China is Invading North America

Will the presidential candidates talk about this? Probably not!

China does not have an army off the coast of North America deciding what date an invasion will occur. They do have the financial ability to impact the United States in a most unfavorable way.

The Chinese are in a search for needed natural resources and they will go almost anywhere to obtain access. On of their most recent foray has been in Australia where they are mining iron ore. Many Australians aren’t happy about this situation. Money talks louder than feelings.

Now China sees an opportunity to obtain oil from North America. Not in the United States, rather in Canada. Canada is Not Part of the U.S.A. Canada has significant tar sands oil in Alberta and has wanted to ship their oil to Louisiana for processing and sale. Since the United States has been saying No to building the Keystone XL pipeline the Canadian government is looking for another path.

As reported in Businessweek and the Washingon Times, CNOOC (a Chinese government controlled oil producer has agreed to pay $15.1 billion for Canada’s Nexen. Chinese companies hasve spent over $53 billion in Canada over the past decade. This new deal gives CNOOC access to oil and gas fields in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and Nigeria, as well as the oil reserves in Alberta.

The likelihood of building the Keystone XL pipeline has been diminished. This new deal with CNOOC will make Canada even less dependent on the U.S. as a primary customer for its oil and gas.

Romney: You bet Jerusalem is the capital

For pro-Israel Democrats who continue to support Obama, this article should raise some thoughts.

What does it mean to those who attack Israel when this US administration refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Will this keep Israel safe? Or does it embolden them in their continued rejection of a Jewish State of Israel? If Iran attacked Israel what would the US administration do?

Thanks for reading these columns, David Bancroft

From Lawrence White

Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 5:47 PM

Romney: You bet Jerusalem is the capital

Lawrence W. White

At a news briefing in the White House three days ago, Jay Carney, White House press secretary, was asked by a reporter:

” What city does this administration consider to be the capital of Israel, Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?”

Carney refused to answer, other than to say “Our position has not changed.” Other reporters pressed him for an answer, again with no response.

The next day, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) responded to Carney’s refusal to answer.

“For thousands of years, Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people, but this administration refuses to say if Jerusalem is the true capital,” Cantor said. “At a moment when Israel is facing so many perils, the United States should be standing by our ally, not quibbling or quarreling about its capital city.”

In 2008, then candidate Barack Obama told AIPAC that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” (Within 24 hours he backtracked on this statement).

Since taking office, the President, Vice President and the Secretary of State, all of whom had previously touted strong pro-Israel credentials, have made statements or taken actions detrimental to Israel’s security, as well as opposed any construction in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

This should give pause to those who believe our President when he claims that, with respect to pro-Israel credentials, he has the best record of any President of the US. Never mind the repeated hostility shown to the Prime Minister of Israel by our President, never mind the fact that Secretary Clinton screamed at Benjamin Netanyahu over the telephone, something she has done to no other foreign leader, never mind that, in the words of Aaron Miller, “unlike his two predecessors — Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – he’s not in love with the idea of Israel.”

And now, we have Mitt Romney visiting Israel. For him, there is no ambiguity as to the capital of Israel. Below is an article written by Jennifer Rubin, who writes for the Washington Post, describing the visit to Jerusalem by Mitt Romney.

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Romney: You bet Jerusalem is the capital

By Jennifer Rubin

Without specifically criticizing President Obama in his speech in Jerusalem, Mitt Romney delivered a blow to the Obama campaign’s frantic efforts to defend the president’s hostile stance toward the Jewish state simply by saying: “It is a deeply moving experience to be in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.” The Obama administration can’t even say that much, a sign of how reflectively protective of the Palestinians’ sensibilities is this president. Of course, Jerusalem is the capital. It was declared so in 1948. The Knesset is there. The disposition of its borders is a matter for final status negotiation, but only an uninformed or virulently insensitive administration would be unable to distinguish the two.

In a bit of cleverness the Romney team sent out the text of the speech with this header: “Mitt Romney today delivered remarks to the Jerusalem Foundation in Jerusalem, Israel.” That is a deliberate dig at this administration. which has repeatedly put out documents suggesting that Jerusalem isn’t in Israel and has attempted to scrub from the White House Web site the reference to Israel’s capital.

Romney’s speech paid tribute to America’s historic relationship with Israel. (“Different as our paths have been, we see the same qualities in one another. Israel and America are in many respects reflections of one another.”)

It also was a forceful rebuke to Obama on a number of levels. First on Iran:

Over the years Iran has amassed a bloody and brutal record. It has seized embassies, targeted diplomats, and killed its own people. It supports the ruthless Assad regime in Syria. They have provided weapons that have killed American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has plotted to assassinate diplomats on American soil. It is Iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and the most destabilizing nation in the world.

We have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran’s leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions.

We should stand with all who would join our effort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran — and that includes Iranian dissidents. Do not erase from your memory the scenes from three years ago, when that regime brought death to its own people as they rose up. The threat we face does not come from the Iranian people, but from the regime that oppresses them.

Five years ago, at the Herzliya Conference, I stated my view that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability presents an intolerable threat to Israel, to America, and to the world.

That threat has only become worse.

He also pushed back on Obama’s notion that because he’s been supportive of Israel with military assistance he can be credited with a good record on Israel:

I believe that the enduring alliance between the State of Israel and the United States of America is more than a strategic alliance: It is a force for good in the world. America’s support of Israel should make every American proud. We should not allow the inevitable complexities of modern geopolitics to obscure fundamental touchstones. No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel.

And standing by Israel does not mean with military and intelligence cooperation alone.

We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism. Diplomatic distance in public between our nations emboldens Israel’s adversaries.

And he delivered an implicit warning about Egypt:

After a year of upheaval and unrest, Egypt now has an Islamist president, chosen in a democratic election. Hopefully, this new government understands that one true measure of democracy is how those elected by the majority respect the rights of those in the minority. The international community must use its considerable influence to ensure that the new government honors the peace agreement with Israel that was signed by the government of Anwar Sadat.

As you know only too well, since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, thousands of rockets have rained on Israeli homes and cities. I have walked on the streets of Sderot and honor the resolve of its people. And now, new attacks have been launched from the Sinai Peninsula.

It was a forceful and thoughtful address signaling how his own attitude with Israel differs from Obama. No wonder Democrats are frantic.

Obama’s ablest surrogate to the Jewish community, Dennis Ross, is conspicuously sitting out the election. (He couldn’t even bring himself to say in the present tense that he supports Obama’s Israel policy.) Those pro-Israel Democrats who vouched for Obama in 2008 are now desperate to concoct criticisms of Romney (see my exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg), even for the moving symbolism of visiting the Kotel (the wall of the Second Temple) on the day mourning its destruction, Tisha A’Bav. (Romney noted: “It was Menachem Begin who said this about the Ninth of the month of Av: ‘We remember that day,’ he said, ‘and now have the responsibility to make sure that never again will our independence be destroyed and never again will the Jew become homeless or defenseless.’ This, Prime Minister Begin added, “ ‘is the crux of the problems facing us in the future.’ ”)

That Romney would visit the site of the Second Temple’s destruction on the commemoration of its destruction, like going to Normandy cemeteries on D-Day, is a sign of great sensitivity. (Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu underlined this point by inviting him to break the fast on the mourning day at Bibi’s home).

Pro-Israel Democrats, like all supporters of the Jewish state, should be honest enough to acknowledge, as Aaron David Miller does, that Obama “is not in love with the idea of Israel.” He can’t even get along with its elected government. Romney, by contrast, is plainly an Israel-phile and already enjoys a close relationship with the prime minister. On this, Romney left little to the imagination.

Mormons in Israel

For those of you who do not read the Los Angeles Times this article will be of interest. I do not trust Mitt Romney because he has been a serial flip-flopper. There is hardly a position he took as governor of Massachusetts that he has not changed. If you can believe him, Romney says he would never criticize Israel and would be a steadfast ally to the Jewish state. You could call it politics but there does not appear to be any issue that is core to his beliefs. Still this article may give you pause to at least listen to his campaign.

Mormons in Israel

By Rafael Medoff

Mitt Romney’s trail to the Holy Land was blazed by a Utah missionary a century ago.

MITT ROMNEY’S visit to Israel will generate much speculation on the role Jewish voters will play in the U.S. presidential election. His visit may also spark discussion about Mormon-Jewish relations in the wake of the recent controversy over a Mormon temple that conducted posthumous baptism ceremonies for some Holocaust victims.

But another Mormon’s visit to Jerusalem, 99 years ago, deserves some of the spotlight too. Because that little-known visit ultimately had a decisive impact on Jewish history and America’s response to the Holocaust.

In 1913, 29-year-old Elbert Thomas and his wife, Edna, wrapped up their five-year stint in charge of a Mormon mission in J apan and prepared to return to their native utah. They decided to pay a short visit to Turkish-occupied Palestine on the way home.

The Holy Land figures prominently in Mormon theological tracts. Thomas was keenly aware of Mormon prophecies about an in- . gathering of the Jewish exiles and the rebirth of the Jewish homeland.

“We sat one evening on the Mount of Olives and overlooked Jerusalem,” he later recalled. “We read the poetry and the prophecy, the forebodings and the prayers, with hearts that reached up to God.” Under “stars the likes of which you see nowhere else in the world but on our own American desert, out where I grew up,” Thomas read the lengthy “Prayer of Dedication on the Mount of Olives” by Orson Hyde, an early Mormon leader and fervent Christian Zionist.

“Consecrate this land … for the gathering together of Judah’s scattered remnants … for the building up of Jerusalem again after it has been trodden down by the Gentiles so long,” Hyde had written in 1841. “Restore the kingdom unto Israel, raise up Jerusalem as its capital…. Let that nation or people who shall take an active part in behalf of Abraham’s children, and in the raising of Jerusalem, find favor in Thy sight. Let not their enemies prevail against them … but let the glory oflsrael overshadow them.”

The moment, the mood and the words moved Thomas to feel a deep spiritual connection to the Jewish people and to commit himself to becoming one of those who would “take an active part in behalf of Abraham’s children.” And three decades later, he was presented with an opportunity to do so.

In the 1940s, as a U.S. senator from utah, Thomas became deeply concerned about the plight of the Jews in Nazi Europe. He joined the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, a lobbying group led by Jewish activist Peter Bergson. Thomas signed on to its full-page newspaper ads criticizing the Allies for abandoning European Jewry. He also cochaired Bergson’s 1943 conference on the rescue of Jews, which challenged the Roosevelt administration’s claim that nothing could be done to help the Jews except winning the war. Although a loyal Democrat and New Dealer, the Utah senator boldly broke ranks with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over the refugee issue.

Thomas played a key role in advancing a Bergson-initiated congressional resolution calling for creation of a government agency to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Sen. Tom Connally CD-Texas), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, initially blocked consideration of the resolution. But when Connally took ill one day, Thomas, as acting chair, quickly introduced the measure. It passed unanimously.

Meanwhile, senior aides to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. had discovered that State Department officials had
been obstructing opportunities to rescue Jewish refugees. Morgenthau realized, as he told his staff, that the time had come to say to the president, “You have either got to move very fast, or the Congress of the United States will do it for you.” Armed with a devastating report prepared by his staff, and with congressional pressure mounting, Morgenthau went to FDR in JanuaryI944.

Roosevelt could read the writing on the wall. With just days to go before the full Senate would act on the resolution, Roosevelt preempted Thomas and the other congressional advocates of rescue by imilaterally creating the agency they were demanding: the War Refugee Board.

Although understaffed and underfunded, the board played a major role in saving more than 200,000 Jews during the final 15 months of the war. Among other things, the board’s agents persuaded a young Swede, Raoul Wallenberg, to go to German-occupied Budapest in 1944. There, with the board’s financial backing, he undertook his now-famous rescue mission. Thomas’ action in the Senate was an indispensable part of the chain of events that led to Wallenberg’s mission.

The Swedish government, together with Holocaust institutions and Jewish communities around the world, recently launched a yearlong series of events commemorating this summer’s 100th anniversary of Wallenberg’s birth. One hopes these celebrations will include appropriate mention ofthe role played by Americans such as Thomas in making Wallenberg’s work possible.

And as Romney retraces some of Thomas’ steps in Jerusalem, he will have special reason to feel proud of the role played by a fellow Mormon in helping to save Jewish lives.

RAFAEL MEDOFF is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and the coauthor with Sonja Schoepf Wentling of the new book “Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Vote’ and Bipartisan Support for Israel.”

A Festival of Lies

OP-ED COLUMNIST in the New York Times
A Festival of Lies
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: March 24, 2012

THE historian Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a brutally clear-eyed piece in The National Review, looking back at America’s different approaches to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan and how, sadly, none of them could be said to have worked yet.

“Let us review the various American policy options for the Middle East over the last few decades,” Hanson wrote. “Military assistance or punitive intervention without follow-up mostly failed. The verdict on far more costly nation-building is still out. Trying to help popular insurgents topple unpopular dictators does not guarantee anything better. Propping up dictators with military aid is both odious and counterproductive. Keeping clear of maniacal regimes leads to either nuclear acquisition or genocide — or 16 acres of rubble in Manhattan. What have we learned? Tribalism, oil, and Islamic fundamentalism are a bad mix that leaves Americans sick and tired of the Middle East — both when they get in it and when they try to stay out of it.”

And that is why it’s time to rethink everything we’re doing out there. What the Middle East needs most from America today are modern schools and hard truths, and we haven’t found a way to offer either. Because Hanson is right: What ails the Middle East today truly is a toxic mix of tribalism, Shiite-Sunni sectarianism, fundamentalism and oil — oil that constantly tempts us to intervene or to prop up dictators.
This cocktail erodes all the requirements of a forward-looking society — which are institutions that deliver decent government, consensual politics that provide for rotations in power, women’s rights and an ethic of pluralism that protects minorities and allows for modern education. The United Nations Arab Human Development Report published in 2002 by some brave Arab social scientists also said something similar: What ails the Arab world is a deficit of freedom, a deficit of modern education and a deficit of women’s empowerment.

So helping to overcome those deficits should be what U.S. policy is about, yet we seem unable to sustain that. Look at Egypt: More than half of its women and a quarter of its men can’t read. The young Egyptians who drove the revolution are desperate for the educational tools and freedom to succeed in the modern world. Our response should have been to shift our aid money from military equipment to building science-and-technology high schools and community colleges across Egypt.

Yet, instead, a year later, we’re in the crazy situation of paying $5 million in bail to an Egyptian junta to get U.S. democracy workers out of jail there, while likely certifying that this junta is liberalizing and merits another $1.3 billion in arms aid. We’re going to give $1.3 billion more in guns to a country whose only predators are illiteracy and poverty.

In Afghanistan, I laugh out loud whenever I hear Obama administration officials explaining that we just need to train more Afghan soldiers to fight and then we can leave. Is there anything funnier? Afghan men need to be trained to fight? They defeated the British and the Soviets!

The problem is that we turned a blind eye as President Hamid Karzai stole the election and operated a corrupt regime. Then President Obama declared that our policy was to surge U.S. troops to clear out the Taliban so “good” Afghan government could come in and take our place. There is no such government. Our problem is not that Afghans don’t know the way to fight. It is that not enough have the will to fight for the government they have. How many would fight for Karzai if we didn’t pay them?

And so it goes. In Pakistan, we pay the Pakistani Army to be two-faced, otherwise it would be only one-faced and totally against us. In Bahrain, we looked the other way while ruling Sunni hard-liners crushed a Shiite-led movement for more power-sharing, and we silently watch our ally Israel build more settlements in the West Bank that we know are a disaster for its Jewish democracy.

But we don’t tell Pakistan the truth because it has nukes. We don’t tell the Saudis the truth because we’re addicted to their oil. We don’t tell Bahrain the truth because we need its naval base. We don’t tell Egypt the truth because we’re afraid it will walk from Camp David. We don’t tell Israel the truth because it has votes. And we don’t tell Karzai the truth because Obama is afraid John McCain will call him a wimp.

Sorry, but nothing good can be built on a soil so rich with lies on our side and so rich with sectarianism, tribalism and oil-fueled fundamentalism on their side. Don’t get me wrong. I believe change is possible and am ready to invest in it. But it has got to start with them wanting it. I’ll support anyone in that region who truly shares our values — and the agenda of the Arab Human Development Report — and is ready to fight for them. But I am fed up with supporting people just because they look less awful than the other guys and eventually turn out to be just as bad.

Where people don’t share our values, we should insulate ourselves by reducing our dependence on oil. But we must stop wanting good government more than they do, looking the other way at bad behavior, telling ourselves that next year will be different, sticking with a bad war for fear of being called wimps and selling more tanks to people who can’t read.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 25, 2012, on page SR13 of the New York edition with the headline: A Festival of Lies.