At this writing, circumstances in the Middle East may change between this sentence and my last paragraph.

What began in mid-December as an uprising that sent Tunisian President Ben Ali into Saudi exile on Jan. 14 quickly inspired Cairo’s Tahrir Square rebellion. Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 29 years, eight more than Cleopatra, hastily retired when his people hounded him from Heliopolis Palace into his vacation compound in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Just outside Mubarak’s hideaway, two Iranian war ships this week floated north through the Suez Canal. This was the Iranian Navy’s first appearance in the Arab equivalent of the Panama Canal since 1979′s revolution installed the Ayatollah Khomeini and his joyless, sexist, bloodthirsty theocracy.

Eastern Libya now is controlled by regular citizens, freshly armed by soldiers who largely disobeyed orders to shoot their fellow citizens. Strongman Moammar Gadhafi ordered two fighter jets to bomb his constituents, prompting the pilots to defect to Malta.

“I have not yet ordered the use of force,” Gadhafi said Tuesday night. “When I do, everything will burn.”

Time.com reports that Gadhafi has instructed his operatives to sabotage Libya’s oil fields, supposedly to show Libyans that without Gadhafi, things could get really crazy. Libyan production already is down 25 percent, and Italy’s Eni and Spain’s Repsol have suspended operations there.

Read the rest of the Story here:

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/59902

Face Forward Comments:The domino theory is that when one nation falls others will follow suite. We feared it in Southeast Asia and South America and while it did happen to some extent, America was not really harmed. This time it’s different for a couple of reason. First oil, second religion.

 Oil is so unbelievably interwoven into our lives. Most people only think of the cost of a gallon of gas. But when you consider that pesticides and fertilizers that provide us with cheap food prices, plastics and rubber products as well as medicines will either be gone or become hard to find, we cannot easily escape it grip on us. We get about 30% of our oil from the middle east. Without it $10 a gallon gas will be the least of your worries. Because without oil our economy will collapse.

 The reason that the wars in SE Asia and Latin America eventually ran out of steam is that they were based on an ideology (Communistic / Socialistic style of government) and they were powered by the poor underclass. Once the poor became integrated into the system and got enough food int their stomachs, the revolts largely died. Not so with what is happening in the middle east.

 The middle east is driven by a need to topple anything western in nature (think democracy and capitalism). While the media is presenting it to the world as the poor wanting to be free. However, it is actually an Islamic revolt. Don’t be fooled that the middle east will suddenly blossom and we will see the area full of little Islamic democrices just like Israel. Once the current leadership is removed, you may see elections but it will only be leaders that are approved by the Islamic Mullahs and that follow Sharia law. Once that happens Israel is doomed and the rest of the world could be pushed into WWIII.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.

On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to “resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.” He said those who died on the nation’s largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.

“The stakes are far too high,” Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House while the president he was flying from Tokyo to Singapore, where Pacific Rim countries were meeting.

Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was charged on Thursday with the shooting spree at Fort Hood last week. Army investigators have said Hasan is the only suspect and could face additional charges.

Obama already had ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies. Several members of Congress, particularly Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, have also called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan’s contacts with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen and others of concern to the U.S.

Hoekstra confirmed this week that government officials knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and the radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

For the rest of the story please go here:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iwYEFasV3WqznkJoN2-BwTxAN4fgD9BV8RHG1

Face Forward Comments:

So says the master of political stagecraft

The ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee on Tuesday night accused the White House of withholding information on the Fort Hood attack.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) said administration officials delayed briefing members of Congress about the alleged gunman, raising “red flags” about what the White House was hiding.

“When they withhold information, you always start asking questions,” Hoekstra told Fox News. “That’s what raises red flags. What do they know that they don’t want us to know?”

Hoekstra linked President Barack Obama’s handling of Fort Hood to a chain of other GOP criticisms of the president, including the administration’s treatment of detainees and an investigation into possible CIA abuse.

“It is a political correctness that is making it unable for us to identify the real threat of homegrown terrorism,” he alleged.

Hoekstra warned that “we have similar Hasans” in the country. The Michigan Republican has called for his committee to investigate the incident. Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas) has so far declined, preferring to wait for the conclusion of the joint FBI-Army investigation.

Please go here to read the on-line comments:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/67341-top-republican-says-white-house-hiding-info-on-ft-hood

The claim comes as officials in different branches of law enforcement and the military squabble over who knew what when about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s leanings toward faith-inspired violence, and as charges fly that ‘political correctness’ prevented officials from taking action and is still being used as a crutch in explaining the rampage after the fact.

Investigators would have been “crucified” over First Amendment rights if they had launched a full-scale probe into e-mails Fort Hood massacre suspect Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly sent to a radical imam, a government investigator told Fox News.

The claim comes as the squabble grows among officials in different branches of law enforcement and the military over who knew what, and when, about Hasan’s leanings toward faith-inspired violence, and amid charges that “political correctness” prevented officials from taking pre-emptive action.

The government counterterrorism investigator familiar with the FBI’s review of the Fort Hood case told Fox News that they simply did not have enough evidence to launch an investigation. Though officials discovered Hasan’s e-mails to the imam, the investigator said the messages suggested he was seeking “spiritual and religious guidance.”

“Had we launched an investigation of Hasan we’d have been crucified,” the investigator said, adding that the communications were shared with the “appropriate chains.”

But even after the attacks, some have been reluctant to cite religion as a factor, as evidence has mounted that the alleged gunman’s Muslim faith was at least a partial factor in the decision to mount the attack.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/10/coverage-fort-hood-shooting-press-dodges-religious-component/

Face Forward Comments:

You can stop free speech but you cannot stop the truth.  While the American government has a history in the last 30 years of seriously trying to stop free speech, they cannot stop what is apparent to anyone with any common sense.

I find it very ironic that the Hate Crimes legislation (actually an amendment) recently passed  was added to the military spending bill.  While conservatives fought it being added the Democrats were able to add it knowing that the military spending authorization had to be passed.  Adding to the irony is the fact that liberals defeated a measure that would allow military personnel to be considered as one of the groups that could be targeted by hate crimes.

While I find the whole “hate crimes” legislation stupid, it is pretty obvious that this man was full of hate when he targeted those innocent people.