Please see my new article in The Times of Israel, Legitimate Use of Landmines for Israel-Gaza Border.
Israel should consider use of landmines to secure its border from tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists that seek daily to overrun the border and murder the citizens of the sovereign State of Israel.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Wow, it just seems like there is no getting away from Washington, D.C. politics!
Even here in beautiful Florida, I ran into this caricature of former President Obama in some street art downtown.
Man, isn’t it enough that he empowered the Axis of Evil Iran and North Korea; left Syria and Ukraine to rot in bloody civil war and to kneel beneath the will of the Russians; ignored the Sino military buildout in the South China Sea, was lax on radical Islamists, ISIS, and global terrorism; abandoned America’s allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the gulf nations; and let’s not forget that he literally doubled our national debt to $20 trillion!
What was once an admirable Democratic party is still reeling today from the embrace of leadership from behind, disengagement, weakness, and blatant anti-Semitism.
Like Forrest Gump says, life is not a bowl of cherries or box of chocolates, especially when failed leaders do the wrong things and hurt the country and their party. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So as the saying goes…
It’s not what you know, but who you know!
Relationships, connections, and networks are critical for all of us to work together and get things done.
And sure, it’s good to have some reliable people in your corner who know you and can speak good about who you are, what you represent, and what you’re doing.
However, let’s face it, there are some people out there that take advantage and don’t just have advocates, but rather protectors, and it’s a way for those who may be unqualified, unsavory, and incompetent–as individual–to sustain themselves.
Frankly, some of these people should never be in their jobs and should never be a leader over anything or anybody–but they are enabled, because of who and not what they know or are able to do.
Whether it’s the Peter Principle or bullies and those without a working moral compass or sometimes it seems even a conscience, it can be very scary at times for what suffices as leadership in many organizations.
Yes, of course, Thank G-d for the many good, well-meaning, and hardworking folks that make getting up in the morning as well as going into the office, worthwhile.
But for those that hide behind the skirts of others, so that they can get away with things that they should never ever be getting away with…well those are not fruitful relationships being maintained, but rather caustic ones that radiate concentric circles of toxicity to organizations, people, and mission.
People know it when they see it–because it stinks from the stench of bad apples, bullying, disengagement, lack of accountability and ultimately failure.
We desperately need each person to perform and to band together as an A-Team.
However, sink or swim–as individuals, each person in their own based on their conscience and contribution without a phony mask of a protectorate accomplice. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So after years of brutal war in Syria and use of chemical weapons of mass destruction…
Obama and Kerry did nothing!
And the result has literally been rivers of blood in Syria.
Obama and Kerry could have fired the warning shots–as President Trump just did 79 days into his new administration–but Obama and Kerry choose weakness and inaction.
The result of the Obama administration’s inaction is that Russia has now comfortably moved and settled into Syria and that 500,000 Syrians are dead, 13.5 million require humanitarian assistance, 6 million are internally displaced, and 4.8 million refugees have fled across the borders.
Contrary to all who have accused President Trump of being complicit with Russia, instead we now see in him a leader who in fact stands up for what is right to Russia and despots like Syria’s Assad.
Perhaps the real person complicit with the Russians and Iranians was Obama who let them ride roughshod over human rights and over America.
In complicity was not President Trump, but Obama secretly whispering to the Russians and caught on an open mic: “After the election, I will have more flexibility”–to do what Americans obviously wouldn’t want me to do.
With regards to Syria’s chemical weapons, Kerry falsely stated to the American people:
However, the slaughter continued for years and we continue to see chemical weapons used again this week with horrific pictures of men, women, and children brutally murdered in the streets of Syria.
But the weakness, disengagement, and leadership from behind from Obama and Kerry is hopefully behind us now.
Stay tuned…next up is the phony deal that Obama and Kerry made with “Axis of Evil” Iran and the do-nothing with North Korea that has continued to lead them to a nuclear ICBM that can reach America!
So as we will soon start the holidays of Passover and Easter, we know that only G-d can make rivers of white water or of red blood flow mercifully or justly, but Obama and Kerry are the ones complicit in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Syria that they could’ve stopped, but didn’t.
My bet is that we are looking at a semi-major international confrontation over the next few years.
The bend over backwards for our enemies is over.
Terrible and unenforceable deals are shameful history.
Cyberattacks and hacking will not be treated as the cost of doing business in the 21st century.
Buzzing of our ships and planes won’t be tolerated anymore.
Letting other nations take what they want in Georgia, Crimea, Syria, and the South China Sea is finished.
Watching helplessly the nuclear proliferation and buildup of the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction by Iran and North Korea won’t go unanswered.
Radical Islamic terrorism is not a dirty word anymore and we will bring the fight to the enemy in a bigger and more serious way.
Our defense and that of our allies won’t be treated lightly and we will not retreat in the face of evil.
No one wants war, everyone wants peace, but unless we stop the aggression against us once and for all, the drumbeats of war will only get louder and more ominous.
Set the boundaries and enforce them before the all the red lines are crossed and a real and highly dangerous confrontation becomes inevitable.
Peace through strength is far preferable than war because of disengagement, weakness, and leadership from behind.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So in the games that nations play, spy games is #1 on the hit parade.
Of course, it’s about using information to get a strategic advantage.
It runs the gamut from pure espionage in terms of stealing state secrets and intellectual property to conducting stealthy subversive acts to undermine enemies and competitors.
Whatever spies do, it’s all about compromising assets…whether they be human, information, or critical infrastructure.
From turning patriots into traitors, words into info warfare, or critical infrastructure in trojan horses ready to im/explode…whatever leads to getting the upper-hand or advantage.
What one nation comes to rely on for their sustainment and survival is instead exploited and turned against them like a trojan horse or modern-day malware.
And with people, using money, sex, ideology, compromising material (Kompromat), or threats against loved ones–it’s simply about appealing to either opportunism or extortion.
So truly defense means protecting not only what before one’s eyes, but also what in the rear and at the flanks.
When the over 21 million personnel records and background investigations where stolen from OPM on virtually all federal employees (civilian, military, and intelligence personnel) a door was left open and the demon is still hiding and waiting to cross the threshold, infiltrate, exfiltrate, and compromise.
As an society that meaningfully values an open and transparent democracy, we can perhaps too easily become lured or lax to common sense safeguards and vigilance, but that does not excuse negligence, incompetence or stupidity.
Rich people and countries around the world can unknowingly falter by becoming overly comfortable and full of themselves…to the point where many don’t fully care about their jobs or their country, as they sit in their mansions, designer clothes, and with busting bellies.
From the need to vastly improve our competencies in cyberwarfare to defending ourselves from a tidel wave of global terrorism to upgrading the U.S. nuclear triad against resurgent superpowers and dangerous rogue dictators, we have let our guard down to compromise.
Is expelling 35 Russian diplomats an effective strategy against their technical attempts to subvert our free and democratic elections or does it just underscore how vulnerable we continue to be?
When as a country and with our leadership, we decide to get serious rather than stay scared and war weary then we will not only stand firm again, but fight against weakness and compromise of ourselves. 😉
(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)
The latest salvos of U.S. anger, frustration, and temper tantrums are not helpful to achieving peace in the world.
We are not dealing with children and should not treat foreign countries and leaders “with disdain and disrespect” or with bias, hate, and underling anti-Semitism.
Nor should we get on our soapbox high and mighty and “lecture” others, especially when we ourselves have been grossly deficient and derelict.
Over the last 8 years:
We let 500,000 Syrians be massacred, including the very rebels that we were supposedly supporting, and allowed many to be killed with prohibited chemical weapons (violating our definitive “red line”)!
We let Ukraine be attacked and Crimea be stolen!
We let Russian nuclear-capable weapons be stationed on the border of NATO.
We let millions of refugees stream across the Middle East and world homeless and helpless.
We let the world’s #1 sponsor of terrorism, Iran, become a licensed nuclear power, extend their Caliphate across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen–while swarming and buzzing our ships and taking our sailors hostage and humiliating them.
We let North Korea advance it’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
We let China build and militarize the South China Sea and threaten freedom of navigation of the seas, and let them steal our drone in International waters.
We let our ambassador to Libya and his associates be murdered.
We let the President of the Philippines call our President a “son of a whore.”
We let ISIS rampage and murder across the globe in countless terror attacks, while we called them “workplace violence” and traffic accidents.
We let divisiveness seep into and poison our own cities, communities, people, and even against law enforcement, and politicized everything stagnating our our country and making us fall further behind in the world from education to life expectancy.
We abandoned those seeking democracy, freedom, and human rights from the Green Revolution in Iran to the Arab Spring across the Middle East.
And the list goes shamefully on and on.
But what’s possibly even worse is that while we failed the world over, we are arrogant and nasty to others betraying our friend and allies in one-sided resolutions that ignore the scrounge of terrorism, deadly attacks, Anti-Semitism as well as with horrible deals with Iran that threaten their very existence.
While we continue to sit in America, on land forcibly and violently taken from the Native American Indians, having brutally enslaved for hundreds of years African Americans, abused women and treated them as lessor in role, voting, and dignity, interned Japanese Americans and twice dropped the Atom Bomb on civilian cities, what right do we have to lecture anyone?
Yes, we dole out billions to nations around the world, for what we want whether in terms of allies, voting blocks, military cooperation, intelligence, or because of religious convictions, but that does not give us the right to arrogantly and bulling tell others or try to force them how to live in their neighborhoods and with the threats facing their people.
While we did nothing, we spoke a great deal trying in vain to force our will on others, and the failures that abound are a reflection of just that leadership from behind, hypocrisy, and hubris. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
What a way to handle global leadership…all you have to say is, just “Cut it out!” and your job is done.
– Cyber attacking the U.S. democratic election, invasion of Crimea, and encroaching on NATO with nuclear capable missiles…just cut it out!
– Vast destruction of Aleppo including hospitals, schools, and markets, killings, refugees, and humanitarian crisis, and the dangerous use of chemical weapons on civilians…just cut it out!
– China stealing our drone and militarizing the South China Sea…just cut it out!
– North Korea testing advanced nukes and ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe and America and threatening to use them…just cut it out!
– Iran taking our sailors captive, humiliating them, buzzing our warships, and violating the nuclear arms deal…just cut it out!
– Abandoning our friends and allies and befriending our enemies sworn to kill us and not even being able to say the words, “Radical Islamist”…just cut it out!
– Spiraling divisiveness, rioting in our inner cities, and cycles of racial and police violence…just cut it out!
– An unsustainable Obamacare with double digit rising rates and decreasing insurance choices (many localities with only 1)…just cut it out!
– Doubling of the U.S. national debt by another $10 trillion and enacting regulations that are strangling business…just cut it out!
– Endless ISIS and other terrorist attacks (yesterday on Berlin, Zurich, Turkey and more) and calls it “workplace violence” or a traffic accident…just cut it out!
Anyone who says that now “We’re feeling what not having hope feels like,” truly must be referring to where we come from and not where we are going.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I love and respect China, and think they are one of the greatest nations of the world.
However, it is wrong that their military stole a US drone in international waters.
Bullying and theft is a violation of the rule of law and a challenge to America on the international stage.
So far, our leadership from behind approach has again done virtually nothing, except like a child, ask for it back (after they have already taken whatever they wanted from it).
Moreover, this is not the first time China has captured our assets and people–less than 6 years ago, they collided into one of our EP-3E surveillance aircraft and captured, interrogated , and held the crew for 11 days!
And hence our planes and ships keep getting buzzed, our citizens captured and humiliated, our assets confiscated illegally, and our secret intellectual property unabashedly hacked and copied.
Moreover, we are seeing a resurgent Russia in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria; a militarized China expanding and weaponizing the South China Sea, a belligerent North Korea with ever further reaching ballistic nukes, and an Iran that violates their nuclear deal at will and now runs amuck with military operations from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and more.
Oh, and surely let’s not forget ISIS and the global wave of Islamic terrorism that is unabated from Paris to Orlando.
Despite our outspending the next leading 8 nations combined on the military, we continue to be the laughing stock internationally with world leaders calling our Presidents everything from the devil to an SOB.
No one would dare do this with Putin’s Russia!
Why? Because they know the ridiculous price they would pay.
We have long since passed the time when we should’ve stopped the whining, begging, and acting the victim, and instead start to do something real to defend ourselves and once again establish a no-nonsense deterrent, rather than a joke of red lines and hollow threats.
Our Commander-in-chief, instead of laying blame at the doorstep of Congress or world leaders doing the wrongdoing, should start to act his position.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s a single phone call to whoever has our drone that says something like, “You have exactly 2 hours to return the drone unharmed or the ship that was responsible for stealing it will pay the consequences–and the clock starts ticking now!”
The funny-sad thing is that bullies don’t stop bullying until you stand up to them once and for all.
A real Commander In Chief protects his nation and his people and doesn’t let them be victimized in a endless cycle of violence and shame…and he does it before something really bad can happen. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Iran is spreading it’s caliphate ambitions across the Middle from Iran to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and more.
As the #1 world sponsor of terrorism and abuser of human rights, there is reason to be concerned and afraid of Iran’s intentions and actions.
The ISIS terror and caliphate may end up paling in comparison to the threat of a dangerous fundamentalist Iran with emerging nukes, ballistic missiles, and a fearsome spreading caliphate of their own.
Now Iran conveniently claims that radiological material, Iridium, was stolen, and where it ends up exploding no one yet knows, but we can guess the likely targets.
What wonderful plausible deniability for a suitcase WMD bomb horrifically placed and detonated by Iran, themselves.
As Israel is burning, Aleppo is being flattened, Mosul fighting is raging street by street, and terrorists are plotting ever greater strikes into our heartlands, we are sitting here dumb and dumber.
Please G-d, he will restore peace to our lands and people.
May He grant our leaders the wisdom to act as necessary, with due speed and agility to defeat our enemies whether ISIS or Iran and not be fooled by agreements not worth the ridiculous paper they are written on.
(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)