Its a Bull Market for these Bears.

Polar bears Bill, right, and Lara seem to like each other at their first meeting at the zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Bill came from the zoo in Bruenn, Czech Republic, as a new partner for Lara.

To Obama, "Never Again" = "Forgive and Forget"

Dr. Michael Ledeen is one of those smart think tank guys that from time to time show up on talk radio or cable news as an "expert" on a given issue, like terrorism or military spending. In Ledeen's case, he is a bona fide expert on Iran and national security. As the author of The War Against the Terror Masters and The Iranian Time Bomb you would expect Ledeen knows a thing or two about the grave threat that Iran poses to stability in the Middle East (such as it is) and to Israel's existence.

Beyond that, Dr. Ledeen is a student of history, particularly modern European history, and understands the nature of evil men and regimes and their terrible toll on mankind in the previous century. Unfortunately for us, Ledeen isn't so sure that our new president acknowledges much less understands the evil designs of our enemies, and doubts he intends to do much to stop them. Even more troubling is President Obama's penchant for reserving his harshest rhetoric for those who disagree with him politically and oppose his agenda.

Ledeen's thesis is that since the media has failed to show the slightest curiosity about Obama's curriculum vitae before the November election, the American people have little information about his beliefs, political philosophy or character. Accordngly we are left to anlayze the president's words and deeds on the world stage for clues to his convictions and intentions, indeed his worldview. And what Dr Ledeen has deduced and inferred from Obama thus far troubles him.


In a recent speech at the Capitol commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, Obama's utterances at first seemed elegant and appropriate. According to Ledeen: "First he [drew] hope from the survivors of the Holocaust. Those who came to America had a higher birthrate than the Jews who were already living here, and those members of 'a chosen people' who created Israel. These, he [said], chose life and asserted it despite the horrors they had endured." But then Obama continues with his own version of "Never Again:"

We find cause for hope as well in Protestant and Catholic children attending school together in Northern Ireland; in Hutus and Tutsis living side-by-side, forgiving neighbors who have done the unforgivable; in a movement to save Darfur that has...people of every age and faith and background and race united in common cause with suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world...Those numbers can be our future, our fellow citizens of the world showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say “never again.”

And there is the rub, according to Ledeen. "Never again" is not and has never been a cry for reconciliation and forgiveness. It was a plea to the world to "destroy the next would-be Fuhrer." It is also a self-promise by Jews never to allow themselves to be sent like sheep to the slaughter without resistance. Finally it is a hope--sadly against the evidence--that the civilized nations of the world will rise as one to destroy any despot or regime that would dare to harass, intimidate or threaten destroy the Jewish people or the people of any other nation. But "never again" is decidely not, as Obama suggests, a pretext for turning the other cheek.

Obama's oratory betrays a lame attempt to portray the world not as it really is, but rather as he imagines it to be--a world where all disputes can be negotiated and past wrongs can be addresses through truth and reconciliation commissions. This is a dangerous misunderstanding of the way the real world works.

Perhaps Obama is merely naive. Maybe Obama feels a spirit of equanimity towards all men, believing them all to be of good will and honest intentions. Yet Obama does have harsh words for his opponents, at least those that reside within our own borders. As Ledeen notes:

Significantly, Barack Obama is a lot tougher on his domestic American opponents than on tyrants who threaten our values and America itself. He tells the Republicans that they’d better stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, but he doesn’t criticize Palestinians who raise their children to hate the Jews. He bows to the Saudi monarch, but humiliates the prime minister of Great Britain. He expresses astonishment that anyone can worry about a national security threat from Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela, even as Chavez solidifies an alliance with Iran that brings plane loads of terror masters, weapons and explosives into our hemisphere from Tehran via Damascus, fuels terrorists and narcotics traffic, and offers military facilities to Russian warships and aircraft. He is seemingly unconcerned by radical Islam and a resurgent Communism in Latin America, even as his Department of Homeland Security fires a warning shot at veterans–the best of America–returning from the Middle East. He seeks warm relations with Iran and Syria–who are up to their necks in American blood–while warning Israel of dire consequences if she should attempt to preempt a threatened Iranian nuclear attack.

According to Ledeen, Obama's words are designed to "internalize conflicts that are raging in the real world." Our enemies are left to wonder what to make of a man who seems intent on accommodating them while reserving his unkindest words for those in his own country who oppose measures that would weaken America. No doubt they will feel emboldened to try harder to bring us to ruin.

The bottom line for Ledeen is this: "if the president of the United States will not act, who can stop them?"

George Friedman on Obama's First 100 Days

I found this article by George Friedman of Stratfor.com interesting, as it asserts that so far Obama hasn't strayed much from the path laid out for him by....President George Bush.

Friedman did not mention the $3.6 trillion budget proposed by Obama and the staggering deficits projected over the next decade. He also didn't suggest that O's plans for universal healthcare, cap-and-trade and takeover of the financial and auto industries are radical departures from even the free-spending G.W. Bush. Finally, Friedman fails to mention the mindset that Obama brings to his office that America is arrogant, hegemonic and a large part of the world's problem, as starkly illustrated in his decision to release the "torture" memos over the objection of his own CIA director and national security advisors.

Nevertheless, Friedman makes points that even some of us who oppose Obama might consider meritorious..

Smiling at Chavez

A lot has been written in the past weeks about President Obama's first turns on the world stage, in Europe and then Latin America. Obama has been spending a lot of time apologizing for the past policies of our nation in foreign circles, including in France, Turkey and Trinidad/Tobago. It seems that wherever Obama went, if George Bush had been for it, Obama declared he was against it, and vice versa.

The apology/contrition bit is tiresome and counterproductive, for sure. There is a certain arrogance in apologizing for your predecessors, especially when there is so little to apologize for. Lest you think that Obama's bashing of his predecessors was merely partisan, consider that he took a swipe at fellow Democrat John F. Kennedy when he suggested that he (Obama) should not be blamed for the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which occurred when "I was only 3 years old" (he was actually unborn at the time). But when the Apology Tour morphs into an embrace of dictators and depots, the danger signals go off.

Obama seems obsessed with establishing "new relationships" with thug regimes like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. At the conference of the Organization of American States in Tobago, Obama encouraged direct talks with Cuba in order to overcome "decades of mistrust," essentially putting Cuba on the same moral footing as the U.S. He had already removed restrictions on travel to the country as well as restrictions on remittances.

Obama also had a few "chance" encounters" with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, which frankly he seemed to enjoy overmuch. Debate ranges on which leader approached the other first, but there is no doubt Obama seemed charmed by the autocratic thug. Obama was photographed gripping and grinning with Chavez, and videotape shows Obama accepting from Chavez the "gift" of a a book called "The Open Veins of Latin America," a sort of bible for Latin-Left anti-capitalists and West-bashers. And Obama seemed unperturbed by the 50-minute diatribe against America and Europe by Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, avoiding any response to it which might signal displeasure with the Sandinista killer.

All this disturbs the commentator and moral observer Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who wonders why Obama spends so much of his obvious charm and talent in wooing the globe's worst dictators. Boteach reminds us not only of the evils of men like Chavez and Castro, but also of others courted by Obama, like the Saudis (who regularly oppress their women and kill religious apostates) and the Turks (who have never acknowledged their slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1920s). While he thinks Obama is a "nice guy" who means well, Rabbi Shmuley asks:

Suppose Obama succeeds in building friendships with Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad and the Taliban. What then? Does America still get to feel that it stands for something? Will we still be the beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world, or will we have sold out in the name of political expediency? And do any of us seriously believe that presidential friendship is going to get a megalomaniac like Hugo Chavez to ease up on the levers of power, or are we just feeding his ego by showing him he can be a tyrant and still have a beer with the president of the United States? Will the Iranians really stop enriching uranium through diplomacy rather than economic sanctions?

It would be nice if Obama's adoring cheerleaders in the media would take the time not just to report on Obama's new tone towards our enemies and antagonists, but also to ask and analyze the questions that Shmuley Boteach poses.

Torture and Intelligence

According to George Friedman at www.stratfor.com, his invaluable website dealing with geopolitics, intelligence matters and world affairs, the issue of torture is complex and defies easy analysis along ideological or partisan lines. Please take a few minutes to read this essay.

I must admit that it challenged my own thinking on the matter.

Dershowitz: U.N. Denies Holocaust

Anne Bayefsky, the noted scholar and Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute and a chronicler of U.N. history and the Holocaust, moderated a panel Tuesday in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day at the same U.N. hall in Geneva that is home to the Durban II "anti-racism"conference. The panel included law professor and Jimmy Carter antagonist Alan Dershowitz, actor/activist Jon Voight, human rights icons Elie Wiesel and Natan Sharansky and author Shelby Steele.

According to writer Roger L. Simon, founder of Pajamas Media, the panel was "electric," not surprising given the brain power and eloquence of the assembled panelists and Ms. Bayefsky. PJTV will have video of the panel in the days ahead.

In the meantime PJTV has some fascinating video of a conversation moderated by Mr. Simon today in which Professors Bayefsky and Dershowitz skewer the U.N. over its hypocritical and cynical obsession with Palestinian rights and Israeli "oppression." Click here--the video gets interesting at 4 minutes in.

While I don't share Prof. Dershowitz's generally liberal politics, I am forever grateful for his unflinching advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people and his willingness to take on those who would wish to do them harm. In a world of puny and shallow figures he is a giant.

A Truly Appalling Day at the U.N.

Today marked the opening of the U.N.'s Durban Review Conference in Geneva, whose ostensible purpose is to "evaluate progress toward the goals" enunciated at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001. As any sentient being knows, that was the famous U.N.-sponsored hatefest in which Israel was vilified as a racist and criminal regime, after which the U.S. delegation left the conference at the behest of then State Secretary Colin Powell. This time around the U.S. toyed with the idea of attending if it only could get the conference to tamp down its anti-Israel rhetoric. But the conference organizers couldn't produce an agenda which met even the low standards set by the Obama administration, and so the U.S. finally withdrew, along with Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. There is intelligent life in Europe after all.

On its best days the U.N. is an extravagant, inefficient and ineffective disgrace. But today its reputation and prestige hit its nadir. For the U.N. gave center stage at this human rights conference to one of the world's biggest human rights abusers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and predictably he used the occasion to rip the Holocaust and delegitimize the Jewish State:

“Following the World War Two, they [the West? Security Council members?] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and the dubious question of holocaust. [sic] They sent migrants from Europe, the United States and from other parts of the world to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine…”

This was immediately followed by the dramatic departure from the assembly hall of the representatives of those Western nations who failed to boycott the conference in the first place
(France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the UK, etc.), and who apparently have their "redlines" even when it comes to bashing Israel. It remains to be seen whether they will return to the conference tomorrow, now that the Iranians are gone.

All this caused the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights to issue a statement expressing shock and disgust at Ahmadinejad's speech. Said Navi Pillay:"I utterly deplore the speech of the President of Iran delivered this afternoon at the Durban Review Conference against racism...I find this totally objectionable. Much of his speech was clearly beyond the scope of the Conference. It also clearly went against the long-standing UN position adopted by the General Assembly with respect to equating Zionism with racism."

This fake outrage is all rather confusing on a few levels. First, Israel-bashing is not beyond the scope of the Durban II conference, it is its heart and soul. Second, the U.N. General Assembly practically accused Israel of perpetrating war crimes during the Gaza defensive operation a few months ago, which certainly is akin to equating Zionism with racism. Finally, it was the U.N. who invited Ahmadinejad to speak to the conference on its opening day; if they wanted contrition they should have invited Barack Obama.

The U.N. is now completely discredited as a force for good in the world. In fact it can safely be said that the institution has become a safe haven for killers, thugs and despots who get from the U.N. legitimacy and a chance to strut their stuff in front of a world that should shun them instead. If there would be no U.N. there is a good chance that these two-bit
tinhorns wouldn't be given the time of day outside of their rotten little countries and failed states.

For a blow-by-blow of the Durban II conference, visit Roger L. Simon's blog and check out the video at PJTV. Note the heroic efforts of Alan Dershowitz, Shelby Steele and Jon Voight in Geneva to call attention to the freakshow that the U.N. has become.

Obama the next Gorbachev?

Says the Associated Press's Steven Hurst concerning Obama's determination to "reset" U.S. relations with the world:

Obama's stark efforts to change the U.S. image abroad are reminiscent of the stunning realignments sought by former Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev. During his short—by Soviet standards—tenure, he scrambled incessantly to shed the ideological entanglements that were leading the communist empire toward ruin.

Before hailing Obama as the new Gorbachev, it is worth remembering that Gorby was a stunning failure as Soviet leaders go: he presided over the implosion of the very empire he sought to save without establishing a viable governing alternative. Do most Russians today celebrate the end of their nation as they knew it before 1991? It is an open question.

Lets hope that Obama's rush to shed the "ideological entanglements" that have characterized our own country's relations with the civilized world for many decades doesn't lead to such a fateful conclusion.

Israel's New Foreign Minister--more dangerous than Ahmadinejad?

Thats what the left-wing Jersualem Post commentator Larry Defner thinks.

Avigdor Lieberman is the first Israeli Foreign Minister in may years who has actually told the world elites to go screw themselves. Good for him. Too bad all he will get for his trouble is vilification by the global media, the European elites and the Obama administration as a racist.

Obama won't have to take on Netanyahu directly as long as Lieberman is around. He will happily use Lieberman as a stick with which to beat Israel over the head.

Trust me on this.

Obama's Potemkin Summit

As Barack Obama headed off to London last week the American media painted a gloomy picture for the prospects of the summit of leaders of the G-20 nations and fretted over the difficult task ahead for the charismatic but inexperienced young American president. Anarchist riots would draw thousands of violent protesters to disrupt the conference. France's President Sarkozy was threatening a summit walk-out if he didn't get his regulatory scheme endorsed. Gordon Brown of the U.K. was being blamed for the "Anglo-Saxon" policies that brought down the global financial system. And Germany's Merkel stood ready to throw a wrench in the summit machinery by eschewing the stimulus mania that has gripped the U.S. and Britain. Comparisons to the disastrous London Economic Conference of 1933 were in the air, all in an effort to lower expectations for President Obama should the summit end in rancor and division.

Lo and behold, the summit ended with a "surprise" joint communique heralding a breakthrough that defied all the pundits--at least that was the message Obama's water carriers in the media delivered. ABCNews Online called the agreement an "historic step to jump start the global economy...a turning point," although the network acknowledged there was "no guarantee" of success. United Press International's Martin Sieff called Obama a "big winner," but then worried that whatever Obama won might not be of any use.

So what was Obama's big win? According to Sieff, he "agreed to Sarkozy and Merkel's demands to put pressure on nations that have long prospered as tax havens to reveal at last full details of the fortunes hidden away in their vaults and accounting records." That's like calling a guy who caves in to his ex-wife's demands for a rich alimony settlement a "big winner." In the event, this tax haven sop is vague and toothless and thankfully won't lead anywhere.

Obama's other "win," according to U.S. press accounts, is the agreement to create a global financial super regulator, the Financial Stability Board, a body that would consist of central bankers from the G20 countries, the IMF and the EU and the U.S. The FSB would extend “regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments, and markets…[including] systemically important hedge funds” and in theory gives Europe a means of stifling our economic freedom. Dick Morris refers to this as no less than a surrender of U.S. financial sovereignty, but I'm not so sure. For one thing, we long ago surrendered national control over our economic fate when we agreed to export the bulk of our debt to China and other creditors and have made things worse of late by trashing our own currency. For another, Britain has rejected the latest regulatory regime proposed by Europe and without the U.K. on board we won't play ball.

The only agreement of substance to have emerged from the G20 was a trillion dollar bailout of the bankrupt central European countries through the IMF. That is a lot of money compared to the debt owed Western Europe by central Europe, but by the new American standard of government spending it is a pittance. This summit "accomplishment" was probably hashed out weeks in advance by the central bankers and finance ministers and can hardly be termed a breakthrough.

Thanks to the slavish and unquestioning U.S. media Obama and his friends in Europe have pulled off a Potemkin summit, that is, one which from a distance appears to have real weight and substance but which on close examination is but a facade built on a foundation of hype and invented tensions with the flimsy materials of communiques, sound bites, pretty pictures and an adoring media. It seems to have worked its magic in the short term--the announcement that Obama and company saved the global financial system lifted the markets immediately and significantly.

The fact is that the one thing the summit did not do is to address the underlying causes of the global financial crisis. Not a single toxic asset was bought or sold or removed from the balance sheets of the West's banks. No grand plan was discussed or announced to deal with the risks of global asset deflation, a looming inflationary recession, protectionism or currency stabilization. The grandees of the G20 pretended to fight the next war while the current battle rages on.

As for Obama, he may have done no real harm in Europe, but we did learn a few things about him. First, by agreeing, even vaguely, to a global regulatory scheme he showed he is unwilling to stand up for American values of economic liberty and sovereignty. Second, his vaunted oratorical skills won him few if any concessions, in particular from Germany. The United States wanted Germany to agree to massive spending to stimulate its own domestic demand and thus curb its exports, and Germany wouldn't budge. Finally, Obama's attempts to gain European troop commitments to Afghanistan failed, with Europe agreeing to deploy a meager 5000 non-combat troops temporarily.

At first blush, it seems that Obama was at the center of the action at the G20, negotiating complex agreements and bringing the other leaders to his side. Look a little closer and it appears that the opposite is true. Obama's charms persuaded no one. He gave up a lot and got little in return.

George Bush's problem was being perceived as a unilateralist cowboy. Obama will do everything he can to prove to the world he is no George Bush. If Barack Obama isn't careful he'll quickly become something far more dangerous--a laughingstock.

Barack Obama, the rabbit in North Korea's headlights, is Jimmy Carter II

by Gerald Warner, UK Telegraph Blog

"Obama calls for action on North Korea" reported today's headlines - which is much like a chief constable demanding something should be done about crime. If the President of the United States cannot bring the Pyongyang regime to heel, who does he expect to perform this task? It appears that, along with the bust of Churchill, Harry S Truman's maxim "The buck stops here" has also been banished from the Oval Office.

What was the point of America deploying two missile-killing destroyers, the USS McCain and the USS Chafee, in Japanese waters, only to spectate as Kim Jong-il's Taepodong-2 missile took off? US military sources have made much of the fact that the missile failed to launch a satellite into space or to achieve its stage three flight. That is like being complacent because Iran has not yet quite completed its nuclear armaments programme. It is the unimpeded process of pursuing nuclear weaponry that is threatening. No wonder West Coast Americans feel insecure.

Overnight, posturing and sabre-rattling, formerly the province of Kim, has become the role of America and its allies. Such chest-thumping followed by inaction is deadly dangerous. Do the names Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia not ring any bells? Ironically, Barack Obama was in Prague - the ultimate monument to appeasement - when he heard the news of the North Korean launch. Incredibly, he went on to deliver another turgid oration on the need to scrap nuclear weapons. That must have given them a good laugh in Pyongyang.

It did not take Obama long to emerge from his chrysalis as a fully-fledged Jimmy Carter II. What makes his supine appeasement worse is that the United States, under both Democrat and Republican administrations, has previous when it comes to being suckered by North Korea. Two administrations, Clinton in October 1994 and Bush in February 2007, made identical deals with Kim to freeze the Yongbyon plutonium plant in return for supplies of fuel oil - Uncle Sam bought the Brooklyn Bridge twice from the wide boys in Pyongyang.

Obama should have ordered the shooting down of the North Korean missile, launched in defiance of a 2006 UN resolution. Such ruthless action is the only thing Reds understand. Weakness and moderation excite their contempt and ambition. Instead, Obama is whining that something must be done. Indeed; and the person who should be doing it is you, Mr President. That is what you are paid your 400,000 bucks a year to do.

Obama's PR team is trying to depict him as firm because he still intends to implement the European missile defence shield. Yes; but how long before Vladimir Putin sells him another pup to join the one in the White House? The word has gone round the hard-faced power freaks of the geopolitical demi-monde that here is a US president who makes taking candy from a baby look challenging. Jimmy Carter is back. Be very afraid.

Europe does have its charms

Some things just transcend national borders after all!

Israel: Time for an " I Told You So."

In a January post about Barack Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya television, I noted Obama's reference to the "Saudi peace plan," which calls for a so-called "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but which really is a Trojan horse for the delegitimization of Israel. As I said then, "the plan insists on 'return of the Palestinian refugees,' a poison pill that would require Israel to absorb millions of descendants of those who fled Israel during the War of Independence." I noted that no reasonable Israeli government would negotiate on the basis of the Saudi plan.

Now comes word that Obama not only literally bowed before the Saudi King Abdullah in Europe this week (which is the subject of hoots and hollers from the conservative punditry), but bowed also to the Arabist view of Israeli illegitimacy embraced by Europe and the American Left. According to the Jerusalem Post, "Obama reiterated his support for the Saudi initiative" in his meeting with the Saudi monarch. Strangely the Post article made no reference to the aspects of the Saudi plan which would spell destruction for Israel.

At the same time the Post reports that European leaders have already called new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pressure him into negotiating with the Palestinians for a Palestinian state without regard to the facts on the ground (those facts clearly showing the unwillingness and unreadiness of the Palestinians to govern themselves). Caroline Glick meanwhile warns of the coming offensive by the civilized nations of the world to deligitimize Israel.

More on all of this later. Now I must sign off for Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom.