As I pointed out in a 2010 post at First Things, reproduced after the page break, at last count there were fewer than 2,500 Americans studying Arabic at advanced university courses (not counting, of course, the internal training of the U.S. military). Fewer than 250 were studying Farsi. The total pool of truly competent Arab speakers coming out of American universities per year probably is in the low hundreds. How many of these can U.S. intelligence agencies recruit? If we can't recruit translators among Americans whose background is verifiable, we rely on first- and second-generation immigrants from Arab countries whose background is not verifiable. We should assume that our intelligence services are riddled with hostiles. We are Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians.
It must also be remembered that after 9/11 immigrant and 1st generation American Jews from those countries volunteered in swarms. They were turned away because the Muslim translators refused to work if the Juices were hired.
[Jpost] Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, W. Bank branch continues to try to execute terror in Israel.
Had the latest plot not been stopped, a bomb would have torn though the crowded Jerusalem Mamilla Mall during the peak holiday season. Traumatic scenes of blood-soaked mayhem would have returned to the capital.
Although Hamas as an entity is largely based in the Gazoo Strip, and the threat it poses to Israeli civilians is usually measured in terms of its rocket capabilities, the fact remains that its West Bank branch has not stopped trying to pull off an atrocity in Israel.
This tactic allows the regime to craftily continue its jihad against Israel, as it clings to the ceasefire in place since the end of Operation Pillar of Defense last year.
Several past investigations have documented how this tactic has been put into practice.
For example, in March this year, a Paleostinian resident of Ramallah appeared before an Israeli military court and was charged with attempting to set up a terror cell, after being recruited for the mission by Hamas in Gazoo.
The suspect, a 26-year-old attorney, allegedly worked under the instruction of the regime's military wing, the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, and followed directives he received via Facebook and emails to set up a terror cell that would fire rockets and kidnap and kill a soldier.
In the past, some attacks that have been thwarted were linked by security forces to the Gazook interior minister, Fathi Hammad (though he has predictably denied the charges).
There have been at least three known arrests of Hamas terror cells in the West Bank this year, prior to the latest investigation.
They all form part of a broader effort by it to recover its West Bank infrastructure, which was all but destroyed by Israel's counter-terror operations a decade ago.
These incidents raise an unavoidable question: Can a future attack, one that isn't thwarted, have direct repercussions on current relative calm between Israel and Gazoo? To what extent are these two arenas interlinked? So far, these questions have not been put to the test, thanks to the lifesaving efficiency of the Shin Bet.
#2
The dim bulbs at Foggy Bottom and our academia can't grasp that what is going on now is what the ME would look like without Israel to divert mussie attention away from their own cultural, political, and economic structural failures.
#3
Islam needs to have its equivalent of the Thirty Years War.
Unfortunately, they would have to do it with today's technology, not muskets, pikes, swords, and crossbows. A lot more possibility of collateral damage to the rest of the world now than in the 1600's.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/03/2013 5:47 Comments ||
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#4
Yet if Erdogan has charmed President Obama, he has alienated almost everyone in the Middle East.
Like twin sons of different mothers.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/03/2013 6:25 Comments ||
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#5
Like twin sons of different mothers.
Posted by Bobby
[Daily Caller] On Saturday on the Fox News Channel, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton harshly criticized President Champ's handling of the United States involvement in Syria, calling him the weakest president since James Buchanan, Abraham Lincolns predecessor.
This is absolutely stunning, Bolton said. Ive been trying to fill in the blank of the following sentence: Champ is the weakest president since And I have to say, the best I can come up with is James Buchanan who watched the country dissolve into the Civil War. "Stunning" to some perhaps.
Were watching the collapse of American influence in the Middle East and really more broadly. I'm not at all certain we've ever had any real influence in the Middle East.
And I say that as somebody who has been opposed to use of force in Syria. I have to ask if your secretary of state, John Kerry, given the two very strong statements that he has made on this subject since the first indication of the chemical weapons used 10 days ago took place: Are you now thinking of resigning as a matter of principle, having laid out the case, whether you agree or disagree with Kerry, that the United States has to use force here, to see the president take this step. A self admitted failure, Kerry trumps diplomacy with war.
He'll have to be thrown out, he's got the job he always wanted. He's incompitent, and so what, He's protected buy Obama, and good for as long as Obama is good.
(Of course when Obama is out, so's he, But that doesn't count)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/03/2013 10:38 Comments ||
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#2
So is this what Obozo was planning when he said the US needed to be nicer to everyone?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Jpost] 
