o'queen - School Gruel Fails in D.C.

More Than 60,000 Low-Income Students In D.C. Area Refusing To Eat From Michelle's School Menu

One of those "accomplishments" she was talking about? (Weasel Zippers)

Via Daily Caller:

A report by local Washington D.C. news station NBC4 indicates that over 60,000 low-income students in the area are skipping lunch, dissatisfied with the food offered to them by their schools.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, which contains much of D.C.'s Virginia suburbs, 16 percent of students eligible for free lunch don't eat on a typical day. In Washington itself, the figure is 24 percent. In Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland,  over a quarter of low-income students don't eat lunch per day.

The kids' failure to eat is costing the schools big money, as they lose $3 in federal subsidies every time a student on free lunch forgoes taking a meal. That's $180,000 a day, adding up to over $32 million in a school year lasting approximately 180 days. School officials say the lost subsidies are straining their budgets, as they need the money to pay for healthier food options mandated by Congress.

Keep reading…Source

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o'stand down - West Pointers Remained Seated

UPDATE -- Compare and Contrast: Obama Vs. Bush's Reception at West Point…

H/T Weazel ZIP

Obama's icy reception (first 15 seconds):

Bush in 2008 getting a standing ovation, having to ask them to sit down (first 35 seconds):

Source

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o'Rodney Dangerfield - No Respect: Less than 25% stand up for o'stand down

Ouch: Less Than 25% of West Point Cadets Stood Up For Obama After He Was Introduced… 

-- Washington Times via RedFlag News

H/T Weasel Zippers
Update to this story.
     President Obama was welcomed by the Black Knight of the Hudson for his speech at West Point on Wednesday, but less than 25 percent of the cadets gave him a standing ovation upon his introduction, the Daily Mail reported.
     "Receiving tepid applause and a short standing ovation from less than one-quarter of the audience upon his introduction, Obama argued for a contradictory foreign policy that relies on NATO and the United Nations while insisting that 'America must always lead on the world stage,' the paper reported.
     During his speech, which the Wall Street Journal called "consistent with that of every post-Cold War administration," the president also took a swipe at critics, saying: "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.  But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it's our willingness to affirm them through our actions."
Source (W.T.)

rfh -- recommended listening:
Bishop Sheen's West Point 'Centurions' speech: "Only the military .."
General MacArthur's West Point Farewell speech: "Duty, Honor, Country"
General Patton's Speech to the Troops before D-Day
President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
General Robert E. Lee's 'General Orders No. 9'
• Listen  to the poem "Scots Wha Hae " read by Doug Robertson [3m55s]

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Facebook microphone will aggregate info. Camera next? (Who's Listening To &/or Watching You?)

article source: http://www.ibtimes.com/facebook-microphone-update-store-data-social-media-giant-confirms-new-feature-will-1588916

Facebook Microphone Update To Store Data: Social Media Giant Confirms New Feature Will Aggregate Information

     On the same day that Facebook touted sweeping new efforts to protect users' privacy, the company confirmed that it plans to save data captured by smartphone microphones, potentially enabling the social media giant to listen in on private conversations.  

     In a press release issued Wednesday, Facebook announced a forthcoming app update in which a new feature uses the phone's microphone to capture sounds in the user's environment, then identifies the song, movie or television show the user is watching based on what it hears. Once the sound is ID'd, users have the option to share it as a visual component of their posts.

     Though Facebook assured that "no sound is stored," the company acknowledged to International Business Times that it does intend to archive the data gleaned.

     The company did not discuss whether it plans to use the same feature to gather data from other sounds heard by the microphone, such as users' discussions about their medications or their children.

     Though Facebook noted that it intends to make such data anonymous, the sheer scale of its network -- 1.2 billion users worldwide -- renders such information a veritable treasure trove for, say, advertisers keen to study the tastes and inclinations of the public at large. Facebook did not respond to IBTimes' question on whether it intends to sell the data to third parties.

     The disclosure that Facebook has designs on gaining access to smartphone microphones seems certain to open up a new front in the volatile debate over privacy. Already, tech companies find new ways to track user behavior, and there is increasing unease in the U.S. and around the world over the extent of data harvesting by the National Security Agency.

     Though the press release stressed that no sound is stored when Facebook accesses your microphone, company spokeswoman MoMo Zhao said: "If a match is successfully made, the data is saved, but all data is anonymized and aggregated."

     In other words, Facebook does store data via the new feature-- it just doesn't store whatever data it collects as sound, and it does not link the data to the user.

     Facebook declined to say whether it collects data when no match is made from the sounds captured.

     This confirmation comes the same day Facebook introduced major policy changes that address concerns of user privacy. Early Thursday, the company announced it would give aprivacy checkup to every Facebook user and also change users' default privacy status so that only a user's friends will have access to his or her posts.

     These efforts come just months after Facebook was implicated as one of the companies that received millions of dollars for working with the National Security Agency's PRISM, a wide-scale public electronic data surveillance program. 

     Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially denied involvement with the program.

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o'nocchio's scamcare - Death Panels? Senior, beware, Obama is out to get us. Cost v Care

I've heard that hospitals only receive about 40% of actual cost when they admit a patient but receive 100% reimbursement for 'emergency care' or 'observational care.'  If this is true, do the math, it adds up to 'cost versus care.'  Death Panels they might not be but the long term results may be the same. -- rfh

From: drude Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Subject: Senior, beware, Obama is out to get us.  It's long but worth the read.

Watch Out, Grandma: ObamaCare risks for the elderly

by Betsy McCaughey, New York Post, 18May14

article source: http://nypost.com/2014/05/18/obamacare-risks-for-the-elderly/

     On May 7, the Obama administration boasted that ObamaCare was improving health-care quality for seniors, and it pulled out a bag of statistical tricks to prove it.   But a closer look shows that it's not improving care.  It's skimping on it, socking seniors with unexpected bills for "observation care" and likely shortening their lives.

     President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services announced that fewer seniors discharged from the hospital are returning for additional care within a month's time.  HHS claims that this drop in "readmissions," from 18.5 percent in 2012 to 17.5 percent in 2013, signals quality improvement.

     Nonsense.  The 50 best hospitals according to US News & World Report's Best Hospitals annual rankings have above-average readmission rates.

     Nationwide, readmissions are dropping because Section 3025 of ObamaCare punishes hospitals if a senior returns within 30 days.

     What happens to the senior treated for a heart attack who rushes to the hospital a week later feeling faint, possibly because of arrhythmia?

     To dodge the penalty, hospitals put the patient under "observation."  It's just a word on the chart.  The patient may get the same tests and be put in the same room as if he had been admitted.

     But unless he stays at least two nights, the hospital won't bill Medicare for a stay, and the patient gets clobbered with the cost.  Many seniors don't even know they were under observation until they get the bill.

     So much for HHS boasting about the drop in readmissions.  HHS officials fail to mention that this coincides with a rise in elderly patients placed under "observation status."  It's a hospital billing trick, and a dirty one for seniors.

     Penalizing readmissions, which started in 2013, is one of the law's tricks to reduce Medicare spending, never mind the impact on seniors.  Cuts in future Medicare spending pay for more than half the law's cost - robbing Grandma to fund health-care coverage for other groups.

     It's true that some readmissions are unnecessary and can be avoided if patients follow up with their doctors and take their meds after leaving the hospital.  Low-income patients are less likely to do that, and hospitals caring for the poor are getting whacked hardest by ObamaCare's readmission penalty.

     The Obama administration plans to expand the readmissions penalties in 2015 to apply to many more conditions.  It's no wonder medical experts are protesting.

     Dr. Ashish Jha, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, says it's bogus to equate declining readmissions with quality.  Many top academic hospitals have high readmission rates because their patients have serious illnesses and complications needing repeated stays.

   JHA says the gold standard for measuring a hospital's quality is how many patients survive a specific disease, such as pneumonia or congestive heart failure.  Dr. Bruce Lytie, chairman of the Cleveland Clinic's heart and vascular programs, also warns not to trust claims that lowering readmissions improves quality.

     Don't trust ObamaCare's definition of "value" either.  Everyone wants value, but ObamaCare defines it in a way that produces the opposite: dangerously skimpy care for seniors.

     Section 3001 sets up a bonus system to reward hospitals for "value."  Bravo for rewarding hospitals that prevent infections.  But the lion's share of bonus points go to hospitals that spend the least per senior.

     That cost-cutting will shorten lives.  Evidence from 208 California hospitals shows that Medicare patients treated in the lowest-spending hospitals had a worse chance of surviving their illness and going home than patients with the same diagnosis treated at higher-spending ­hospitals.

     The research, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and RAND , found that heart-attack patients were 19 percent more likely to die at low-spending hospitals. 

     Over a four-year period, 13,613 seniors who died from pneumonia, stroke, heart attacks and other common conditions at California's low-spending hospitals might have recovered and gone home had they been treated elsewhere.  And that's just in one state.

     Ignoring this evidence, ObamaCare incentivizes hospitals in all 50 states to imitate low-spending hospitals that are deadly for seniors.  That's some definition of value.

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Question everything. Accept nothing as fact until proven. No one or nothing is above suspicion.

Ambivalence and complacency is a crime against humanity and will not be tolerated. -- Jess

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o'racist - DOJ funds "pitfalls of dealing with white folks"

Group that listed 'pitfalls of working with white people' receiving DOJ grants

article source: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/20/group-that-listed-pitfalls-of-working-with-white-people-received-doj-grants/
     (The Daily Caller) -- An organization that published a list of 29 "Pitfalls of Working With White People" that was circulated at a diversity conference earlier this year received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, the Daily Caller has learned.
     Beyond Diversity Resource Center, based in New Jersey, is listed as a partner organization for the White Privilege Conference which was held in Madison, Wisc. in March.
     One of the "pitfalls" listed on the Center's pamphlet, published by the website Progressives Today, is that white people "ask stupid questions".
     The diversity group, which claims that it "works to build a society that honors individuals because of their cultural differences", wrote on the pamphlet that whites "benefit financially off the backs of people of color."
     White people "are arrogant", they "say something stupid" and "get too friendly too fast," the diversity center's pamphlet claims.

     The White Privilege Conference, which partnered with the Beyond Diversity group, has been exposed recently for some of the statements made by conference attendees.
     “The longer you are in the tea party, the more racist you become,” said one speaker at the conference, whose statements were captured by conservatives outlets who infiltrated the event.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/20/group-that-listed-pitfalls-of-working-with-white-people-received-doj-grants/ 

o'nocchio - Deja Vu: Caught in Another Big Lie (insurance payola)

Obama Administration Just Got Caught in Another o'scamcare lie

     WVOC.com: The LA Times has been as friendly as possible to the Obama administration, but they can't ignore this.  Today they broke the story that another massive lie around Obamacare has been told to the Congress and the American people.  As you know "If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan" was ranked as the biggest lie of the year by the Washington Post.  Well here comes an early contender for this year's award.
     The Republicans have been accusing the Obama administration of building into Obamacare an insurance plan for the insurance companies.  A bailout if the insurance companies lost money under Obamacare.  Their claim was that in the law was something called the temporary risk corridor program.  Under that Republicans said the administration had allowed themselves a way to take tax dollars and bailout an insurance company that lost money.  But the administration and the Democrats have denied that.  Apparently the administration and the Democrats had been telling the truth...and didn't like it.
     The LA Times reports that late last week hundreds of pages of new regulations were added to Obamacare.  Their reporters went through it and found a few key paragraphs.  The change in regulations essentially provides insurers with another backup:  If they keep rate increases modest over the next couple of years but lose money, the administration will tap federal funds as needed to cover shortfalls.  This could be hundreds of billions of dollars!
     This is a classic bait and switch.  The middle class will feel like they're getting a break on insurance premiums.  As long as they don't look at the governments check book, they'll believe the Affordable Health Care Law is working.  It only unravels if they realize they are paying double for their insurance, because the increase is being charged to their account in the form of more debt.
     The Republicans are expected to go nuts over this, and the Democrats will point at the scene they are making and say 'look how fanatical those people are'.  I would warn Republicans against making a big deal out of this.
Get the full story at WVOC.com Source

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o'nocchio - Superhero of Excuses (National Journal)

Superhero of Excuses

By Ron Fournier, The National Journal
     You helped elect an untested presidential candidate, a man almost as liberal as you. He promised to heal the oceans, make health care an inalienable right, and transform Washington's toxic culture. You mocked Republicans, independents, and squishy Democrats who had the audacity to criticize your guy, much less doubt the inevitability of his victory. President Obama won—twice—and then didn't live up to anybody's expectations, including his own.
     What do you do? Well, if you're Ezra Klein and a coterie of inflexibly progressive pundits, you repurpose an attack used against President George W. Bush's bombastic approach to geopolitics. You call anybody who questions Obama's leadership style a Green Lanternist. In a post for Vox stretching beyond 2,500 words, Klein makes his case against Obama critics.
     "Presidents consistently overpromise and underdeliver," he begins, a fair start. Surely, the editor-in-chief of Vox is going to make the obvious point that presidents and presidential candidates should know enough about the political process (including the limits on the executive branch) to avoid such a breach of trust.
     Klein is a data guy. He must know that the public's faith in government and politics is on a decades-long slide, a dangerous trend due in no small part to the fact that candidates make promises they know they can't keep. In Washington, we call it pandering. In the rest of the country, it's called a lie. Klein yawns.
     Now, wait. A Harvard-trained lawyer and constitutional scholar like Obama didn't stumble into the 2008 presidential campaign unaware of the balance of powers, the polarization of politics, the rightward march of the GOP, and other structural limits on the presidency. He made those promises because he thought those goals were neither unreasonable nor unattainable. Either that, or he was lying.
Read the full story in the National Journal

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o'judge my by those I surround myself with - shoot old veterans

VA Supervisor: Older Veterans Should be "Shot in the Head"

Supervisor said older veterans should be "taken outside and shot in the head" to save money

(by Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars) -- A Veterans Affairs whistleblower has exclusively revealed to Infowars that the facility at which he works has engaged in a of cover-up in response to the VA hospital scandal, while also relating the story of how one supervisor expressed his desire to see older veterans "taken outside and shot in the head."

The whistleblower, who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, works at a large 250 acre VA hospital. He lifted the lid on a number of shocking details during an interview with Sgt. Joe Biggs.

"Recently there's been a very rapid race to move records, boxes, change labels, whatever it may be, they're putting them in rooms that nobody would look in….and there's multiple times that I have seen in the past week or so them moving boxes….so apparently they're hiding their tracks somewhere," stated the VA employee, adding that the activity preceded an inspection of the facility, suggesting it was part of an effort to conceal evidence in the aftermath of the secret waiting list scandal.

Even more chilling was a warning sent out to VA employees at the facility which, according to the whistleblower, was meant to get across the message, "Do you see what happens to the people that try to get things straight around here, they're not here anymore," a tone the whistleblower described as "pretty telling."

The employee also revealed the shocking attitude of one supervisor at the hospital towards older veterans, who asserted that older vets "should be taken outside and shot in the head because they're worthless." The individual still works at the hospital and was not disciplined for his comments.

"How can you stop the corruption and the insanity if you have a supervisor who is a non-veteran saying these things to veterans, scaring them about their jobs and telling them because they're an older veteran 'you ought to be taken outside and shot in the head'," asked the employee.

The whistleblower also related how he knew veterans that had been denied health care at the hospital. However, since the VA scandal broke in the news, the whistleblower states there has been a huge influx of patients into his facility, a move he describes as "a dog and pony show."

Explaining that the scandal went way beyond patient care, the whistleblower said that corruption within the VA was "overwhelming," and that working doctors were being replaced by students and residential doctors on weekends to save money.

"That creates a cost cut on the clinical side which lines the pockets of the upper administration and puts our veterans' health at risk," asserted the whistleblower, adding that his facility routinely loses patients and that "there's lack of care everywhere."

The employee also revealed that cronyism was rampant within the hospital, with family members of existing staff being hired in preference of veterans in desperate need of employment.

"It's a huge bureaucracy and it's a huge game and somebody has to break the corruption," stated the whistleblower, adding that people were scared to speak out because they might lose their jobs and their pensions.

"There's more than just what you're seeing on TV and they're hiding a lot of things and you're never going to see it on the mass media," concluded the whistleblower.

The new revelations come in the aftermath of a scandal that has claimed the lives of at least 40 veterans as a result of them being kept on secret waiting lists. The backlogs which caused the deaths are now known to have occurred in at least 19 states. New questions have also emerged about VA workers gaming the system at the expense of veterans. A whistleblower also revealed how she was ordered to falsify records of appointments at Fort Collins, Colorado to make it appear as if veterans were receiving speedy treatment.

Concerns that the VA scandal represents an example of death panels waiting to happen under Obamacare have been expressed in recent days as Obama himself faces mounting criticism over his failure to address the issue publicly.

"It's simply unconscionable," said radio host Rush Limbaugh on his national broadcast Monday. "So you have to ask, the natural assumption is that nobody wants these people to die, even if you add the death panel component, nobody wants these people to die, yet they are. At the very least what we're dealing with here is a total inability to deal with this. And at worst it's the death panel being done on purpose."

The issue of death panels and the eugenicist mindset of people having to die in order to allow others to have jobs or health care has stoked controversy for years, most notably in 2010 when Bill Gates suggested that elderly patients should be denied medical treatment in order to spend the money on hiring more teachers. Newsweek also promoted a similar idea in a 2009 front page story entitled 'The Case For Killing Granny'.

Source

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o'scamcare secret insurance payola scheme

Obama Admin Quietly Gives Insurance Companies Access To Billions of Taxpayer Dollars To Cover Obamacare Losses

Via Chicago Tribune:

The Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money.

The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections.

Administration officials for months have denied charges by opponents that they plan a "bailout" for insurance companies providing coverage under the healthcare law.

They continue to argue that most insurers shouldn't need to substantially increase premiums because safeguards in the healthcare law will protect them over the next several years.

But the change in regulations essentially provides insurers with another backup: If they keep rate increases modest over the next couple of years but lose money, the administration will tap federal funds as needed to cover shortfalls.

Keep reading…Source

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o'toon - The Eagle is Gone

From: burd Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Subject: The Eagle is Gone

The Eagle Is Gone!

The Skunk has replaced the Eagle as the new symbol of the American Presidency.
It is half black, half white, and everything it does, stinks.

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o'nocchio - VA: W.H. Lied About American Legion

American Legion Rips White House After Carney Blatantly Lies About Them Supposedly Praising Obama's Handling of VA

Carney outdid himself today. (Weasel Zippers)
American Legion Slams White House for Distorting Statement on Veterans Controversy – ABC News
    At the White House briefing today, Press Secretary Jay Carney repeatedly suggested the American Legion had praised the Department of Veterans Affairs for the resignation Friday of top VA health official Dr. Robert Petzel.
     It turns out, however, the American legion had issued a statement dismissing the resignation as "business as usual."
     Here's what Carney said at the White House briefing: "The American Legion said that the group looks at Petzel's resignation as a, quote, step towards addressing the leadership problem at the VA. So I think that undercuts the assertion that that is not a meaningful development."
     Carney went on to cite the American Legion nine times during the briefing.
     In fact, the American Legion put out a statement on Friday about Dr. Petzel's resignation saying almost exactly the opposite of what Carney suggested.
     "This move by VA is not a corrective action, but a continuation of business as usual," American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said in a statement. "Dr. Petzel was already scheduled to retire this year, so his resignation now really won't make that much of a difference."
     The statement — which can be found on the at the top of the American Legion's website — goes on to say the real problem is at the top of VA. "Secretary [Eric] Shinseki and Under Secretary [Allison] Hickey remain on the job. They are both part of VA's leadership problem, and we want them to resign as soon as possible."
Source

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Jordanian Journalist: Hitler Was A Million Times More Merciful Than Israel's Leaders

Jordanian Journalist: Hitler Was A Million Times More Merciful Than Israel's Leaders

article source: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7972.htm

Jamal Al-Shawahin (image: sahafi.jo)

In an article posted on the website of the Jordanian daily Al-Sabil, which is owned by the Muslim Brotherhood, journalist Jamal Al- Shawahin stated that no more than a few hundred or a few dozen Jews and non-Jews were put to death in the Nazi gas chambers, as a punishment for committing treason, and that Jewish circles exploit this minor incident to this day to achieve political gains. Al-Shawahin also compared Israel to Nazi Germany and concluded that the former is currently the world's most criminal regime and that Hitler was "a million times" more merciful than former Israeli prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin. He added that Hitler and Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husseini jointly struggled against the British mandate, which allowed Jews to enter Palestine and Arabs to be expelled from it.

The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

"Why did the German leader Hitler hate the Jews and constantly threaten to cut out their dirty tongues, although they were of impeccable German origin? Why did he fear their activities [although] they constituted less than 500,000 citizens, over half of whom immigrated to Palestine prior to 1930 and of those remaining [in Germany] over half subsequently emigrated to the United States and other countries, so that by 1939 only a few thousand poor and totally destitute [Jews] remained? During World War II [those Jews] were dispersed or transferred to camps where they were allegedly burned in the gas chambers. This is questionable, because those killed in the gas chambers were no more than a few hundred or a few dozen people, [both Jewish] and others, who were accused of treason. But Jewish circles trade on them and obtain infinite dividends to this day.

"Hitler was quite aware of the danger posed by Jews in his country, and therefore imposed restrictions on them so they would not hinder him. Hitler, with his ideas and principles, did not pose a direct threat to Palestine, but quite the opposite. He coordinated with Haj Amin Al-Husseini the struggle against the British mandate, which had helped the Jews establish a state in Palestine and expel its original residents [i.e. the Arabs] after laying the groundwork for [the Jews] to commit criminal massacres against [the Arabs]. Ever since then the Jews have incessantly killed the Palestinians, and not a day goes by without a Palestinian being killed.

"The Palestinians are currently scattered throughout the world and prevented from settling in their original homeland. Their remnant on Palestinian soil is a target for killing, wounding, arrests and oppression, and they are under constant threat. They are subject to prohibitions even in matters of religion, [for] they are denied the [right] to pray and their holy places are damaged. They are completely exposed to the occupation soldiers and the settler droves. [The Israelis] destroy their homes, cut down their trees, raze their fields, deny them health care, [freedom of] movement, and education, conduct experiments on them, force them to do dirty work, and extort them so they fall into the trap of [committing] treason [against their own people]. The enemy army makes no distinction between children, women and the aged, all are exposed to violation [of their rights] and killing.

"The Israeli enemy entity is overtly criminal, and commits very crime, heedless of the outcome. There is nobody to hold it to account for any crime... Furthermore, it enjoys the protection and sympathy of the United States and all European countries and other countries thanks to the fabrication about its right to security. [This,] despite the fact that it [Israel] is the region's and the world's most secure [country] thanks to its weapons that are trained on the Palestinians and on anyone who is an Arab, Muslim or Christian.

"Compared to [other regimes], the [Israeli] entity is more criminal than the world's most criminal regime, and [what was done by] Adolf Hitler's party is a drop in the sea compared to what the Jews perpetrate. The Fuehrer was undoubtedly a million times more merciful than [Ariel] Sharon, [Yitzhak] Shamir and even Yitzhak Rabin, who gave the order to break the bones of the Palestinians… and is currently considered a martyr and a man of peace, just as [Binyamin] Netanyahu is now [regarded]." 

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Sabil (Jordan), March 2, 2014.

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IRGC Naval Commander: Iran Can Destroy The U.S. Navy With Suicide Operations, Missiles, And Speedboats; 'When The Hoot Missile Hits The Americans, [They] Will See Which Units Fired It'

IRGC Naval Commander: Iran Can Destroy The U.S. Navy With Suicide Operations, Missiles, And Speedboats; 'When The Hoot Missile Hits The Americans, [They] Will See Which Units Fired It'

article source: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7984.htm

Fadavi in interview.
Source: Fars, May 6, 2014. 

In a May 6, 2014 interview, the commander of the navy of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Rear-Adm. Ali Fadavi, gave details about his navy's operational preparations for a possible clash with the U.S., focusing particularly on the destruction of the U.S. Navy. Fadavi claimed that after a great deal of practice attacking models of American warships that it had built, Iran is now capable of sinking a real one in 50 seconds, and noted that Iran's aim in preparing to strike American aircraft carriers is to defeat and humiliate the U.S. 

Iran, he said, compensates for its technological inferiority to the U.S. with a strategy of asymmetrical warfare, including suicide attacks and the use of speedboat and its missile capability. He added that Iran can prevent the U.S. from using its advanced technology against it, but gave no further details as to how. 

Implying that Iran would not allow the U.S. to act against it from its bases in the Persian Gulf countries, he said that the Americans were taking care not to cause a flare-up in the region because they know that they will lose any potential conflict with Iran. Therefore, he said, U.S. naval forces in the region are obeying the orders of the IRGC, which maintains oversight of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf, out of its fear that Iranian vessels or missiles will target them. 

In another interview, on May 10, Fadavi hinted that his navy was planning to use its drones both as missiles and as platforms for launching missiles.

The following are the main points from Fadavi's interviews with Fars. 

Fadavi told Fars: "In the battle arena, the opposing side must be destroyed, otherwise you yourself will be destroyed. Naval warfare is very different than land warfare. In this arena, when your ship is sunk, you are defeated, and when the enemy's ship is sunk, he is defeated. 

"The Americans presume to be a superpower, and they point at their military capability as one of the criteria and signs of being a superpower. America's military might lies in its naval capability, and it is only by means of its navy that it can it reach other places in order to actualize its imperialist goals. Therefore, the American navy is not merely one branch; it is an [entire] army with three branches. Its warships are its navy, its aircraft carriers provide its aerial capability, and the Marines are its the land  branch."

"The reason [for the U.S. Navy's long reach] is that the Americans have no confidence at all in their ability to properly use the countries of the southern Persian Gulf when it counts. Iran and all the southern Persian Gulf states and the other Muslin countries are like a single family with many children. All these children have one father, but different mothers. Occasional disputes in such a home are natural. What the Americans do is plan to use a base that they have built, say, in Saudi Arabia, at the right time and when they want – [but] because of events that are going to happen, they will not be able to do so. The same goes for [bases in] Qatar and Kuwait. 

"Our friends and our enemies [alike] are aware of only a small part of the IRGC navy's capability, and they are not aware of a large part of it. These unknown capabilities will be presented in time, for the purpose of deterrence, or will emerge in the war arena. But the enemy is already worried about the little intelligence it does have with regard to our capabilities. 

"The American aircraft carriers, which are the symbol of American military might, are under full oversight of the IRGC. Naturally, Iran determines when it will carry out the regular training, drills, and maneuvers that it uses for operational goals, and the Americans and the rest of the world know that one of the IRGC navy's operational goals is to destroy the U.S. Navy. 

"With regard to the vulnerability of the American aircraft carriers, refer to Robert Gates's book, and see how he explicitly discusses the aircraft carriers' vulnerability to the IRGC navy, and how he seeks to change American naval strategy. This is no simple mission, but he stresses that the change must be made, and [the Americans]  have begun to implement it. They acknowledged that the [huge] size of their vessels is making them easy targets for the IRGC navy. We have very precise analyses of the designing of these warships, and we know how we must act. The aircraft on these warships are responsible for America's aerial capability in the battlefield, and therefore it is natural for us to want to sink these warships."

In response to the interviewer's question about reports in Western media that Iran has built models of American aircraft carriers in order to practice attacking and sinking them, in the event that the nuclear negotiations fail, Fadavi said: "The Americans do not know most of the details, and their research institutes have presented very rough data regarding the scale models of aircraft carriers that we are building. Actually, for many years now we have been building models of American destroyers, cruisers, and frigates, and sinking them. We have even successfully sunk models of their vessels within 50 seconds, in a variety of operations. These small models allow us to practice battlefield operations in the most natural way possible. We have also done this with a scale model of an aircraft carrier, because the destruction and sinking of American war ships was, is, and will remain part of our plan." 

"The Americans themselves claim that on April 14, 1988 [during the Iran-Iraq war], the IRGC navy destroyed the guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts. Iranian fighters have already demonstrated their capabilities and their skill in striking and sinking cruisers and frigates, and today we must also practice [sinking] aircraft carriers. So we built two-thirds scale models, 202 meters long. The Americans said in their media that Iran did this in order to humiliate America, but that is not why we are doing it. We are doing it for one clear  purpose, the result of which will be the defeat and humiliation of the Americans. We want to drill operational and tactical operations of attacking an aircraft carrier." 

"Under international law, Iran has the right to oversee the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Therefore, if American vessels do not heed the IRGC's warnings, they will immediately see a large number of Iranian vessels surrounding them, or Iran's missile systems closing in on them. However, this usually does not happen. Here at the IRGC naval command and control center, we speak to the Americans every day, and have been doing so for many years, and they have frequently acknowledged that [when they deal with us] they are dealing with a professional navy. It is naturally difficult for them to speak of the IRGC this way...

"An American warship has never been seen in Iran's territorial waters or in international waters near Iran. To see one, you have to approach the territorial waters of the southern Persian Gulf states.

"It is the U.S. that is most careful not to fire a single bullet in the Persian Gulf. It knows that if it does, any damage it receives will be substantially greater than the damage it will do [to Iran]. The Americans fear this, especially after the region was divided up between the Iranian military's navy and the IRGC navy. After the division, and after the IRGC naval forces were stationed in the Persian Gulf, we gathered all the military attachés and explained to them this geographic division, under which the IRGC navy was made responsible for the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, and the responsibility for the Gulf of Oman and Mazandaran [northern Iran] and over distant [i.e. international] waters was given to the military's navy."

"At least three times, the Americans have contacted Iran via official channels, such as the Swiss Embassy [in Tehran], to establish a [telephone hot] line [like the one between the Soviet Union and America during the Cold War, and thus to be able to control matters. However, we have told them that there is only one reason for losing [control] of matters – and that is your [i.e. the Americans'] presence in the Persian Gulf. If you leave, [we told them], nothing will happen. At the same time, I told them we would consider it once we anchor near American waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Iran has a legal duty to preserve security in the Strait of Hormuz, which is why it takes steps so that residents of the world – and of the Persian Gulf – can live peacefully. Insecurity in the Persian Gulf will be to the detriment of the residents of the world, since the energy [sources] in the region help Europe and warm Siberia. All the economic wheels in these countries are in motion thanks to the energy of the Persian Gulf. If they stop moving, their people will become unemployed and face hardship, which is why we take on the responsibility of providing security in the Persian Gulf... 

"However, there is one disruptive element: the Americans themselves. Iran has a presence in the north, the east, and the west of the Strait of Hormuz, and completely surrounds it; therefore, it considers itself responsible for securing the region. This could be problematic following an American move...

"It may be that all the southern Persian Gulf states wish to maintain good relations with Iran but the enemies are not allowing them to do so. America benefits from the absence of coordination among the countries of the region. If there is complete coordination among them, the Americans will gain nothing – so they are not letting this happen. This is the imperialist policy..."

"[The U.S.] spends more than $500 million on advanced equipment and weapons for its warships. The cost of an American warship is over $1 billion, and of an aircraft carrier is $13 billion. The annual [maintenance] costs for a carrier are higher than some countries' entire military budgets, and can reach $2-$3 billion annually... But they know that these weapons are ineffective against a new [Iranian] strategy relying on faith, on a desire for martyrdom, and on [Iran's] unique speedboats. 

"The IRGC navy brings down their technological superiority to the situation of a nascent country, because they will not be able to use what they have in battle. This situation is the result of a new and precise strategy by the IRGC navy, and we will continue with this. Throughout these years, we have not wasted a single day in improving our naval capabilities."

"We have shown the Hoot underwater missile. This is a unique Russian-made missile. It can move at 100 meters per second underwater. Some physicists might not accept this, but Russian experts have achieved this technology, and we benefit from it also; we have had this missile for years..."

Responding to a question about which IRGC vessels have these missiles, Fadavi said: "When the missile hits the Americans, both you and them will see which units fired it..."

In a subsequent May 10 interview with Fars, Fadavi said: "The drone command in the IRGC navy operates separately from the IRGC air force. It uses a variety of drones, first and foremost for reconnaissance missions and operations. We have established a drone base [that covers] the eastern, northern, and western parts of the Strait of Hormuz, and we fly over them regularly... 

"We can launch the same missiles that we have on [our] ships and on our shores from drones, in order to hit military targets at sea."

Asked about "suicide drones," Fadavi said: "The use of drone technology is tactical and not strategic. We can determine battlefield tactics according to operational needs, so that a drone can, for instance, function like a missile.

"We have installed anti-ship missiles on our ships, our coasts, and our helicopters. We can install medium range missiles on our drones that can meet almost all of our needs. This process is now underway."

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