Freedom: The Egyptian Civil War

What is going on in Egypt is not difficult to understand. It is literally a fight for freedom: freedom of the individual to exercise their rights as human beings.

The greatest danger to western civilization is not the Egyptian military, but the diplomatic institutions of the United States and the European Union. In the past couple of years, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Kerry, Messrs. Barroso and van Rumpuy and Lady Ashton, have backed the loser in every transitional election, and supported the overthrow of every regime with ties to the West or providing a stable force in an unstable region.

Whether or not what is happening in Egypt is a coup or civil war or both, is not important. The important question is what position is in the best interest of the United States of America and the Egyptian people. Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, and the unremitting interventionists John McCain and Lindsay Graham are looking for any excuse to get the United States involved in yet another Islamic civil war, on the wrong side.

Egypt is not Iran. It refuses to be ruled as a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate under Sharia law.

There is only one way to defeat fanaticism. You must exterminate it. The Egyptian military understands this. Like any civil war, why won’t it be bloody and a fight to the end? There can be only one winner.

The time has come for the United States to take sides against an Islamic religion and culture, that tolerates no other religion and culture, and seeks world conquest to instill a seventh century culture at the end of a sword.

What is at stake -- is our very way of life, our freedom!

Capitulation: Obama And Russia – OpEd

Published Eurasia Review on 7 August 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman 

“Russia’s Tiny Cold War” (Stratfor, August 6, 2013) is, as all of George Friedman’s work, a must read. Mr. Friedman succinctly posits:

Russia went through two phases in the Post-Cold War world. The first was the chaos that inevitably followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second phase was a reaction to the first.

The havoc of Yeltsin could not continue. Russia was sinking into extraordinary poverty, worse than the Soviet Union; there were regions that were seeking to break away from the Russian Federation; and it had little to no international standing.

The United States and NATO waged a war in Kosovo, completely indifferent to Russian opposition. Russia opposed the war both because Serbia was an ally and because one of the principles of Europe since World War II was that there would be no shifts in borders. This was regarded as sacred inasmuch as redrawing borders was one of the origins of the war. Russia's wishes were disregarded.

When Serbia did not collapse immediately under air attack and the war dragged out, the Russians were asked to negotiate its end. In return they were promised a significant role in managing post-war Kosovo. That didn't happen; the future of Kosovo became a matter for European and American decision-making.

Influence is not something given to a country. It has that influence because of its power, because the consequences of ignoring its wishes would have unacceptable consequences. By 1999, Russia had reached the low point of its influence.

It was logical that a man like Vladimir Putin would emerge. And, it was logical that Russia would reassert itself on the world stage, especially in the power vacuum created by the Obama Administration. From his first days in office, it was clear Mr. Obama meant to change America’s preeminence in world affairs. Examples are: going on tour to apologize to the World; relinquishing a European antimissile-system and get nothing in return; leading from behind in Libya; dismantling your country’s defense budget resulting in critical reductions in the nation’s defensive capability; and, obfuscating the severe damage done by the Wikileaks and the Snowden affair.

As Stanford Professor Josef Joffe recently opined in Monday’s The Wall Street Journal (August 5, 2013 A13, Col. 1-5), “Exploiting Obama’s Foreign Policy Retreat:”

“The world is being treated to a first in the history of great–power politics. Traditionally, the might of nations was hemmed in by others in an endless game of pressure and counter-pressure. Now, the reigning superpower is proposing to neutralize itself – no foes needed.”

It is the failures and cluelessness of American foreign policy under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations that have solidified the current situation. Two decades of incompetence has consequences. As Rev. Wright, Mr. Obama’s trusted mentor once proffered, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Mr. Friedman believes “there is no danger of a military confrontation (with Russia) now.”  However, the only creditable adversary to Russia in Eastern Europe isn’t there anymore.

In my view, there will be a military confrontation in the Balkans over Kosovo. And, this time Russia will not have to sit back and allow the West to dictate the terms of both the engagement and its aftermath. Furthermore, there is a strong likelihood that this may happen before Obama’s second term in office is over.

Mr. Putin and Russia understand Mr. Obama better than the American people. They know he is a phony, a poser, a weak sister, and lacks the Right Stuff. They know he has contempt and disdain for American Exceptionalism. They know the American people will not tolerate another war where their sons and daughters give their lives for nothing; and where the rules of engagement save enemy lives at the expense of American.

It is entirely possible the current rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo, shepherded by the clueless Lady Ashton and the European Union elitists, is a ruse. Why would Serbia give up its raison d’état  (Kosovo) to be a doormat for a bankrupt Union that might crumble, and eventually dissolve, after the September election in Germany?

Kosovo is the sweet spot to create uncertainty in Eastern Europe and destabilize the region. The United States under Obama will cave in to any overt hostilities. If you can’t rescue your own people from a terrorist attack in a lawless terrorist state (Libya); then should anyone believe that you would come to the rescue of foreigners?

Indeed, is there a better place to start a war?

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own

The NFL or Obama Care: You Can’t Have Both

Roger Goodell, Commissioner

National Football League (NFL) 

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

If it’s true that the National Football League (NFL) will promote Obama Care through Public Service Announcements (PSAs); then be assured I will say goodbye to the NFL.

Like many Americans, the NFL is my pastime. I’m 68 years old, and can recall Green Bay Packer games on the radio, Ray Scott on television in the 50’s -60’s, Vince Lombardi, Packers v. Lions on Thanksgiving Day, more recently the magic of Brett Favre, and most importantly sitting next to my father watching the games. During all that time, what I don’t recall is the NFL promoting a political agenda. If you go down that road you will lose me, and I believe many other Americans just like me.

Sport, and particularly our national pastime, must always be above politics. Monday through Saturday our Nation may be divided, but on Sunday that is put aside, whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, libertarian or socialist, we are all fans. That’s the purpose of sport, that’s the beauty of sport, and that’s the integrity of sport.

Do you really want to further divide our Nation? Do you really want to kill the golden goose?  Do you not understand America?

Well do you?

Syria: Just Wag The Dog

Published Eurasia Review on 16 June 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

LBJ had Vietnam, Clinton had Kosovo, and now Obama has Syria. Those good anti-war liberal Democrats and unremitting interventionist Republicans are at it again. These wars of obfuscation are predicated on lies. The Gulf of Tonkin, Kosovo genocide, and Syrian chemical weapons, are all fictitious ruses for partir en guerre.

You want to know why the United States is in decline? It is because our Government is corrupt. Our once great country is awash with the least of us for whom a free lunch and cell phone elects the worst among us, and the guilt-ridden who believe the sins of their fathers can be rectified through political largesse. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch. And as a result, we the people are now paying the ultimate price for this foolishness. And you outside of the United States don’t think for a minute you are not affected.

Abraham Lincoln wrote:

"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."   

And, Theodore Roosevelt wrote:

"It is the duty of all citizens, irrespective of party, to denounce, and, so far as may be, to punish crimes against the public on the part of politicians or officials."   

Indeed, today a corrupt and scandalous government is putting America and the world in jeopardy to cover up its own failings.  It was Monica who got us into Kosovo. This time it is guns to Mexican drug cartels; Benghazi / a cover up of Islamic terrorism; IRS targeting political free speech; Justice Department spying on Journalists; NSA spying on all Americans; and IRS Commissioners, Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence), and Eric Holder (Attorney General), all lying under oath to Congress; that is responsible for getting us into a civil war in Syria.

Now as the Obama Administration feels the heat rising from an America in tatters, and dropping polls, it starts a war.  And, as has been the case during this Presidency, suddenly the mainstream media is chirping about Syria and what he wants to babble about.

As if on cue, Obama made headlines worldwide on Thursday by claiming that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the rebels "multiple times;” and that the United States was prepared to assist the rebels with more than just fancy camouflage outfits. Never mind that multiple international organizations have disputed this claim. And that in fact, some have found that it was the rebels who first used chemical weapons.

This practice is nothing new. It’s the old canard. Trump up some false catastrophe -- then lie, obfuscate, intimidate, and malign. All the while a complicit mainstream media reports and editorializes the validity of your scam.  

For the Obama Administration and its media sycophants, Syria presents a golden opportunity to change the subject. There are no coincidences.  There is no road to perdition this administration will not go down. The timing of this announcement is not an accident.

Just wag the dog!

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

Monday is Memorial Day

Published Eurasia Review on 27 May, 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

Monday, May 27, 2013, is Memorial Day in the United States. Memorial Day is dedicated to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their lives in service to their country.

General George S. Patton understood well the meaning of Memorial Day:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.

Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

President Barack Hussein Obama has another understanding of Memorial Day. Mr. Obama, Commander-in-Chief, doesn’t believe the freedoms that Americans enjoy today are worth fighting (for).  

On Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University, Mr. Obama said:

This war (the War on Terrorism), like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

While that may be Mr. Obama’s reading of history, in the classrooms I attended, he would have failed the course.

A war ends when you either win it or lose it. Not when you pronounce its end. Furthermore, when you withdraw without having vanquished your enemy – be assured you have lost that war, and your enemy lives to fight another day.

Mr. Obama may capitulate to Islamic terrorism, but I don’t believe the American people will. A Commander-in-Chief willing to knuckle under, raise the white flag, or throw in the towel, is “absent without official leave” (AWOL). Such a Commander-in-Chief is not fit for command, and should be relieved. 

And parenthetically, a mass media that will not report the important events of the day, is itself AWOL, and no longer deserves our attention or respect. They are no better than any dictatorial Orwellian lackey, e.g. Pravda. As one astute pundit recently opined, the “pathological stupidity of Western news services,” is reason for profound concern.

Monday is Memorial Day.

If, said Churchill, a mad dog makes a dash for my trousers I shoot him down before he can bite.

Monday is Memorial Day.

It was another wise Englishman who said:

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war,

The Hun (Jihadist) is at the gate!

Monday is Memorial Day.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.

 

Cyprus: Russia’s Bloodless Victory Over Europe

Published by Eurasia Review 25 March 2013

By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

The Western "powers that be," manipulate the financial markets to disguise their failures. They are destroying Western economies, the middle class, and the wealth of nations, to perpetuate a sham. Their political strategies vis-à-vis the Euro and America’s debt crisis are embarrassments to Western thought. 

Cyprus is the canary in the mineshaft. It’s a warning not simply to failed economic and political deliberation and banking mismanagement, but to unbridled conceited vainglory.

The Russian Bear is back – thanks to the moronic, egotistical, self-obsessed, thoughtless, greedy elites in Brussels and Washington. Their latest Cypriot scheme to placate Reich Chancellor Merkel and her reelection is nonsensical and shameful. Cyprus is a drop in the bucket in terms of the Euro Zone’s banking crisis. The size of its illiquidity is not even real money in today’s ecomony. So why create this crisis.

Let me tell you how it is. Frau Merkel is just playing the same game she has since the Euro scam began to unravel. ‘Germany and the German taxpayer will not bailout the irresponsible countries of Southern Europe (to buy German goods) unless they agree to severe measures of austerity and self-deprivation – blah, blah, blah. We must have guarantees! We want it in writing!’

In the end, Frau Merkel agrees to one form of bailout or the other. It's all about the bankers, money managers, and Frau Merkel’s reelection. The rest is window dressing -- pour la galerie.

But this time, the élites may have screwed the pooch.

This will not end well for Europe and America. On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austrian – Hungarian  province of Bosnia, a spark was fired in the proverbial mineshaft that led to the destruction of a large part of Europe. On March 15, 2013, in the day’s last hours, European finance ministers “fired” their conditions for bailing-out Cyprus’s banking system. A levy imposed on all depositors, i.e. savers, rich or poor. As of the moment, the European élites, with open lines to Washington, are meeting in Brussels to fix the damage they have done and avert catastrophe.

But, as my astute seven-year-old grandson once said after giving me a particularly difficult task – good luck with that. And, I say to Europe’s élites, lacta alea est.

What is equally important here, is Russia is immediately jumping on an opportunity, aka the Cyprus banking fiasco. Russia understands, and correctly, Europe’s and America’s failures to deal honestly with their financial crises,  results in an inability to commit resources to its national defense, which in turn weakens the West. Concomitantly, they view Mr. Obama, the guardian of Western civilization, as a weakling. Russia understands that with Mr. Obama, politics trumps everything – including fiscal solvency, national defense, and security.

Indeed, for Russia and China, it’s all too easy. Who needs missiles when you have the European and American political class? 

Author: Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are his own.

L'Affaire Petraeus: Pour La Galerie

Published by Eurasia Review 13 November 2012
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

There is no paucity of reporting in today’s Main Stream Media on l’affaire Petraeus. The Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted to having an extramarital affair with a married woman. And, one should not be surprised to learn of further revelations of transgressions on his part. However, while the avalanche of reporting on General Petraeus’ extramarital affair sells newsprint and fills the airwaves with prurient curiosity, it’s window dressing -- pour la galerie.

As America’s great General, George S. Patton, once said (it would seem appropriate to quote a General here): "If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." What then is l’affaire Petraeus all about?

The extramarital affair is a red herring. Its purpose is to cover up the Obama Administration’s failures in Benghazi and its cover up of those events. Four Americans under diplomatic protection, including the US Ambassador to Libya, were murdered in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11^th, 2012, by Islamic terrorists. The date was the 11^th Anniversary of the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks upon the United States in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The Obama Administration and its accomplice the Main Stream Media, willing or duped, is using a personal extramarital affair to deflect the public from the real questions of an attack on a US Consulate in North Africa.

• Why did the Obama Administration allow its Ambassador and State Department personnel to be put in jeopardy, knowing in advance that Benghazi was an extremely dangerous environment
• Why did the US State Department, under the direction of Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, leave the consulate without adequate protection against a terrorist attack on the Anniversary of 9/11?
• Why was a US Consulate not provided security by US Marines, as is standard operating procedure”?
• Under what authority is the CIA responsible for the protection of a US Ambassador and Consulate Office?
• Who made the decision to “contract out” security of a US Consulate to private civilian contractors who may be connected or compromised by terrorist groups in a country without a legitimate central government?

Indeed, there are many questions to be answered, but none more important in my view than these:

• Why did the Obama Administration not come to the rescue of its Ambassador and diplomatic personnel when it had real time information on the attack of its Consulate, and military assets capable of neutralizing the attack less than two hours away in Sigonella, Italy?
• Who knew what and when? Mr. Obama, President of the United States; Mrs. Clinton, Secretary of State; Mr. Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; Gen. M. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Petraeus, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Mr. James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence; and yet to be named White House functionaries?
• Who made the decision(s) not to send military support to Benghazi?    

In the last analysis, one would hope that the Congressional Leaders of the United States and the Main Stream Media would see the events of Benghazi as the real story that needs to be investigated, and not Gen. Petraeus’ extramarital affair. Until then, here’s what the officials and pundits wish us to think: no conspiracy; the timing of Gen. Petraeus’ resignation just a coincidence; just a sordid extramarital affair, but we need to be sure no vital intelligence was compromised; nothing to see here folks – just wag the dog!