The Offer Israel Must Refuse

 

Thanks to Caroline B. Glick for her article Obama’s Money and Israel’s Sovereignty and her careful and complete dissecting of the Defense Spending Offer from the White House and flushing out the implications. To sum up briefly what Caroline B. Glick related, one should still go read her article as it offers more than stated here, please. The offer is large and fully sufficient presumably providing that nothing too unforeseen might arise. The difficulties stem largely if Israel was in a delicate position where secrecy was required to do a mission for which some tactical backup might become necessary and prudence would require that arrangements be made to procure additional military purchase. Israel would be required to work through the White House and should the White House refuse then there would be no going to Congress and no recourse. Congress would also be prevented from overstepping White House decision nor could Congress alter the program in any manner. Lastly, only the President would be capable of making any adjustments forcing Israel to garner White House approval before any military actions even should Israel be attacked. The final straw is that Israel would no longer be permitted to use United States funding on domestically produced military equipment. This would result in the virtual collapse of Israeli defense spending and research and development.

 

Caroline Glick did not probe deeply in laying blame and delved largely into the ramifications and reasons that the deal must be refused and why she feared the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu would believe he had to accept this deal or face living without any deal and the potential that refusing this deal could lead to an even worse offer coming down the road from the next United States President whether it turn out to be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Rather, we will look at the advantages of not having a deal with the United States with a slightly different slant. The obvious advantage, as Caroline Glick stated, is it would allow for additional jobs as this would require Israel to start producing her own weapons systems, ammunitions and other military related systems, clothing and support vehicles and other requirements. All of that is true and is of great importance but is nothing compared to what it could mean and the advantages those options would produce which are both fascinating and encouraging.

 

One of the first items is that the many anti-rocket, anti-missile and anti-projectiles of all sorts which Israel is currently developing with a number of United States companies such as Raytheon will continue to be developed and any funding required by the United States companies would then be required to come from the United States and any developments and discoveries made by Israeli companies such as IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries) would remain as Israeli property and not automatically licensed to the United States companies working with the Israeli companies unless such were identified in any contract. Israel has likely provided the United States far more technological inventions, discoveries, designs, software programs, software hardware systems and subsystems, sensors, drones, avionics and countless other benefits even down to the most basic and simple as to appear as an obvious means to manage what had been perplexing some of the greatest military development minds in the United States and was solved by an innovative Israeli pilot with a quick trip to an auto parts store. The difficulty escaping all the great minds on both sides of the planet was seeing when somebody is coming up behind an F-16 Jet Fighter in a firefight and the Israeli pilot installed a rally rearview mirror on the Jet choosing one which was aerodynamic so as to reduce drag. If we remember correctly he used the side view mirror of a 1969 Mustang. Sometimes solution just present themselves and those kind are often sourced by the seemingly obvious which never occurred to anyone but were so obvious afterwards. There were still a number of months and numerous modifications to the mirror to justify the million plus probably spent to perfect the aerodynamics as the F-16 does fly a little faster than even the Mustang Mach I Cobra.

 

F16 with After Modification Rear-view Mirrors

 

Looking back at the one large item in the Israeli arsenal, the Merkava Main Battle Tanks, one sees a system which has throughout its numerous renditions held its own in trials against comparable heavy battle tanks from Europe, Russia and the United States. Israel has made some astounding developments in rifle and sidearm technologies. IMI Israeli Military Industries has introduced the Iron Fist System for protecting anything from a tank to a truck to a bunker and anything else as shown below in the video. The second video is about the Delilah missile which is a very special air-to-ground with standoff and loiter capabilities, and has ship or ground launch variants. Israeli weapons and weapons systems are so diverse and varied that Future Weapons ended up dedicating a week’s worth of shows, many of which can be found on You Tube. They vary from such simple ideas as a gun which can be fired around corners using a camera looking down the sited and a small screen to the Iron Dome missile intercept systems and a defensive weapon which detects incoming RPGs and literally slices the nose off the projectile defusing it through decapitation. And Israel has had a long list of weapons and weapons improvements. It was the Israelis who took the Sherman Tanks from World War II and swapped out the engine for a supercharged diesel engine and swapped the underpowered main gun with a modernized 105mm cannon firing high speed projectiles, a system given to the United States extending the useful life of the Sherman Tank with what became known as the Super Sherman. Israel has been made by treaties to share most of their technology with the United States who immediately use the best and upgrade it for their troops. This sharing has proven not to be a two way street as much as the price Israel pays in order to be favored when the United States feels generous.

 

 

 

There is an argument put forth that the United States has always been there for Israel from 1948 on. That is a nice sounding lie if you are an American looking to feel good but a pernicious lie which many Israelis find a bitter pill to swallow. That is because it is such a lie which leaves out ignoring much of the real history. The United States took a hands off approach to the Genocidal Arab invasions into Israel in 1948 placing an arms embargo on the Jewish State and it is claimed also the Arab States except that many America Arms ended up on the Arab nations’ sides as war surplus was sold to these nations though denied to Israel. After the cease-fire lines were set did the United States finally sell Israel some Sherman Tanks and other weapons demanding that any improvements Israel might make to the weapons had to be shared with the United States. It was not until after the Six Day War that the United States started fully backing Israel. This is claimed was due to the Israeli victory in that war and had nothing to do with preventing Israel from completing their trials and manufacture of the Lavi Jet fighter which could have competed with the F-16 in world arms trade which Israel agreed to stop development in exchange for a sweet weapons deal of F-16s and F-15s and a promise of supply when needed. President Obama is not the first President to withhold weapons which Israel was due during a war as President Nixon played that game on the advice of Henry Kissinger so as to make Israel more pliable in any solution to the Yom Kippur War. It has long been the United States’ position, or at least the State Department’s position, that Israel be squeezed back within its 1949 armistice lines and possibly further to the United Nations’ 1947 division that the Arabs refused, choosing invading instead. The United States had been as much a hindrance as an ally when Israel has been in the lurch and needing help now and not in a few weeks. Such situations have almost always been used by the United States to apply pressures to prevent a complete Israeli victory and save the Arab nations and please the Saudis always trying to make Israel as weak as possible as the Israelis will manage another win and if not return to wander the Earth hated and despised, blamed for every ill and hunted down and murdered whenever things went poorly. That is how friendship is defined.

 

Simply put, this new arms and military support doctrine is yet another means by which the United States is attempting to place Israel between a rock and the Presidency where the President will be in a position to literally all but disarm Israel making her far more pliable and thus being able to make Israel sit up and pay mind to her overlords. This is much more than a bad deal, this is slavery to the whims of the American Presidents, something that President Obama like Presidents Nixon, Eisenhower, Truman and all before him have proven cannot be trusted to be our friends as much as the great equalizers. Israel cannot afford equal any longer as rockets make size more important than ever before. Perhaps it is time to cut ties with the United States, finish out any agreements and become a lone broker of our future and go it alone if that is what it will take. We are sure Israel can design and build any weapons system of the future as we have designed so many for others in the past. Going it alone would provide Israel an advantage in employment, technology, and weapons systems which the rest of the world could only dream of possessing. That is our faith in Israel’s ability to shine on her own and find the means to surpass anything she might have achieved attached at the hip to the United States State Department, an Arabist institution if there ever was one and a definite hater of all things Israel. No, we need to cut the umbilical cord as it is way past time to do so. We broke from French partnership and now we need make our relations with the United States into a two way street where our minds and their developments will bear a cost and not be taken freely by treaty any further. We will make discoveries and developments for us and by us and in the end built by us and sold if we choose to whom we choose and not be a subsidiary of the United States arms market. That should be the future of Israel and not a vassal state. This is our path for the future as the United States proved untrustworthy once again and the next time might prove fatal and thus cannot be permitted even the chance of destroying our lives and worse, the lives of our children and their children. This deal should be answered, “Thanks but no thanks.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Obama’s Massive Budget Proposes but Misses All Marks

 

The Congress will be debating a budget which manages to miss a number of vital areas while spending massive amounts on failed programs and is designed to expand dependence on government programs, expanding programs designed to replace the need for employment forming a self-enforced permanent reliance. Many of the new permanently unemployed who have completely resigned to their current fate and have adapted to a lifestyle more conducive to a retired person complete with a number of friends in the same lifestyle and probably virtual on-line friends in a game or chat room who meet every day for their entertainment used to fill the day while some take on a lifestyle of a self-imposed solitary confinement with hopefully a friend or relative who makes occasional contact allowing for at least a minimal level of human interaction. These are people who have fallen through the cracks finding government programs for their support and sustenance. They know where to get food and live either with their parents or other relative or with a group of man living in a rented apartment or in Section 8 Housing. These are people who have accepted that they have failed and have little if any motivation to improve their lot in life. There will be funds for these people and if they vote we can guess which party is their choice as their existence depends on government teat to nurture them. If only our military personnel were so well cared for, but one has to have their priorities after all.

 

This budget will needfully be augmented by whoever wins the Presidential contest next fall, and that cannot come fast enough. This makes this budget President Obama’s final shot at remaking the United States into nothing more than another demilitarized socialist European failing state. Other than the first budget he proposed and got passed by a Democrat Congress which had complete control over both houses, Congress also passed his next spending increase in a supplemental budget in some way with almost every piece of legislation adding to the demand for more revenue from a tax strapped and wounded economy which groaned and struggled under the ever increasing burden. It seemed the only places cash strapped under the Obama years was national defense and the space program. To be fair the space program appears to be the whipping boy of every politician whose aim it is to reel in a runaway budget. Have you ever noticed that the NASA budget, when it comes time to make cuts, is always given in billions of dollars and never like other parts which are mentioned in percentages of spending? There is a reason which becomes crystal clear once you understand the actual size of the NASA budget. The dirty little secret is that the NASA budget has seldom reached beyond 2 1/2 % and ever since the end of the moon race has never cleared 1 1/2 % and usually hovered around ¾ of 1% of the budget, that is 0.75% which is almost nonexistent but when said in billions of dollars it sound enormous, or ginormous as a very young child once exclaimed while watching television. So, on we go to other budget realities.

 

The defense budget, it’s a monstrous piece of the budget, right? Wrong. Actually the peace time military usually runs on under 9% of the budget. The one wasteful part of the budget is the now approaching 25% of the budget which is used to pay the interest on the national debt, the interest which means the actual debt never gets paid down. This is even worse than paying your monthly minimum on your charge cards as even those include payment beyond just “servicing” your debt. We all understand that should we not charge more on our cards that this minimum payment will eventually drop to zero as we will have paid off our debt in full. Not the Federal Government, they pay what we would call a default payment where they pay off the interest and allow the actual principle to remain untouched thus they could pay the interest rate forever and never have the debt grow any smaller. I hear you and you are correct, that is no way to run a budget. Still this paying off only the interest will force deficit spending as there would be no other manner of paying off the debt. So, that payment may have grown since the last time we came across the actual numbers on that debt demand. Another 30% goes to all the benefits and Social Security based payments and another 30% on corporate welfare and the remainder which is, let’s do the math, NASA and the Defense budgets equals 10% plus debt service is 25% and support payments combined is 60% and we are at 95% and not even begun to talk about simply running the government we would be wise to end our outlays and use that remaining 5% to cover any unexpended necessities which may come around, but no, that amount is eaten up largely by the operating payment which easily found uses for any remaining cash as long as it is not used to pay off principle of the debt as that would make sense.

 

With the budget covering all the massive increases, as it has since his first Obama budget gave unfathomable increases that set the tone for the remainder of budgets, government spending is, as logic would dictate, out of control. This was an intentional ploy as now the cost of living increases themselves was sufficiently large that many agencies have been strapped for ways to spend their new levels of funding; but still each was then sufficiently charged with new outlays that their percentage of the budget increased well beyond that 5% limitation. That paltry 5% was insignificant when compared to the demands that legislation would place on the government such as added programs and the expansion of programs such that they were tasked with making payments sometimes to larger and larger sectors of society. One easily provided example was the lengthening of the time one could collect unemployment before being dropped from the roles. The same was occurring at the welfare offices as more people found themselves eligible for added benefits and the increase in people found to be disabled, all of these categories add up and very soon one is talking about real outlays running smack against deficit spending and an increased debt. The worrisome item is how much additional outlays will be required for the military to continue to operate at a level well in advance of other nations who, such as China and Russia, are attempting to supplant the United States as the hegemon. Russia is doing exactly that in the Middle East and Eastern Europe while China is targeting the Western Pacific Ocean and Asia.

 

The two main problems facing the United States will require the next President to address two areas and decide exactly what they intend to do to mitigate the problems. The first and potentially lesser of the problems is simply supporting the military and restoring it with additional funding to cover the development and training of the soldiers on new and more advanced equipment. The F-22 Raptor should be put back into production and the full rostrum originally intended should be resumed. There are a number of other areas where upgrades or replacement is necessary or approaching at an unanticipated rate. One such item is space defense which would protect vital satellites from attack, especially ground based attacks. The other would be an overhaul of the weapons utilized by the military. Improved individual weapon systems and squad defense systems need upgrading or replacement. A new infantry weapon is desperately needed and the new weapon will need to be sufficient to fire a round which will penetrate the personal armor currently used by other militaries and many terrorist groups who have been able to acquire such defensive systems. Another replacement, actually supplemented, is the ability to project force overseas from within the United States to any point on the map within four hours. There has been a plan for a space plane which involves a low earth orbit to be attained and then a controlled reentry would place a squad of soldiers anywhere required. A coordinated launch of sufficient numbers of the crafts could relocate entire companies and even brigades and have them operational within three hours, comfortably within the requirements. New armor, specifically heavy and moderate tanks and the design of an armored personnel carrier (APC) which is mine resistant and adaptable enough to perform transport of any company or brigade troop safely and with relative comfort and a seating capacity for thirty-five men and their equipment. ROV and self-sufficient robotic systems should be urgently placed at the front of DARPA priorities thus leading to fast track readiness for these systems which are required for multiple tasks.

 

 

Super Soldier Outfitted with Helmets, Reactive Body Armor, Unit Identification,
Full Battle Field Interface, Text to Unit and Individual, Drone Interface,
Full Level Integration from Unit to Command, Exo-Skeleton Strength Assist,
Enemy Positions Known and Suspected, Unit and Command View What Soldier Sees

 

 

Above the rebuilding of military hardware, power projection, logistics at all levels; the modern warfare future infantry soldier systems need full field testing and provability of aims which include integrating the soldier in the field with access to the same information as command and control is looking at plus gives them locations of all friendlies in the area of operation as well as known and suspected enemy locations and demarking landmarks as known cleared, unknown or known enemy occupied. The systems also permit the squad or platoon to spread over a larger area as each man knows the position of the unit to their right and left and allows for moving inline and giving orders, warnings or other pertinent or mission critical information through test allowing for quiet movement in possible enemy areas. These systems also link to drones, aerial and ground based, with both camera view and location scanned. This also gives command a better view of where assets on the ground actually are and they thus are not depending on “they should be here by now” and other inaccuracies. These systems being given testing by trial in mock training situation making them mission tested and ready to deploy should we require boots on the ground, and if the President does not desire boots on the ground, American troops are versatile if nothing else, they can wear sneakers and if that is too formal they could try wearing flip-flops but movement would be slowed.

 

The other area which is vital for the United States to address as it is also quite necessary for the world economy as well. The United States debt ceiling must be lowered and the debt decreased. This is not payment on the debt as it is now used, namely paying the interest payment and not touching the principle except to raise it half way through the year and then bumping it up every six weeks as you pass continuing resolution and refusing to pass a budget such that nobody can keep track of spending and the debt can be adjusted every couple of weeks as another extension of the budget with a ten percent increase over the last continuing resolution as we have to allow for a little manageable debt. This has been one of President Obama’s greatest deceits, the creeping debt ceiling where every continuing resolution grants the President the power to raise the debt ceiling an apparently insignificant amount always given as a percentage of GDP and never on actual billions or tens of billions of dollars, one billion dollars is one fourth of one percent, 0.25% or 1/4% (all if my math is remotely accurate), which appears insignificant until somebody breaks the news that that is half of the NASA budget which was considered wasteful. The other matter is these continuing resolutions pile up until you have as many as ten and always at the least five so we will give you the increase if there are merely seven continuing resolution each increasing the debt ceiling by 0.25%. Such an insignificant amount results in increasing the debt ceiling by a whopping 1.75% increase which if the debt is at $10,000,000 then at years end it would be over $10,725,000 which is a lot more than a simple one quarter of one percent raise they claimed they made because they made that increase multiple times. The actual increase from a ¼ % increase one needs to multiple 1.0025 times itself as many times as it was complimented thus making the formula for the actual increase to be (1.0025)n where n=the number of continuing resolutions. The debt ceiling being raised is probably the greatest threat to the future economy which means a threat to any military presence and influence over the world the United States would be financially capable of sustaining.

 

President Obama could be considered the John Lenin, not the Vladimir Lenin though that argument could be made, where he only added one verse to the song Imagine:

Imagine there is no America,
forcing her morals and opulence upon the world,
its catastrophic if it happens,
it’s easy if you try,
just look back to 1919,
when the system failed and left much in disarray.

For those confused, 1919 saw the greatest drop in the stock market value and almost all industry froze expecting a very long, long, long winter and governments were in a panic over what to do. They discussed nationalizing industry as they had misread the populace’s demands, and then there was the imposition of standards and regulations such that government and industry would cooperate. There was no upper limit to proposals and that was the magic. Every couple of days some economist played out the reasons for the crash and the required steps necessary to repair the problem such that it never occurs again. No two were alike as to what to do. Governments in Europe and the United States as well as elsewhere which were struck by the economic crunch debated and debated then debated further for quite a while. There was never a consensus and the government appeared as frozen as the economy and the crisis continued for almost a year and a half without government intervention to save the day. Finally the crisis calmed and reason prevailed and the government did that which was best, absolutely nothing beyond making great and historic speeches which nobody today remembers. The recovery came completely free of any government actions and quite probably because of no government action. The worst economic crisis which the history books refuse to cover was not in 1929 or anywhere through the 1930’s and that disaster only affected the United States where the government took immediate and necessary actions while in Europe the government, as in 1919, debated until the economy recovered on its own in about eighteen months while the United States went from one cure to another like a fish floundering out of the water. Will we ever learn, nope, that can be proven by asking random people simple question concerning something not taught any longer, civics. Simple questions like what are the three branches of government, how many members in the House of Representatives, how many electors in the Electoral College. My favorite is to take a copy of the Declaration of Independence modernized version and tell people you are collecting signature such that this document will need to be voted upon and potentially become adopted by the government but you need signatures to meet some set number. Watch the people freak out and call you so many varied and different names such as fascist, anarchist, communist and any number of other things all meant as pejoratives and insult.

 

Lastly, to make a few comments on this fall’s Presidential elections in the United States. The person elected to office will be initially critical to Israel. The growing crisis in Europe over the refugees will result inevitably in violence like never witnessed before. The reactions will propel the world onto yet another conflagration where the ending volley will come as a response to Iranian nuclear strikes on the United States. When communications break down in the usual levels and the conflict has proceeded to a point where a conflagration is sure to follow, the fleet commanders out to sea in submarines and surface vessels and all the bases around the world will do as their letters of command instruct, to the best of their ability determine who or plural who was/were responsible for the attack which broke off their communications links with all commands and take whatever measures are possible to mitigate the situation. If the nuclear submarines, boomers, determine or are informed that nuclear weapons were utilized in an assault on the United States, they will launch their missiles in order to eradicate the enemy which thusly destroyed the United States. Some nations believe that the United States is no different than them and only has a few number of vessels not in harbor safe and sound rather than roaming all points in the globe lurking in the depths awaiting commands and when not receiving such assuming that their bases were destroyed so they would contact the ranking officer outside the mainland and receive their new orders. These orders would take into consideration the launch point and nation behind the launch or assisting these attackers anywhere on the planet and launch nuclear Armageddon upon them such that there be nothing left for the twelfth Imam to come save. As the old commercials used to say, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” This version would be along the lines of, “It’s not survivable to fool with America” as her assets around the globe will kill you very completely. In conclusion, if the United States can instead of policing micro-aggressions at home and inspecting their navels, would instead look at the real and serious threats around the globe and address them in some assertive manner, then they would allow the real threats to be known and scheduled for destruction immediately and completely with no reservations or considerations for their populations, and should target and eliminate by any means necessary any credible and identifiable threats from abroad as they likely targeted locations which would directly affect families and friends back home. The American military need only break things and then simply advise that remaining population that they correct their governance and attitudes about all things of immediate concern otherwise the American military will return, break everything and give the survivors the same challenge, and repeating this cycle as long as necessary until any new governance poses no discernable threat to the United States or her allies. But there is the definite possibility the next American presence in the world will more appear as weak-willed and incompetent governance based on the people making the call through their elected representatives which if weak-willed would lead to their electing their own representatives for all the wrong reasons and falling for flashy commercials and tired old promises made every election cycle. America is, as Ronald Reagan pointed out, the last best hope for freedom in the world and that was correct. What he got wrong was should America as the beacon of democracy die, there will continue to be a beacon for democracy as there is another which can carry the seed though would be pressed to spread it through more than a value preserved and ready for when men’s souls yearn for freedom and seek within them such fortitude to risk all to fulfill their dream. Israel can be that spark but the nations of the world will need to provide the fuel that will light the fires of hope, freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and a will to risk everything they have to give their children the freedom they must in turn preserve. Freedom is a small flickering flame which can be fueled to burn so brightly, but also will become merely glowing embers which soon turn charcoal black and give off little if any heat unable to rekindle the flames. Those embers of freedom are currently losing their heat throughout Europe and America is trailing not all that far behind. Time is limited but ripe for a new burst of freedom; the next elections may be the determining factor between freedom and hopelessness engulfing much of the world. Will men and women realize and answer the challenge.

 

Beyond the Cusp