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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Iraq War vet’s service attacked in Ohio campaign

Ohio
By Joel Mowbray

When Josh Mandel got a call from the Marines last year asking him to return voluntarily to Iraq, he had much more to contemplate than when he first enlisted in 2000. He had just been elected to the Ohio state legislature. Family considerations were also important to him. He ultimately decided to serve a second tour in Iraq “because I didn’t join the Marine Corps to say no when my country called,” Mr. Mandel explains.

Of all the factors he weighed, Mr. Mandel says political concerns were not among them. Now he has been forced to deal with the politics of that decision. The opponent in his tough re-election fight, trial attorney Bob Belovich, is attacking Mr. Mandel’s service, arguing that he abandoned voters. Mr. Belovich’s wife, Barbara, acknowledged in an interview for this column that she has told voters that Mr. Mandel “went AWOL” (a military term for desertion) by fighting in Iraq.

Even Mr. Mandel’s motives for serving in Iraq are being questioned. Mrs. Belovich claimed in an interview with this columnist that Mandel “put his personal ambitions ahead of his constituents.” Asked why anyone would enter a war zone out of “personal ambition,” Barbara Belovich replied curtly, “Certainly he wasn’t serving our needs.”

That’s not how one prominent local Democrat sees it. “I have great respect for what Josh did. To say that he didn’t serve his constituents by risking his life in Iraq is absurd,” says Broadview Heights mayor Sam Alai.

Considered a rising star by the Ohio GOP, Mr. Mandel wasn’t on anyone’s radar two years ago. In 2006, he was a long-shot candidate to win his Cleveland-area district, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by well over two-to-one. Democrats didn’t take him seriously, so they spent little money to retain the open seat. But after knocking on almost 20,000 doors, Mr. Mandel scored a stunning victory.

Mr. Mandel faces a much tougher race this time around. Ohio Democrats targeted him from the beginning, because at just 31 years old, he is seen as a top up-and-comer. Progressive Majority, a moveon.org-affiliated political action committee that focuses on local races, has made defeating Mr. Mandel a top priority. Then there’s the Obama effect. ACORN activists have blanketed the area, and every liberal group from moveon.org to the Obama campaign is working to maximize Democratic turnout.

The Belovich campaign has not been bashful in going after Mr. Mandel’s military service. At a major Democratic Party event in Cleveland this March, while Mr. Mandel was still in Iraq, Mrs. Belovich told Mr. Alai, “Josh Mandel isn’t serving our country, he’s serving George Bush.” Though in a phone interview Mr. Belovich denied hearing his wife’s comments, Mr. Alai says that’s impossible: “We were so close, I could have reached out and smacked him in the face. She said it, he heard it, and he said nothing. It was clear he didn’t disagree.”

At a Progressive Majority event in Cleveland this July, Mr. and Mrs. Belovich laid out their campaign blueprint for defeating Mandel. “[Mandel] feels that his obligation to George Bush is stronger than his, you know, his obligation to the people in the 17th District,” Barbara Belovich said. (An audio recording made by someone who overheard the discussion was recently posted online, and neither Bob nor Barbara Belovich deny making those remarks.)

As heard in the recording, Bob Belovich then added that Mandel won in 2006 in part because of his “blue sign” and “Jewish name.” Asked recently by this columnist what he meant by the comment, Belovich stated that many people think Mr. Mandel is a Democrat, including some who think so because Mr. Mandel is Jewish. Belovich, who is Catholic, then spent five minutes discussing the implications of Mr. Mandel being Jewish. (The district’s Catholic population is three to four times bigger than its Jewish one.)

“To some Jewish voters, they would be attracted to him because he’s Jewish. To other Jewish voters, they wouldn’t support him because of his stance on the issues.” Questioned as to whether he was speaking of Jews generally or Jewish Democrats specifically, Mr. Belovich responded that he was referencing Jewish voters overall. This apparently rules out the possibility of Jews supporting Mr. Mandel because of his policy positions or legislative achievements.

Asked if he thinks he’ll receive Jewish votes for being Jewish himself, Mr. Mandel answered, “Maybe my opponent has met people who blindly support me because I’m Jewish, but I certainly haven’t.” As for the attacks on his decision to return to Iraq, Mr. Mandel says, “If they want to take shots at me, I can defend myself. But what they’re saying comes awfully close to degrading the sacrifices of our young men and women over there now.”

Attacks on Mr. Mandel’s military service could easily backfire. But given that the lines are still being repeated so close to the election suggests that they’ve resonated with at least some voters in a district where the war remains deeply unpopular.

The obvious implication is that by serving in Iraq, Mr. Mandel was a do-nothing legislator. Yet he was one of the two people who lead the successful fight to force Ohio’s multi-billion dollar pension funds to divest from companies doing energy-related business in Iran and Sudan. Pension fund managers agreed to start divesting when legislation co-sponsored by Mr. Mandel and Rep. Shannon Jones was poised for passage.

Knowing the enormity of the challenge facing him, Mr. Mandel is making one last push for the homestretch. He vows to avoid negative campaigning. And he is optimistic that voters will reject his opponent’s tactics. “I really believe that no matter how someone feels about the war, just about everyone truly supports the troops,” says Mr. Mandel.

For Josh Mandel to win re-election in his heavily Democratic district, he needs to be right.

Source: TownHall

 

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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Divesting From the Islamic Republic

Anderson
By Jamie Glazov

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Joel Anderson, a California State Assemblyman who represents San Diego’s East County.

FP: Joel Anderson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Anderson: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Jamie.

FP: You are focusing on Iran and pursuing Iran divestment bills and resolutions. Tell us some of the things you are up to. What inspires you to pursue these courses of action?

Anderson: In the State Assembly, I sit on the Public Employment committee, which has oversight of California's public pension systems. CalPERS and CalSTRS -- the public employees and schoolteachers -- are the two largest public pensions in the nation. So, when I learned they were investing tens of billions of dollars in Iran, a terrorist regime, I was shocked and disappointed. I knew we had to do something to stop this practice.

FP: Ok, so what did you do?

Anderson: I introduced Assembly Bill 221 to divest CalPERS and CalSTRS from the Islamic Republic of Iran and prevent them from putting any more of our tax dollars at risk in a nation whose rogue leader craves nuclear technology and wants to start another Holocaust. We worked hard and formed a broad coalition to push this measure through a number of committees, the floor of each house, and ultimately secured the Governor's signature to make AB 221 law. I knew this was the type of bill everyone should share credit and we encouraged legislators to sign on as co-authors.

Ultimately, people fundamentally understand money is the mother's milk of terrorism.

FP: Have you encountered any obstacles from the Democrats in the CA Assembly and the CA Senate? How about pro-Islamic republic lobbyists?

Anderson: Well, ours was a bipartisan effort from the start. I actually wrote AB 221 based on a piece of legislation that a Democrat had authored to stop our money from going to Sudan. And before that, Democrat Maxine Waters -- prior to her election to Congress -- led the charge to divest from racial apartheid in South Africa. With very few exceptions, Democrats and Republicans joined together early on for many different reasons, because everyone agrees that divesting from Iran is simply the right thing to do. The most outspoken groups against my bill were outside radical groups tied to the Islamic Regime and California’s State Teachers’ Retirement System, who fought me in every committee hearing.

FP: Did you have the support of the Iranian opposition organizations and individuals in the US? Who are they?

Anderson: Our coalition really was an amazing group. We built a broad coalition from all walks of life: labor unions, ethnic organizations, holocaust survivors, state employees, students, you name it. The Iranian groups were fantastic. Roozbeh Farahanipour of Marze Por-Gohar, with the Iranians for a Secular Republic, testified before each legislative committee that heard the bill, and told his tragic, personal story of oppression by Iran's government. The Iranian American Chamber of Commerce, Committee for Religious Minority Rights in Iran, Iran of Tomorrow Movement, and Iranians for a Secular Republic also lent their strong support.

FP: Tell us a bit about Iran’s human rights abuses and your efforts and plans to try to stop them.

Anderson: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s lack of human rights includes public hangings, the stoning of innocent women, producing IEDS that kill civilians and promoting the ethnic genocide of a country. This is where California can have a powerful impact. By pulling back our hard-earned dollars from the companies that prop up this odious regime, we can send a clear message that supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran is the wrong place to invest our retirement nest eggs. Our citizens want nothing to do with their blood money.

FP: What is the Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR) 79? How did it do?

Anderson: ACR 79 was a follow-up to AB 221. I wanted to carry forward the spirit and intent of AB 221 by pushing for University of California -- a $42 billion pension -- to join CalPERS and CalSTRS in divesting from Iran. It gathered overwhelmingly bipartisan votes, as AB 221 did before, but the clock ran out before its final vote in the Senate.

FP: Tell us about Iran Divestment on California Port.

Anderson: Other governmental entities are starting to realize the danger of risking their investment dollars in a place like the Islamic Republic of Iran. We've already seen the City of Los Angeles take steps toward shoring up their retirement system, and now, other public employees at the county level are looking at that, too. As an example, the San Diego Port Authority has been in touch with me because they are concerned about the message we're sending by putting public dollars in a place like Iran. It is important to know we have a real opportunity to bring the Islamic Republic of Iran back to the world community without ever firing a shot. We can do it through divestment.

FP: Joel Anderson, thank you for joining us.

Anderson: Thank you Jamie.

Source: FrontPageMagazine.com

 

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Friday, October 10, 2008

OPEC's Heavy Hand

OPEC
By Walid Phares

Who manufactured the financial meltdown? It wasn’t only Wall Street: OPEC’s heavy hand is felt but unseen by the media and our politicians.

In bypassing a narrow economic analysis of the ongoing crisis, we can detect clearly the connection between the dizzying ups in petrol pricing and the slowing of American buying capacity. Though we have to conclude that while it is due largely to both Wall Street’s corruption and politicians’ abuse of the system handed the tools of doom to the middle class, Main Street’s rapid disenfranchisement was manufactured overseas, thousands of miles away, at the hands of many of the members of OPEC, the oil-producing Cartel.

Indeed, as economic commentators tell us (including a strong accusation leveled by real estate tycoon Donald Trump on Fox News against OPEC), the oil powers are behind the instability that crumbled the will of millions of middle class Americans over the past three years.

If we go back in time, we can see that oil pricing by OPEC’s hard core shows clearly that US leadership wasn’t able to convince the top producers from the Gulf to give American oil consumers a chance. Most producing regimes replied that demand -- mostly from China and India -- was putting pressure on production. Pressed by Washington to produce more, the “regimes” alleged it would affect the selling price and thus minimize their profits, but promised they would try to “be understanding” of US needs in energy.

This attitude gave the producers discretion over price, while Jihadi propagandists roamed the media accusing Washington of putting unbearable pressure “on the region” to follow American injunctions in setting petrol’s prices. Was there a direct connection between the oil regimes and the Jihadi propagandist machine? We have no answer to that now, but clearly an oil strategy was in the works with a calculated impact on the US economy. This charge is still in its early stages, it will be challenged ferociously, but it will stand as long as convincing answers are not provided.

What adds to the inquiry into the OPEC destabilization factor are the many indicators that strategic political motives have appeared to be behind the pricing maneuvers. Over a period of half a decade, many voices heard on the region’s airwaves have intimated that the US economy will be made to pay for what America’s leadership is doing. Commentators, some funded by oil producers on several outlets including on al Jazeera, underlined that as long as average citizens in the United States (and eventually in the West) don’t feel financial pain, the war on terror and spreading of Democracy won’t be stopped.

Sheikh Yussuf al Qardawi, Muslim Brotherhood ideologue and mentor of the Qatari-funded channel, spoke openly of Silah al Naft, i.e, “the weapon of oil.” Indeed, it was called a weapon - as in a warfare situation -- and most likely it was used as such. Of course, the producing “regimes” will deny the existence of a real strategy to bring the US to its knees by striking at its pumps. They will dismiss statements made by emirs and commentators in this regard. The “field Jihadists”, however, won’t deny the existence of such a battlefield.

For years now, Salafist web sites and al Qaeda spokespersons have loudly called for an “oil Jihad against infidel America and its lackeys.” Online material is still circulating. But more revealing are the official speeches by Osama Bin Laden and his deputy on the “absolute necessity to use that weapon.”

Ayman Zawahiri called expressly and repetitively on the public to sell their US dollars and buy gold instead (Be’u al dullar washtaru al zahab). These were stunning statements ignored by most analysts at the time but that are making sense today. He predicted a collapse in the infidels’ economy, starting from American markets. Was he a part of the lobbying effort in the OPEC game? Most likely not, but he seems to have been privy to the game, having insiders in the Wahhabi radical circles in the Peninsula: in the end there are too many political signs to dismiss and the analysis of price warfare is too evident to ignore.

OPEC’s manipulation of the markets did hit Americans hard in their pockets. Hundreds of millions of John and Jane Does were intimidated, terrorized really, into abandoning their lifelong dreams of owning properties because of the aggressive stance of petro-regimes towards the US and its campaign to spread democracy in the Greater Middle East. In historical terms, America was punished for daring to change the status quo in the Arab and Muslim world to the advantage of the weakest and the suppressed: Shia and Kurds in Iraq, Syrian reformers, Lebanese civil society, Africans in Darfur, Iranian women and students, artists and liberals across the Arabian Peninsula. In return, the U.S was submitted to economic destabilization, steady, gradual and by small doses.

Let’s not underestimate the power of the Jihadi-oil lobby in America: it has decades of influence and it has long arms into the system, and it has powerful political allies. It knows when Americans are messing up their own system, and it knows very well how to push them over the cliff, into the abyss of economic calamity.

A counterpoint to this thesis would vigorously argue that the alleged OPEC destabilization over the US economy is illogical, as many countries in the Gulf are experiencing a recession as a result of Wall Street’s crunch. In other words, they wouldn’t do it to themselves. Yet the ideological forces manning the oil weapon aren’t particularly concerned about economic stability. Their driving factor is Jihadism. We’ve heard their ideologues stating that even if they were to incur losses among their own societies in order to defeat the infidel powers, then let it be.

Ten percent losses in local companies and markets are a price that radicals would absorb if the final prize is an earth-shattering change in US policy in the region and a triumphant return to pre-9/11 status. I find the rationale of this policy very Jihadist: if a world economic crisis is needed to remove the US democratization efforts from the region and to end its post 9/11 campaigns, the end justifies the means. In addition, how intriguing to see that Saudi Arabia and other producers are among the very few who didn’t have to pump much cash into their markets yet (Per news Agencies, today).

What some oil regimes -- or the ideological forces within -- want to accomplish from this alleged interference in US economics is to provoke a “regime change” in Washington, D.C., so that regimes in their region are not challenged anymore. But another issue is also coming to the surface: pressures against America’s financial structures seem to have escalated in parallel to increasing US talk and commitment to achieving energy independence. Since last April, the American debate finally reached a dramatic conclusion: “We’re sending 700 Billion Dollars a year to regimes that dislike us;” agree most national leaders; “and furthermore some of that money is ending up in the hands or accounts of Terrorists” affirm some among them.

This revolutionary conclusion is a direct affront to the multi-decades-long dominance of petro-dollars in US politics. What America is readying itself to do is to achieve its most dramatic war of independence since 1776: ending the dependence on Middle East Oil. Therefore, let’s not be surprised that these gigantic interests would strike at the heart of this economic revolution, as I coined it in my latest book, The Confrontation.

Back to the ongoing crisis on these shores, we nevertheless must admit that the original sins are domestic first: financial drunkenness and economic recklessness. Without these plagues, outside forces wouldn’t have been able to shake up America’s stability. But assuming that most capitalist societies travel through rough patches, it is vital to realize that America’s economy is under attack by forces aiming to maintain US dependency on foreign energy, as a means to obstruct the rise of democracy.

Seven years after 9/11, Americans are paying the price of liberty from their own economic flesh.

Source: Human Events

 

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