Sunday News And Commentary

IAF Strikes Gaza Targets In Response To Rocket

Israel will not tolerate a "drizzle" of rockets on its territory, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the cabinet Sunday, explaining an IAF strike in Gaza hours earlier against a terror facility and weapons storage site in southern Gaza.

The IAF action was in response to overnight rocket fire on the Sdot Negev Regional Council.

The IDF attacked targets in the Gaza Strip overnight," Netanyahu said. "I want to make clear that we will not tolerate a 'drizzle' policy; a 'drizzle' of rockets or missiles will be met by a very aggressive reaction, and we will take all necessary action to defend our citizens."

In an apparent reference to concern about a spillover from the Syrian civil war, Netanyahu said this policy will be implemented in the "north, south or any other front."

Israel Bombs Gaza Targets

Israeli aircraft early Sunday morning attacked targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket attack on the Sdot Negev region Saturday night.

There were no initial Palestinian reports of casualties.

The IAF targeted a “terror installation” and a weapons warehouse in the southern Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesperson’s office said, noting that the targets had been hit.

As a result of the rocket fire, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories ordered the closure of the Kerem Shalom border crossing with the Gaza Strip to commercial traffic. The Erez Crossing, on the northern border of Gaza, will be open to humanitarian foot traffic only

U.S., Israel Plotting To Oust Assad By June, Iranian Official Claims

A senior Iranian official on Sunday claimed that the United States and Israel were conspiring to depose the Syrian government in advance of Iran’s presidential elections in June.

Lt. Gen. Yahya Safawi, a senior adviser to the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was also quoted by IRIB news, an Iranian state broadcasting station, warning Iranians of “hostile tactics” that may be used to damage the unity of the Iranian people and disrupt the elections.

Intervention In Syria Would Spell All-Out War, Warns British General

The head of the British Armed Forces told his government that the United Kingdom should be prepared to go to war in Syria, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

Gen. Sir David Richards, chief of the defense staff, warned that a military response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons would have to be on a full scale to be effective. He further cautioned that even creating safe zones would risk dragging UK forces into a military confrontation.

The general also argued that imposing a no-fly zone like the one in Bosnia in 1993 would not be effective because of Syria’s air defense.

“Even to set up a humanitarian safe area would be a major military operation without the co-operation of the Syrians,” he told senior defense figures, according to the report.

Netanyahu Orders Ministers To Keep Mum On Syria

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday instructed his ministers to stop giving interviews on the situation in Syria, and specifically on the Assad regime’s reported use of chemical weapons.

Netanyahu’s strict orders came in response to deputy foreign minister Ze’ev Elkin‘s remarks on Army Radio Friday, in which he was seen to be calling on the international community to take control of and eliminate Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal.

“There is a question here of when you set a red line, do you stand behind it?” Elkin said, referencing US President Barack Obama’s earlier  statement saying use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would cross a line and lead to a shift in US policy.

“If the Iranians will see that the red lines laid by the international community are flexible, then will they continue to progress?” Elkin questioned rhetorically.

The "Crisis" - "Solution" False Paradigm

(The title above is mine, as it reflects the second half of this article posted in Canada Free Press. The entire article is worth reading)

Sowell’s Conflict of Visions

The current fissure in American society is well-explained by Thomas Sowell in The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy. This work examines how the elite class, aka the “anointed”, sells crises and their antidotes as a way of taking increasing control over the masses. These self-anointed elites have a vision of life which Sowell opposes with the “tragic vision.” The tragic vision is the basis for the Conservative, or Classical Liberal, movement which accepts life can never be perfected, only its opportunities maximized. The anointed vision is essentially progressive, and therefore utopian—and claims that the costs of perfecting the world are worth the outcome. Sowell says the tragic vision is realistic and can create a good world, whereas the vision of the anointed is essentially so unrealistic it is cruel and unhinged.

A question which must be asked is, Why would a politician pretend there is a problem and then propose a very painful and expensive solution? The answer to this is disappointing to state. First, the more crises a politician successfully presides over, the more essential the person is seen as being. Second, certain political ideologies are based upon the notion that they are only a few elites in any society, and these have anoblesse oblige, a sacred duty, to care for others not fit for leadership. Third, another some politicians simply crave power over others, which is why they entered politics to begin with. And increasing their own power maximizes their enjoyment.


Sowell describes how the crises are presented that the elites use to promote their ideas. These are promoted as having the following characteristics:

1. Assertions of a great danger to the whole society, a danger to which the masses of people are oblivious.
2. An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe.
3. A need for government to drastically curtail the dangerous behavior of the many, in response to the prescient conclusions of the few.
4. A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either.

Sowell maps out how the essentially contrived crises and their failed responses play out:

A very distinct pattern has emerged repeatedly when policies favored by the anointed turn out to fail. This pattern typically has four stages:

STAGE 1. THE “CRISIS”: Some situation exists, whose negative aspects the anointed propose to eliminate. Such a situation is routinely characterized as a “crisis,” even though all human situations have negative aspects, and even though evidence is seldom asked or given to show how the situation at hand is either uniquely bad or threatening to get worse. Sometimes the situation described as a “crisis” has in fact already been getting better for years.

STAGE 2. THE “SOLUTION”: Policies to end the “crisis” are advocated by the anointed, who say that these policies will lead to beneficial result A. Critics say that these policies will lead to detrimental result Z. The anointed dismiss these latter claims as absurd and “simplistic,” if not dishonest.

STAGE 3. THE RESULTS: The policies are instituted and lead to detrimental result Z.

STAGE 4. THE RESPONSE: Those who attribute detrimental result Z to the policies instituted are dismissed as “simplistic” for ignoring the “complexities” involved, as “many factors” went into determining the outcome. The burden of proof is put on the critics to demonstrate to a certainty that these policies alone were the only possible cause of the worsening that occurred. No burden of proof whatever is put on those who had so confidently predicted improvement. Indeed, it is often asserted that things would have been even worse, were it not for the wonderful programs that mitigated the inevitable damage from other factors.

Conclusion

In a shocking number of scenarios, the elite class—whether in the form of the media, the academics, or in entertainment—presents a crisis to the society, and the “only way” the crisis can be solved. Invariably, the solution is worse than the often non-existent “crisis.”
One such example is currently Obamacare, and how this threatens to undermine the very best medical system in the world. And so it is with energy, where the petroleum sector has been attacked relentlessly as greedy, polluting, and focusing on rapidly diminishing supplies. Now one can only hope that Obama will stop pretending the “green economy” is more important than real oil for real Americans. Our horribly battered economy sure could use some good news after five years of ineffective DC fixes.