Friday, July 26, 2013

Gatestone Update :: Peter Huessy: Political Fairy Tales from America's Enemies, and more



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Political Fairy Tales from America's Enemies

by Peter Huessy
July 26, 2013 at 5:00 am
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Cyber privacy, while a valid concern, is preventing us from seeing how cyber technology is a tool of war our enemies are busy perfecting. Can you imagine what Iran will do once it has a nuclear weapons shield under which to act, in addition to terrorism, cyber warfare and escalating fuel prices?
The Soviet Union and its successor regime were, and still are, masters at creating "propaganda legends masquerading as historical evidence," writes Vladimir Tismaneanu, the director of Maryland's Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, in praising a new book, Disinformation, a history of the secret strategies employed by communism to subvert freedom and promote terrorism.
The book's author, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, follows up his 1988 Red Horizons, an exposé of the massive crimes of Romania's President, Nicolae Ceausescu.
The dangers of political fairy tales, dreamed up by our foreign enemies and which take hold in America, is the top theme of the book.
The Russian-run National Council of Churches (NCC), for example, held a press conference in March, 1996, announcing a "huge increase" in arson cases committed against black churches in the United States. On June 8, in response, a Federal task force was appointed to investigate; and on June 15, 200 FBI and ATF agents were assigned to the case.
Accounts of arson against black churches snowballed; 2,200 press articles appeared to condemn what one organization called "a well-organized white-supremacist movement." The Geneva-based World Council of Churches flew 38 pastors to Washington to provide more information.
On July 13, President Clinton signed into law the Church Fire Prevention Act of 1996, making church arson a federal crime; and a "Burned Churches Fund" of the NCC quickly raised $9 million.
But then members of the National Fire Protection Association released information proving church arson had been declining markedly, and that they could not confirm any which had been racially motivated.
The hoax perpetrated by the World Council of Churches had been entirely controlled by Russian intelligence. The damage, however, had been done: 40% of Canadian teenagers, for example, agreed that the United States was "evil."
We are now in the grips of two "legends" which are, ironically, not creations of Moscow or Peking or Tehran: they are home-grown.
And both legends are propping up our deadliest enemies, as well as supporting the terrorism about which we are so concerned. Also, both legends are being perpetuated by these same enemies, plus others.
The first involves "Global Warming," And the second involves "Cyber Warfare." Both legends are killing us, literally and figuratively, as well as dramatically undermining both our security and our economic well-being.

Global Warming

The Kyoto agreement to curtail greenhouse gases to diminish global warming was adopted December 11, 1997. It entered into force on February 16, 2005.
Its thesis is simple: that the burning of fossil fuels -- petroleum, coal and natural gas -- heats the planet, and will eventually cause an environmental catastrophe. We are told that as possessors of only 5% of the conventional oil reserves, but consumers of 25% of the oil produced globally, we cannot rely upon fossil fuels for our future energy supply and we therefore should use a lot less energy.
Furthermore, goes the fairy tale, there is no purpose in producing more oil here at home because we simply do not have that much.
Therefore, we are told, we have to accept sky-high oil prices of over $4 a gallon, but that we do not have to worry: higher prices will lead to alternatives such as solar and wind.
Well, what are the "facts"?
Over the past half century, as Robert Zubrin has well documented, every spike in oil prices has led to a U.S. recession. On July 4th, 2008, oil hit $147 barrel and crashed the US economy. The US lost $6 trillion in wealth.
Now, five years later, we still have slower economic growth, stagnant incomes and sluggish job creation.
In 1972, we spent $4 billion on imported oil. By 2006, we spent $260 billion. By 2008, the oil import bill reached $450 billion, with our total oil bill at $900 billion. The world spent $3.6 trillion, at least 60% of which went to sovereign wealth funds and governments.
State-sponsored terrorism is highly correlated with both these state owned petroleum resources and OPEC. As the former Director of Central Intelligence, Ambassador R. James Woolsey, quips, this is the only war in which we are funding both sides. The victims -- the US and the West -- are paying the bill of the attackers -- Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.
Happily, the technology of fracking has developed both millions of barrels of unconventional oil per year and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Shortly, the US will be the biggest producer in the world of fossil fuel energy. Moreover, the substitute of natural gas for coal consumption has lowered our greenhouse gas emissions to a level not seen since the early 1990s.
The mythology of global warming, however, imprisons its enthusiasts into still believing the US has only a very small fraction of fossil fuel reserves.
Given the high cost of energy, it is highly unlikely the "normal economic recovery" we still seek will materialize. Only $28 a barrel in December 2008, oil has hovered around $100 for nearly four years. If you add to that the uncertain regulatory environment on health care and the troublesome debt clouds on the horizon, you will see that America's economic wealth is literally trillions of dollars below its potential. As Dr. Zubrin has explained, the past four years have seen close to a $2 trillion transfer of US wealth primarily to OPEC energy producers, a key number of whom are sworn enemies of the United States. And many of whom are investing heavily in major US financial institutions, control over which has significant implications for US sovereignty.
The debt issue, which arises directly from the energy-triggered poor economic and job growth in the US economy, has in turn led us into a spending cul-de-sac in which the cudgel of sequestration now threatens to destroy our military readiness and future technological strength upon which our national security and military capability must rest.
Our worst enemies could not have designed a better strategy to diminish our nation's power and our national security. Who profits the most? OPEC, Venezuela, Iran and Russia among others.

Cyber Warfare

Not content to crush our economy with unnecessarily high energy prices, we have adopted a second fairy tale that may well be even more economically damaging than $4 gasoline and $100 oil.
The irony of the second fairy tale is that while cyber warfare against the United States is a fact of life, we have lulled ourselves into thinking the culprit is excessive gathering of data by our National Security Agency [NSA]. Or, even more foolishly, that if we do not engage in such data-gathering, nobody else will and somehow we will still be safe. Google alone has 50 million results under "NSA Guilty."
So, while we are arguing over whether NSA is snooping "too much," our enemies are robbing us blind of a significant amount of our wealth and technology by using the very cyber technology we are trying to curtail.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers explained the dangers we face, on July 22, at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Iran, manipulating oil data, took down some 30,000 computers of Saudi Aramco last August. Organized crime, much from Russia and China, attack a single credit card processor some 300,000 times a day.
China and others have stolen intellectual property from the United States, says NSA Director General Keith Alexander, including lost business and technology, to the tune of $2 trillion over the past two years. That technology then gets put into products and services that are put on the market by our competitors or applied to military technology that threatens the US and its allies.
Unfortunately, we are losing this fight. The US, Rogers emphasized, does not, as a matter of course, use cyber warfare against others.
But our adversaries do.
Using cyber warfare, Russia shut down the Estonian economy in 2007 and prepared for its invasion of South Ossetia by attacking Georgia in 2008. China's economic growth of 6-7% annually, says Rogers, is fueled in large part by stolen American innovation.
Some argue that there is little to worry about because everybody can deter everybody else. The theory is that, given our collective reliance upon the internet and computers, as everyone is vulnerable to a very high degree, no one will use cyber warfare on a regular basis out of the fear of retaliation. A corollary to this is that the gravest threat from cyber is not an attack from foreign entities, but from us undermining our privacy.
Soldiers from the Virginia Guard's Data Processing Unit conduct a computer network defense exercise on Sept. 15, 2012 in Fairfax. The exercise used different cyber scenarios of varying difficulty in order to evaluate the proficiency levels of the unit's soldiers in computer network defense. (Source: Virginia Guard Public Affairs)
Chairman Rogers explained how China embedded in the US electrical grid source codes capable of shutting it down. Some may see this simply as China taking precautionary measures to be able to threaten retaliation should the US attack first.
This view, however, is misguided, says Rogers. China is simply "preparing the economic battlefield" of the 21st century." One company, American Super Computer, dropped in value from $1.8 billion to $170 million after having its technology stolen during a joint venture. Three years ago, China was identified as the number one cyber threat to America, yet today we are losing the fight; barely keeping our head above water, he warns.
Cyber warfare is not just a tool which countries are using to seek economic advantage; as the name implies it is also a tool of war.
Take for example Iran. It is not as if Iran is minding its own business. "According to the Department of Defense," says Rogers, "Iran is responsible for the death of 600 American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan." Can you imagine, he warns, what Iran will do once it has a nuclear weapons shield under which to act, in addition to using terrorism and cyber warfare?
Unfortunately, he says, the sanctions in place against Iran have not slowed down its pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is even more imperative, therefore, that the US and its allies protect themselves not only from cyber threats but also move to keep both Tehran and its nuclear program in check.

Waking Up

During the Cold War the Soviets lulled us to sleep with wonderful fairy tales about détente and peaceful coexistence even as they rampaged around the globe supporting terrorism masquerading as "wars of national liberation."
For too many years now, the US has been in the thrall of these twin "legends" of "dezinformatsiya" that would make the Kremlin proud.
Global warming has been used as a tool to damage US economic growth while adding to the power of the energy regulatory anaconda that grips our economy as well as to the limits on greenhouse gases which look forthcoming. And cyber privacy, while a valid concern, is preventing us from seeing how cyber technology is a tool of war our adversaries are busy perfecting.
Difficult as it is, failing to "Provide for the Common Defense" is not an option our Constitution allows us. As Rep. Rogers explains, "Years ago we fell asleep. We are now awake and the threats are clear." We have no excuse not to act.
Related Topics:  Peter Huessy

Israel Prepares for Jihadis

by Yaakov Lappin
July 26, 2013 at 4:30 am
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As thousands of radical jihadis have moved from abroad into Syria and the Sinai Peninsula, and joined radicalized local fighters to create the largest pro-al-Qaeda presence in the region, Israel is perfecting its ability to neutralize targets as quickly as possible.
As al-Qaeda-affiliated radical forces pour into areas bordering Israel's north and south, the Israeli defense establishment is adjusting itself to prepare for a new, post "Arab spring" reality.
According to Israeli security assessments, thousands of radical jihadis have moved into Syria from abroad, and joined radicalized local fighters to create the largest pro-al-Qaeda presence in the region.
The concern now is that Syria will act a springboard for jihad [holy war in the service of Islam] and that terrorists will move from Syria to nearby states -- Lebanon, Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt -- to create zones of extremism and violence.
This trend has already begun to take shape in Syria's neighbor, Iraq, where, since the spring months, thousands of people have been murdered in bombings and shootings in resurgent al-Qaeda attacks, mainly on Shi'ite targets.
The newly empowered Iraqi al-Qaeda elements are tied to Syria's largest al-Qaeda-affiliated group, the Al Nusra Front.
If or when the regime of Bashar Assad crumbles and these rebels seize Damascus, Israel and the US would immediately have to answer the question of how to secure Syria's enormous chemical weapons arsenal. Allowing those and other weapons to fall into radical hands is unthinkable.
IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz observes an exercise in the Golan Heights, near the border with Syria, in November 2011. (Source:IDF)
Meanwhile, to Israel's south, thousands of jihadi fighters have turned the Sinai Peninsula into a terrorist base. The Egyptian military, although occupied with efforts to stabilize Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities, has internalized the scope of the new threat in Sinai, and is busy preparing a large counter-terrorism offensive to rein in the radicals. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Egypt will likely launch the operation in the near future, and that it will proceed for a long period of time.
Despite increased Egyptian counter-terrorism efforts, senior Israel Defense Force [IDF] officials have stated that they expect the terrorists in Sinai sooner or later to attack Israel again.
These attacks could take two forms. First, they could fire rockets at Israeli population centers, such as the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, which relies heavily on tourism, and is located a stone's throw from the Sinai Peninsula.
Eilat has been already been targeted several times in recent years by Sinai terrorists firing rockets; the IDF recently mobilized an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery near the city to protect it from future rocket threats.
The second type of threat involves a ground raid by cells of terrorists armed with bombs, shoulder-held rockets, and automatic weapons, and with a view to penetrating the Israeli frontier and striking either a high-value target or a civilian population center inside the country.
Due to the increase in regional jihadi activity, as time goes by the chance of such incidents increases.
The IDF, not resting on its laurels, has put into action a large-scale plan to prepare Israel's northern and southern borders for the new threats they face.
On both borders, fences with sophisticated electronic sensors have been erected. Infantry brigades are being mobilized for border patrols in growing numbers. And commanders have increased the number of Artillery Corps and Armored Corps units.
As a direct response to the rising threat, the IDF held its largest Paratroopers Brigade exercise this week, in which, to practice mobilizing large forces behind enemy lines at a moment's notice, a thousand soldiers parachuted at night from Hercules transport planes to the ground. After landing, the paratroopers practiced how to form quickly into battalions, link up at staging grounds and launch assaults on enemy targets.
A senior IDF source said the exercise was taking place because "the enemies around us are gathering near our borders." He described the ability to parachute a thousand paratroopers behind enemy lines as a "huge advantage."
Col. Eliezer Toledano, Commander of the Paratroopers Brigade, said, "Many eyes are watching us in this drill: The eyes of the Israeli people, who must know that when Israel decides to, it can send 1,000 combat soldiers deep into enemy territory at a moment's notice; the eyes of IDF senior command, who knows it needs only mark the spot, and we'll already be there; and the eyes of our enemies, who will know that any moment, more than 1,000 paratroopers keen for battle will spit fire behind their lines."
Additionally, the IDF is working hard on gaining improved intelligence pictures of what is occurring beyond the northern and borders – an effort that includes the setting up of new field surveillance unit.
Throughout, the IDF is perfecting its ability to identify and neutralize targets as quickly as possible, by employing accurate firepower from a range of platforms.
In a region which is facing its most uncertain phase in decades, Israel is taking every possible step to ensure it is ready for anything.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Yaakov Lappin

EU's Full-Blown Boycott Kills Chance for Peace

by Fiamma Nirenstein
July 26, 2013 at 4:00 am
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No Resolution by the United Nations Security Council defines Israel's holding the disputed territories -- entered during a defensive war in 1967 ii as illegal.
Europe's unreasonable acrimony towards Israel has finally gone beyond the usual condemnations, and been sealed in a document worthy of the pro-Palestinian activist who initiated it. It does significant economic and moral harm all around – to Israel because it delegitimizes Iarael's policies and ultimately its capacity to decide what is necessary for its survival. It harms the EU because it reveals the EU's unbalanced view as well as excluding it from peace talks. And the Palestinians are harmed because those among them who have an interest in co-existence with the Jews in the disputed territories are far greater in number than their politicians.
The Palestinian Authority's acting President, Mahmoud Abbas, whose term of office expired years ago, expressed the greatest satisfaction: the European Union gave him the umpteenth reason to oppose the peace process, which the USA is painfully trying to restart. It is not hard to imagine that the European document, which is particularly vicious, was not drafted at the top levels, but rather by mid-level officials accustomed to wallowing in anti-Israel political correctness. it says that "the EU shall ensure that all agreements between the EU and the State of Israel unequivocally and expressly indicate that they do not apply to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, that is, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip," and expands its scope to all those within a line which has not even existed since the time of the peace agreement with Jordan. This is a full-blown boycott.
Apart from the fact that there have been no Jews in Gaza for years and the Golan Heights were annexed (thank goodness, otherwise who knows what Bashar Assad would do nowadays, given that the territory was Syrian, not Palestinian), the EU's desire to take explicitly hostile action against Israel over the West Bank is evident. The document involves all Israeli persons and institutions that in one way or another have something to do with the disputed territories, and it prohibits any interaction with them. This prohibition means, for example, that it will no longer be possible to continue with mutual research projects with the University of Jerusalem, Ariel University or other research institutions located on the other side the Line. It will mean that suddenly 500,000 people, with their annexes and business, such as distributors and exporters, within the Line will be trapped, discriminated against and impoverished, Arabs included. According to the EU, Jerusalem should be divided tomorrow, maybe with a wall as in Berlin. Farmers, wine merchants, small manufacturers, teachers and scientists live in the territories, and have been collaborating productively with the Palestinians. But the EU apparently imagines it is bypassing 500,000 fanatics on horseback in Judea and Samaria, who are preventing peace. However, according to the UN Security Council Resolution 242, peace shall be achieved when the border between the two states is established that also respects Israeli security.
No resolution by the Security Council defines Israel's holding the disputed territories, entered during a defensive war in 1967, as illegal; and all of the significant documents after 1920, regarding the built-up areas west of the Jordan River, demonstrate that so-called international unlawfulness is a political invention without basis. The EU seems to have already concluded the negotiations, and has put the border along the vulnerable 1949 armistice lines, where the fighting just so happened to stop
Does the EU know what establishing a border along that line would mean? It would mean, in a country the size of Vancouver Island, allowing Jerusalem itself, as well as Israel's international airport, to fall prey to attacks.
The EU knows very well that Mahmoud Abbas and many in the Palestinian Authority leadership have declared that once a Palestinian state is established, it must be completely free of Jews This is a racist message, in line with the antisemitism that dominates the Palestinian Authoritie in their government-produced school textbooks, their government-controlled media and in their government controlled press... and this is just a prelude to the forced relocation of 500,000 Jews who live and work in the areas that Europe considers to be part of the Palestinian state.
Why is Europe doing this? And why now? Certainly, the person most irritated should be not Abbas or Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry: Europe has just skillfully destroyed any possibility of convincing the Palestinians to negotiate for peace.
Fiamma Nirenstein, journalist and author, former Vice-President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and member of the Italian delegation at the Council of Europe.
This article was originally published in Italian in slightly different form in Il Giornale; English translation copyrighted by the Gatestone Institute.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Fiamma Nirenstein

Gatestone Weekly Roundup

by Nina Rosenwald
July 26, 2013 at 3:00 am
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You can count on the mainstream media to misreport, misunderstand or just ignore disturbing trends and events that remind us just how dangerous a world we live in. In case you missed them on the website this week, here are a few Gatestone analyses that offer a reality check.
Whatever you think about the efficacy of sanctions in keeping the Iranian mullahs from getting their hands on nuclear weapons, Shoshana Bryen shows how Iran wins lawsuits in Europe that eviscerate sanctions. "Iran's lawyers," she notes, "reveled in the wonders of courts in free countries." We in the West are the terrorists' enablers.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3864/courts-iran-sanctions
In the EU's "perpetual rush to find new double-standards to enforce" against Israel, as Douglas Murray writes, the recent ban on European relationships with Israeli institutions operating in "the occupied territories" fits the bill. Israel, Murray points out, is hardly the only country with a border dispute. How about Cyprus, he asks, the island whose northern half has been illegally annexed by Turkey for 40 years? As Cyprus is a member of the EU, why isn't its zeal against "occupation" also extended Turkey?
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3866/occupied-territories-cyprus-kashmir-tibet
Raymond Ibrahim continues his series on the systematic, violent oppression of Christians in Muslim countries around the world, especially in Egypt. This week, Ibrahim reports that "The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has again declared that it is 'necessary to destroy all the churches in the region.'"
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3875/christian-suffering-under-jihadi-extremism
Related Topics:  Nina Rosenwald

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