Protests Continue in Turkey: Care to Comment, President Obama?

As reported this morning by the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22924886):

"Protesters have clashed with Turkish police in Istanbul, after riot squads used tear gas and water cannon to eject demonstrators from Gezi Park.

The protesters quickly fled the park, but later erected barricades across nearby streets and lit bonfires.

Witnesses said it was one of the worst nights of unrest since the park was occupied 18 days ago.

. . . .

Clashes continued into Sunday morning in the streets around [Taksim] square, eyewitnesses say.

. . . .

Thousands of people also took to the streets of the capital, Ankara, to express support for the protests.

The Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK) also said it would call a nationwide strike on Monday, while another union grouping is deciding whether to join the action.

Medical officials estimate that 5,000 people have been injured and at least four killed since protests began in earnest on 31 May."

You will recall that when interviewed by his friend Fareed Zakaria in 2012, Obama listed Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as one of his best international friends (http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/inside-obamas-world-the-president-talks-to-time-about-the-changing-nature-of-american-power/):

"I think that if you ask them, Angela Merkel or Prime Minister Singh or President Lee or Prime Minister Erdogan or David Cameron would say, We have a lot of trust and confidence in the President. We believe what he says. We believe that he’ll follow through on his commitments. We think he’s paying attention to our concerns and our interests. And that’s part of the reason we’ve been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done."

Yup, Mr. President, you've "gotten a whole bunch of stuff done" with Erdogan. I suppose that's why Turkey today leads the world in arresting journalists (see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/02/2013217124044793870.html).

Thomas Friedman, "Egypt’s Perilous Drift": Yes, His Brain Is Fried

Thomas Friedman has a solution for everything.

The final paragraph of Friedman's latest gem of a New York Times op-ed entitled "Egypt’s Perilous Drift" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/friedman-egypts-perilous-drift.html?pagewanted=all) reads:

"What is different about Egypt, though, is that it is bursting with talented young people who understand that Egypt needs an inclusive, long-term, sustainable plan for national renewal. And what they also understand is that those who say that the Arabs have tried everything — Nasserism, socialism, Communism, Baathism, liberalism and Islamism — but that nothing has worked, are wrong. There is one ism they haven’t tried: environmentalism. The only way Egypt and the other Awakening states will have sustainable democracies with sustainable economies is to elevate an environmental ethic to the center of political thinking. Without that, it’s all just musical chairs."

Environmentalism is going to provide Egypt with a sustainable democracy and sustainable economy? Should I laugh or cry?

Tom, tell it to the women of Egypt, 90% of whom have had their clitorises removed.

Tell it to Egypt's Christian Copts, who have known nothing but brutal discrimination from the country's Sunni Muslim majority.

Tell it to the generals and colonels, who own somewhere between 25 percent and 40 percent of the Egyptian economy.

Tell it to the 28 percent of Egyptians who are illiterate.

And tell it to the 82 percent of Egyptian Muslims who believe that people who commit adultery should be stoned to death, and to the 84 percent of Egyptian Muslims who believe that those who abandon Islam should be executed (see: http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/).

Sometimes I just can't believe that Friedman is paid to write this trash.

Maureen Dowd, "Bill Schools Barry on Syria": Bill Should First School Hillary

Maureen Dowd no longer has patience for Obama.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Bill Schools Barry on Syria" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/dowd-bill-schools-barry-on-syria.html?_r=0), Dowd begins by observing:

"Not only is President Obama leading from behind, now he’s leading from behind Bill Clinton.

After dithering for two years over what to do about the slaughter in Syria, the president was finally shoved into action by the past and perhaps future occupant of his bedroom."

Dowd continues:

"On Syria, the administration now says it will begin supplying rebels with small arms and ammunition, a gesture that friends and foes alike say is too little, too late. The Times’s Peter Baker reported on Saturday that Obama himself said it wouldn’t change anything but would maybe buy time.

And as the White House announced this pittance of a policy on Thursday evening, the president was nowhere to be seen. He let his deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, be the face of the Syria plan, while he spent time at an LGBT Pride Month celebration, a Father’s Day luncheon and a reception for the W.N.B.A. championship Indiana Fever basketball team."

Small arms and ammunition might "buy time"? No way. Small arms and ammunition don't stop air power, armor and artillery, backed by an onslaught of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, Shiite irregulars from Iraq and battle hardened Houthis from Yemen.

Dowd's conclusion:

"While the president was avoiding talking about what he hadn’t wanted to do in the first place, the former president was ubiquitous and uxorious, chatting about Syria and myriad other issues on MSNBC and Bloomberg TV; smiling on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek and offering his solutions for corporate America’s problems; presiding at his global initiative in Chicago; and promoting the woman he hopes will be the next president.

On Friday, a self-satisfied Clinton told the 'Morning Joe' hosts about Syria, 'It looks to me like this thing is trending in the right direction now.'

The less Obama leads, the more likely it is that history will see him as a pallid interregnum between two chaotic Clinton eras.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And so does Bill Clinton."

Well, before lecturing Obama, Bill might well want to consider Hillary's lame defense of Syria's homicidal president, Hafez al-Assad, in March 2011:

"Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer."

In addition, Syria's "rebels" have increasingly come to be led by radical Sunni Muslims funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar with links to al-Qaeda, e.g., the al-Nusra Front. Hmm. Hezbollah versus al-Qaeda. Sounds almost like Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" pitted against Jason Voorhees from "Friday the 13th," and almost too good to be true, were it not for the nearly 100,000 dead civilians and 1.5 million refugees (Syria has a total population of some 22 million).

As already stated, the supply of small arms and ammunition is as good as doing nothing. If Obama wants to do something - and this is a big "if" - he needs to strike a quick deal and demand concessions from the rebels in their war against Iran's combined proxy forces. First and foremost, Obama needs to ensure that should the rebels prevail and Assad be forced to flee Damascus, revenge will not be exacted on Syria's minority Alawite population.

But without a no-fly zone, the rebels stand no chance against Hezbollah's forces, which are taking directions from Tehran.

Does Obama have the cojones to stand firm against Moscow and Iran, who were not won over by his first term charm campaign? Probably not. Obama likes to watch; he does not like to decide. And it's so much easier touring Tanzania and hosting the W.N.B.A. champions.

Let's face it. Armed with a teleprompter, Obama is a master orator, but was never meant to lead.

[Today, The Independent is reporting that Iran will be sending 4,000 troops to support Assad (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/world-exclusive-iran-will-send-4000-troops-to-aid-bashar-alassads-forces-in-syria-8660358.html). Yes, this changes the equation.]

Gail Collins, "The Other Side of the Story": What About Sharyl Attkisson?

"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal e-mail."

- Edward Snowden

Query: Has James Clapper, US Director of National Intelligence, specifically rebutted Snowden's allegation?

Where is President Obama's rebuttal? Or did he only learn about this by reading the newspapers like the rest of us? In reality, the president is in deep hiding, waiting for the storm to blow over, and will be soon off to Africa - a trip which will cost US taxpayers up to $100 million (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-trip-to-africa-poses-special-challenges-enormous-costs/2013/06/13/29d9270a-cd29-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html). Unfortunately for Obama, the storm shows no sign of abating.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Other Side of the Story" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/collins-the-other-side-of-the-story.html?_r=0), Gail Collins decries "national willingness to give government a blank check on national security matters" and writes about a nearly decade-old story concerning the wrongful arrest of Brandon Mayfield for the 2004 commuter train bombing in Madrid. As observed by Collins:

"Spanish officials found a suspicious fingerprint on a plastic bag at the scene. The F.B.I. ran it through its files and decided, erroneously, that it matched Mayfield’s. Further investigation revealed that Mayfield had married an Egyptian immigrant and converted to Islam — information the authorities apparently found far more compelling than the fact that he had never been to Spain.

. . . .

Spain saved the day. The Spanish investigators were dubious from the beginning that the fingerprints at the bombing site were Mayfield’s; they had been hoping, perhaps, for a person who had set foot in Europe within the last decade. They found and arrested someone whose finger was a real match."

Indeed, this was a horror story.

But where is reference by Collins to the Washington Post headline story "CBS confirms reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s computer breached" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cbs-confirms-reporter-sharyl-attkisons-computer-breached/2013/06/14/321b77f0-d504-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z3)? As reported by WaPo:

"CBS News said Friday that it has confirmed a computer used by one of its Washington reporters, Sharyl Attkisson, was breached by an unknown intruder and that the hack appeared to be 'sophisticated.'

The intrusions were detected in December while Attkisson was reporting almost exclusively on the government’s response to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. The attack on Sept. 11, 2012, killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Attkisson has previously investigated the Justice Department’s gun-tracking operation known as 'Fast and Furious.'

In a statement Friday, CBS did not identify a culprit. It said Attkisson’s computer 'was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012.'

It added: 'Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and [removal] of data. This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.'"

President Obama, would you care to comment on this matter? Are you willing to deny federal government involvement in the hacking of Attkisson's computer?

As Dana Milbank writes today in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The left turns compliant on violating civil liberties" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-left-turns-compliant-on-violating-civil-liberties/2013/06/14/8c30d91a-d4d2-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z2):

"Where have all the liberals gone?

President Obama, who as a Democratic senator accused the Bush administration of violating civil liberties in the name of security, now vigorously defends his own administration’s collection of Americans’ phone records and Internet activities.

. . . .

With some exceptions, progressive lawmakers and the liberal commentariat have been passive and acquiescent toward the secret spying programs, which would have infuriated the left had they been the work of a Republican administration."

It just keeps getting uglier with every passing day.

[This blog item certainly got "someone's" goat . . .]

David Brooks, "Religion and Inequality": Narcissism, Plutocracy, Prevarication and Mud

"It's been a brilliant journey of self-awakening, and you've simply got to ask yourself -- what is happiness to you."

- Ventura asking David if he wishes to awaken from suspended animation, "Vanilla  Sky" (2001), written by Cameron Crowe.

Was it always this bad? Was government always so corrupt? Were people always driven by greed? Or is it simply that we are so much more aware of all that swirls around us owing to the Internet and the immediacy which it grants?

More to the point, are you adaptable to this new age of narcissism and plutocracy, or would you prefer to remain in suspended animation? What is happiness to you? Is it all about happiness? Is it all about you?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Religion and Inequality" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/brooks-religion-and-inequality.html), David Brooks observes the ascendancy of "meritocratic hierarchy of professional success" at the expense of other status hierarchies. Brooks writes:

"Many rich people once felt compelled to try to square their happiness at being successful with their embarrassment about it. They adopted what Charles Murray calls a code of seemliness (no fancy clothes or cars). Not long ago, many people covered their affluence with a bohemian patina, but that patina has grown increasingly thin.

Now most of us engage in more matter-of-fact boasting: the car stickers that describe the driver’s summers on Martha’s Vineyard, the college window stickers, the mass embrace of luxury brands, even the currency of 'likes' on Facebook and Reddit as people unabashedly seek popularity.

The culture was probably more dynamic when there were competing status hierarchies. When there is one hegemonic hierarchy, as there is today, the successful are less haunted by their own status and the less successful have nowhere to hide."

Culture was more "dynamic"? I don't know what this means. My value system is antiquated. My handful of customers know that I live by a code of ethics. I don't sport luxury brands. You won't find me on Facebook. I read books, and I listen to the same music that I listened to in the 1960s, not that I'm certain it was any better then.

And when you live in the past, you don't easily forget. A week ago, David Ignatius, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Susan Rice, a provocateur in the West Wing" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-susan-rice-a-provocateur-in-the-west-wing/2013/06/05/5b7f0e10-ce22-11e2-8f6b-67f40e176f03_story.html?hpid=z2), wrote:

"Enough, already, about Benghazi."

Sorry David, but not enough already about Benghazi. Americans were spared having to see what was done to Ambassador Steven's body after the Obama administration refused to lift a finger to prevent his murder and the deaths of three other Americans. Since that time, none of those responsible for this abomination have paid the price.

Do Obama and Hillary go to bed thinking about Chris Stevens? I doubt it.

I am also insulted by the answer of US State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki to a question concerning the Obama administration's response to the use of chemical weapons by forces loyal to Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2013/06/210579.htm):

QUESTION: Okay. But the approach still is – and correct me if I’m wrong – the approach still is that if chemical weapons use can be – is proved to a certainty or to a degree with which you’re confident that it is – that is accurate, that that is a game-changer --

MS. PSAKI: Correct.

QUESTION: -- and that a game-changing means a policy shift, correct?

MS. PSAKI: That is – the President said it is a redline, it is a game-changer. What that means in terms of the options, as you know, I will leave that to them to discuss.

QUESTION: Well, does changing the game mean – I mean, to me, that means that – that would signal – it would be a harbinger of a policy shift. Am I incorrect?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t want to get ahead of where we are, which is we’re not at that point.

QUESTION: So a game-changer doesn’t necessarily change the game. Is that what you’re saying?

MS. PSAKI: Well, Matt, the President himself --

QUESTION: Because I don’t get it then.

MS. PSAKI: The President himself, and the Secretary has repeated, have said – let me just finish – that this is a redline, that if it’s crossed there are a number of options for them to consider. But we’re not at that point yet, so I don’t want to get ahead of what it means when we’re not at that point yet. We haven’t crossed --

QUESTION: Okay. Well, fair enough. Now it seems to – you seem to be implying that one of the options is to do nothing, is to change nothing. Is that an option?

MS. PSAKI: Again, I’m not going to analyze the President’s options. They’re expansive. They’re – he’s asked his national security team to look into them.

QUESTION: All right. I understand. But it seems to me the Administration has been about as clear as mud on this, on what it means. And I just want it --

MS. PSAKI: Some mud is clear.

"Some mud is clear"? I worked in muddy farm fields when I was younger, I waded through mud in the military, but I have yet to encounter clear mud.

Welcome to our brave new world, home to a culture of lying, which has become second nature to anyone pursuing a career in government. Unlike David (Tom Cruise) in "Vanilla Sky," I think I would opt to continue living in suspended animation.

Paul Krugman, "Sympathy for the Luddites": The Dark Side of Technology

Is Paul Krugman correct? Most of the time? Some of the time? How much credence should we place in this Nobelist's op-eds? Well before turning to Krugman's op-ed of today's date, let's take a short trip down memory lane and go all the way back to . . . May 23, 2013, i.e. three weeks ago, when Paul praised "Abenomics" in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Japan the Model" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/opinion/krugman-japan-the-model.html?_r=0) and wrote:

"The good news starts with surprisingly rapid Japanese economic growth in the first quarter of this year — actually, substantially faster growth than that in the United States, while Europe’s economy continued to shrink. You never want to make too much of one quarter’s numbers, but that’s the kind of thing we want to see.

Meanwhile, Japanese stocks have soared, while the yen has fallen. And, in case you’re wondering, a weak yen is very good news for Japan because it makes the country’s export industries more competitive."

Fascinating. But now read from CNNMoney this morning  (http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/12/investing/nikkei-japan/index.html?iid=HP_Highlight):

"The market swings have been wildest in Japan, with the Nikkei (N225) now 20% off its recent peak and officially in bear market territory. At the same time, the yen has strengthened to 94 per dollar for the first time since early April.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who came back to power in December, has launched an aggressive campaign to boost Japan's economy following 15 years of deflation. The plan -- dubbed Abenomics -- includes coordinated government spending, central bank stimulus and structural economic reforms.

Investors responded to Abenomics by selling the yen and buying Japanese stocks. The weak yen helped boost shares of Japanese exporters, including Toyota (TM), Sony (SNE) and Kirin (KIRI). But those stocks and others have been punished this week as the yen regained ground.

. . . .

Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan is walking a fine line as it attempts to achieve an inflation rate of 2% without driving up interest rates on government debt. The country's gross public debt, after years of budget deficits, is projected to hit 230% of the size of the country's economy by 2014."

Kind of reminds me of when Krugman said of Occupy Wall Street in October 2011 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html):

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

Yup, he sure hit the nail on the head that time, too.

Back to the present. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Sympathy for the Luddites" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-for-the-luddites.html?_r=0), Krugman warns of the effects of technology on the labor force:

"Today, however, a much darker picture of the effects of technology on labor is emerging. In this picture, highly educated workers are as likely as less educated workers to find themselves displaced and devalued, and pushing for more education may create as many problems as it solves."

Krugman concludes:

"Education, then, is no longer the answer to rising inequality, if it ever was (which I doubt).

So what is the answer? If the picture I’ve drawn is at all right, the only way we could have anything resembling a middle-class society — a society in which ordinary citizens have a reasonable assurance of maintaining a decent life as long as they work hard and play by the rules — would be by having a strong social safety net, one that guarantees not just health care but a minimum income, too. And with an ever-rising share of income going to capital rather than labor, that safety net would have to be paid for to an important extent via taxes on profits and/or investment income.

I can already hear conservatives shouting about the evils of 'redistribution.' But what, exactly, would they propose instead?"

Okay, I'm also in favor of a "strong social safety net," but what happens when you increase "taxes on profits and/or investment income"? Answer: businesses and high wealth individuals move to more "hospitable" locales, eliminating even more jobs.

So what is Krugman advocating, "Abenomics," involving massive deficit spending, or simply higher corporate taxes?

Darned if I know.

David Ignatius, "Edward Snowden’s Misplaced Idealism": America's "Best Tool in Combating Terrorism"?

It's now 1:20 a.m. in New York, and the only reference to President Obama on the homepage of The New York Times is to be found under "News from A.P. & Reuters":

• "Obama, Japan's Abe Talk NKorea, China, Trade"

Similarly, if we look at the homepage of The Washington Post, the only references to Obama are:

• "Obama rallies support for Markey in Boston as Senate race tightens"
• "Obama taps Native American fundraiser for human rights post"

Or in other words, as the debate over Edward Snowden's leaks concerning massive NSA surveillance of US citizens swirls around us, Obama is nowhere in sight with leadership and guidance concerning America's ongoing battle with global terrorism. Yes, Obama is in deep hiding until the storm blows over.

In his latest Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Edward Snowden’s misplaced idealism" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-snowden-exposed-policies-approved-by-congress-courts/2013/06/12/815c8aa4-d2d7-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?hpid=z2), David Ignatius tells us that electronic surveillance programs are America's "best tool" to combat terror. Ignatius writes:

"James Clapper, the director of national intelligence who oversees the NSA, argued last weekend that Snowden made 'reckless' disclosures about its monitoring of foreign Internet communications, and that 'potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm' could come from the revelation of a court order authorizing collection of telephone call data from Verizon. Congress and the courts will examine such claims, but how should we as citizens evaluate them?

My guess is that Clapper is correct when he implicitly argues that these electronic surveillance programs are the United States’ best tool in combating terrorism. It’s probably also true that each revelation of U.S. capabilities weakens this advantage by putting adversaries such as al-Qaeda on notice about our snooping capabilities. The revelations likely make it harder, as well, for U.S. corporations and foreign allies to cooperate."

"My guess is that Clapper is correct when he implicitly argues that these electronic surveillance programs are the United States’ best tool in combating terrorism"? If Ignatius honestly believes this, he knows nothing about terrorism.

Moreover, if Clapper believes this, he should resign as director of national intelligence - and not because he lied to Congress.

An act of organized terror is premised upon:

• A target, e.g., Boston Marathon or World Trade Center.
• Accessibility of the target.
• Terrorist motivation and in some instances, readiness to pay the ultimate price.
• Infrastructure and training.
• Funding.
• State support.

Eliminate one or more of these elements, and the ability of a terrorist organization to perpetrate an act of terror is significantly weakened. So what does a massive electronic surveillance program aimed at Americans as a whole contribute to preventing terrorist acts? Maybe it might aid in "rolling up" a terrorist cell following perpetration of an act of terror, provided the cell's members have been careless, but prevent a terrorist strike? No way, Jose. Sure, there is no black and white, and the dangers to civil liberties of monitoring all Americans must be weighed against the benefits of an electronic surveillance system, but now ask yourself how PRISM helped prevent the Boston Marathon bombing, notwithstanding a warning from Moscow.

So where are we to find the biggest terrorist threat? Simple. As recently reported by CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57586946/state-dept.-iran-support-for-global-terror-surged-in-2012/):
 

"Iran last year boosted its support for global terrorism to levels not seen for two decades, the Obama administration said Thursday as it released its annual report on international trends in extremist violence. The report said the core elements of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan are headed for defeat but stressed that the network's various affiliates remain severe threats to the U.S.

The State Department's 'Country Reports on Terrorism' for 2012 left unchanged the U.S. list of 'state sponsors of terrorism.' Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria remain on that blacklist, although Iran was singled out as the worst offender and Syria was taken to task for the ongoing brutal crackdown on opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime.

The report said 2012 was "notable in demonstrating a marked resurgence of Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism." That sponsorship has been largely carried out through the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the militant Shiite Hezbollah movement, Iran's ally and proxy in Lebanon, it said.

'Iran and Hezbollah's terrorist activity has reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s, with attacks plotted in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa,' it said. Those included an attack on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that killed six, as well as thwarted strikes in India, Thailand, Georgia and Kenya.

The report's 'strategic assessment' said core al Qaeda continues to weaken as its leaders increasingly fight for survival. But it said that leadership losses with the core have driven al Qaeda affiliates to become more independent by setting their own agendas and targets and raising money on their own, primarily through kidnapping and other crimes."

So how is the US counteracting Iranian sponsored terrorism? Answer: It's not. During his first term as president, Obama presided over a "charm campaign" aimed at Tehran, which failed. Meanwhile, toothless negotiations over Iran's nuclear weapons development program, managed by Catherine Ashton, the EU's nincompoop High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy, continue.

Moreover, given that Obama has demonstrated that his "red line" involving the use by Syria's Bashar al-Assad of chemical weapons is toothless, Russian President Vladimir Putin is now claiming that "I have no doubt that Iran is adhering to the rules in this area [nuclear weapons proliferation], because there is no proof of the opposite" (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-putin-says-iran-nuclear-push-peaceful-170035158.html), i.e. kicking sand on 98-pound weakling Barack Obama.

Hezbollah? The US is finally asking the EU to sanction this Iranian terror proxy (see: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/in-europe-a-growing-case-for-banning-hezbollah/275035/), yet the Obama administration has not done nearly enough to prevent Hezbollah from raising funds or procuring weapons.

The next terrorist attack? I don't expect another 9/11-type attack. Rather, I expect an Iranian cyber assault on America's weak underbelly, i.e., computer systems responsible for the functioning of banks, financial markets, interstate transportation and telecommunications. This would also prove a disaster.

Bottom line: Instead of going after Iran and Hezbollah, the Obama administration is focusing its efforts on American civil liberties. But heck, what do I know?