Photo, above: Syria civil war.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes,

Hour One

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 1, Block A:  Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; & Bill Ardolino, Long War Journal, in re: CENTCOM videos show airstrikes on Islamic State artillery, convoy  A towed artillery piece and two vehicles with about a dozen fighters are shown being struck by US aircraft.     US begins airstrikes against Islamic State near Irbil "Two F/A-18 aircraft dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece near Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region," the US military said.    Obama authorizes limited airstrikes to protect US personnel in Irbil President Obama was clear that the military could launch airstrikes only under specific conditions, and that the US military would not act as an offensive air force for the Iraqi military or the Kurdish Peshmerga  (part 1 of 2).

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 1, Block B: Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; & Bill Ardolino, Long War Journal  (part 2 of 2).

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 1, Block C:  Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, The Great Voice of the Great Lakes, & Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re:  The Nats (never gnats) and other matters sportifs; US politics. 

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 1, Block D:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: China's deep incursions into African markets and US now plays catch-up.  US brings African leaders to a grand meeting in Washington.  The US has cards to play: because Africa is becoming a prosperous mfr and trader, US can enter successfully; China, however, has lost a  lot of friends by [unpleasant behavior].  China is trying to exploit resources whereas the US actually made an effort to improve people's lot in life. Unfortunately Pres Obama has disappointed many African leaders because he's failed to follow through on many obvious tracks that were laid by his predecessor, G W Bush.

China criminalizes information in order to back off foreign companies.  Big Pharma (Glaxo, et al.). As Chinese people travel around the world they see that pharmaceuticals are greatly more expensive in China than elsewhere; Communist Party can’t exactly explain why. 

Hour Two

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 2, Block A:  John Fund, National Review Online (part 1 of 2), in re: US president is reduced to salty language about criticism of his foreign policy.   . . .  Eliot Engel on foreign policy, esp Syria. 

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 2, Block B: John Fund, National Review Online (part 2 of 2),  in re: Domestic policy. the president of the United States actually said, "horse(bleep)," about criticism of his foreign policy – Syria, Iraq, Russia, Ukraine. .    Iraq’s political situation dire as premier digs in  The process of forming a new government was thrown into turmoil after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rejected demands from across the political spectrum that he step down.  Lawmakers weigh in on airstrikes   Al-Qaeda fighters joining Islamic State  Tracking the Islamic State's rise   A GOP takeover of the Senate is looking more likely  THE FIX | Democrats have been hit by retirements while the Republicans have steered clear of extreme candidates.

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 2, Block C:  Claudia Rosett, FDD, in re: UNRWA set up in 1949 to provide jobs for Palestinians (who at that time rejected that name and insisted they be called Arabs); it's managed to ensure its own survival by fuelling the fires.  Now that its an enormous agency – with a staff of 30,000, almost all Palestinians, and a handful of international staff who make the public announcements.  One might say that it’s a Palestinian organization sponsored by the UN, meaning paid predominantly by the US.  The Palestinian group here is Hamas – which has sworn to obliterate Israel and kill all Jews.  The Swiss chief commissioner and his US deputy either are so clueless that they didn’t know that Hamas was using UNRWA schools for rocket emplacements, or else they’ve intentionally turned a blind eye.  Over 12,000 staff inside Gaza.  Claudia has repeatedly sent in he question of how the rockets were placed; UNRWA so far has elected not to respond on why the schools were arsenals.  UNNRWA has hired two Washington insiders to be sure that US dollars keep flowing in.  "Not my job to answer questions from the press," says Matthews Reynolds.   US tax dollars go to fund Hamas aides and to ensure the continuation of US dollars going thither.

 

The U.N. Handmaiden of Hamas  The relief agency in Gaza, financed in part by the U.S., has become a patron of Palestinian grievance. On Wednesday, as a truce held between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon briefed the U.N. General Assembly. "The senseless cycle of suffering" must end, he said, asking: "Do we have to continue like this: build, destroy, and build, and destroy?"

For answers, the secretary-general would do well to look at the U.N.'s own main agency in Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, better . . .

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 2, Block D:  Sohrab Amari, WSJ London, in re: Two journalists grabbed by the Iranian regime, without explanation. – Washington Post's correspondent in Iran, and his wife, a=writing for a major Saudi paper.  Iran's War on Journalism  Rouhani the supposed moderate is mum on the regime's latest prisoners.      Soon after seizing power in Iran's 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini vowed that in his new Islamic Republic "there would be freedom of expression, pen and views for all." It's fair to say the regime has honored that promise only in the breach.  The regime's latest journalistic victims are Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post's Iranian-American Tehran correspondent, his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, herself a correspondent for the . . .

Hour Three

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents,  in re: A 72-hour ceasefire between Gaza and Israel.  Egypt wants Hamas destroyed;  won’t let the Rafah crossing be opened. Sisi in Saudi today speaking with the king. Egypt today dissolved Hamas as a political party.  Egypt is interlocutor between Hamas and Israel.  Hamas will not get its seaport or Rafah; however today millions of dollars were transferred from Qatar to Hamas to pay its enormous bureaucracy.  The money goes to rocketeers, of course.  Still have 3,000 missiles in their arsenal.  Have an army of workers paid by UNRWA; PA has another dozen thousand inside Gaza doing nothing. "George Clooney’s Fiancée to Investigate Possible War Crimes in Gaza" – NOT. She will [NOT] work alongside Doudou Diene of Senegal, a lawyer who has held U.N. posts on racism and human rights in Ivory Coast, and Canadian international law professor William Schabas, who will chair the commission.

Gallows humor circulating:   Rocket hits cemetery, 800 Jews dead.  Hamas claims victory.

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 3, Block B:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents,  in re: Recep Tayyip Erdofgan now has antoher five years in office, this time as chief of gvrnment; has been sundg a bit irrational and also clearly Islamist. lanning on sendng a nothr flotilla, basically as a prvocation and to cause probems, ot to further a substantial policy.  Hs citizens do not agree – trade with Israel is increasing ; and Erdogan as a dictator jails journalists, genrals, anyone who disagrees with him.

Gaza: Harassment, physical intimidation; Italian reporter emerged and testified that he saw nine children killed: by  a Hamas rocket.  Reporters from all over the world today protested "in the strongest way" the intimidation, physical brutality, extremely bad deeds, by Hamas.  Hamas kills multiple persons claimed to be "collaborators" – including those who were said to have worked with Egypt.  One of the men released in exchange for Gilad Shalit has provided the transfer of money from the West Bank to kidnap more people.  Billions of dollars lost in the course of Hamas rockets. 

Four journalists arrested in Iran:  Jason Rezaian, Yeganeh Salehi and two others,

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 3, Block C: Josh Rogin Daily Beast, in re: US Drove Iraq Politics to Breaking Point
 America’s rush to pressure Iraq’s political process may have backfired, analysts say—contributing to the crisis that threatens to tank the new government before it gets started.

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 3, Block D: Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Hoover, CNN, in re: Why Vladimir Putin isn't going to make peace

Hour Four

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 4, Block A: Michael Shank, Reuters, in re: Violence or vaccines: Which path for U.S. in Africa?

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 4, Block B:  Eli Lake, senior national security correspondent, Daily Beast, in re:  Obama Pushed for Regime Change in Iraq  For years, President Obama took a hands-off approach to Iraqi politics. But after ISIS took over Iraq’s second largest city in June, Obama began shopping for a new prime minister.

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 4, Block C: Jed Babbin, The American Spectator, in re: Barack in Iraq | The American Spectator

Monday  11 August 2014  / Hour 4, Block D:  Michel Ledeen, FDD, in re:   Who Are These ISIS Guys and Why Is Obama Willing to Bomb Them? It may well be that ISIS is one of at least two too-clever-by-half operations masterminded by our enemies.  At the beginning, ISIS spun off from Al Qaeda because, we were told, Zawahari was too moderate for them.  AQ didn’t slaughter enough, didn’t crucify enough, wasn’t psychotic enough for their taste.

It seems that Iran gave ISIS support, in keeping with its well-documented practice of supporting all sides in other countries’ internal conflicts, the better to a) figure out what’s going on, b) penetrate organizations that might win, and seem actually or potentially dangerous to Tehran, and c) spread riot and ruin, figuring that the Quds Force and/or Hezbollah can dominate most any regional battlefield this side of Gaza.

Thus, the Iranians were in cahoots with ISIS, an organization that seems to have recruited the worst of the worst killers, torturers, rapists and megalomaniacs.  In a world unfortunately over populated with evil men, ISIS finds lots of would-be General Zods to demand everyone kneel and worship them.  And they love to kill everyone, Muslims, infidel Christians, the whole lot.  Perfect clients.

Except that . . .

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