligations the Palestinian Authority expected from Israel, steps Israel would need to take to convince the world of their sincerity, investments in the peace process, or steps that are obviously in the interest of the Israelis if they desire peace among other even more twisted definitions depending on which news source you used.

Some of the lesser preconditions can be grouped together for your ease of reading and so your patience is not tested are; pulling all IDF units out of the West Bank leaving the Jewish residents under Palestinian authority protection, permitting the Palestinian authority to import weapons and weapon systems in order to upgrade their capabilities, the repeated demand for prisoner releases of varying numbers or sometimes particular prisoners such as Mustafa and Marwan Barghouti who are both terror masters, and always the final deal-breaker of Right of Return for as many as five and a half million Palestinian refugees. Add to this the continuing claim by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that despite Israel removing every civilian and IDF troop from Gaza that it is still occupied territory. These are in addition to the Palestinian Authority government constant honoring terrorists and terror masters by naming streets, parks, children’s camps, soccer tournaments, public buildings, schools, and numerous other places with great fanfare and publicity. This is also despite the glorification of martyrdom in schools, on television, in film, and in public celebrations. Add to all of this the fact that the Palestinian Authority has yet to modify their Charter by removing its clause demanding the total and complete destruction of the Jewish State or lived up to the vast majority of other obligations and agreements. And the last item is the Palestinian efforts to achieve recognized statehood through whatever route which can be utilized unilaterally such as acceptance into the United Nations, incorporation into United Nations organizations such as UNESCO, thus avoiding negotiations with Israel as stipulated in the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority, like the PLO before it, and Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, have attempted to utilize any deceit, prevarication, avoidance, or any available means to avoid negotiations as there has never been and never will be an honest desire by the Palestinian to make peace as that would require, at least temporarily, recognizing Israeli existence.

What the world needs to understand is that the conflict currently going under the name of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is simply a rebranding of the original Arab-Israeli Conflict which began all the way back near the beginning of the last century. It has had many violence filled events such as the riots in Hevron and Jerusalem in 1922, 1929, 1933, 1936, and 1939. Then there was the first Arab Israeli War which is usually referred to as Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and 1949. There was the Six Day war in 1967 followed by its second staging in 1973. There has been the terror war from the early 1920’s which continues today which too has had some special events. Other than the numerous riots mentioned earlier there was also the founding of the PLO in 1964, three full years before the War of 1967 and any presumably occupied territories, numerous kidnappings, attacks across the northern border by Hezballah, and the near countless rockets launched from Gaza and recently out of the northern Sinai Peninsula. The rebranding of the Arab Israeli Conflict into the Palestinian Israeli Conflict was implemented as the former made Israel to appear to be the weaker side of the conflict and the new moniker placed the Arab cause as the little David fighting the massive Israel Goliath. Do not believe anything has changed. This change came about when the Arab countries, realizing they likely could not defeat Israel in a straight up military versus military war decided to change tactics and try to wear Israel down and eventually either gain the necessary weapons or military strength and abilities to once again try the frontal military conflict route.

Then there is one last item which needs to be understood before any real solution can be implemented. It has never been and will never be for the foreseeable future the Arab, Muslim, Palestinian or whatever name is placed to struggle against Israel idea to settle for anything less than the complete subjugation of the Israeli Jews or the complete annihilation of every Jew in Israel (or, as Hamas has in their Charter, the world). Should by some major mishap the Palestinian find themselves in a position where they have to accept and sign a peace with Israel and establish Palestine, this will not be the end of the conflict. There have been numerous times that both Arab and Muslim leaders as well as Palestinian leaders and spokespeople have stated plainly that even should they attain a state in all of the land lost in the 1967 War, that is just the first stage towards the elimination of the Zionist State. This is almost always said in Arabic or Farsi but on a few rare occasions somebody has slipped and plainly said in English the truth that the only solution acceptable is a Final Solution. All the efforts to establish a Palestinian State are fruitless endeavors which will bear no fruit and will only change the starting point of the eventual next Middle East War when it is thought Israel has been brought low enough for her defeat. That is so very unfortunately the real truth of which everybody prefers to deny and pretend that all these efforts will truly end the drive to undo the founding of the Jewish State. It is simply appallingly amazing that in so much of the world there are calls for removing the Jews from within countries as happened in numerous Muslim countries between 1948 and 1953 yet in many of these same countries they also call for the destruction, or secretly work towards the destruction of Israel, of the only Jewish State. That begs an obvious question, if the Jews should be sent packing from countries where they are a minority and the only Jewish country should be wiped out, then where do these haters pretend that the Jews should live. And yes, that was a rhetorical question put forth simply to provoke thought. One can always hope to point out insanity so that it can be rectified and a real and truthful discussion free of pretenses may take place. Now that is something that would be so very welcome.

Beyond the Cusp