Will The Arabs Fight Or Turn Tail?

America, Middle East, Military

Having grown up in Israel, I confess to harboring a bias about the mettle of the Arab fighting force. We grew up seeing images of army boots piled up high in the Sinai desert, where in 1967, Egyptians shed those shoes and fled before the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). Al Qaeda and ISIS reversed my bias; they’re fierce fighters. But the old preconception is creeping back again.

Reports DEBKAfile:

US officials disclosed Wednesday that the UAE [United Arab Emirates] had suspended air attacks against the Islamic State in Syria over concerns about their pilots’ safety, after the Jordanian pilot who was burned alive a month ago was captured in early December. The UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain joined the US-led coalition against ISIS in September.

The UAE appears to want guarantees that if downed, their pilots will be rescue by our guys. The Emiratis are demanding that American Ospreys “be located in northern Iraq, near the site of most raids,” to mount rescue operations. You’d think they’re doing the US a favor by protecting their neighborhood from the advancing demons.

I realize there’s more to it than cowardice: Many in the Arab world see “the Islamic State not as an Arab but as a US-European war. This line resonates widely in the other Arab countries aligned with the coalition.”

The Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Judeh, talks a good game: “You have to target them wherever they are,” he says. No doubt, King Abdullah, like his father, is a man of action. But for rest, could it be that Brian Williams, the NBC anchor who made up self-aggrandizing war stories, is not the only high-powered person who’s lying? Hints DEBKAfile:

It is noteworthy that neither Washington nor Amman has disclosed the scope of Jordan’s aerial activity since the pilot was captured …
… Although the UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain joined the coalition from the start, most observers believe their participation was more symbolic than active. Iraq has no air force to speak of and its army turned tail against Islamic State forces; the Saudis allotted a trifling number of planes to the effort; while Bahrain doesn’t have an air force at all. The UAE has the biggest and most modern air force in the Gulf region and so its withdrawal is a major blow to Washington’s war effort, such as it is.

* “ISIS in full swing under ex-Iraqi general with 70 deaths in a month.”

* Chucky Krauthammer is unhappy about Jordan’s apparent enthusiasm for the battle against ISIS. As always, Chucky wants the US to lead and dominate, because that means he assumes his rightful place in the world. Behold:

Breaking: Inadvertently, BHO Inferred Something True

Barack Obama, Christianity, English, Islam

Inadvertently, Barack Hussein Obama suggested a correct inference today. I didn’t say he spoke the truth (other than “the” and “a”); that would be too much to ask. Listen:

The first Crusade was proclaimed almost 1000 years ago; the inquisition a little after that. Indirectly—and in his attempt to draw “moral equivalency between the brutality of ISIS and Christianity”—Barack Obama situated the ISIS phenomenon in the Middle Ages.

From a man whose relationship with truth is at best tentative—that’s the best one can hope for. So what did President Pinocchio say at the National Prayer Breakfast?

Unless [LEST] we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was [WERE???] justified in the name of Christ.

It’s “LEST we get on our high, etc. …”

LEST you doubt that the man’s grammar even with teleprompter—the Millennials write this drivel—is as bad as all that, here’s the tape, sound included.

Obama’s easily as stupid as W. Bush, except that the media cover for him.

Drug Use, A Normal Part of Life. DEAL!*

Addiction, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry

An old friend, Stanton Peele, Ph.D., is an addiction expert who’s always streaked ahead of the pack. Still does. When I interviewed him for two of my Calgary Herald columns, in 2000, he was emphatic about avoiding the either/or, do or die, fatalistic attitude to drug use, promoted—in a self-serving and unscientific fashion—by the enabling professions and their stakeholders.

This Dr. Peele is still doing. In “We Need to Normalize Drug Use in Our Society—Deal With It!,” he explains why “drugs are … part of the range of normal human behaviors,” not a disease. (Read it here.)

Indeed, we all know users who function on a very high level. They don’t call themselves addicts. Many of them work in Silicone valley. “‘I’ve used every class of drug you can imagine,’ says one rather productive individual.

When I tell people who’ve signed off on the medical theory of addiction—baseless in science—that I’m hopelessly addicted to chocolate. Seriously addicted. They laugh. Oh, no, you can only be addicted to “real” drugs. Chocolate is my drug of choice. It is my personality or character that ensures I don’t consume 5 slabs of the stuff a day (I was doing 3, plus a quarter cake, daily, during the holidays), grow fatter every day, develop higher blood pressure, etc. But I think of chocolate ALL THE TIME.

Back when I interviewed Dr. Peele, I was consuming my body weight in chocolate a year (I weighed 50 kg, then). My husband did the math because we could not really afford it. Since I did not suffer ill effects, I never thought of this uncontrollable craving as an addiction. Now that I can no longer consume copious quantities without expanding, blood pressure rising, etc.—the fact of an addiction that needs controlling has been thrown into sharp relief.

I’m sure you have a similar story to relate.

*******
* Deal: “A verbal expression denoting that fate cannot be changed.”

UPDATED: Adam Kokesh In ‘Amerofantacy’ Land

Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Military, Propaganda, Terrorism, War

Adam Kokesh the soldier returned from Iraq and sobered up. Now, Kokesh is truly fighting for authentic American liberties. But does the Idiocracy even have an inkling what freedom is, any longer? Are Americans as stupid as the small and select sample interviewed by Kokesh for the YouTube clip “The Truth About American Sniper from An Iraq Combat Veteran”? Judging from the mantra mouthed throughout the exchange with viewers of American Sniper—“Navy SEAL Chris-Kyle-was-fighting-for-our-freedom”—the answer is, “Yes, they are.”

After writing for the North American market for almost 20 years—and certainly since I became persona non grata among Republicans for exposing their war propaganda—I suspect the courageous Adam Kokesh is fighting a losing battle.

But so am I.

UPDATE: Chris Kyle, Worse Than Just A Bad Ass.

Jack Kerwick does an exhaustive job of “sorting out truth from myth” about Chris Kyle. Wow. I didn’t know the half of it: “Once we are swept up in hero-worship—or maybe its idolatry—reason, facts, logic, evidence, and, most importantly, considerations of fundamental fairness and decency are all too easily swept away.”

Kerwick, moreover, cites one A.J. Delgado, who made short work of Kyle on no less a mainstream publication than National Review.

So why the hysteria over those who refuse to hero-worship this guy?