By Douglas V. Gibbs
Egypt
Egyptian riot police in Tahrir Square have had to use tear gas and rubber bullets on 5,000 protesters who are demanding that the ruling military begin the process of stepping down and handing over power to an elected government.
As if the military was going to relinquish control that easily.
These clashes come a day after two people were killed and hundreds wounded in similar unrest throughout Egypt. The protesters are also angry about the slow pace of reforms and apparent attempts by Egypt's ruling generals to retain power over a future civilian government.
According to an Interior Ministry official fifty-five protesters have been arrested since the violence began on Saturday.
The military has been in power since Mubarak stepped down, and has promised they will hand over power to an elected government. However, the military in charge has failed to set a specific date. The military claims the handover will happen after presidential elections are held late next year or early in 2013. The protesters say this is too late and accuse the military of dragging its feet. They want a handover to take place immediately after the end of parliamentary elections in March.
Police, protesters clash for 2nd day in Egypt - My Way
Police, Protesters Clash in Cairo - Fox News
Syria
A Syrian rebel movement that stands against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria is taking advantage of the application of international pressure against the regime. The British have opened up lines of dialogue with the opposition movement. Frances Guy, a former ambassador to Lebanon, met members of the exiled opposition in Paris. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is to meet members of the Syrian opposition in London next week. Meetings with other senior British officials are also planned.
This communication between The West and the opposition movement, though informal, could lead to an incremental progression that may eventually open up the prospect of the rebels being recognized as the country's representatives and supplanting the Assad regime.
Senior diplomatic sources have warned that this does not mean the opposition movement is being recognized as the representatives of the current government. "We are asking the Syrian opposition to present a coherent set of policies and organise themselves."
The development comes as France said that it, too, was ready to work with the Syrian opposition, maintaining that it is too late for the Assad regime to save itself by carrying out reforms.
I question the wisdom of involvement from The West. As long as the strife in Syria does not affect The West, or its allies, direct involvement should be minimal.
Turkey has been calling for action, saying more must be done to stop the "massacre".
As international pressure on Syria builds, Damascus made a tentative gesture to the Arab League, agreeing in principle to allow observers to enter the country for the first time to oversee the implementation of a peace plan to end the bloodshed.
The violence, however, has not abated. Recent reports have indicated that at least 12 civilians, including two children, were killed when security forces fired on protesters following Friday prayers.
The United Nations estimates that at least 3,500 people have been killed since the government began its crackdown against an anti-regime uprising in March. Assad's regime has accused foreign-backed "armed terrorist gangs" of killing 1,000 of its security personnel.
The European Union has already imposed sanctions on Syria, but Russia, a close ally of Syria, and China have blocked any wider international measures under a United Nations umbrella.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria could slide into civil war but she did not foresee the global community intervening in the same way it did in Libya.
"Look, Assad's going to be gone; it's just a question of time. What we hope is that they avoid a civil war, that they avoid greater bloodshed, that they make the changes that they should have been making all along. And we think the Arab League pressure is probably the most effective pressure," she said.
Meanwhile, Russian warships are expected to arrive in Syrian territorial waters soon, sending a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest.
The Arab League suspended Syria earlier this week over its deadly crackdown on the eight-month-old uprising. The 22-member body has proposed sending hundreds of observers to the country to try to help end the bloodshed.
Britain in Secret Talks With Syrian Rebels - The Independent
Clinton Says There Could Be Civil War in Syria - Reuters
Report: Russia warships to enter Syria waters in bid to stem foreign intervention - Haaretz
Iran
Iran conducted a 4-day air defense drill, aimed at heightening their level of preparedness amid possible threats to Iran's airspace, and nuclear centers.
The drill is designed to be a simulation of an attack on the country's nuclear facilities.
Recent news has indicated that Israel may plan to strike by next summer. Israel recently test-launched a ballistic missile and conducted an aerial drill in Italy with the participation of IDF fighter pilots. The IDF also held a home front drill simulating a missile attack on the greater Tel Aviv area – a realistic scenario in case of an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. Israel's training operations seem to have been stepped up after a UN report said Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atom bomb.
The military exercise comes just six days after a blast at an army base outside Tehran left several members of the Revolutionary Guard dead, including a senior officer who was a key figure in Iran's missile program. Some western media outlets claimed Israel was behind the explosion.
The drill includes the use of "missile systems, advanced anti-aircraft artillery and various radar systems, as well as "tactical maneuvers aimed at increasing the level of preparedness amid possible threats to the Islamic homeland's airspace, particularly with regards to the country's. . . nuclear centers."
Last June the Revolutionary Guard conducted an extensive drill in northwest Iran, during which surface-to-surface missiles were launched.
Iran conducts 4-day air defense drill - Ynet News
Israel and America
The United States has been an ally of Israel since the Jewish people re-established Israel as a nation in 1948. The alliance goes back even farther than that. Jewish influence on America's birth was strong. Our system of government is based on the principles recorded by Moses in the first chapter of Deuteronomy. The structure was based on the Israelite organization of government, placing an emphasis on strong, local self-government. Even our entire code of justice was based on Israel's system, which was based primarily on reparation to the victim rather than fines and punishments by the commonwealth (Exodus Chapters 21 and 22). The one crime where satisfaction could not be given to the victim is murder. For that, the punishment is death (Numbers 35:31). In fact, Jewish influence on our system of government was so great that the original U.S. Seal was suggested to have on it the Star of David, or a depiction of Israel led by God's Pillar of Fire.
Unfortunately, today's American liberal, led by Barack Hussein Obama, refuses to see the importance of our relationship with Israel. The liberal left denies reality, and then make up their own reality. Israel is surrounded by nations that wish to destroy the tiny country, yet the liberal left continues to time and time again appease and rub elbows with the Islamic nations of that region.
Israel has no choice, and must constantly focus on reality. The Jewish nation is constantly under attack, and for that reason, Israel has a military force that is quite effective.
How are they so effective?
Training, training, training.
War is a horrible thing. Peace is preferred. But enemies exist, and enemies must be defended against. That is reality. Peace is wonderful, but during times of peace the enemy prepares for the next war - and here in America it seems that during times of peace we drift away from reality. . . until the enemy comes knocking.
While the enemy prepares, the scourge grows, and the terror of Islam prepares and expands. We have idiots here in America (paid for by the democrat party in some cases) marching on Wall Street so that they can stop capitalism, which has paid for every single thing they have ever owned and used, and of which provided the tax dollars used to make our military second to none.
In these crowds of lice infested protesters is the seeds of the liberalism they were taught in our schools and universities. The Left has trained them well. They are ignorant, perverse, the kids of the very wealthy they rail against, and the prevailing attitude among these people is that Israel is a problem.
That gives them a lot in common with the democrats.
That attitude reveals that the liberal left is at odds with the existence of Israel. That puts them at odds with the return of the persecuted Jews in Europe and the Arab world to their ancestral homeland.
Obama and the democrats are demanding the abolition of Israel without saying it outright. Remember, it was Obama that recently "demanded" that Israel retreat to its 1967 borders. The liberal leftists of the world, after Obama said that, actually thought it sounded very reasonable. Those in the real world, however, recognized the idiocy for what it was. There were no 1967 borders (Obama caught in yet another lie). Those were the 1949 ceasefire lines of the War on Independence, which the Israelis barely survived by stopping five invading Arab armies. As a result, the border between Israel and its enemies that wish to annihilate the Jewish nation, looks like something I dropped on the floor, with uneven lines, and indefensible edges.
Obama is aware that those borders would be indefensible. That is why he recommended it. The liberals will tell you they have good intentions, but the truth of the matter is that liberals want Israel to meet with disaster.
Barack Obama is creating conditions that will force Israel to defend herself unilaterally, without any help. Barack Hussein Obama helped push over Mubarak, Gaddafi, and maybe Syria's Assad, who may be about to fight a vicious civil war.
In other words, Obama is organizing the Muslim communities as would any Alinsky follower. He is working to position the Muslim nations into the unity of a caliphate - the one thing he believes can ultimately bring down Israel.
The Nobel Prize-winning Obama has waged more war than any Nobel Peace Prize winner in history, but his chess moves in the Muslim world is setting up something worse than the Muslim unrest we have recently seen. Obama is driving every major government in the Islamic world to unite, and go nuclear. Obama is forcing the Muslim World to go nuclear precisely by his "peace" policies.
Tens of thousands of Arabs have died in the so-called "Arab Spring." The media is covering up the number of deaths, and is praising the violence as a drive for democracy, or should I say "mob-rule." Iran, however, is one of the beneficiaries of the organization of the Muslim World that Obama is presiding over. Ahmadinejad is intent on bringing the 12th Imam, and in turn the Islamic Armageddon, to Earth. He believes the more chaos the better. He is working on getting enough nukes and missiles to create that chaos.
It was a liberal that enabled Khomeini to power in 1979 (Jimmy Carter), and now it will be a liberal called Obama that will bring chaos to the Middle East through his policies of destruction.
Israel considered using nuclear weapons when Golda Meir was prime minister during the 1974 Yom Kippur War. They planned to use the weapons on the Egyptian tank divisions driving through the Sinai Desert from reaching Israel's civilian heartland.
This time, Israel may not be as shy to pull the trigger.
Then again, neither is Iran.
Obama is empowering the worst enemies of Israel and the West. Those radicals wish to annihilate all non-Muslims, but especially Israel and the United States. Obama says he's all about bringing peace to the Middle East, but instead he is creating greater dangers than anyone could have imagined.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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