Friend or Foe? And Why Can't Our Leaders Tell the Difference?

1. The front page of the 8/1/10 LATimes, and Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post online (8/6/10) both discuss the issue of US and Western military assistance to Lebanon. Over the last 5 years, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have been the second largest recipient of US military assistance per capita, after Israel. From 2006 to 2008, the LAF received 10 million rounds of ammunition, Humvees, spare parts for attack helicopters, other vehicles for its security forces, and "the same frontline weapons that US military troops are currently using, including assault rifles, automatic grenade launchers, advanced sniper systems, anti-tank weapons and the most modern urban warfare bunker weapons."

Since 2006 about $500 million in military assistance has gone to the LAF, with another $100 million in the pipeline for next year. The purpose of this aid is to help stabilize the Lebanese government, and give it the necessary tools to fight off any terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah. Hezbollah, however, is PART of the Lebanese government. The Prime Minister has said that in the next war with Israel, Lebanon will stand with Hezbollah against Israel. An Israeli soldier was just killed in a cross border shooting by either the LAF or Hezbollah. Lebanon has heavily armed troops at the border with Israel; not so at their border with Syria. That allows Iran and Syria to continue to supply Hezbollah with weapons, including more missiles than most countries possess. Meanwhile, the US and the West are supplying the LAF.

As pointed out by the LA Times, all military and intelligence devices are basically being shared by the two groups. Signal-detection equipment obtained by the LAF from France was, again, intended for use against Islamic militants. Instread, the LAF used the information obtained to alert Hezbollah that their organization had been infiltrated by Israeli spies. Now, those people have disappeared, and one must presume dead. Other examples were given of the LAF aiding Hezbollah. There is NO real difference between the Lebanese government and LAF and Hezbollah. They all work hand in glove. It should be noted that the US takes the same approach with the Palestinian Authority, arming them with advanced weaponry on the assumption that they will act as a bulwark against Hamas.

Hezbollah, recall, is probably the most powerful and widespread terrorist organization in the world today. They were responsible for the deaths of over 200 marines in Lebanon in the early 1980's. They are reported, even by the mainstrream media, to have multiple cells in the US, entering illegally through our porous southern border. And they stand ready to rain down tens of thousands of missiles on Israel if Israel should attack Iran, or if Iran gives the orders to do so. So, Iran and Syria arm Hezbollah, while the US and the West arm the LAF, all of which, for all intents and purposes, ends up in the same hands. Now, this idiocy cannot be laid at the feet of Obama alone. We also blame Clinton and Bush. All adhered to the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. Even if these 3 Presidents did not care about Israel's continued existence (and I believe Clinton and Bush did), it still did not register with them that their fellow Christians have also been mistreated by the Lebanese government and the palestinians. So again, I believe we have an example of these President's beliefs (the peacefulness of Islam) dictating their reality (that the LAF and PA will be our allies).

2. This same inability to accurately view reality has determined the outcome of the soon to be built mosque at Ground Zero. This is why Mayor Bloomberg does not consider it his responsibility to vet the Imam who wants to build the mosque, nor examine the source of the mosque's funding. Facts are of no use when your beliefs have already dictated the outcome. So the City's Landmarks Preservation Commission on this past Tuesday voted 9 -0 to deny historic status to the building where the mosque will be constructed. (The imam, one Feisel Abdul Rauf, is the head of the Cordoba Iniative, with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of whose offshoots is Hamas. The imam refused to say, when asked, that Hamas is a terrorist organization. The imam wants to see Sharia law applied in the US. In 2004, the FBI raided a house in which they found plans by the Muslim Brotherhood to islamacize the USA. Imam Rauf says he will use Ground Zero to proselytize to the muslim world. Anybody want to bet what type of proselytizing he will do? Again, I remind my readers that the symbolism of building on top of the destruction, and then proselytizing from that site is NEVER lost on these people. Information on the imam from the web site: 9/11 Families for a safe and strong America.) Preaching religion is one thing, preaching the overthrow of America is quite another.

Does this really seem much different from the way the Army dealt with Major Hassan? The Army had ample signs of the danger - but they ignored all of them. After all, they "believed" that Islam is a peaceful religion, so there was no reason to investigate the danger signs. Those danger signs simply did not comport with the "reality" of their "beliefs."

The NY Times, in praising the Landmarks Preservation Commission, in their 8/4/10 editorial, also demonstrates their blindness to reality: "The attacks of Sept. 11 were not a religious event. They were mass murder." Now, one can argue that it was religious fanaticism at work on 9/11; but one can NOT reasonably argue that 9/11 was unrelated to religion. Unless, that is, you let your beliefs dictate your reality - as the left does. Unless, those beliefs tell you that all muslims who engage in violence are not really acting in the name of Islam; because Islam is a peaceful religion, and those who do violence are not really part of that religion. And that, my friends, is how the belief system of the left dictates their reality.

It is a shame that Bloomberg and the left wing media can not even see one huge issue that was so eloquently expressed in one letter to the editor in the 8/4/10 NY Times: "Freedom of religion or expression and private property rights are not the issues raised by the proposed mosque at Ground Zero. Decency is; right and wrong is." Unless your goal is a world-wide Caliphate under Sharia Law; in which case, who gives a damn about the sensibilities of the infidels.