LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJune 18/2010

Bible Of the Day
Matthew 18:15 “If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. 18:16 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.* 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. 18:18 Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven. 18:19 Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.”

Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Hezbollah museum: war for all the family/By Theodore May/GlobalPost/June 17/10
More on Hezbollah in Latin America/BY DOUGLAS FARAH/ June 17/10

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for June 17/10
National Dialogue Held in Absence of 3 Participants, New Date Set for Aug. 19/Naharnet
Chamoun Hits Back at Jumblat: Why Would Lebanon Give Palestinians Their Rights while They Don't Recognize Lebanese State/Naharnet
Sfeir Warns against Rapid Rise in Christian Emigration, Sarkozy Vows Not Leave Lebanon Vulnerable to Conflicts/Naharnet
Report: Assad Willing to Start Border Demarcation with Lebanon at Sea/Naharnet
Lawsuit against OTV Dismissed after pro-OTV Rally Drew Huge Crowd in Solidarity/Naharnet
Hariri Calls Off Meeting with Teachers/Naharnet
Teachers Resume Boycott of Official Exam Corrections/Naharnet
Paraguay jails US-Lebanese man tied to Hezbollah/The Associated Press
Lebanese flotilla organizers found to have Hezbollah ties/Ynetnews
Hezbollah slams France's ban of Hamas TV/Ynetnews
Iranian Gaza-bound ships will convey some 300 Hezbollah fighters/PanARMENIAN.Net
Hillary and Hugo/Washington Times
Iran's rulers its greatest threat/Politico
Efforts to Contain Crisis over Fatfat's Resignation/Naharnet
Jumblat Visits Berri, Thanks him for Supporting Bill on Palestinian Rights/Naharnet
Israel Warns Lebanese, Iranian Activists against Sending Ships to Gaza/Naharnet
Hizbullah Urges Arab, Muslim Peoples Not to Lose Jerusalem/Naharnet
Geagea: No Fear from Lebanese-Syrian Agreement since Hariri is Personally Following up on it/Naharnet
Egyptian PM in Beirut at Head of Delegation in Talks for Lebanese-Egyptian Higher Council/Naharnet

National Dialogue Held in Absence of 3 Participants, New Date Set for Aug. 19
Naharnet/The 11th round of all-party talks will be held at Baabda on August 19 to continue discussions on the country's defense strategy.
The decision was made on Thursday after the 10th round of discussions under President Michel Suleiman at a time of deep divisions among Lebanese politicians over Palestinian rights in Lebanon. Although national dialogue discussions are limited to the defense strategy, the rift that emerged at parliament on Tuesday over the civil rights of Palestinians was expected to make the session tense. Divisions emerged after Christian MPs from different blocs opposed a proposal by MP Walid Jumblat to grant Palestinians their civil rights. Most Muslim MPs backed the move, showing sectarian divisions. The crisis worsened when Jumblat repeatedly called Lebanon's right-wing stupid. In addition to the tense atmosphere over the issue, three dialogue figures did take part in Thursday's discussions for being abroad. They are former Premier Fouad Saniora, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Minister Mohammed Safadi. Baabda palace circles told As Safir daily that their absence will not have a negative impact on the national dialogue because both Saniora and Geagea are represented in the session by their allies. The sources said President Michel Suleiman insisted on holding the session on Thursday despite the absences because he wanted to respect dates of major events. Beirut, 17 Jun 10, 08:47

Sfeir Warns against Rapid Rise in Christian Emigration, Sarkozy Vows Not Leave Lebanon Vulnerable to Conflicts
Naharnet/Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir warned during a meeting with French President Nicholas Sarkozy at Elysee Palace against the rapid rise in Christian emigration.
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI warned that the Christian community in the Middle East would soon disappear if no solution to regional conflicts was found. The Pope had said that the rising political Islam and its extreme currents were a threat to Christians and Muslims alike. Sfeir quoted Sarkozy as saying that the Christian presence in the Middle East was a "guarantee against the rise extremism." Sarkozy, according to Sfeir, vowed to protect and support Lebanon. "France will spare no effort to help Lebanon," Sarkozy pledged. Sarkozy also pledged "not to leave Lebanon once again sink in a sea of differences and regional and international conflicts that loom on the horizon." Beirut, 17 Jun 10, 07:31

Chamoun Hits Back at Jumblat: Why Would Lebanon Give Palestinians Their Rights while They Don't Recognize Lebanese State
Naharnet/National Liberal Party leader MP Dori Chamoun "declined" to comment on Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat's latest remarks against Lebanon's right-wingers because "he will quickly change his mind before I be able to respond to his words."In an interview with the Central News Agency published Wednesday, Chamoun wondered: "Why would Lebanon give the Palestinians their rights while they do not recognize the Lebanese State?""When the Palestinians become under the Lebanese law and they no longer have their own police force… we will see how we can improve the living conditions of the Palestinians and grant them additional rights, but as long as the situation persists as it is, there's no need to hurry in this regard," Chamoun added. He stressed that "Lebanon's treatment of the Palestinians doesn't differ from their treatment in Syria and the rest of the Arab countries, and thus we shouldn't succumb to emotional behavior or politically abuse the issue at the expense of the Palestinian cause." Chamoun noted that "granting the Palestinians extra rights indirectly contributes to the issue of their naturalization (in Lebanon), the thing that contradicts with the right of return and benefits Israel which would reject the return of the Palestinians in case they were enjoying their full rights in the countries they live in practically the same as any ordinary citizen."Answering a question on the division in Parliament during Tuesday's debate on the legislative proposals submitted by Jumblat in a bid to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees, Chamoun said: "Some sympathize with the Palestinians more than they sympathize with Lebanon."
"We hold onto Lebanon first and foremost and not onto the Palestinian cause at the expense of the Lebanese cause, and the Christians speak one language in this regard," Chamoun stressed. Beirut, 16 Jun 10, 21:12

Lawsuit against OTV Dismissed after pro-OTV Rally Drew Huge Crowd in Solidarity
Naharnet/Judge Zalfa al-Hasan from the Beirut Court of Urgent Matters on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed against the television station owned by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun for lack of jurisdiction. A pro-OTV rally late Wednesday drew a huge crowd in Dekwaneh just outside the building that houses the television station in solidarity with OTV over large court fines on the channel. The Press Federation and about 150 representatives of various media outlets, political parties, trade unions as well cultural figures, actors and lawyers attended and spoke at the rally. They denounced a move toward shutting down OTV, calling it an infringement on the freedom of speech. The lawsuit is about promotional material OTV aired for an episode of a comedy show called Ovrira. It was filed by chairman of Societe Generale de Banque au Liban Antoine Sehnawi after he claimed previews of Ovrira made fun of him and his bank. In line with a decision of the Beirut Court of Urgent Matters on March 5, OTV did not air the show. Beirut, 17 Jun 10, 10:15

Assad Denies Syria Sending Weapons to Hizbullah
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied Syria was sending weapons to Hizbullah.
Naharnet/In an interview aired on Thursday, Assad said that Israel's "pyromaniac" government had raised the risk of a regional war with its deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla. The May 31 attack that killed nine Turkish activists had "destroyed any chance for peace in the near future," Assad told the BBC in an interview. He said the incident had "proved that this (Israeli) government is another pyromaniac government, and you cannot achieve peace with such (a) government." Asked if the incident had raised the chances of war, he said: "Definitely."
Assad added that even before the raid, Syria did not see the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a partner for peace. "We definitely don't have a partner, we know this. With this government (it) is something different from any previous Israeli government," Assad said. The nine activists were killed in the pre-dawn raid by Israeli naval commandos, sent in after the aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in violation of an Israeli blockade refused to turn back. Under intense international pressure Israel has set up an inquiry panel to probe the circumstances of the raid.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 17 Jun 10, 10:30

Jumblat Visits Berri, Thanks him for Supporting Bill on Palestinian Rights
Naharnet/Druze leader Walid Jumblat visited Speaker Nabih Berri late Wednesday to thank him for supporting a draft law granting Palestinian rights.
"I came here today particularly to thank Mr. Berri on his position regarding facilitating a decent living for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon," Jumblat told reporters from Ain al-Tineh.
He expressed regret that Parliament – during a recent session -- failed to approve a bill that would have given the Palestinian people "minimum social guarantees and the right to work."
Jumblat said he hopes a "more pleasant atmosphere" would prevail over an upcoming parliamentary meeting. He did not cut short his campaign against the Right, saying "it not only makes wars and creates rifts in Lebanon, but all over the world." "The Right destroys communities," he said. In remarks published Thursday by pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat, Jumblat said he would stop all this bickering about Palestinian civil rights, noting that Prime Minister Saad Hariri has promised to take the issue upon himself. Jumblat had earlier met Energy Minister Jebran Bassil. Beirut, 17 Jun 10, 08:42

More Evidence of Hezbollah in Latin America
Wednesday June 16, 2010
BY DOUGLAS FARAH
http://www.douglasfarah.com/article/539/more-evidence-of-hezbollah-in-latin-america.com
There is still significant debate within the U.S.
government and among members of the national security establishment over the level of threat posed by Iran's growing presence and the increasing presence of Hezbollah that this presence brings. So the arrest of a suspected Hezbollah fundraiser with an outstanding US arrest warrant in the Tri-border area is another important indicator of just how deep this relationship has now become. Moussa Hamdan is the latest in a long line of suspected Hezbollah financiers who have been arrested in and around Ciudad del Este, the main hub of the Tri-border (where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet near Iguazu Falls) region. U.S., European and Latin American investigations have traced tens of millions of dollars from the region back to Hezbollah in Lebanon, using the formal and informal money remittance systems. Hezbollah operatives in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires have been documented as having used Ciudad del Este as their base while planning their attack on a Jewish target, operating under orders from Iran.
The Tri-border has historically been a smuggling and black market center for the Southern Cone of Latin America, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits. That is not new. What changed over the past 15 years is the importance of the region as a financial hub for terrorist groups, from Hezbollah to the FARC in Colombia to Hamas.
So Hezbollah and other terrorist groups have an expanded playing field. Venezuela is friendly territory, Ecuador is hospitable and the Tri-Border network gives them access to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, none of which want to acknowledge there is a problem.
The key factor in looking at this expanding territory is the expanding networks that develop among groups operating there, and their ability to cross pollinate and help each other logistically and financially. It also creates new areas in which to move illicit goods, and those goods are likely not to simply be cocaine and knock off watches.
There is another little tidbit pointed out by a blog reader that goes to the network aspects. It turns out that Dror Feiler, an outspoken Swedish-Israeli musician who was a main organizer of the flotilla to Gaza, is also on the editorial board of ANNCOL (Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia or New Colombia News Agency), a key part of the FARC's external propaganda machine. (Yesterday it featured, with no hint of irony, a piece on the humanitarian treatment that the FARC affords its hostages, with no mention of the years they spend in captivity with chains around their necks, little food and deprived of freedom. It also sought to portray the recent hostage rescue by the COlombian military as a "humanitarian release" by the FARC. Etc. Etc.) Does that prove Mr. Feiler is a FARC member or a terrorist? No. But it does prove that these networks overlap and occupy key players in strategic locations. And that is what makes them dangerous.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH

Lebanese flotilla: No link to Hamas, Hezbollah
Palestinian businessman organizing aid sail to Gaza says Israel's claims of ties to Islamist group and Iran 'excuse to kill activists on board vessels'
Roee Nahmias Published: 06.15.10, 14:48 / Israel News
"There is no connection between my boats and Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran," said Palestinian businessman Yasser Kashlak, who is organizing a two-vessel sail to Gaza as part of the effort to break Israel's naval blockade. One of the ships, the Naji el-Ali, is set to carry 25 European activists (including parliament members) and some 50 journalists. The sail is being organized by the Free Palestine Movement, which is headed by Kashlak.
At least 10 vessels expected to try to break Gaza blockade by October. Security forces prepare for first vessel expected from Lebanon soon
The second ship, the Mariam, is expected to carry medicines and additional humanitarian aid.
Kashlak said he is funding the voyage but did not say when the vessels are expected to depart or whether they would leave together. "Israel's threat to use force against the two vessels will not prevent us from achieving our legitimate goal, which is to break the savage Israeli blockade on Gaza. "Israel's claim that the two vessels belong to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas is a cheap attempt to distort the facts and is merely an excuse to attack the boats and kill the activists on board," he said. During a press conference held by Kashlak and some of his European colleagues on Sunday, Greek activist Basias Ivangelos said, "During World War Two more than 2,000 people form the Greek isles fled the Nazis on boat and were welcomed in Gaza with open arms. Israel's actions to prevent the vessels from reaching Gaza go against history, culture and human rights."

Lebanese flotilla organizers found to have Hezbollah ties
Though businessman, journalist deny terror group behind sail, both discovered to support Nasrallah
Roee Nahmias Published: 06.16.10 / Israel News
A Palestinian businessman who revealed himself recently as the organizer of another aid flotilla to Gaza has been found to have ties to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
Denial
Lebanese flotilla: No link to Hamas, Hezbollah / Roee Nahmias
Palestinian businessman organizing aid sail to Gaza says Israel's claims of ties to Islamist group and Iran 'excuse to kill activists on board vessels'
Yasser Kashlak, who is reportedly behind the flotilla set to leave from Beirut in the coming days, has announced that he has "no ties with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran". But on August 14, 2009 he published a letter expressing support for Nasrallah.
"We and they know, sir, that you have vowed not to leave us alone and kept this promise. You dedicated your life, and still do, to the protection of our business which is also yours," Kashlak wrote in a letter to Nasrallah carried by the Lebanese Al-Akhbar.
"In the name of the Palestinian people… we stress that we are taking the path of resistance. Their campaigns will do no good, and history and geography will not lie. We ask Allah to extend your life and the lives of all who support Palestine and the noble resistance."
Kashlak, 39, heads the Palestinian Businessmen Association as well as the Lebanese institute of international research. He is also considered close to the Syrian government.
Kashlak also writes columns for a number of Lebanese papers and even publishes a little-known daily. In Lebanon, he is known as an up and coming leader of the Palestinian refugees, and has consistently opposed the peace process.
But Kashlak is not alone in organizing the Lebanese flotilla. Samar al-Hajj, a former Lebanese journalist, is in charge of the ship Miriam.
She is also the wife of a high-ranking officer in the Lebanese security forces who served a four-year prison term for his involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and was released one year ago. Three weeks ago, in honor of the anniversary of his release, the couple met with Nasrallah and thanked him for supporting the officer.
In public, al-Hajj and Kashlak deny all connection with Hezbollah. Al-Hajj has recently told the Arab media in an interview that she belongs to a group of women of all ethnic backgrounds who had bound together due to their common hatred of Israel.
She also denied Hezbollah was behind the flotilla, but admitted that her motivation came from Nasrallah's speech calling for more fleets to sail to Gaza.

Suspected Hezbollah financier arrested in Paraguay
(AFP) – ASUNCION — Interpol said Tuesday it has arrested a Lebanese national suspected of funneling money to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Paraguay in the tri-border area with Argentina and Brazil.Moussa Hamdan, 38, was arrested in Ciudad del Este, part of the Triple Frontier, a region the United States has repeatedly cited as being exploited by militant groups that "finance terrorist activities."Local media, citing local security officials, said Hamdan was financing Hezbollah, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel and is blacklisted as a terror group by Washington. The Interpol chief in Paraguay, Jose Chena, said justice officials would decide within about six weeks whether to extradite Hamdan to the United States, where an arrest warrant has been issued against him. A cosmopolitan area and significant tourist spot, the Triple Frontier is also considered a major spot for smuggling and other organized crime. Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina deny their shared region is a hotbed for terror financing. The three countries have refused to cooperate in the production of Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's latest project in a film tentatively titled "Triple Frontier" over concerns the movie could damage their countries' reputation with tourists. A significant Arab population lives in the region, with a big presence in Ciudad del Este.

Hezbollah slams France's ban of Hamas TV
Published: 06.16.10, 20:40 / Israel News
Lebanon's Hezbollah on Wednesday denounced a decision by French authorities to take the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV off the air, saying the order was unfair and a violation of freedom of expression."Hezbollah strongly condemns the decision taken by French authorities to stop broadcasts of Al-Aqsa satellite television, considering it unfair and a contradiction of the principles of freedom and justice which France is proud of," the Shiite movement said in a statement. (AFP)

Hezbollah museum: war for all the family
By Theodore May - GlobalPost
Published: June 16, 2010
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/lebanon/100615/hezbollah-museum-lebanon-beirut-tourism-hamas
The Hezbollah war museum opened recently to mark the 10-year anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
(Theodore May/GlobalPost) MLITA, Lebanon
A young boy ducks under a barricade to have his photo taken next to an Israeli tank. A father puts his baby daughter’s hand on the trigger of a piece of artillery. A Shiite sheikh, in full religious dress, strolls past a map of “Occupied Palestine.” Two women silently sob at the site where former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, now dead, was said to have prayed.
It’s opening day at Hezbollah’s war museum in the southern Lebanese town of Mlita.
Museum construction isn’t finished yet — workers are still putting a cafeteria together and the gift shop lies empty — but Hezbollah officials opened it anyway to mark the 10-year anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
“The Israeli forces occupied those hills,” said museum tour guide Abu Ahmed, who said he was under orders not to give his full name. “The hurricane of the resistance attacked the eight Israeli teams and drove them into the abyss.”
In fact, the museum’s centerpiece is an exhibit called “The Abyss.” It’s a cratered area, surrounded by a ramp for visitors, covered with overturned Israeli tanks and leftover Israeli munitions.
Planning for the museum began in 2006. It now sits on a hilltop that served as a main staging ground for Hezbollah operations against Israel.
On opening day recently, the museum was jammed with supporters of the militant group. Many carried green and white Hezbollah flags. Others wore Hezbollah hats. Traffic was clogged a mile down the country road with cars of revelers.
“Today is the liberation day,” said Abu Ahmed, referring to the national holiday marking the anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal, “like the Fourth of July!”
Behind “The Abyss,” visitors are welcome to walk through the forested area where Hezbollah forces based their operations against Israel. Wandering down the path, visitors see a mock up of a Hezbollah field hospital, a tribute to suicide bombers, and an elaborate cave system where fighters lived, prayed, and planned operations.
Another exhibit was designed to show off the extent of Hezbollah’s arsenal, with rocket launchers and anti-tank systems on display.
For Lebanon’s beleaguered south, which has been on the front lines of wars, both civil and international, for generations, this was a rare day of celebration. The set up of the museum fed that sense of festiveness, showing off the might of the militant group that is a pariah in the eyes of many in the West.
“I feel proud because what’s done here is for the sake of the people living here,” said one visitor, Mohammed Jammoul, standing in front of a poster with the images of Israel’s leadership. “Israel is our enemy. We dream of hitting her with every single weapon we have.”
The museum displays paint a picture of Hezbollah as a powerful fighting force, rather than a scrappy militia. In many ways, Hezbollah has matured since the days when it would launch small-scale missions against the Israeli military in the 1990s. Along with its allies, it is now a dominant force in Lebanon’s electoral politics. Hezbollah leaders can be heard often on television bragging about the increased reach of the group’s arsenal.
There is little mention of the great imbalance that still exists between Israeli military capabilities and Hezbollah’s more modest abilities.
Despite a celebratory air, the museum opened with the threat of renewed violence hanging heavily over the event.

Extreme Makeover
Obama’s Middle East policy may soon shift away from moderates in favor of extremists
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/36244/extreme-makeover/
By Lee Smith | Jun 16, 2010/
Tablets Magazine
President Barack Obama’s point-man for his latest approach to the Muslim world is John Brennan, the White House’s counterterrorism czar, recently described by the Washington Post as one of the president’s most trusted advisers. Two weeks ago Brennan explained to a Washington audience that “we need to try to build up the more moderate elements” within Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shia militia. The State Department rushed in to explain that there was no change in U.S. policy toward a group it has designated a terrorist organization—however, this was the second time Brennan had spoken of reaching out to Hezbollah “moderates” (and the second time he was corrected by the State Department), which means he has the president’s approval.
In reality, there is no such thing as Hezbollah moderates. The party itself claims there is no difference between what the British incorrectly describe as Hezbollah’s political and military wing. And so identifying Hezbollah “moderates” is just political cover for the real work, which as Brennan, a longtime CIA hand, surely knows, is speaking to the hard men, the extremists, since they are the only people worth speaking to.
This is news: Moderate Muslims, the darlings of the George W. Bush Administration’s foreign policy, don’t matter, or so Obama has concluded. Ever since he was on the campaign trail Obama has promised to reach out to Iran and Syria, state sponsors of terror and Hezbollah’s patrons, and now the reason why is clear: because he believes that it’s Middle East extremists who call the shots. Someday soon, the Obama Administration is going to reach out to Hezbollah, as well as other terrorist organizations, in Afghanistan, Gaza, and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
Indeed, the Middle East’s savviest rulers have already read the writing on the wall. Look at Turkey. The Bush Administration believed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP government represented the model of a moderate and democratic Islamic state that would influence its neighbors, especially Iraq. Now, under the Obama Administration, Turkey will still serve its traditional role as a bridge to the Muslim world—not to the moderates but to the extremists. As if to polish up his résumé for this new direction, Erdogan stacked the Mavi Marmara with activists from the IHH, as if to prove that he has relationships with Hamas. Now, when Washington wants something from the armed gang that runs Gaza, they can use Ankara as a mediator.
Obama, it seems, doesn’t care about moderate Muslims for the same reason that he doesn’t make much noise about human rights and democracy promotion in the Middle East: For all his talk of hope and change, he takes a much more pessimistic—and more realistic—view of the region’s political culture than the Bush Administration did.
And the truth is that the Bush White House was never entirely serious about backing up its talk about moderate Muslims with action. Sure, the White House rode Cairo and Riyadh hard for their human-rights abuses, but it still wound up describing Egypt and Saudi Arabia as “moderate” Arab states—meaning that they were less bad than Iran. Worse yet, the Bush Administration committed the cardinal sin of Middle East politics: failing to protect its (moderate) allies and punish (extremist) enemies. Take the case of the late former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, an exemplary moderate Muslim politician, whose foundation provided tens of thousands of scholarships to students from all confessions while Hezbollah’s culture of resistance turned the Shia community into a death cult. And yet five and a half years later, after Hariri was killed in a car-bomb explosion in Beirut, there’s not even an indictment in his murder. The message is clear: There’s not much use for Middle East moderates since, like Hariri and Anwar Sadat before him, their moderation only gets them killed by extremists.
President Obama has keyed in on Muslim extremists because his own history shows that it’s the strategically sound choice. The lesson that extremism is the foundation of political legitimacy in politically charismatic communities was driven home to the president, Sunday after Sunday, as he sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years. Obama, a half-white community organizer from Hawaii by way of Harvard Law School, did not seek to establish his bona fides in Chicago’s black community by attending the church of some middle-class black pastor who would speak about the glories of mowing the lawn every Sunday. The politically ambitious Obama chose to sit in the church of a man who spouted lunatic conspiracy theories about how the CIA was killing black babies not because he believed it, but because he knew back then that extremists confer legitimacy—especially when you are an outsider hoping to curry favor with the locals, as he is now with the Muslim world.
What Obama knows about extremists and moderates was not lost on our founding fathers, who understood that the great and vast moderate majority anywhere are a bunch of saps who will gladly follow the knave who knows how to play on their grievances and lusts. The moderate majority is the hash you get when you have made a virtue of human nature by balancing off competing prejudices, fantasies, fears, and vanities; and if you want to deal with this moderate majority you must go to their leaders, the men of fierce purpose who nurture the worst in mankind.
It is typically assumed that the president’s history, his family background, and the time he has spent in the Muslim world have made him deeply sympathetic to the Muslim masses. Another possibility is that it has left him wary of what he has seen and heard. As someone with a Muslim father who grew up partly in a Muslim country, and who embraced radical political tropes, it is notable that Obama chose to become a Christian and reject his father’s religious faith. Both his critics and defenders are quick to argue that his choice must have been motivated by naked political expediency. But what if it was a conscious decision to distance himself from a Muslim world he found distasteful?
In any case, Obama sees, correctly, that the real choice isn’t between moderates and extremists, but between cutting a deal with the extremists or making war against them. The fact is that a war against all the extremists in the Muslim world—Sunni and Shia, from the Persian Gulf to Western North Africa—is effectively a war against Islam. And a decades-long war of civilizations is not a war that an economically damaged United States can afford to wage. We have neither the money, nor the manpower, nor the will. A total war of the kind that appears to be on offer would change U.S. society in ways that are unimaginable and would make the Bush years look like an idyllic holiday. Our few remaining allies—with the exception of Israel—would no longer wish to fight beside us and would make deals of their own, if they already haven’t.
So, instead, we’re going to bargain with the actors who have the final say over war and peace: the extremists.
The present moment is not the first time the United States has had to choose between war with Muslim extremists and appeasing them. As Israel’s ambassador to the United States Michael Oren detailed in his 2007 book Faith, Power and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present, America’s first policymakers considered paying off the Barbary Coast pirates and the local sultans on whose behalf they took captives and booty, as the French and British did. After a public outcry, they decided to make war. Taxes were then levied to establish the U.S. Navy, tasked to defend American commerce on the high seas and take the fight to the enemy.
Looking back to the origins of the United States’ blue-water navy is a reminder that the founding fathers judged that fighting, rather than paying tribute, was what best suited the character of the American people. And there’s little doubt that U.S. citizens will again rebel against policymakers who have chosen appeasement, especially since the extremists will negotiate by killing more of us, in the streets of U.S. cities as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is unclear whether the political damage that the incumbent will suffer because his countrymen are dying is sufficient to change his thinking, which is that it is more cost efficient for a weakened United States to buy off extremists than it is to run the rest of the world at the end of a gun.
But negotiating with extremists will look like war, just that only one side will be fighting while the other side—the United States—tries to stop the bloodshed by petitioning the extremists to accept more ransom. The way Obama sees it, the upside is that it will not be a war without end, like the war on terror. All the extremists in the Muslim world want is money and the power that will flow their way as the consequence of the U.S. withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. The faster the United States leaves, the cheaper the cost. This is why the Jewish state is isolated today and why Washington stands with her only reluctantly: Distancing ourselves from Israel is part of the deal we are preparing to strike

Iran's rulers its greatest threat
Politico'
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38581.html
The world received two reminders last week that Iran remains a serious threat to regional and global stability.
Tehran denounced and defied the latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions in response to its continuing aggressive nuclear enrichment program.
The regime also made clear that it sided with extremists who challenged the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Likewise, it continues to support Hezbollah and other terrorist groups across the globe.
Indeed, Congress must recognize that Iran’s rulers represent the greatest threat to its own people. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and I have introduced legislation to address that very issue. June 12 marked the first anniversary of Iran’s disputed presidential election. Millions of Iranians voted for new leadership, demanded greater freedom and called for an end to the policies that have isolated them from much of the world.
This Green Revolution was a response to decades of oppression and human rights abuses. It raised hopes around the world that the Iranian people would win their liberty.
The regime’s response was brutal, and remains so. Its initial crackdown on peaceful protesters took many innocent lives — including a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan.
In January, two men accused of participating in post-election protests were hanged. Nine others have been sentenced to death on the same charges. Dozens of journalists, writers and bloggers remain imprisoned — among an estimated 4,000 members of the opposition, who have been detained.
Over the past year, the Obama administration has met Iran’s repression with vacillation and indifference. Despite widespread reports of election fraud last June, the White House quickly credited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as being the “elected leader” of Iran.
President Barack Obama remained silent about Iran’s violent crackdown for days before struggling to find the right tone in a series of public statements. Then, last week, as the president trumpeted the latest attempt to influence Iran through U.N. sanctions, he made clear that the regime’s human rights record remains an afterthought.
Iranians seeking freedom may place little faith in this president’s words. But Congress can make clear that the American people stand with them by enacting the Iran Democratic Transition Act of 2010. Our bill states that it is U.S. policy to support the Iranian people’s efforts to establish a truly democratic and accountable government and free themselves from the regime headed by Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Our bill authorizes the president to provide assistance for broadcasting and other communications directly to Iranian democratic opposition organizations, as well as to offer humanitarian aid to victims of repression by the current regime. Our bill reflects the reality that the millions of Iranians who want democratic change still deserve it and that the United States must stand with those who stand for their liberty. As we do so, we will give hope to millions in other lands that America has not turned its back on its principles. And we will help the Iranian people take charge of their own future, rid themselves of one of the world’s most despicable and destabilizing regimes and become an anchor of stability and peace in the Middle East.
**Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, is a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

PERLEY: Hillary and Hugo
Radical roots yield bitter fruits
By Frank Perley, Frank Perley
5:35 p.m., Tuesday, June 15, 2010
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/15/hillary-and-hugo/?page=2
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has denied any connection between his government and the militant Hezbollah group in southern Lebanon.PrintEmailView 4Comment(s)Enlarge Text|ShrinkClick-2-ListenBuzz up!Social NetworksFacebookTwitterQuestion of the DayDo you think BP will properly compensate businesses and individuals for losses due to the oil s
Hugo Chavez has been amusing himself lately spurning the advances by Hillary Rodham Clinton. Instead, he ought to give her a hug and a Chavista of the Year medal. After all, the U.S. secretary of state has been laboring recently at the task that Venezuela's strongman considers Job No. 1: making the case for socialism.
Mrs. Clinton spent much of last week on a four-nation tour of Latin America, offering advice on fiscal policy. In Ecuador on June 8, she urged Latin American nations to overhaul their tax systems in order to impose heavier levies on the wealthy and reduce tax evasion. She argued that the rich need to pay their "fair share" in order to reduce poverty and promote economic growth: "We can't mince words about this. Levels of tax evasion are unacceptably high."
Apparently, Mrs. Clinton felt compelled to practice a variation of the traveler's idiom, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." These days, most of Latin America does as Venezuela's leftist president does, and so did the secretary. She also made an appeal for better relations between the United States and Venezuela but said Mr. Chavez did not appear interested in reciprocating.
The following day in the middle of a speech, Mr. Chavez began crooning a little tune he presumably made up on the spot: "I'm not loved by Hillary Clinton ... and I don't love her, either."
What's not to love, Hugo? Redistributing wealth by squeezing the rich is right out of Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" and lies at the core of socialist ideology that serves as the basis for the Bolivarian revolution. For the U.S. secretary of state to validate class struggle in Mr. Chavez's own backyard ought to be music to his ears.
As a reliable player on President Obama's team, Mrs. Clinton has spent the past 17 months mirroring the policies of her boss - empathizing with the nation's adversaries and chastising its allies. But when the opportunity has arisen, she has returned to her ideological roots: the redistribution of wealth. Recently, she has spoken in favor of high taxes in Brazil, and last year she urged Pakistanis to pay more.
For Hillary watchers, the secretary's statist message comes as no surprise. As a teenager in the 1960s, she embraced the social justice tenets of her Methodist church in the Chicago suburbs. While Mr. Obama was still a schoolboy in Indonesia, Mrs. Clinton was studying the ideas of community organizer Saul Alinsky, and she wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley College on his radical tactics. During her years at Yale Law School, she interned at an Oakland law firm well-known for backing radical causes; two partners were former Communist Party members.
Then as first lady in the early 1990s, Mrs. Clinton attempted to craft a plan that would impose federal regulation on the nation's health care system. Hillarycare proved wildly unpopular with Americans and never came to a vote in Congress. Some of her proposals, however, re-emerged in Mr. Obama's $1 trillion health care reform bill, which Congress passed in March. Surely, Mrs. Clinton must have experienced bittersweet emotions over the eventual victory of health care reform at the hands of her erstwhile rival and current boss. A majority of taxpayers, however, anticipate nothing sweet from the new law and favor its repeal.
So, the secretary's pronouncement of common cause with the Latin leftists last week was not simply an exercise in ingratiation. It represented a continuation of her lifelong labor in the fields of statism.
While the redistributionist message still resonates south of the border, socialism's unsustainable economic model is readily evident in Europe. Unaffordable cradle-to-grave government policies have brought many eurozone nations to the brink of insolvency and have pushed at least one over the edge. Greece's mountainous debt and riots over attempts to cut spending serve as a harbinger for nations enthralled by socialism's lethal charms. Closer to home, crushing burdens from overly generous social entitlements and state employee benefits have placed California in similar financial straits.
By Frank Perley, Frank Perley
5:35 p.m., Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has denied any connection between his government and the militant Hezbollah group in southern Lebanon.PrintEmailView 4Comment(s)Enlarge Text|ShrinkClick-2-ListenBuzz up!Social NetworksFacebookTwitterQuestion of the DayDo you think BP will properly compensate businesses and individuals for losses due to the oil
But old habits die hard, and Mrs. Clinton, like her president, evidently is loath to recognize the bitter fruits of her lifelong statist advocacy. Tax avoidance, which she railed against in Latin America, worsens when taxpayers believe taxes are too high and government is too inefficient. "Better tax compliance is achieved by lowering tax rates and eliminating inefficient and corrupt spending programs so that taxpayers have more confidence that their money is not being wasted," says tax reform expert and Cato Institute scholar Daniel J. Mitchell.
One could argue that the redistributionist impulse springs from the noble desire to serve those in need. Indeed, Jesus advised, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But when in secular society the impulse to provide for the needy is uprooted by big-government demand for oppressive taxes, inclinations toward charity morph into resentment.
In her role as America's pre-eminent diplomat, Mrs. Clinton could do better than confine her advocacy to the dysfunctional policies of statism. Rather than argue that heavier taxes pave the pathway to prosperity, she would be wise to champion the notion that lightening the burden of government can unleash a state of liberty in which human industry flourishes.
**Frank Perley is senior editor of opinion for The Washington Times.
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