Northwest Indiana Discussion

What's Mitten's policy?

Senior officials in the Obama Administration sent a message to Tehran in the past few days, according to which the U.S. does not intend to join Israel’s side if it decides to attack the Iranian nuclear installations on its own, reports Israel’s second-largest paper, Yediot Aharonot.

According to the report, the U.S. sent the message to Iran in order to avoid an Iranian response military response that would target U.S. installations in the Gulf region.

The message was reportedly conveyed to Iran through two European countries that serve as a conduit of communication between Iran and the U.S. in times of crisis.

Nationalist newspaper Makor Rishon has accused Yediot Aharonot of working with the Obama Administration against the Netanyahu government’s planned strike on Iran.

According to the New York Times, senior U.S. officials have argued that Israel is “trying to corner” Obama into a military commitment that he does not yet need to make.

Sen. Rand Paul is threatening to hold up Senate business until lawmakers address the case of jailed Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, after Afridi detailed in an exclusive jail-cell interview how the same spy-service interrogators who tortured him also revealed they consider Americans to be their “worst enemies.”

Afridi, the doctor who helped the CIA track Usama bin Laden, described brutal torture at the hands of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence. He said, in an interview with Fox News, that they told him “the Americans are our worst enemies, worse than the Indians.” Afridi said the country’s claims of cooperation with the U.S. are a sham to “extract” billions in U.S. aid.

Paul, after reading the account, on Monday renewed his months-long effort to compel a vote on a bill to freeze U.S. aid to Pakistan unless Afridi is released — even if it means stalling the Obama administration’s nominee to be the next ambassador to Islamabad.

“Because of the urgency of seeing that Dr. Afridi is freed, I am prepared to pursue any and all means to secure a vote on my bill immediately, including objecting to other Senate business and recessing the Senate for the election,” Paul wrote in a letter Monday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Paul wrote that, given repeated delays in Afridi’s appeals hearing, it is “now abundantly clear that Pakistan has no intention of pursuing a proper and just hearing” for the doctor.

Indonesian protesters from a group called “Sharia For Indonesia” hold up placards showing US President Barack Obama (2nd L) as they attend a demonstration against the US government to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, outside the US embassy in Jakarta on September 11, 2012. Hundreds of people took part in the rally to condemn the US government’s perceived policy on how it handles Muslim countries around the world.

Apparently President Obama can’t see Egypt and Libya from his house. On the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on America, our embassy in Cairo and our consulate in Benghazi were attacked by violent Islamic mobs. In Cairo, they scaled the walls of our embassy, destroyed our flag, and replaced it with a black Islamic banner. In Benghazi, the armed gunmen set fire to our consulate and killed an American staff member. The Islamic radicals claim that these attacks are in protest to some film criticizing Islam. In response to this, the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement that was so outrageous many of us thought it must be a satire. The embassy actually apologized to the violent mob attacking us, and it even went so far as to chastise those who use free speech to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” (Funny, the current administration has no problem hurting the “religious feelings” of Catholics.)

But where is the president’s statement about this? These countries represent his much touted “Arab Spring.” How’s that Arab Spring working out for us now? Have we received an apology yet from our “friends” in the Muslim Brotherhood for the assault on our embassy?

It’s about time our president stood up for America and condemned these Islamic extremists. I realize there must be a lot on his mind these days – what with our economy’s abysmal jobless numbers and Moody’s new warning about yet another downgrade to our nation’s credit rating due to the current administration’s failure to come up with a credible deficit reduction plan. And, of course, he has a busy schedule – with all those rounds of golf, softball interviews with the “Pimp with the Limp,” and fundraising dinners with his corporate cronies. But our nation’s security should be of utmost importance to our Commander-in-chief. America can’t afford any more “leading from behind” in such a dangerous world. We already know that President Obama likes to “speak softly” to our enemies. If he doesn’t have a “big stick” to carry, maybe it’s time for him to grow one.

Representative Jeff Landry (R-La.) said the Obama administration bears some of the blame for the current crises in Egypt and Libya because it pursued policies that helped both regimes rise to power, adding that President Barack Obama had “built that.”

“Remember, the regimes that are in place in those two countries came under his policies – he built that, okay,” Landry said at a press conference on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the anniversary of 9/11, there were violent demonstrations at the U.S. embassies in Egypt and in Libya where, in the latter, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy personnel were killed.

Representative Landry argued that President Obama should show leadership and request that foreign aid to Egypt and Libya be canceled in the upcoming continuing resolution (CR), which will extend federal funding for the entire U.S. government for the next six months.

U.S. Marines defending the American embassy in Egypt were not permitted by the State Department to carry live ammunition, limiting their ability to respond to attacks like those this week on the U.S. consulate in Cairo.
Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson “did not permit U.S. Marine guards to carry live ammunition,” according to multiple reports on U.S. Marine Corps blogs spotted by Nightwatch. “She neutralized any U.S. military capability that was dedicated to preserve her life and protect the US Embassy.”
U.S. officials have yet to confirm or comment on the reports. Time magazine’s Battleland blog reported Thursday “Senior U.S. officials late Wednesday declined to discuss in detail the security at either Cairo or Benghazi, so answers may be slow in coming.”