No-Fly Zone In Store For Syria?
The U.S. held conversations with Turkey about the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone on Syria in September or October, according to a senior Syrian official speaking to this column.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself acknowledged in a briefing this past weekend that a no-fly zone was among the options under consideration. However, she stopped short of any pledge on the subject.
The senior Syrian official said that information passed on from Russia indicates that Clinton told Turkey that a NATO-imposed no-fly-zone is a “strong possibility,” which led to immediate contingency planning by both Russia and Syria for such an eventuality. The official further said that the working assumption by Russia and Syria is that Israel could be drawn into any conflict resulting from the imposition of an international force in Syria. The official did not elaborate further.
Many analysts believe Syria’s air force is not capable of responding effectively to a NATO-imposed no-fly zone. There is some fear Syria could reply by attempting to widen the conflict by attacking Israel, including firing missiles into the Jewish state. Syria is known to have a large arsenal of missiles that can reach all of Israel.
The Syrian official, meanwhile, said that any NATO deployment would come under the banner of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Responsibility to Protect, or Responsibility to Act, as cited by President Obama, is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of “war crimes,” “genocide,” “crimes against humanity” or “ethnic cleansing.”
Obama Wants To Extend Government Munificence
President Obama last week boasted about government assistance to the auto industry while advocating extending such “success” to “every industry.”
This reporter’s newly released book, Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed, details Obama’s second-term plans to do just that, including federal government intervention to determine the “value” of individual jobs in the private sector instead of allowing employers to pay what they want.
Also on tap is the possible initiation of a massive government-funded jobs program that could even include the re-creation of a 21st century version of FDR’s Works Progress Administration program within the Department of Labor. There are also second-term plans for a green “stimulus” and the possible founding of a federal “green” bank or “Energy Independence Trust,” which would “borrow from the federal treasury to provide low-cost financing to private-sector investments in clean energy.”
Progressive organizations behind White House policy have also crafted specific, second-term plans for the federal government to enact a “living wage” that would force all employers to increase the salaries of the nation’s workers to meet “basic needs” such as housing, food, utilities, transportation, health care and recreation.
Fool Me Twice details second-term recommendations to Obama that aim for more government funds to the manufacturing industries, most prominently to the “green” industry. A seminal report by the de facto policy nerve center of the Obama White House, the Center for American Progress, titled “Cutting the Cost of Clean Energy 1.0,” recommends a federal “green bank” for the sole purpose of loaning or granting public funds to so-called clean energy companies.
An organization that calls itself the Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, has been working with the Obama administration since the beginning to help craft and implement White House environmental policy.
Meanwhile, other progressive groups tied to the White House back the 2011 21st Century Works Progress Administration Act. The legislation would “immediately put Americans to work rebuilding our nation and strengthening our communities,” according to its literature. The 21st century reincarnation of Roosevelt’s WPA would operate under the auspices of a Works Progress Administration created within the Department of Labor and headed by the secretary of labor.
Obama has made “economic fairness” the centerpiece of his second-term agenda. The president’s January 2012 State of the Union address called for “equal pay for equal work.” Fool Me Twice documents how progressive groups behind Obama’s first-term agenda are now pushing plans, some already attempted in previous progressive Democrat legislation, for a second Obama term push for “Paycheck Fairness” and so-called equal pay fairness.