Posts

US Aid to Syrian Opposition Tops $1 Billion Mark

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Jordan Schachtel

According to USAID (United States Agency For International Development), the federal agency in charge of distributing the vast majority of foreign aid monies to other countries, United States taxpayers have paid for over one billion dollars in foreign aid packages to help support the “Syrian Humanitarian Response.”

Despite the threat of continued chemical attacks against the Syrian people that has served as the focal point of rallying cries for advocates of US military intervention (including the Obama administration), The Daily Beast reported that gas masks were not among the items purchased with the American billion-dollar aid package. While the President and his deputies (namely Secretary of State John Kerry) continue to forcefully denounce what they now claim to be incontrovertibly proven chemical weapons use by the Syrian Government, the Executive Branch notably omitted to include funding for gas masks in its omnibus aid package.

Instead, The Obama Administration armed the Syrian Opposition with advanced weaponry.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________

Pentagon pushback: Joint Chiefs said to oppose Obama’s Syria strike order

By WorldTribune.com.

President Barack Obama has encountered vigorous resistance from the military to his plans to attack Syria.

Administration sources said the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as many in the U.S. military command have opposed Obama’s directive to prepare for imminent air strikes on the regime of President Bashar Assad.

The sources said the opposition within the military and the Defense Department has warned of retaliation by Iran and Syria against U.S. interests throughout the Middle East and Africa.

“The president has been told point blank that this could be the start of a military intervention that could take months or even a year until there is any resolution,” a source who has been following the debate said.

The sources said the biggest opponent of a military campaign against Syria has been the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. They said Dempsey, who sought to maintain a low profile, has warned that the U.S. military was not ready for any sustained conflict against Syria that could involve two of its leading allies, Iran and Russia.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Use Egypt’s Foreign Aid to Rebuild our Crumbling Bridges Here at Home

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APAimages/Rex FeaturesRand Paul targets Egypt aid

By Julian Pecquet. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) plans to use next week’s vote on transportation spending to end aid to Egypt following the ouster of the country’s freely elected president.

Paul’s amendment comes as a growing number of senators are rebelling against the White House’s decision not to call Mohamed Morsi’s ouster a military coup, a declaration that would automatically freeze the $1.5 billion in mostly military aid the U.S. provides every year.

The foreign aid skeptic proposes spending the money on the country’s crumbling bridges instead, an issue that has bipartisan appeal.

“It is no secret that our nation’s roads and bridges are crumbling at an increasing rate, many of which are in critical stages of disrepair,” Paul said in introducing the amendment.

“Instead of sending taxpayer money to countries that are ineligible to receive our aid, like Egypt, we should be directing that money to these pressing domestic needs.” Read more from this story HERE.

______________________________________________________________

Morsi supporters pledge to stand firm after massacre

By Patrick Kingsley. Supporters of the overthrown Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi have pledged to maintain their weeks-old sit-in in east Cairo, despite the massacre of scores of their comrades by state officials on Saturday.

At least 65 pro-Morsi protesters were shot dead during an eight-hour attack by police officers and armed men dressed in civilian clothes. An ambulance official said the death toll was 72; the Muslim Brotherhood said 66 had died and a further 61 were braindead in hospital.

“No one’s going anywhere,” said Abdel-Rahman Daour, one of several spokespeople at the sit-in outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque. “We either have freedom or we die. We’re not going to live in a country without freedom.”

Tens of thousands of Morsi supporters have camped outside the mosque since late June when the president’s overthrow began to seem likely. Egypt’s interior minister has made it clear that he intends to clear Rabaa as soon as possible, and Saturday’s massacre in a nearby street was considered an attempt to intimidate the protesters.

On Friday hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters turned out in support of a call by Egypt’s army chief, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, for a crackdown on what he called terrorists – a move sceptics saw as a veiled threat to protesters at Rabaa. Read more from this story HERE.

Your Tax Dollars Fund Ethnic Cleansing of Christians

/0 Comments/in , /by

On April 22, two Orthodox bishops of Aleppo, Syria, were kidnapped by U.S.-supported Islamist fighters. Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yohanna Ibrahim and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Boulos Yaziji were kidnapped as they were returning from an attempt to obtain the release of two priests previously kidnapped. The priests, Father Michel Kayyal, an Armenian Catholic, and Father Maher Mahfouz, a Greek Orthodox, were kidnapped in February and still remain in the hands of the Islamist fighters the Western media refer to as “rebels.”

In a Huffington Post article, Orthodox priest Peter-Michael Preble said of the two kidnapped bishops: “They were on a mission of peace, to bring aid and comfort, and they were taken hostage as part of the systematic extermination of the Christian population in Syria.”

As an eyewitness to Capitol Hill, I can say without hesitation that the Republican Party leadership is allowing the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria in order to obtain some minor political gain over President Obama. A momentary “we got you” win against Obama is more important to the Republican leadership than the lives of millions of Christians and the destruction of the ancient churches founded by Peter, Paul, John and the other early Saints. Rather than Speaker John Boehner using the power of his office to stop Obama’s support of the jihadist fighters in Syria, he is pushing for our overburdened and over-deployed Armed Forces to get directly involved.

On the Senate side, it is John McCain, who is the principal Republican promoter of the destruction of the Syrian church. McCain seems totally blind to the human suffering of war and has no regard for Christians suffering at the hands of the jihadists in Syria. As McCain sees it, Iran is currently our main enemy and eliminating one of its power bases – its alliance with Syria – is worth the human suffering and ethnic cleansing of the Christian population. McCain is actually pushing Obama to do even more damage in Syria. McCain has demanded that our Air Force face one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world, the Russian SA-22 Pantsir S1, so that we can assist jihadist fighters.

It is very true that Iran is a threat to the peace of the Middle East and to Israel, but arming jihadists associated with al-Qaida and allowing them to murder Christians and destroy churches in Syria does not seem to me as the optimal way to limit the power of Iran. Indeed, the harsh persecution of Christians by jihadist fighters supported in Syria by Barack Obama is no different than the persecution of Christians in Iran. At least in Iran the Christians get a phony show trial before they are jailed and tortured. In Syria, Christians are tortured and murdered with no trial at all and using American tax dollars given to jihadists by Barack Obama.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Doubles Aid to Muslim Brotherhood-Dominated Rebels in Syria

/15 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

The United States said Sunday that it will double its non-lethal assistance to Syria’s opposition as the rebels’ top supporters vowed to enhance and expand their backing of the two-year battle to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Yet the pledge fell far short of what the opposition had made clear it wanted: weapons and direct military intervention to stop the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people. The Syrian National Coalition had sought drone strikes on sites from which the regime has fired missiles, the imposition of no-fly zones and protected humanitarian corridors to ensure the safety of civilians.

Instead, the Obama administration’s pledged to provide an additional $123 million in aid, which may include for the first time armored vehicles, body armor, night vision goggles and other defensive military supplies. It was the only tangible, public offer of new international support as the foreign ministers of the 11 main countries supporting the opposition met in a marathon session in Istanbul.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new package of assistance in a written statement at the conclusion of the conference that began Saturday afternoon and stretched into early Sunday.

The additional aid, which brings total non-lethal U.S. assistance to the opposition to $250 million since the fighting began, “underscores the United States’ firm support for a political solution to the crisis in Syria and for the opposition’s advancement of an inclusive, tolerant vision for a post-Assad Syria,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Most Only Want Foreign Aid Cuts

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APOf 19 options for cutting government spending, only one — reducing foreign aid — was supported by more than 40 percent of Americans, according to a poll released Friday.

The widespread rejection of most ideas to slash spending in the poll from the Pew Research Center shows the difficulty of translating a popular GOP message — the federal budget needs to be shrunk down to size — into political reality. Even on foreign aid, only 48 percent want to cut, compared with 49 percent who want to increase funding or keep it at the same level.

It also displays the difficulty of replacing the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts scheduled to hit March 1. While both Republicans and Democrats say they want to avoid the across-the-board slashes in defense and domestic spending, negotiations are at a standstill and an agreement on replacement cuts could be elusive.

Decreasing funding for the State Department and cutting unemployment aid are both supported by around one-third of Americans. Cuts to the Defense Department and to aid for the needy in the U.S. are backed by about a quarter of Americans. Cuts in all other areas suggested by Pew, including energy, health care, entitlement programs, infrastructure, scientific research and combating crime, receive even less support.

For most categories, a plurality of Americans want to keep spending at the same level.
Even among Republicans, there’s majority support for only two cuts: foreign aid and unemployment assistance.

Read more from this story HERE.

How the U.S. Aids Hamas Through the Palestinian Authority

/1 Comment/in , /by

On February 5, 2013, the reconstituted US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Middle East and North Africa held a subcommittee hearing on the subject of “Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation: Threatening Peace Prospects.”

Two senior expert witnesses from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy testified and expressed optimism that US trained Palestinian Security Forces, affiliated with the Fatah, will combat the Hamas terror group which competes for power in the nascent Palestinian Arab entity.

Yet the Fatah policy and attitude towards Hamas can be summarized in an exchange that I had with Fatah founder Yasser Arafat at a press conference in Oslo, on December 10, 1994, the night before Arafat became one of the recipeints of the Nobel Peace Prize.

My question/statement: “Mr. Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, and Israeli Foreign Minister of Foreign Affairs Peres said a few hours ago in answer to my question, that you deserve the peace prize because you have committed yourself to crushing the Hamas terror organization.”

Arafat response: “I do not understand the question. Hamas are my brothers.”

Read more from this story HERE.