Hizballah to be on UN Security Council
December 15, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
Lebanese Hizballah to be on UN Security Council
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
On January 1, Lebanon will become a member of the UN Security Council, having been elected last October by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The Lebanese government now includes a majority of ministers who are nominees of either Hizballah or of President Michael Suleiman, a Syrian and thus Iranian client. Hizballah also has a veto over government decisions.
This means that Hizballah will have a say in resolutions condemning Israel, managing peace-keeping operations in Lebanon, dealing with sanctions against Iran, and so on.
It was bad enough that a Libyan official chairs the General Assembly while Sudan, Algeria, and Iran virtually run the Human Rights Commission.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated in an interview that his government has concluded that “carefully considered contact with Hezbollah’s politicians, including its MPs, will best advance our objective of the group rejecting violence to play a constructive role in Lebanese politics.” Click here to read the entire article…
The American Public’s Incredibly Strong Support for Israel
December 15, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Politics
The American Public’s Incredibly Strong Support for Israel
Pew Gets Wrong the Amazing Results
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
According to the latest Pew poll, 51 percent of the American public say they sympathize more with the Israelis, while just 12% say they sympathize more with the Palestinians. (14 percent say neither; 19 percent have no opinion). That’s very impressive, right?
That means that two-thirds of Americans who have an opinion sympathize more with Israel.
What about all the academics who hate Israel, all the anti-Israel propaganda, the supposed sympathy for Palestinians as victims and underdogs? No apparent effect.
The poll also shows that among Democrats the number supporting Israel has remained the exact same (43 percent) over the last 16 years. So there’s been no decline due to a party or shift to the left within this camp. That’s important, too. Click here to read the entire article…
Israel’s Construction Freeze
December 14, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
Israel acceded to a U.S. request to freeze construction on existing Jewish settlements
On Israel’s Construction Freeze:
Instead of Praising, Europe Demands More
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
Israel acceded to a U.S. request to freeze construction on existing Jewish settlements; the Palestinian Authority (PA) refuses even to negotiate or to give anything in exchange for this concession. Who did Europe reward and was the United States able to mobilize praise for the former or criticism for the latter?
Need you ask?
It is now confirmed that my analysis of the State Department statement on the construction freeze was correct. It was intended as a statement supporting key Israeli demands—recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and changes in the 1967 borders—while also meeting major Palestinian demands, an independent state based on those borders. Click here to read the entire article…
Syria Allied with Al-Qaida; White House Says: Is that a Problem?
December 3, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Middle East
Obama says quiet, I am busy
Obama’s General Says:
Syria Allied with Al-Qaida, Attacking U.S.;
White House Says: Is that a Problem?
By Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
Does anyone read the newspapers in the U.S. government? How about checking out the dispatches coming from its generals in the field? Here’s a news story which tells all.
A Reuters’ dispatch from Iraq interviews the commander of U.S. forces there. What’s he say?
Al-Qaida is joining forces with Saddam Hussein’s supporters.
And where are both al-Qaida’s forces fighting in Iraq and Saddam’s backers headquartered with lots of money stolen from Iraq? Syria.
Syria? So Damascus is now allied with al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the September 11 attack to kill Americans and defeat the United States in Iraq? Is that right, general?:
“Investigations into massive suicide bombings in Baghdad on Oct. 25, in which more than 150 people died, indicated that explosives or fighters were coming across from Syria, U.S. General Ray Odierno also said.” Click here to read the entire article…
Life in an American Fourth Grade
November 22, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Culture
Teaching kids how to think in the 21st century!
Life in an American Fourth Grade
Teaching Kids to “Respect Other Views” by Making Them Not Have Any of Their Own
by Barry Rubin of The Rubin Reports
First came the reading list of four books: one about an African-American, one on an Asian- or Hispanic-American, one on a Native American, and one–amazingly enough–a free choice.
Then came the first book read in class on an African-American runner.
By the way, it should be understood that all these readings are not about a group of youngsters from all races, religions, and creeds, playing together while getting along but rather a focus on minorities in isolation rather than as part of the whole big society.
And next came the second book read in class, portraying the “horrors” of Japanese internment in the United States during World War Two.
By this point, my 10-year-old son piped up that he thought internment was necessary as a war-time measure. Whether or not this position is “correct,” it is certainly one that wasn’t going to be made otherwise in that classroom. Click here to read the entire article…
Cutbacks in the Defense Budget?: Buy Iranian at a Discount
November 17, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Politics
Need Weapons, ask Iran!
Picked up by Michael Travis
In 2004 Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, warned against using Israeli bullets to fight the war in Iraq: “…by no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized,” Barry Rubin has solved our dilemma!
How to Order Military Equipment from Iran, Not a Joke
[Please subscribe. To Barry Rubins blog, not the Iranian arms sales company]
By Barry Rubin
Want to start an Islamist revolution? Looking for a good weapons’ supplier in Iran? Look no further as you can go to their arms’ sales site, Really, this isn’t a joke. They’re advertising their line of arms. “Professionalism is our Career,” is the company motto.
Yes, it’s Iran’s Defense Industries Organization. The site explains:
“WE have more than eight decades of industrial experiences in the field of manufacturing and supply of various types of defense products and employing 20000 specialized personnel. So this organization is a leading and innovative part of country’s industry and has a comprehensive role as an industrial main pole and motive engine for a portion of industrial and software production of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
You can see their promotional video also but I can’t get the page on their chemical weapons to work.
I presume, however, you don’t get the Hamas/Hiballah/Iraqi insurgent discount. But good news, they do take credit cards.
It looks as if the site hasn’t completely escaped the notice of others as part of it has been hacked, by anti-regime Iranians?
At any rate, we can only look forward to the section on Weapons of Mass Destruction coming soon.
Fort Hood Massacre Has Nothing to do with Islam!
November 13, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Islam
Understanding the Ft. Hood Attack: America’s the Bad Guy This I Know, Because My TV Told Me So
[Please subscribe to Barry Rubins, original analysis by a 30-year veteran Middle East expert]
By Barry Rubin of the RubinReports
My teenage daughter watches the “Bones” series and described the latest program to me. An American soldier who had served in Iraq is found dead in the United States. FBI agents discover he was in a battle where U.S. soldiers had stormed a house and one of his friends was killed by Iraqis posing as civilians before the Americans wiped them out.
Of course, you know what happens. The soldier killed in the house really died from friendly fire; the rest of the soldiers murdered all the Iraqis in cold blood and planted guns on them. She hasn’t seen the end yet but I can guess that one of the other murderous American soldiers who’d been there had also finished his enlistment, returned to America, and killed the second soldier to shut him up.
I feel sorry for American veterans, soldiers, and their families who must put up with anti-American slanders from rich American show business types who live in luxury, feel smug, and never do anything for their country but bash it. This is also the kind of thing that brings us to a world where Libya, Iran, and Sudan condemn Israel for alleged war crimes as part of the Western intelligentsia cheers.
Click here to read the entire article…
The Obama Administration Apologizes to Islam
November 11, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Islam
Islam in the White House
Obama: “wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran”
Obama Administration on Anniversary of Embassy and Hostage Seizure in Iran: We’re trying to be Friends!
by Barry Rubin of the Rubin Reports
Will Rogers, the great American comedian of the 1920s and 1930s, famously said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” The problem with the Obama Administration, at least so far, is that it has never met an enemy that it could identify as such.
Of course, the story isn’t over yet. Indeed, one does see signs of change. But we are still getting prologue. Consider for example the Statement by the President of November 4, 2009, on the thirtieth anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy by Iran and the holding of American diplomats and citizens as hostages, an unprecedented act of terrestrial piracy.
Yes, there is a good case for not making such a statement an opportunity for blustering against Tehran, but—like the similar announcement on the anniversary of the murder of 241 American servicemen in Beirut by Iran, Syria, and Hizballah—it doesn’t even mention who were the perpetrators.
