CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY
A free service of Jesus Christ is Lord Ministries
News selected and edited by Ray Mossholder
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
BENGHAZI: OUR STATE AND DEFENSE DEPARTMENTS
COULD HAVE RESCUED ALL FOUR MEN
The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee has released a comprehensive report on the Benghazi attack finding the tragedy was “preventable” and the administration failed to respond to “ample” warnings that security was deteriorating before September 11, 2012. The report faulted the State and Defense departments. It also cited the failure of the Obama administration to “bring the attackers to justice.”
Specifically, the report said the intelligence community provided “ample strategic warning” that security in eastern Libya was deteriorating and U.S. personnel “were at risk.” The report said multiple “tripwires” were crossed signaling security problems and the State Department should have increased its security posture in response.
The report also detailed a possible failed ambush, where attackers tried to lure the CIA into the hospital where Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body was being held. The CIA did not take the bait.
“The committee worked to investigate the various allegations that have come out since the terrorist attacks in Benghazi in September 2012 and to get to the truth about what happened leading up to, during and after the attacks,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein said. “In spite of the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and ample strategic warnings, the United States Government simply did not do enough to prevent these attacks and ensure the safety of those serving in Benghazi.’
LEAVE NO MAN BEHIND
Washington (CNN) – The U.S. military has obtained new video apparently made by those holding the lone American prisoner of war, Army Seargent Bowe Bergdahl. A U.S. military official told CNN the clip shows the Wood Valley, Idaho, native in diminished health from the effects of close to five years in captivity.
Seargent Bergdahl was seized in Afghanistan in June 2009 and is believed held by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Pakistan, the official said. The so-called proof-of-life video, the first of him in nearly three years, has a reference to December 14, 2013.
U.S. efforts to free Bergdahl, including negotiating for his release, have so far failed. “Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been gone far too long, and we continue to call for and work toward his safe and immediate release,” a Pentagon spokesman said. “We cannot discuss all the details of our efforts, but there should be no doubt that on a daily basis — using our military, intelligence and diplomatic tools — we work to see Seargent Bergdahl returned home safely,” the spokesman said.
Bergdahl was 23 when he was captured after finishing a guard shift at a combat outpost in southeastern Paktika province.
The U.S. government acknowledged in May 2012 that it was engaged in talks with the Taliban to free Bergdahl. The discussions moved in fits and starts because of U.S. concerns that any Taliban prisoners swapped for Bergdahl might be repatriated and allowed to rejoin the fight. Later that year, however, the White House announced it was willing to send five Taliban prisoners to Qatar in exchange for Bergdahl.
ISRAEL’S DEFENSE MINISTER OPENS MOUTH AND INSERTS FOOT
HAIFA, ISRAEL – Israeli officials went into damage control mode yesterday after Moshe Ya’alon, the defense minister, trashed Secretary of State John Kerry and the peace deal he is trying to will broker between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in off-the-record comments nonetheless published by the nation’s leading daily newspaper.
“In reality, there have been no negotiations between us and the Palestinians for all these months – but rather between us and the Americans,” Moshe Ya’alon said in comments published in the pages of Yediot Aharonot. “The only thing that can ‘save us’ is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace.”
Ya’alon warned of the dangers of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bsnk. “With 2,000 determined soldiers, Hamas would defeat the Palestinian Authority, creating a new entity we call ‘Hamastan,’ with whom we will not be able to talk or do business.”
Ya’alon added that Kerry, the latest U.S. diplomat to try to get the two sides to agree on a peace framework, is “acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor,” and that the rumored draft document as “not worth the paper it is written on.”
Hours later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel’s parliament that any disagreement with the U.S. must be about policy, not personalities. “Even when we have disagreements with the United States, they are always on the heart of the matter, not on the merits of an individual,” Netanyahu said.
And although Ya’alon himself released a subsequent statement calling the U.S. Israel’s “greatest friend and most important ally,” it appeared that diplomatic damage had been done. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Ya’alon’s initial comments were “offensive and inappropriate. To question Secretary Kerry’s motives and distort his proposals is not something we’d expect from the defense minister of a close ally.”
The State Department also reacted swiftly to the purported remarks, directly rebuking Ya’alon. “The remarks of the Defense Minister (Moshe Ya’alon) if accurate are offensive and inappropriate especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told Reuters in a brief statement.
In another comment that could inflame talks, Ya’alon added that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “lives and dies by our sword.”
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Abba, told the Ramallah-based WAFA news agency, “[President] Abbas was elected by the Palestinian people who support his political program, which stands firm in support of our people’s rights. Israel’s incitement against Abbas is proof that Israel is not interested in reaching a just and genuine peace.”
On Monday, the Ha’aretz newspaper reported that a senior official close to Vice President Joe Biden — who was in Israel attending the funeral of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – said, “The United States places extremely high value on reaching an agreement that produces two states living side-by-side in peace and security, but also just underscoring how important Israel’s security requirements are for us.”
Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel’s team negotiating with Kerry and the Palestinians on the peace process, lashed out at Ya’alon, her cabinet colleague, via Facebook after the comments were published. “You can oppose negotiations professionally and responsibly without tongue-lashing and destroying relations with Israel’s top ally,” Livni said.
Gidi Grinstein, president of the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute, told FoxNews.com that he believes Ya’alon’s comments were a deliberate tactical ploy.
“The dynamics of the negotiations now and in the past have been that whenever there has been the anticipation of an American paper, the parties have been polarizing their positions in order to try to gravitate the American position in their direction. It is almost an inevitable dynamic of negotiations that the Americans have driven themselves into.”
Gidi Grinstein, president of the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute, an advocate for the establishment of a Palestinian state under provisional borders in the West Bank, said Kerry should be applauded for devoting so much time to the vexed issue of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but urged Kerry to “please rethink your strategy.”
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon issued an apology late Tuesday to US Secretary of State John Kerry after a lengthy dialogue with Netanyahu.
Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist who can be followed on twitter @paul_alster and at www.paulalster.com
“THE UNITED STATES HAS GIVEN IRAN
POWER TO RULE THE MIDEAST”
Iranian President Rouhani took to Twitter Tuesday with the sobering message that world powers have “surrendered to Iranian nation’s will.” Iran’s leader is referring to the brand new nuclear agreement that was announced in Geneva this week.
But hold on. Is this the same agreement that President Obama and Secretary Kerry say will freeze and then roll back Iran’s nuclear program? The one administration flacks are so excited about that they’re heralding it as a breakthrough equal to Nixon’s opening to China?
It’s time for a reality check.
The deal with the Persian nation makes it clear we are leaving the region, and leaving Iran in charge.
Iran is now poised to become the Alpha Dog of the Middle East – the dominant economic, military and political power in the region that controls the world’s exported oil.
Thanks to the agreement struck by President Obama’s hand-picked Secretary of State John Kerry, it is doing so with America’s blessing.
The mere suggestion that we will drop sanctions against the country has led the Iranian economy to surge.those Their stock market value has risen by 133% in the last few weeks, and companies previously prevented from doing business with Iran are now lining up to resume trade once sanctions are lifted.
Thanks to the agreement, Iran’s economy will boom. Iran’s coffers will soon be plump enough to resume funding for terrorist groups throughout the region.
Thanks to the agreement, Iran’s nuclear program will continue and its neighbors will treat Iran as a de facto nuclear weapons state.
To be fair Rouhani and Obama seem to have very different interpretations of the Geneva agreement. But here’s what really matters — according to the terms of the deal has Iran agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program? According to Obama, yes. According to Rouhani, no.
Since his presidency began, Rouhani has made clear that Iran desperately wants economic sanctions against his country dropped. But he also made it clear that the country must keep its nuclear program intact.
Rouhani says:
1. That the Iranian people had elected him to improve economic relations with the United States.
2. That Iran had the right to master the nuclear fuel cycle.
Looks like the country got both.
Sadly, the Iranian agreement and threats to Congress fits into a larger pattern we have seen from the Obama administration throughout its time in the White House.
Politics is the only thing that counts in the West Wing – winning the next election, getting a bump in the polls, spinning the P.R. machine so the administration looks good right now, no matter what the price that will be paid in the future.
We have three recent examples, in the foreign policy arena, alone:
1. Secretary Gates’ memoirs reveal that the president and Secretary Clinton opposed President Bush’s Iraq war surge on political grounds. Clinton admitted her opposition to the surge was because she faced Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Similarly, when faced with his own surge decision, this time on Afghanistan, President Obama went ahead and ordered more troops into combat, despite being “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” according to Gates. If Obama neither believed in the mission, nor thought it would succeed, he should have taken troops out of Afghanistan, not sent more in more of Americans young people to fight, bleed and die.
2. The recently declassified documents surrounding the 2012 Benghazi attack reveal that the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were told it was a planned terrorist attack shortly before they headed to the White House to meet with President Obama.
Yet the president’s representatives, within hours, including Hillary Clinton, spoke out publicly and lied to the American people. They blamed the Benghazi attack on a spontaneous reaction to an obscure YouTube video rather than admit that Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists were responsible.
Why? Because it was just three weeks before a presidential election in a campaign where Mr. Obama had touted his decision to issue the order to kill Usama bin Laden and put Al Qaeda on the ropes.
Finally, there’s Iran. The deal with the Persian nation makes it clear we are leaving the region, and leaving Iran in charge.
Here’s my prediction: the agreement with Iran will be hailed as a breakthrough. But then, so was Neville Chamberlain’s deal with Adolf Hitler in Munich….at least for a little while.
Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland is a Fox News National Security Analyst and host of FoxNews.com’s “DefCon 3.”
HOW ARE CALIFORNIA BOYS AND GIRLS FEELING TODAY?
As of January 1, students in California public schools have been able to choose whether to use the boys’ rest room or girls’ rest room, as well as the girls’ locker room or boys’ locker room, based on whether they feel female or male, not whether they are anatomically female or male.
Governor Jerry Brown, of California, signed a bill that took effect January 1 that tells kids from kindergarten on that they should decide whether they believe their gender identity is and act, accordingly.
The legislation also allows students to choose their sports teams based on whether they sense they are boys or girls, not whether they were born male or born female.
“I feel my feminine side coming out,” grinned a 6 foot two high school football player in Simi Valley.
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Crossed fingers won’t get you anywhere.
Coming to the cross always will.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2014