Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
From: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approx. 150 Recipients Of Our Regular E-mails
Subject: Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz - Hillary et al. Attacking Obama Re Iraq
Date: Sat, August 23, 2014 12:26 - 1:32 am MDT
Attachments --
NicklausRoad-DrivingDirections.pdf*
RL-a810-GoldbergInterviewOfHillary*
RL-a816-PopeFrancisAug9LetterToUNSecyGenReIraq*
RL-a816-VaticanAmbassadorToUN-Iraq+JustWarDoctrine*
RL-a816-BidenOpEd-WSJ-6-4-2007*
* Editorial Note: Please see the face of this bulletin board for the next section entitled "Reference Materials" for where these items can be found.
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Dear Friends,

The pleasure of your company and the intellectual stimulation of your views are respectfully requested for Wed evening, Sep 3rd, from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm at the home of Yours Truly at 11911 Nicklaus Road, Sandy UT 84092 which features a gorgeous 180-degree panoramic view of Hidden Valley and Hidden Valley Country Club from a ridge 200 feet above them (map & driving directions are attached).

If you have not already RSVP’d, please do so if you plan to come (there is plenty of room so all are welcome but we do need to know for how many to set up -- including Pinot Grigio from Yours Truly).


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DISCUSSION TOPIC

[Editorial Note: All but the first 2 paragraphs of this section were added for the e-mail sent 8/23/2014; the following section of this posting entitled "Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz" is unchanged from the original bulletin board posting on 8/16/2014.]

Our focus will be the 8/10/2014 article in Atlantic in which Hillary Clinton distanced herself from Pres. Obama re The Islamic State in Syria & Iraq.

[A copy of the Atlantic article is attached for your convenience.]

What to do, if anything, about Al Qaeda in Iraq (aka ISIS aka ISIL aka The Islamic State) which would probably mean Iraq War III -- vs. conserving America’s resources for solving domestic problems -- is probably the most important decision President Obama will ever make.

Pressure is building on him to slide into Iraq War III in the form of --

(1) Hillary’s attack;

(2) Pope Francis declaring that fighting AQI/ISIS/ISIL/TIS comports with The Just War Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church (the RCC opposed Gulf War II);

(3) France, Germany and Italy now supplying arms directly to the Kurds while the U.S. still insists on sending American arms to the Kurds through the Bagdad government which means, of course, that the arms never reach the Kurds;

(4) British Prime Minister Cameron writing an OpEd comprising a de facto Declaration of War against AQI/ISIS/ ISIL/TIS and then cutting short his vacation to return to London to begin marshaling political support for such a war;

(5) The American media becoming traumatized last Tuesday (Aug 19) by the beheading of American journalist James Foley coupled with the AQI/ISIS/ISIL/TIS threat to behead American journalist Steven Sotloff in the near future -- THOUGH THE AMERICAN MEDIA STILL SEEMS OBLIVIOUS TO OSAMA BIN LADEN’S FATWA TO NUKE 10 MILLION AMERICANS ABOUT WHICH THE FOUNDING DEAN OF HARVARD U’S KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT WROTE A FAMOUS BOOK AND WHICH FATWA CANNOT BE REVOKED NOW THAT OSAMA IS DEAD; and

(6) Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey warring with The White House last Thursday (Aug 21) by declaring that AQI/ISIS/ISIL/TIS has become a terrorist threat “unlike any we have ever seen” and we must gear up to fight it.

*****
So far, President Obama has held his ground (1) announcing only air strikes to defend the U.S. consulate in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish area, and air strikes to support a very-limited humanitarian mission, and (2) authorizing without any announcement air strikes to support the Kurds/Iraqis in re-taking the Mosul dam.


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SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO THE SHORT QUIZ (which, per tradition for August, is primarily yes-no)

Question 1

Following the media fire storm created by the Atlantic article, does Hillary’s furious back pedaling on Aug 12-13 simply mean that the pressure to do so from the White House comprised a threat to cancel President Obama’s agreement to support her Presidential candidacy in 2016 which would mean that Hillary would be guaranteed a primary opponent from the left = Sen. Elizabeth Warren?

Answer 1

Probably.

Question 2

In Hillary’s interview by Jeffrey Goldberg as reported in the Atlantic article, did Hillary claim that she had argued within the Administration three years ago for intervention in Syria before Al Qaeda in Iraq (which morphed into ISIS or ISIL and then morphed into The Islamic State) became the threat to the American Homeland that it is today because of its thousands of Americans/Europeans who are fighting with AQI/ISIS/ISIL/TIS and who can easily enter both Europe and the U.S. on their European/American passports (since the U.S. and Europe do not require visas for each other's passport holders) to attack the American/European Homelands because American/European intelligence does NOT even know who they are (all according to the Talking Heads on the various 8/10/2014 Sunday-morning talk shows)?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

Has The Islamic State (aka Al Qaeda in Iraq) been disowned by Core Al Qaeda for being too rabid with its zillions of beheadings and crucifixions, and the choice it gives everyone it conquers which is EITHER support them and also convert if you aren’t already a Sunni Muslim OR ELSE be killed?

Answer 3

Yes.

Question 4

Has Pope Francis during the last week declared that fighting The Islamic State comports with the Just War Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church?

Answer 4

Yes.

[Please see the third and fourth attachments = Pope’s 8/9/2014 letter to the U.N. Secretary General and the 8/13/2014 statements of the Vatican’s Ambassador to the U.N.]

Question 5

Did Osama bin Laden issue a fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans?

Answer 5

Yes.

Question 6

Was Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans the subject of a famous book by the Founding Dean of Harvard U’s Kennedy School of Government, Graham Allison, regarding how to deal with the fatwa?

Answer 6

Yes. Though his prescription (for the world’s nuclear powers to band together (A) to lock down every iota of fissile material and (B) not to permit any enrichment of uranium/plutonium by any other countries, such as Iran) was widely criticized as unworkable and, in any event, has NOT been implemented.

Question 7

Was Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans the reason why Vice President Biden wrote, at the beginning of his campaign for the Presidency during the 2008-election cycle while he was still Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an OpEd in the 6/4/2007 Wall Street Journal entitled “CSI: Nukes” in which he proposed that since fissile material has “DNA” that proves the country of origin, the U.S. should announce a policy of “nuclear annihilation” against any country whose fissile materials are used by terrorists in a nuclear attack on the U.S.?

Answer 7

Yes.

[Please see the OpEd which is the fifth attachment to this e-mail.]

Question 8

By way of footnote, did anyone in the media note (as we did at the time) that Joe Biden’s proposed policy would have compelled the U.S. to commit national suicide if its own fissile materials were stolen and used against it?

Answer 8

No.

Question 9

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, can his fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans be revoked?

Answer 9

No.

Question 10

Did the most famous demonstration that fatwas can NOT be revoked after the death of the issuer of the fatwa involve (A) the Brits severing diplomatic relations with Iran on 3/7/1989 because of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa to kill Salmon Rushdie following the publication of his Satanic Verses and (B) the Brits, when they restored diplomatic relations on 9/24/1998 following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, having to give up their demand that the fatwa be revoked when New Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed out that only the issuer of a fatwa can revoke it so revocation is NOT possible following the death of the issuer?

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

Is Al Qaeda in Iraq (aka ISIS aka ISIL aka The Islamic State) likely to feel an obligation to follow Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans?

Answer 11

Presumably yes.

Question 12

Are President Obama’s policies of ending the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan, and his apparent policy of refusing to become involved in any other imbroglios (with only two lapses*) -- apparently motivated by the desire to conserve our resources for domestic needs?

* The two lapses = (1) overthrowing Libya’s Col. Qaddafi in 2011 and (2) Pres. Obama’s TWO surges in what he termed “The Good War” in Afghanistan.

[Incredibly, the American media lately has “drunk the Kool Aid” that Candidate Obama campaigned in 2008 on the promise of ending both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, when in fact his campaign was based on his constant attack that President Bush had “taken his eye off the ball” of fighting “The Good War” in Afghanistan (as Candidate Obama called it) by starting a second war in Iraq AND DURING HIS FIRST MONTH IN OFFICE (January 2009) now-President Obama ordered HIS FIRST SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN from our “light footprint” of only 17,000 troops in Afghanistan to 70,000 troops -- CAUSING NEWSWEEK TO FEATURE AS THE COVER STORY FOR ITS 2/16/2009 ISSUE AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “OBAMA’S VIETNAM”!!!]

Answer 12

Yes, President Obama apparently is motivated by a desire to conserve resources for domestic needs.

Question 13

Is Hillary right that an exception to this policy is required to avoid 10 million Americans being nuked IAW Osama bin Laden’s fatwa?

Answer 13

What do you think -- let’s discuss.

Question 14

Or can America co-exist with The Islamic State and meet the nuclear threat that it poses to 10 million Americans in some other way?

Answer 14

What do you think -- let’s discuss.

Question 15

If America opts for “some other way,” would America be happy if the success of the “other way” depends on such things as water boarding? Or an even more extensive eavesdropping on both Americans and foreigners?

Answer 15

What do you think -- let’s discuss.

Question 16

If America does not want to fight Iraq War III, is there really any other way to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq (aka ISIS aka ISIL aka The Islamic State)?

Answer 16

What do you think -- let’s discuss.

Question 17

In other words, isn’t the idea of Iraq which was a creation of the League of Nations in 1920 following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I -- an idea that has passed into history because the former territory of Iraq has been permanently partitioned on a de facto basis into The Islamic State (which extends into Syria), a Shiite area (which may soon be absorbed by Iran) and, if someone will supply arms to the Kurds, a Kurdish area? In other words, that Iraqi-Prime-Minister-Designate Haider al-Abadi doesn’t really stand a Ghost Of A Chance of persuading the Sunnis to re-join Iraq (and the Kurds, if given arms by somebody, may achieve their dream of an Independent Kurdistan simply by virtue of their geographic separation from Haider al-Abadi’s Shiite area)?

Answer 17

Probably. Probably.

Question 18

Or in yet other words, is there any possibility of winning a War of Ideas with a people who are obligated to execute Osama bin Laden’s fatwa to nuke 10 million Americans?

Answer 18

What do you think -- let’s discuss.

Question 19

Does anyone (except Hillary) envy President Obama the decisions he has to make???

Answer 19

Can anybody think of anyone???

Question 20

Is there anyone who doesn’t wonder why Hillary seems to be so eager to make them???

Answer 20

Do any of us not wonder???


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We hope to see each of you on Sep 3rd!!!

Your friend,

John K.

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