RWC Unfiltered 9-4-11

• Qaddafi In Tunisia Tribal Loyalist Prep for Guerilla War: WMDs Still Missiong
• Labor Day’s Violent Birth
• Will Perry, Palin Cross Swords?
• California Dream Act Nightmare
• Is Detroit Dead?
• American black Muslims OK With Violent Attacks: Pew Research Finds
• How Big a Hypocrite is Warren Buffett?
• Feds Raid Gibson Guitar for “Illegal Wood”
• Obama Disses Yet Another Longtime Ally
• Facing Decreasing U. S. Support Israel Renews Cooperation With China
• China Arming and Providing Explosives to Anti-India Insurgents
• Turkey Continues To Blast Israel Despite UN Report
• Assad Laughs Off Turkey Ultimatum

Federal authorities have began freeing illegal immigrants facing deportation from custody by using controversial new guidelines the Obama administration announced last week. In what many see as a blatantly political move by Obama to attract Hispanic votes the move circumvents Federal law and Congressional authority.

North African sources now say Qaddafi has fled Lybia and it being harbored in neighboring Tunisia, Thousands of fighters from the tribes loyal to Qaddafi are reported by military sources to have been streaming to the fight in recent weeks. Prominent among them were members of his own Gaddadfa tribe which numbers some 100,000 members and is based in Sirte, a town lying on the Mediterranean coast in the north between Tripoli and the rebel base of Benghazi. The US CIA is reported on the ground working with rebels to secure Gaddafi’s arsenal of WMDs

U. S. forces confirm they have killed an Al Qaeda terrorist previously captured , imprisoned and released from Gitmo who returned to fight against U. S. and allied troops in Afghanistan.

The first big Labor Day in the United States was observed on September 5, 1882, by the Central Labor Union of New York.^] It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland reconciled with the labor movement. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. The September date originally chosen by the CLU of New York and observed by many of the nation’s trade unions for the past several years was selected rather than the more widespread International Workers’ Day because Cleveland was concerned that observance of the latter would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair, which it had been observed to commemorate. All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have made it a statutory holiday.

Perhaps the most violent and most famous railroad related strike, the Pullman Strike was a nationwide conflict between labor unions and railroads that occurred in the United States in 1894. The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois on May 11 when approximately 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt. The American Railway Union, the nation’s first industry-wide union, led by Eugene V. Debs, subsequently became embroiled in what The New York Times described as “a struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital” that involved some 250,000 workers in 27 states at its peak.

During the economic panic of 1893 (”Panic” was renamed “Depression” to make it sound better and that’s now been rebranded a Recession or the same reason), the Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages as demands for their train cars plummeted and the company’s revenue dropped. A delegation of workers complained of the low wages and sixteen hour workdays and the company’s failure to decrease rents or the price of goods in company owned housing and stores). Company owner George Pullman “loftily declined to talk with them” and the defecation hit the impeller.

Many of the workers were already members of the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott in which union members refused to run trains containing Pullman cars. The strike effectively shut down production in the Pullman factories and led to a lockout. Railroad workers across the nation refused to switch Pullman cars, and subsequently Wagner Palace cars, onto trains. The ARU declared that if switchmen were disciplined for the boycott, the entire ARU would strike in sympathy.

The strike was broken up by United States Marshals and some 12,000 United States Army troops, commanded by Nelson Miles, sent in by President Grover Cleveland on the premise that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail, violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and represented a threat to public safety. The arrival of the military and subsequent deaths of workers led to further outbreaks of violence. During the course of the strike, 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. An estimated 6,000 rail workers did $340,000 worth of property damage (about $8,800,000 in 2011 dollars).

Clarence Darrow represented Debs and, after a “brilliant” defense, may have been “robbed of a victory” due to the U.S. attorney dropping the prosecution of a charge of conspiracy to obstruct the mail after a juror’s illness. Debs was then tried for, and eventually found guilty of violating the court injunction, and was sent to prison for six months.

Alarmed by the political consequences of the bloody Pullman strike and fearful of another Haymarket massacre when laborers confronted Chicago police at the McCormick Harvester plant and someone threw a dynamite bomb and police opened fire mowing down six of their own in a blind panic President Cleveland and Congress designed the first Monday in September as Labor Day, as a federal holiday. The Haymarket incident was to get a 8-hour day.

A contemporary sidelight of the Haymarket incident was that the statue of a slain police officer erected there was blown up three times by the Weathermen domestic terrorists a 100-year’s later then guarded by armed police and finally moved to a secure place at the Chicago Police Academy. It’s ironic that one of Obama’s firmest supporters who helped launch his campaign was Weathermen organizer Bill Ayers who to this days says his only regret was having not planted more bombs.

If it ain’t broke fix it until it is.

Even as Texas Gov. Rick Perry moves into the lead as voters’ preferred presidential candidate, a Fox News poll released Thursday shows that voters are more likely to view him as “too extreme” than former frontrunner Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney. In addition, most American voters - including a majority of Republicans - think former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin should stay out of the presidential race. But, last weekend Palin was rallying her troops in Iowa.

Perry receives the support of 26 percent of GOP primary voters in the new poll. That’s up from 13 percent in early August and enough to edge out Romney as frontrunner. Currently Romney captures 18 percent, down from 21 percent (August 7-9).

 315 entries in Webster’s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled

In another BOHICA moment  (Bent Over Here it Comes Again) the California state Assembly voted Friday to send Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that allows undocumented immigrant college students to receive taxpayer-funded financial aid from the bankrupt state..

After a lengthy debate, Assembly Bill 131 — the second part of the controversial measure known as the California Dream Act — cleared the heavily Democrat lower house on a 45-27 vote.

The Santa Barbara County District Attorney is looking into whether the recent Kardasian lavish, loud wedding broke written and unwritten rules in the decorum of sleepy, snooty and some say snotty Montecito by jamming roads with guest and paparazzi and helicopters thumping overhead. The custodian of Montecito’s character is the Montecito Association and it has its Depends in a knot effectively twisting arms and kicking butts raising hell all the way to Congress.

Obama abruptly pulled back proposed new national smog standards Friday morning, overruling the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) efforts to compel states and communities nationwide to reduce local air pollution in the coming years or face federal penalties. It’s a ruse to try to convince America he is less radical than he is.      

Simultaneously Michelle Obama’s obsession with “childhood obesity” has bothered many with her campaign since it began two years ago, especially those who think that White House nagging of parents should be reserved for more pressing issues. Now it is getting more serious, with food regulators starting to infringe on the free speech rights of advertisers.

 In the latest upset, four federal agencies known as the Interagency Working Group (IWG) have delivered a plan to drastically censor food advertisers with products deemed to be “too high” in sodium, sugar, or fat that cater to any viewing audience between the ages of two and 11. These advertisers would lose key slots during some of America’s most popular shows, like American Idol, America’s Got Talent, and Glee-simply because the nanny state is “uncomfortable” with what they are selling.

The IWG, formed within the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act to study childhood obesity and offer possible solutions, has gone far beyond their descriptive reach. Now, perfectly reasonable companies may be penalized severely at Michelle Obama’s insistence.

 What are examples of these enemies of our children’s health according to Michelle?

• 1. Cheerios (Honey Nut and original) and
• 2. Jiff Peanut Butter (Regular or chunky). A century ago another black man George Washington Carver touted the nutritional value of peanut butter to the extent it was originally sold in apothecaries as a nutrition and health aide.

A meaningless, persistent  internet hoax that Coca-Cola was originally green is false. That may have sprung from the fact that for a time Coca Cola was bottled in green glass bottles which might have started the myth. The original 1886  formula specified a caramel coloring because it hid impurities.                                                  

National unemployment is stuck at 9.1%; black unemployment is at 16% and in some areas tops 20% like in Detroit that has shrunk from 2 million to 700,000 as America’s car companies have been battered by foreign competition and as a result of  savage race riots in the 1960s starting a mass exodus of anyone who could get out to do so and an entire generation left.

Efforts to resurrect the decay plagued city have failed despite enormous taxpayer spending throttled by endemic graft.

Forbes magazine editor Steve Forbes says he “very impressed” with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and is leaning toward endorsing him for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

African-American Muslims tend to hold the most violent views finds a Pew Research Center poll released last week.

Fully 28 percent of U.S.-born Black Muslim respondents said “suicide bombings and other violence against civilians” can be justified sometimes or at least in rare cases. That compares with 9 percent of foreign-born Muslims who hold the same view.

Pew also found that 11 percent of black Muslims living in the U.S. have a favorable opinion of al-Qaida - more than double the share of U.S. Muslims overall who hold that view. Another 21 percent of black Muslims hold only mildly unfavorable views of the terrorist organization responsible for attacking America 10 years ago; while 56 percent of that segment of the Muslim population hold very unfavorable views.

A Fox news poll finds 60% Disapprove of Obama’s Handling of The Economy. That is 62% disapproval according to a Quinnipiac U. Poll.

The question after billionaire Warren Buffett’s OpEd calling for the rich to pay more taxes raised eyebrows and questions:

• 1. The rich already pay the lion’s share of income taxes while nearly half of all Americans pay no income taxes at all.
• 2. If Mr. Buffett wants to pay more taxes he can simply do so

His position is simply political pandering to a White House that is campaigning on a class warfare theme blaming successful Americans for the Obama administrations abject failures.

Now comes news that Mr. Buffett’s flagship company has failed to pay its old $1 billion tax bill, and is fighting tooth and nail not to. Buffett’s hypocrisy fits well in Obama’s White House.

Kansas State University has a new “Eco-cat” mascot a costumed, masked female environmentally friendly crusader. Not everyone is pleased and a video of what is being labeled the “Kansas Klown” has gone viral and sponsors of the politically correct symbol of the university’s athletic virility had come a cropper. KSU had previously been the Wildcats.

Last week federal agents raided three Gibson guitar factories and its company headquarters shutting them down and seizing a month’s supply of materials  the feds claim the company has been using illegally imported woods that  it has imported and used for 17-year. But, none of the exporting countries have any beef with Gibson guitars.

So far no one at the Department of Justice has commented about the raid nor has anyone at Gibson Guitar been charged. Gibson’s CEO wonder if it simply isn’t time to leave it’s Made in America label behind and go elsewhere to make its iconic instruments.

A Rasmussen poll of likely voters puts Perry ahead of Obama by a 44-41% margin making it too close to call.

Taiwan defense officials confirm that the Obama administration has rejected the island’s request to purchase 66 new F-16 C/D models to bolster its weakening air forces.

A Defense ministry official told reporters in Taiwan the arms package that was agreed to in Washington includes upgrading fewer of the 144 older F-16 A/B models purchased in the 1980s.

“We are so disappointed in the United States,” the official told a reporter at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition (TADTE). The official said pressure from Beijing prompted the cancellation of the F-16 C/D deal.

A State Department official said no decision on the jets has been made. Other officials said the decision was made months ago, based on concerns at the State Department that a new sale of jets would undermine U.S.-China military relations.

The decision highlights the failure of the Obama administration to heed pressure from Congress. Scores of House and Senate members in recent weeks have written the president urging him to go ahead with the sale of 66 F-16 C/D models to the island government, which is facing a growing threat from China’s missile and air forces across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait.

The latest missive in support of the jet sale came from 181 House members Aug. 1. The lawmakers wrote to President Obama expressing concerns about the shifting military balance on the strait.

“In order to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, we believe it is critical for the United States to sell the government of Taiwan all the F-16C/D [jets] it requires,” the letter said.

“We respectfully request that your administration move quickly to announce its support for such a sale and submit the required congressional notification for a sale as soon as possible.”

The bipartisan letter was signed by 121 Republicans and 61 Democrats.

In May, 45 senators, again including both Republicans and Democrats, urged the president to sell the new F-16s.

Earlier this year, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, also wrote to the State Department and said the sale of new F-16 jets was an “urgent matter.”

“Taiwan has legitimate defense needs and its existing capabilities are decaying,” Lugar said in an April 1 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Any reasonable approach to Taiwan’s existing tactical aircraft requirements includes both sustainment of its existing F-16 A/Bs, but also sales of new F-16 C/Ds,” said Lugar, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Said Heritage Foundation research fellow Dean Cheng: “The refusal to sell F-16 C/Ds, while upgrading F-16 A/Bs, smacks of decisions made not for military reasons but for political expediency. Like the clumsy handling of the Dalai Lama’s recent visit, the administration again appears intent on trying to appease Chinese concerns while still appearing reliable and consistent.”

Tons of highly explosive ammonium based fertilizer is being made in Pakistan by one company reportedly for export to Afghanistan where it is not be used to grow radishes but to make bombs to kill Americans and others. Pakistan ignores complaints and so far nobody him pulverized the single plant that is the source.

Faced with Obama’s defacto abandoning it Israel has renewed high-level military cooperation with China.

Officials said Beijing and Jerusalem were discussing a range of proposals to renew military cooperation. They said the effort was capped by the visit of Chinese Chief of Staff Gen. Chen Bingde to Israel earlier this month.

“The visit is historic,” an official said.

Chen met Israeli defense and political leaders during his visit, which began on Aug. 14. They included Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres. No meeting was announced between Chen and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Israel appreciates and respects the Chinese leadership and will continue to work towards expanding our relations with them and with the Chinese people,” Peres said in a meeting with Chen on Aug. 16.

This marked at least the third high-level defense meeting between the two countries in 2011. In June, Barak, hosted by his counterpart Liang Guanglie, became the first Israeli defense minister in a decade to be invited to Beijing.

“He will meet senior security officials and attend strategic and security briefings, visit the Urban Warfare Training Center, and observe a display of IDF forces training,” an Israeli military spokesman said.

Officials said the China and Israel were discussing urban warfare training, intelligence exchange and strategic dialogue. They said Israel was not prepared to renew defense exports to China, a process halted under heavy U.S. pressure in 2006. In 2010, bilateral trade reached $6.7 billion.

But Israeli analysts said the prospect of a renewal of defense cooperation has been raised amid the dialogue between China and Israel. They said Beijing was seeking military technology and expertise denied by the European Union and the United States.

“Although the role of the Chinese Army is to defend the stability and security of China, we have a supreme obligation to contribute to peace, security and stability of the entire world,” Chen, who did not elaborate, said. 

Obama says he will be done with his jobs speech before the NFL kicksoff its new season next Thursday at 5:30 PM Pacific time killing west coast viewership because few will have been home to see it.

China’s military is and has been supplying explosives and weapons to the northeast Indian terrorist group, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), according to Indian officials.

The United Liberation Front of Asom is a separatist group from Assam among many other such groups in North-East India. It seeks to establish a sovereign Assam via an armed struggle in the Assam Conflict. The Government of India banned the organization in 1990 and classifies it as a terrorist group, while the US State Department lists it under “Other groups of concern”

The Times of India quoted the officials Aug. 11 as saying the ULFA is regrouping with other rebel groups with help from China.

“Sources said Chinese PLA is arming ULFA with T-81 rifles. It is also said that Chinese army is also supplying ULFA with IEDs.”

The report follows reports of war games involving China and Pakistan on the western side of India near Jaisalmer on the Bikaner border.

Chinese arms deliveries to terrorists was disclosed earlier this year in a 2008 State Department cable that revealed China was supplying arms to Iran that were flowing to insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have demarched China repeatedly on its conventional arms transfers to Iran, urging Beijing to stop these transfers due to unacceptably high risk that such weapons would be diverted to militants and terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere,” the cable said.

“Beijing has typically responded by asserting that its sales are in accordance with international law, that it requires end-users to sign agreements pledging not to retransfer the weapons, or — disingenuously in the judgment of USG technical experts — that it cannot confirm that the weapons recovered by Coalition forces in Iraq are actually Chinese in origin.”

However, the 2008 recovery of Chinese weapons in Iraq provided “concrete evidence” of Iran’s role in sending Chinese-origin weapons to terrorists.

“We have repeatedly raised with you our concerns regarding Iran’s retransfer of Chinese-produced weapons to extremists and terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere,” the cable said in a protest meant for Chinese diplomats.

“We understand that you have provided Iran with QW-1 MANPADS in the past, and Iran has publicly asserted that it produces the Misagh-1, which is based on the Chinese QW-1.” The missiles were recovered in Iraq in 2004 and had been fired at a civilian airliner.

In urging Beijing not to sell further arms to Teheran, the cable said: “Iran is not a responsible purchaser of military equipment. There is an unacceptably high risk that any military equipment sold to Iran, especially weapons like MANPADS, that are highly sought-after by terrorists, will be diverted to non-state actors who threaten U.S. and Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as civilians across the region.”

American will be the first to drives in automobiles into poverty.,” paraphrase Will Rogers. By the way he died in a plane crash  86 years ago in mid August, 1935 before he died he sent a telegram to his wife saying, he was safe with pilot Willie Post. Inexplicably there is no explanation of why their pontoon plane crashed just 15 miles short of their goal.

Hamas is believed to have ordered a massive supply of surface-to-air missiles to stop the Israel Air Force from flying over the Gaza Strip.

Security sources said Hamas was believed to have intensified orders of missiles from smugglers in Libya. They said Hamas was seeking shoulder-fired and other SAM systems from Libyan Army arsenals captured by rebels.

“This appears to be the priority,” a security source said.

On Aug. 20, Egyptian security forces captured a convoy from Libya to the Gaza Strip that contained 25 surface to air missiles. The sources said the convoy was ambushed at El Alamein- the site of the famous 1942 World War II battle Anzac and UK forces stopped German General Rommel’s forces  in their headlong drive for Mideast oil near the border with Libya.

“There were two people and they escaped,” the source said. “On the truck were 25 anti-aircraft missiles.”

This marked the first reported Egyptian interception of a weapons convoys from Libya to the Gaza Strip. The flow of weapons from Libya to the Hamas regime was said to have intensified since April.

The sources said Hamas has acquired hundreds of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles over the last 18 months. Most of the systems were identified as the Russian-origin SAM-7, with Hamas reported to have acquired the longer-range SA-8 as well.

West Texas is America’s wind capitol where scores of taxpayer funded windmills stand idle because no one thought to build the transmission lines to carry the wind produced electricity. Washington DC has forgotten the simplest lesson of America’s 18^th century effort to build railroad I.e., but the railroad tracks not locomotives to sit idle until the tracks are laid.

Turkey has run into two obstacles in its two-year campaign squeeze Israel into a corner: First, the UN report out Friday, Sept. 2 justified Israel’s Gaza blockade and its navy’s interception last year of a Turkish vessel leading a flotilla aiming to breach that blockade, although it was assailed for its “excessive response” to the violence of Turkish extremists.
Ankara tried in vain to squash this report and postpone its publication.
Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu laid down an ultimatum which gave Israel 24 hours to abandon its refusal to apologize for the nine deaths aboard that vessel, Turkish-flagged ship Mavi Marmora , caused by a clash between armed Turkish “peace activists” and Israeli soldiers who boarded it. Davutoglu said Israel must also compensate the bereaved families and end the blockade.
Israel again stood by its refusal to apologize - Turkey’s second contretemps.
The UN report composed by former New Zealand Prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer then recommended that Ankara accept “an appropriate statement of regret” and payment of compensation. This is exactly what Israel has repeatedly offered, only to be slapped down by Ankara.
he Erdogan government’s hate campaign for bringing Israel to its knees has entailed support for the terrorist organizations dedicated to its destruction, including the Palestinian Hamas, Hizballah - up to a point, and Turkey’s very own IHH whose activists set about the Israeli soldiers as they boarded the Mavi Marmora.

The UN report is hard on the flotilla’s “true nature and objectives,” accusing it of acting “recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade” and holding the Turkish government responsible for not doing more to prevent this encounter.

 Israel’s naval blockade was ruled legal and justified - “Israel faces a real threat to its security” from Gaza - and the actions of its commandos were deemed “honorable and appropriate,” although the Palmer report assails Israel for its “excessive and unreasonable” response to the violence it encountered on the Marmora.

 Having failed to bring Israel low with its two-year long Plan A, Ankara is putting Plan B into action.

 The Israeli ambassador (who is on home leave before retiring) was expelled and Turkey’s longstanding military accords with Israel suspended.

 The Turkish foreign minister has already threatened to enforce anti-Israel sanctions and ask international tribunals to prosecute Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, ex-Chief of Staff Gabby Ashkenazi, Navy Commander Zvi Merom and a string of naval officers for causing the nine Marmora deaths and requiring them to compensate the victims’ families.

None of these measures were recommended in the Palmer report.

 Turkey’s combative intransigence over the flotilla episode and rank hostility toward Israel reflect the Erdogan government’s frustration over the failure of its strategy to carve a role for Turkey as the leading regional power broker, especially in the Arab Revolt.

 Just as complaints are again mounting against the inefficiencies and waste of the Federal Emergency Management Administrations and that the federal flood insurance program is broke comes news that the IRS paid out $4,000.000,000 (billion) to illegal and undocumented aliens.

Syrian President Bashar Assad simply laughed off Erdogan’s “last warning” to him to stop slaughtering civilian demonstrators and return his troops to barracks.

 Davutoglu went to Damascus especially on Aug. 9 to deliver the warning by hand. But since then, the Syrian army has killed an estimated 437 people, including nearly 100 Palestinians in the town of Latakia - apart from the scores who are dying from maltreatment in custody. Thousands more are injured daily by military gunfire. Yet Assad not only keeps on sending his troops into Syrian cities but has improved on their tactics: In the last two weeks tanks are smashing their way into one city district after another.

Assad is not alone in showing contempt for Ankara’s attempt to make its mark on the Arab Revolt

In Libya, for instance, Turkey undertook to build security and administrative institutions for the dominant Transitional National Council in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi- only to be cold-shouldered after refusing to take part as a NATO member in the military offensive against Muammar Qaddafi and his army - unlike Qatar and Jordan, which put their backs and special forces into toppling the Libyan regime.

 The turmoil in Arab lands has made the alliance Erdogan strove to shape between Ankara, Tehran and Damascus, irrelevant, as well as dashing his vision of Turkey as the great bridge between the West and the Muslim world.

Erdogan is now working on a new alliance with Saudi Arabia at the head of the Gulf emirates, but their differences of approach are formidable. Riyadh is focused on establishing a Sunni Muslim lineup to challenge the Iranian-led Shiite world. Erdogan and Davutoglu are not sure this concept will advance their own vision of Turkey’s role.

All the Turkish leaders’ efforts to make friends and allies have had an important common objective: To isolate Israel and make its military inconsequential as a Middle East force. There is no point therefore in the Netanyahu government acceding to Ankara’s demands. Even if the Gaza blockade were to be lifted, Erdogan would find another pretext for slapping Israel down. And if Plan B goes the way of Plan A, his foreign minister certainly has Plans C and D in his briefcase ready to go.

Some Israeli officials refer to Turkey as an important regional power which should be placated. The facts do not support this description. The rift will be healed only when Turkey’s rulers stop using Israel as whipping boy for their failed agendas, whether in the Sunni or the Shiite arenas, and understand that the Israeli army is not about to play kids’ games with Turkish terrorists.

 Israel must understand too that the glory days of close military ties, when Turkish military air crews training in Israel swooped low over the Tel Aviv beachfront are gone for good. Erdogan has forced the generals of those days into retirement or put them in jail.

Only eight months ago, Hakan Fidan, head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization, MIT and an Erdogan trusty was ready to hand Iran all the classified data on Israel’s weapons systems in Turkey’s possession to help Tehran stand up to a potential Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities.

This was only prevented by the outbreak of the popular uprising in Syria and the attendant deterioration of Ankara’s ties with Tehran and Damascus.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been proactive in the Obama administration’s effort to heal the breach between Ankara and Jerusalem. This is a hopeless task because Erdogan and his foreign minister are after big game: They will be satisfied with nothing less that pushing Israel and its army out of the anti-missile setup the US and NATO have deployed for intercepting Iran’s ballistic missiles.

 military and Washington sources report that Ankara accompanied its hostile acts against Israel with swift permission for the deployment of NATO electronic warning stations on Turkish soil.

Turkey’s eyes are fixed on the shared ballistic missile defense facilities the US established with Israel in recent years. Erdogan plans next to warn Washington that it will not allow the data incoming to the Turkey-based stations to be relayed to Israel thereby driving a hole in the missile shield America is building.

Turkey’s aim is to drive a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, derail their close military and intelligence collaboration and cast Israel out of the collective missile shield.
US withdrawal from this partnership under Turkish pressure would leave Israel wide open to Iran’s ballistic missiles. Whether or not Ankara succeeds in this maneuver depends on how the Obama administration treats what looks in Jerusalem very much like Turkish blackmail.

Galileo Galileo is often credited with the invention of the telescope. Instead, historians now believe the Dutch eyeglass maker Johannes Lippershey as its creator. Galileo was, however, probably the first to use the device to study the heavens.

Turns out the highly colored Egyptian media accounts on Monday, Aug. 30 of 1,500 Egyptian commando and tank supposedly raiding Jihad Islami and al Qaeda cells in Sinai were the product of the southern end of a northbound horse.

Israeli forces along the Gazan and Egyptian borders down to Eilat have been forced to stand for a week at the highest level of preparedness since receiving word that a large group of terrorists had left the Gaza Strip for Sinai on Aug. 24 bent on another attack on southern Israel. The Egyptian army, for its part, is sitting on its hands as the jihadists take up assault positions on its side of the Sinai border.

The group set out from Gaza the day after the head of the Jihad Islami missile and logistics chief Ismail al-Asmar was blown to smithereens when an IAF missile destroyed the can in which he was riding as he was travelling in Rafah.

Israel went on high terror alert on Aug. 25. Its leaders have repeatedly warned since then that Israel is fully prepared to respond swiftly if attacked.