Our leaders have committed the gravest of crimes. TREASON.

BECAUSE WE FORGET AND HAVE NO SENSE OF HISTORY, OR RESPONSIBILITY...
BECAUSE WHAT WAS PREDICTABLE HAS BEEN IGNORED AND GLOSSED OVER...
AND COVERED UP BY YOUR MEDIA...
AND BECAUSE IN EVERY GROUP and AGE WE HAVE TROJAN HORSES...
THIS DAY THE WORLD HAS BECOME A MORE DANGEROUS PLACE
MUCH MORE DANGEROUS!
We have the pending union of SUNNI and SHIA Muslims to Achieve the ISLAMIST WORLD of a 9th Century Mohammed. And it's no fantasy - it is for REAL.
And there are only two nations in their way.
Write off the rest...they are asleep at the wheel...
If this event were not predictable, I'd say, sad.
It was, however, predictable.
WE had predicted it, and I say our leaders have committed the gravest of crimes. 
TREASON.

If that last fact is not obviously clear in the series of events following November 2008, than nothing will be obvious!
- AGB

Obama's moment of truth on Iran

Obama must make it known right away if he is ready to stop Iran forcibly in 2013.

By Ari Shavit | HAARETZ   Aug.16, 2012

The report on President Barack Obama's desk is dramatic. Its meaning: Iran has an advanced weapons team that is developing a sophisticated nuclear warhead. In contrast to previous American assessments, Iran has progressed not only in missile building and uranium enrichment, but also in weapon production.

Unlike previous American assumptions, it has transpired the West does not know everything that happens in Tehran's secret cellars. The argument that it will take Iran a long time to make the breakthrough to a nuclear bomb has lost its validity. So has the argument that the United States will know in good time of any secret Iranian move. The American intelligence picture and the Israeli intelligence picture are uniting. The time is up, says the united nuclear picture. The sanctions may be wreaking havoc on the Iranian economy, but the Iranian nuclear program is nearing its destination. Within about a year Iran will be capable of becoming a nuclear power.

The New York Times called on Israel this week to conduct a responsible discourse on the Iranian issue. The New York Times is right. But the Israelis are entitled to turn to the Americans now and demand the same thing. At this point the American discourse about the Iranian nuclear issue is not sincere, courageous and responsible enough. The American political system and part of the American media are not grappling sincerely and thoroughly with the Shi'ite nuclearization and its significance.

The post-traumas of Afghanistan, Iraq and the economic crisis have prevented America from taking a hard straight look at Natanz' centrifuges and Fordow's underground bunker. America has not fully comprehended Iran. Nor has it mobilized all its resources to stop Iran.

The American failure is tragic. Already a decade ago it should have understood that as a superpower its greatest challenge was to pave a third way, which would spare us all from the terrible dilemma of bombing or facing the bomb. Already five years ago Washington should have understood that its duty was to impose paralyzing sanctions on Iran, seal it hermetically in a closure and wave an intimidating military cudgel at it.

But America didn't understand because it was immersed in other painful matters. Its inaction can be explained, but cannot be denied. In all that concerns Iran, the United States did too little, too late and without sufficient determination.

The Obama administration has in fact done quite a bit in recent years. It led the campaign to impose sanctions, acted vigorously in the cyber realm and prepared a substantial military option. But all these moves did not involve paying a single political dollar. Nor were they accompanied by preparing public opinion for an economic or military confrontation that would exact casualties. Obama did a lot more than George Bush, but did less than necessary. He did not deter the Iranians or stop them, and has not been successful in facing them so far.

The dramatic report now lying on the desk of the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces is expected to make it clear to him that the hour of truth has come. Regrettably, the decisive test did not wait until after the November election but has appeared now. It is the U.S. president's full prerogative to decide that the Iranian nuclearization does not justify war. It is his full prerogative to tell Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates that he chooses a policy of containment and acceptance. But it is not the president's prerogative to deceive his allies and conceal the truth from his own people.

Obama must make it known right away if he is ready to stop Iran forcibly in 2013. He must state whether, when all hope is gone and all the diplomatic moves have been exhausted, he will stop the Iranian bomb with an American bombing.

SOME READERS WILL REJECT WHAT WAS WRITTEN ABOVE. In denial of reality. That's their problem - and ours...:

Egypt's New President Moves Against Democracy

Mohammed Morsi has given himself complete legislative and executive power, plus the right to select writers of a new constitution. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader is talking about abrogating treaties, and with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinijad the two are preparing to make alliances in the upcoming non-alligned nations meeting in Tehran.

August 17, 2012 – WSJ – by Eric Trager

Egypt's "full transition to civilian rule," long sought by the Obama administration, has finally come to fruition. But it is neither liberal nor democratic.

On Sunday, having purged top military officials, Muslim Brotherhood veteran and new President Mohammed Morsi issued a sweeping constitutional declaration. It grants him complete executive and legislative power, plus the authority to select the writers of Egypt's new constitution. Eighteen months after Hosni Mubarak's ouster, Egypt has a new dictator—and the way in which Mr. Morsi grabbed power says much about what he will do with it.

These moves follow an attack last week in the notoriously unstable Sinai peninsula, where militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, stole a military vehicle, and attempted to breach Israel's borders. The incident gave Mr. Morsi an excuse to sack the security officials who posed the greatest threat to his domestic authority—particularly the leaders of Egypt's now-defunct military junta, which in June had issued its own constitutional declaration limiting the newly elected president's powers.

More important, Mr. Morsi used the Sinai crisis to assume the powers that the junta had undemocratically asserted for itself in a March 2011 constitutional declaration. He thus claimed unprecedented executive power, including complete authority over legislation, public budgets, foreign affairs, pardons, and political and military appointments.

Mr. Morsi's declaration also gives him the power to select a new assembly for writing Egypt's constitution. And since the new constitution must be approved by popular referendum before new parliamentary elections can be held, Mr. Morsi can intervene in the constitution-writing process to delay legislative elections—and thereby remain Egypt's sole legislator—indefinitely.

Based on the evidence to date, Egypt's president will use his expanded power to advance the Muslim Brotherhood's radically intolerant domestic agenda.

Consider the editors he appointed to lead Egypt's two largest state-run newspapers. The new editor of Al-Ahram is an old Mubarak regime hack who called last year's uprising "foreign funded" and lost his column in 2010 for writing anti-Christian articles. The new editor of Gomhoriya shut down a conference on religious freedoms in 2008 and called for the murder of a well-known Bahai activist in 2009. The new editor of Al-Akhbar recently censored an article that criticized the Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, Mr. Morsi's newly appointed defense minister, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, admitted that the military had subjected female activists to "virginity tests" in its brutal crackdown on Tahrir Square protests in March 2011. In its first major move against dissenters, the Morsi regime this month began prosecuting the editor of Al-Dustour, a private daily, for "harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law."

While the consequences of Mr. Morsi's power grab are primarily being felt domestically, this is unlikely to last. His recent actions suggest that he will soon turn his attention to Egyptian foreign policy, steering it in a direction decidedly hostile to U.S. interests.

His constitutional declaration empowers him to do just that. His amendments to last year's interim constitution give him the authority to sign—and presumably abrogate—treaties. Although many expected that de facto foreign-policy power would remain with the generals, Mr. Morsi's quick reshuffling of the military leadership has brought the armed forces under his command.

Then there are his overtures to adversaries of the West. In a mere six weeks as president, Mr. Morsi has hosted top-level Hamas delegations twice and, despite the flow of militants from Gaza into Sinai, promised to keep open the Rafah border crossing. Last week he welcomed Iran's vice president and was invited to attend the Non-Aligned Movement's upcoming meeting in Tehran.

If he does, he'd be the first Egyptian head of state to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution. Accompanying him could be his new chief of staff, Mohamed Rifaat al-Tahtawi, a former ambassador to Libya and Iran who has declared Israel to be Egypt's "main threat," praised Syria as "a fundamental pillar of the resistance camp [against] Israel," and called for closer relations with Iran and Hamas.

Many Washington analysts believe that Mr. Morsi won't make any major foreign-policy moves, such as revoking Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. They take his verbal assurances at face value and reason that he won't rock the boat at the very moment that he needs international investment to boost Egypt's ailing economy.

But this same logic once dictated that he wouldn't rush to challenge Egypt's generals. After all, he sat smiling next to Egypt's top military officer (now fired) at military events, and Washington observers widely assumed that the Brotherhood would be content to focus on Islamizing domestic policy while leaving national-security matters to the military.

Mr. Morsi's modus operandi, it turns out, isn't accommodating or gradual. And now that he has declared extensive powers for himself, the only way to prevent him from moving swiftly against American interests is by pushing back immediately.

Rather than touting him as a democratically elected leader—as the Obama administration has frequently done—Washington should denounce his power grab and insist that he demonstrate his commitment to democratic rule with action or risk losing the international goodwill that followed his election. Failing to do so will enable him to continue building his power domestically without paying a price abroad. And that raises the likelihood of another—much more damaging—Sunday surprise.

Mr. Trager is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.