From an email sent to us from Britain by Simon Richards, Director of The Freedom Association: 

We have come to take for granted the overwhelmingly benevolent power of the United States, which replaced the equally benevolent dominance Britain exerted throughout the 19th Century. Now, 200 years of leadership by these once great liberal, free market nations is drawing to a close and there will be no such benevolent overseer in future. Of course, even in these past two centuries, when the free world has shown feebleness, as in the 1930s, it has come close to destruction at the hands of evil. People have convinced themselves that the good guys always come out on top. There is no such guarantee. In my view, the will of one man, Winston Churchill, saved us from the triumph of evil in the Second World War. There is no guarantee we will be saved again next time.

We agree, sadly, with these pessimistic thoughts. 

This delightful display of obfuscation, incoherence, and characteristic slippery-slitheriness on the part of the pythoness, Nancy Pelosi, comes from a report by Politico:

Nancy Pelosi sat down with CNN’s Candy Crowley tonight and gave her most detailed – and passionate – explanation of her muted behavior during an initial classified briefing on enhanced interrogation procedures in 2002.

Crowley kicked it off by asking the Speaker about about a column by former CIA director and ex-House intel chairman Porter Goss accusing Democrats of collective "amnesia" for urging investigations of waterboarding after remaining relatively mute during those first classified briefings.

PELOSI: Well, first of all, let me say that perhaps we do live in an alternate universe, Porter and I.

Porter’s orientation is that he was a member of the CIA before he came to Congress and he speaks now as a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

CROWLEY: Is he wrong?

PELOSI: Perhaps he is seeing it from his perspective. If they say we have a legal opinion, it means we’re going to use it. That’s not how I heard it. They said they had a legal opinion. They said they weren’t going to use and when they did they would come back to Congress to report to us on that. But that’s how I heard that.

Let me say what’s important about how we go forward. Because for some reason the Republicans, while I am barred from talking about what goes on in meetings and I could be charged for revealing classified information, they seem to feel at liberty to talk about everything that went on at every meeting as they saw it.

She went on to make the argument, refuted by the current ranking Republican on the intelligence committee Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), that she didn’t raise objections because they would have served no practical purpose.

So as we go from here, he said-she said, it can go on forever. What we should do is to say more members should have access to this so that there can be accountability and you can talk about it.

You’re really a hostage if you’re notified that something has happened. They’re not asking for your thoughts. They are notifying you that this is their opinion. They later may have notified, I don’t know, because I wasn’t part of any of those briefings, of what they were doing, but they notify you that they have an opinion.

If you want to take it to another place, who do you call, the chief justice of the Supreme Court? The president of the United States whose policies these are? You have no recourse or else you are breaking the law. 

Crowley then asked why she didn’t raise objections to the briefers, which riled up the Speaker.

PELOSI: To what end? To what end? No, we’re not – they didn’t say they were doing it. But you know what, I’m not getting into that. The fact is, is that I know what they told us and I know that they did not share our values.

So any briefing that you would get from the Bush administration on the subject is one that is probably something you’re not going to agree with, and two, maybe not the whole truth anyway.

When will they ever learn? A Jewish member of the British Labour Party is turned down for a candidacy in the Birmingham local elections.

The left is not your political side, ma’am! Will it take more than this to convince you? What world have you been living in? Have you been asleep? Wake up and smell the jihad!   

From the MailOnline:

The Labour Party has become embroiled in a race row after a prospective female councillor was allegedly told she was ‘too white and Jewish’ to be selected. 

Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because ‘my Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish’. 

Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham. 

She said: ‘I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it. 

‘People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that’s ridiculous. 

‘I felt particularly aggrieved because I have worked across all sections of the community, particularly with the Muslim section, and have been on official visits to Pakistan.’ 

Mrs Cohen had applied to stand as a Labour councillor for the Birmingham ward of East Handsworth and Lozells, which has a high Asian and Afro-Caribbean population. 

As one of Labour’s safest seats on Tory-led Birmingham city council, the final candidate would be almost certain of victory at the June 4 by-election. 

But when Mrs Cohen telephoned 57-year-old Mr Hussain for his support, she was astonished to be told that she was too ‘white and Jewish’ to be considered. 

Lorraine Briscoe, who runs a local community association, was sitting next to Mrs Cohen when the conversation took place on speakerphone last Tuesday. 

‘I was disgusted that a councillor could make comments like that in 2009,’ she said. 

‘He told her, "They will not vote for someone who is white and Jewish. My Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish". 

‘Elaina then asked him if he had talked to his Muslim members about it and he said, "I don’t want to talk about it with you" and hung up. 

‘Elaina does a lot of good work in this community and she does not see race or religion, she just sees people.’ 

Two days after the alleged conversation, Mrs Cohen and another candidate were rejected by a pre-selection panel after failing to gain the support of the local party. 

Instead, members were presented with one candidate, black South African Hendrina Quinnen, who was selected by an almost unanimous vote. 

Mrs Cohen has now sent an official complaint to Labour Party general secretary Ray Collins and Birmingham city council accusing Mr Hussain of improper conduct. 

Mr Hussain said yesterday: ‘I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.’

We are happy to announce that we have been added to the blogroll of the excellent PajamasMedia.

We regard it as an honor.

You will see their button on our front page. 

Our readers will find their videos a great source of information, and opinion well worth hearing. 

 Dick Morris writes (read his whole article here):

 After the National Security Administration picked up mentions of the "Brooklyn Bridge" in its warrantless wiretaps, it alerted New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to the possibility of a terror attack against the bridge. Kelly flooded the bridge with cops and commissioned an engineering study to determine how one could bring down the bridge, plunging ten thousand people into the East River during rush hour.

The study said it was impossible to blow the bridge up – one would have been discovered – but that a terrorist could sever the cable holding it aloft with a torch. It would take weeks, but the terrorists could work, undetected, in a vacant building that housed the cables under the bridge. The traffic noises would mask their efforts, and the building was not patrolled or even visited by anyone.

The terrorist noted the cops on the bridge and sent a message, intercepted by the NSA, that it was "too hot on the Brooklyn Bridge." But it was not until we waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed that we learned the identity of the al-Qaida operative – Lyman Farris. On learning his name, the New York Police raided his Brooklyn apartment. Chillingly, they found the equipment he would need to bring down the bridge and an engineering diagram (akin to that which Kelly had ordered) identifying where they would have to stand to cut the cables.

 Does Obama really want to prosecute the anti-terror investigators who saved thousands by waterboarding Mohammed and learning this information?

Yes, he does. The Democrats want to, because punishing the last administration is (obviously) far more important to them than national security. The true name for their affected moral objection to ‘torturing’ terrorists, is spite. 

Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella cited the announcement that the Defense Department is going to release many pictures showing alleged abuse by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked [Former Senator, TV star and presidential candidate] Fred Thompson what purpose that might serve.

“None, other than to serve as propaganda tools for our worst enemies,” Thompson said. “This was set in motion when the president first decided to release CIA memos on interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects … There was no purpose in doing that except to make him look good internationally and to the left wing here at home … It did a lot of damage. In one stroke of a pen he declassified top-secret documents that people would otherwise go to jail for releasing. It gave al-Qaida and the Taliban a blueprint as to the outer limits of our interrogation techniques. We have to remember that [the techniques were used] in the aftermath of 9/11. Congress was briefed on these techniques. Some of them asked if they were really going far enough to get what they needed to get, and it was approved at high levels in the administration. They carefully crafted them as best they could to not go too far, and to provide safeguards when they were carrying out these admittedly rough techniques on these people who had this vital information.

“So now we’re really talking about a war crimes tribunal, which this country has never done. We’ve never brought to criminal court prior administrations in this country. Harry Truman could have been accused of war crimes, I suppose, for dropping the bombs. President Obama authorized the killing of those three [pirates] in the Indian Ocean not too long ago. Prosecuting these people under these circumstances is something you hear about in banana republics and third-world countries, not the United States of America. The president’s opened up a terrible Pandora’s Box and there’s going to be a price to pay before this thing is ended.”

Martella asked if the Obama administration was acquiescing to its far-left base when it released the CIA memos on interrogation techniques.

“I think in this case, in all probability, they thought that they could cater to their left wing, appease their demands, by releasing these memos and then it might not go any further,” Thompson said. “Because surely they were able to see that this was bad for them the way it’s going to be bad for the country. This is going to have ramifications that are far-reaching. They thought they could put the genie back in the bottle after they opened it, and of course appeasement never works that way.

“There was a firestorm. The attorney general’s received 250 names in a petition to urge the appointment of a special prosecutor for this. The left-wing blogs went nuts. They started running television ads and so forth. And then after promising that there would be no prosecutions, [Obama] acquiesced and now opened the door for that. So I think it’s a case of naivete, ineptitude and unbelievable arrogance and lack of experience.

“We elected someone who didn’t have two minutes’ worth of experience with regard to matters concerning national security. Now he’s cast in this position and he’s making decisions that are going to have far-reaching ramifications not only abroad, and not only with our enemies, but in dividing our country even further here at home in ways I don’t think we’ve ever been divided before. We’re going to have members of Congress testifying against each other if they go down this road.”

Martella noted that Rep. Peter King of New York has said that if Democrats do go ahead and attempt to prosecute Bush administration CIA interrogation lawyers, the Republicans should “go to war” with them.

“That just gives you an example of the atmosphere on Capitol Hill today,” Thompson observed. People are angry. People are upset. You’ve got people on the left, you’ve got the Democrats talking about truth commissions, talking about investigations and Congressional hearings and urging prosecution. They’re fighting among each other on the Democratic side as to just how they should go and how far they should go.

"Some of these Democrats are the same people who were briefed on these techniques back in 2002,” Thompson said, “including Nancy Pelosi, who’s not telling the truth now, who’s trying to parse words and trying to get around the fact that she knew what was going on, as others did back when this happened. That creates a new level of animosity like I’ve never seen before, and I served in the Senate for eight years. The dogs of war have been loosed in this country and I don’t know what is going to happen before we see the end of it. But none of it’s going to be good.” 

If the US does not soon find a way to confiscate or neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – and is there the least glimmer of a chance that Obama and Hillary (‘smart-power’) Clinton will even try? –  the Taliban will almost certainly take control of it.

Can we doubt that they will use it?   

Walid Phares writes (read the whole article here): 

Over the past few months, Pakistan’s government authorized governors in the Northwest part of the country to sign agreements with the leaders of the “Sharia Movement” in the Swat valley, a Jihadi front, to apply their interpretation of religious laws. The founder of the movement, Sufi Mohammad accepted the terms of the settlement with Islamabad. But his son in law Maulana Qazi Fazlullah the chief of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi organization (TNSM), who since 2007 has deployed his 5,000 militiamen in 60 villages forming a “parallel emirate,” is now on the march to expand Taliban influence beyond the “authorized” district. In short, the cohort of jihadists is not stopping, not reconciling, not de-radicalizing but seeking to eventually reach the capital.

First in Waziristan, then as of last year in Swat, and now seizing the district of Buner, the Taliban are conquering Pakistani land. Their technique is simple: Give us Sharia implementation or endure terror. Authorities have been choosing the morphine option: let them apply Sharia if they cease fire. But as soon as an area is “granted” to the jihadists, a new “jihad” begins towards the adjacent district. The “forced Sharia” gives the Taliban more than just catechism: full control, broadcast, courts, training facilities, and money. It just cedes territory and people to a highly ideological force. Their Sharia-based “Talibanization” grants them harsh show of severity and intimidation: girls and women punished, opponents eliminated, civil society repressed, a copycat of pre-2001 Afghanistan.

But the strategic consequences of the last “offensives” inside Pakistan are boundless. By reaching a distance of 70 miles or so of the capital the Taliban are putting the government under their direct menace. Pushes elsewhere are expected southbound and northeast bound. The army is deploying around public buildings; that is a bad sign. I’d also project a Jihadi push along the Kashmir borders with India. The hydra is expanding gradually, preparing for a massive squeeze.

 Our reader, ‘Libertarian Conservative’, sent us this ‘What-should-be-done’ list. We don’t disagree with any of it. 

1. Elections. Vote the Democrats out.

2. The Economy. Reduce all income tax to a low flat rate. Let failed firms go bankrupt.

3. The Environment. Keep your yard and neighborhood clean, forget the rest.

4. Energy. Drill everywhere in and off-shore America for oil and gas, keep mining and burning coal, build as many nuclear power stations as necessary, scrap the wind-farms. As soon as possible stop importing oil.  

5. Health. Let people pay for their medical treatment. Doctors can charge no more than the market will bear.  

6. Education. Teach literacy, numeracy, math,  science, history, languages, the traditional best of the culture. Not sex. And forget about self-esteem. 

7. Foreign policy. Increase defense expenditure. Modernize the US arsenal. Stop the yackety-yack with Iran and use military force to disable its  nuclear processing installations. Ditto North Korea. Extend the missile shield over all European states subject to Russia’s actual and potential aggression. Pressure the 22 Arab states to absorb and assimilate the ‘Palestinians’; persuade Israel to annex Judea, Jordan or Israel to annex Samaria,  Egypt or Israel to annex a depopulated Gaza. Support Israel in every possible way in the measures it takes to ensure its own survival. Withdraw from the UN and let it die. 

The following is an email by Mark Litvak which is going round America today, forwarded from one recipient to another, informing people about a hugely significant judgment that we otherwise would not hear about since the mainstream media chose not to report it. (Or if they did, not prominently enough for anyone to remember.) Why do they not want us to know about it? Are they for terrorism? Are they against freedom? Do they ask themselves these questions? What are their answers?  

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to

light it?

       Did you know his trial is over?

      Did you know he was sentenced?

      Did you see/hear any of the judge’s comments on TV or Radio?

       Didn’t think so.!!!

    Everyone should hear what the judge had to say.

  ————————————————————————–

         Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.

     Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to

say..  His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid

also admitted his ‘allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the

religion of Allah,’ defiantly stating, ‘I think I will not apologize for

my actions,’ and told the court ‘I am at war with your country.’

     Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below:

 

     January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.

     Judge Young:   ‘Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the

Court imposes upon you.

     On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the

custody of the United States Attorney General.  On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the

Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each

count to run consecutively.  (That’s 80 years.)

     On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years again, to be

served consecutively to the 80 years just imposed.  The Court imposes upon you

for each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 that’s an aggregate fine of

$2 million.  The Court accepts the government’s recommendation with respect

to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet

and $5,784 to American Airlines.

     The Court imposes upon you an $800 special assessment. The Court imposes

upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But

the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further.

     This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes.  It is a fair

and just sentence.  It is a righteous sentence.

     Now, let me explain this to you.  We are not afraid of you or any of your

terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid.  We are Americans.  We have been through

the fire before.  There is too much war talk here and I say that to everyone

with the utmost respect.  Here in this court, we deal with individuals as

individuals and care for individuals as individuals.  As human beings, we reach

out for justice.

     You are not an enemy combatant.  You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier

in any war.  You are a terrorist.  To give you that reference, to call you a

soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether the officers of government do

it or your attorney does it, or if you think you are a soldier.  You are

not—– you are a terrorist.  And we do not negotiate with terrorists.  We do

not meet with terrorists.  We do not sign documents with terrorists.  We hunt

them down one by one and bring them to justice.

     So war talk is way out of line in this court.  You are a big fellow. But

you are not that big.  You’re no warrior.  I’ve known warriors. You are

a terrorist.  A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted

murders.  In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you

first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the

press and the TV crews were, and he said: ‘You’re no big deal.’

     You are no big deal.

     What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys

have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple

with, is why you did something so horrific.  What was it that led you here to

this courtroom today?

     I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to

search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do

what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing?  And, I have an answer

for you.  It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes

as close to understanding as I know.

     It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate

our freedom.  Our individual freedom.  Our individual freedom to live as we

choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we

individually choose.  Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It

carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.  It is because we prize

individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So

that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly,

individually, and discretely.  It is for freedom’s sake that your lawyers

are striving so vigorously on your behalf, have filed appeals, will go on in

their representation of you before other judges.

     We Americans are all about freedom.  Because we all know that the way we

treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.  Make no mistake

though.  It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve

our freedoms.  Look around this courtroom.  Mark it well.  The world is not

going to long remember what you or I say here.  The day after tomorrow, it will

be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure.

     Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America , the American

people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war,

individual justice is in fact being done.  The very President of the United

States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out

evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will

gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and

refine our sense of justice.

     See that flag, Mr. Reid?  That’s the flag of the United States of

America .  That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag

stands for freedom.  And it always will.

     Mr. Custody Officer.  Stand him down.

 

     So, how much of this Judge’s comments did we hear on our TV sets?  We

need more judges like Judge Young, but that’s another subject.  Pass this

around.  Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say.

Powerful words that strike home…  

 David Solway writes (read the whole article at Front Page Magazine): 

Our political leaders, the majority of our public intellectuals and the mainstream media have not realized, or myopically refuse to realize, what is at stake as the historical drama in which we are implicated unfolds—a drama in which Iran and Israel are the central actors. 

Let us imagine a terrifying possibility. We know that Iran has vowed to unleash nuclear havoc upon Israel. Should Israel respond in kind, as it would have every right to do, the damage may not be confined to a localized area. Many people are callous enough to accept the nuclear probability of Tel Aviv and Tehran reduced to rubble and ash, so long as they can get on with their lives. What they do not realize is that they too are in the line of fire.

An atomic missile falling on Kharg Island, for example, Iran’s major oil depot in the Persian Gulf, would ignite a radioactive oil fire that could probably not be extinguished and the skies would gradually darken over us all. Such a conflagration would more likely than not have to burn itself out, when it might well be too late to recover from its effect on climate and agriculture. Israel would undoubtedly do its utmost to avoid striking such installations, but Iran remains one vast inflammable oil well. An errant nuclear-tipped missile, launched from either side, may have planetary consequences. Krakatoa would be as nothing in comparison. Saddam lighting up a number of oil wells in Kuwait would not even qualify as a harbinger of what would occur—we recall that it took several months for American engineers to control a relatively minor irritation in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.

We are now living what may be the most precarious moment in the recorded history of the world as we continue to play the dangerous game of Iranian roulette—the game in which not one but five of the six chambers are loaded…

In the current play of innocuous strategies vis à vis Iran, of abject appeasement and feeble sanction, juicy carrot and twig-like stick, this is not a fifth act we should placidly discount. Former American ambassador to the UN John Bolton, one of our most reliable analysts, has warned that “there are no incentives that will dissuade Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons” (Newsmax, January 28, 2009). And so far, no disincentives either…

Ahmadinejad has made clear his intention to prompt the advent of the Mahdi by initiating an act of apocalyptic violence. It’s not a bad plan from the Imamic perspective. Accelerate the Mahdi’s arrival by bringing about a nuclear cataclysm and reap the reward of either of two outcomes. Israel is destroyed and Iran survives since, as Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani has informed us, Iran can absorb “thirty or forty million martyrs” in its march toward a global Caliphate. Alternatively, Iran is also consumed and very possibly the world along with it, a global conquest to be savored from a position of vantage in Jannah, the Garden of Eternal Delights. Either way, victory.

Fear-mongering? Think again. Those who would argue that such a scenario makes no sense and is in fact counter-productive have simply not grasped the metality in question. A nuclear weapon is only a bigger suicide bomb and there are prospective “martyrs” aplenty…

The aim is to ensure that Iran stays afloat while it prepares to accomplish its mission, predicated on the calculated risk that neither Israel nor America will intervene in time to deflect its trajectory. It’s a gamble, but one the Iranians are confident they can win. (And they certainly have nothing to worry about from a flaccid and propitiatory Europe.)…

 We should do well to keep in mind that we are not treating with a cadre of lucid and sensible actors who can be trusted to be reasonable—as we understand reasonableness. They are labile, invidious and locked in a mental universe that is utterly foreign to our own…

The original statement delivered in Farsi at the “World without Zionism” conference held in Tehran on October 26, 2005 translates literally as: Israel “must be erased from the page of time,” a slogan draped across Shihab-3 missiles at military parades, which makes the intent rather obvious. “Wiped off the map” is the non-literal translation provided by the New York Times… 

Many of Iran’s enablers in Western intellectual and political circles, such as Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, Jonathan Steele of the Guardian, Stephen Walt of “Israel Lobby” fame, the despicable Jimmy Carter and American Congressmen Denis Kucinich and Ron Paul, have tried to soft-pedal Ahmadinejad’s threat. The Economist’s Middle East correspondent Max Rodendeck speaks dismissively of Iran’s “nuclear gadgetry.” … The downward appraisal by the American National Intelligence Estimate of Iran’s nuclear program, which reduced the threat index and thereby mitigated the urgency of the situation, turns out to have been totally misguided. It was subsequently reversed by director Michael McConnell at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 5, 2008.

Ahmadinejad looks and acts like a small-time crook, but he will soon have his finger on a big-time button. Nor should we be deceived by his apparent buffoonery. He means what he says and he needs to be taken at his word…                                  

Jews now have their own nation and are no longer powerless to react or to exact vengeance. If Israel finds itself in the throes of annihilation in a second Holocaust, left to smoulder in the world’s guilty unconcern, no one can dictate to it what its response should be. And no one should consider himself exempt from the consequences.

It is time to rub the slumber from our eyes. Should Iran carry out its promise to destroy Israel, whether directly or by proxy, thus hastening the looming parousia of the long-awaited Mahdi, and Israel retaliate in nuclear reprisal, the region will be set ablaze. The fact that the world economy would crater far more severely than anything we are experiencing today is almost beside the point. Far worse, the effect on the global ecology might well be disastrous and possibly terminal, and we, too, like our foolish predecessors, will have learned too late that blindness and make-believe never work. The writing is not only on the wall; it is in the documents, the proclamations, the newspapers, the texts of speeches…

Our attention has been distracted by other volatile nuclear powers, such as Pakistan and North Korea. Pakistan in particular, if the inchmeal approach of the Taliban toward the capital is not halted, will need to be robustly confronted. But in an oil-drenched region primed to go up in flames, in which one nation is acquiring offensive nuclear ordnance which it vows to use and another is ready to respond defensively, the immediate world-threat is Iran. It must be dealt with in short order, whether militarily or economically, and its nuclear designs effectively negated.

For if we do not wake up, the day may dawn when we do not wake up.