Dismiss Defense Dunce Panetta

Dismiss Defense Dunce Panetta

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 3, 2012

United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta must be fired sooner rather than later. Immediately would be best because he has no sense of history, forgetting the World War II adage “Loose lips sink ships.”

Panetta’s loose lips regarding Israel’s potential military strategy begs the question, with friends like him, who needs enemies? Who the hell does he think he is divulging Israel’s or any other country’s plans?

Panetta’s gaping hole between his lips should sink his own ship. Keep in mind, however, that Panetta is merely a symptom of a wider pandemic of disrespect and a lack of support by this administration toward its only reliable Middle East ally.

Clearly Obama and his cohorts are attempting to sabotage Israel’s safety and security. But this should not come as a surprise since not only has Obama not visited Israel during his term in office, but during the 2008 campaign, in a debate with now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama said he would sit down with Iran’s despotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The issue at hand here is Panetta telling the world that Israel may launch military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran within the next two to three months for the purposes of destroying any possibility of the belligerent nation acquiring nuclear weapons. Discussing any country’s military plans is counterproductive and potentially deleterious to the success of such a mission.

Potential Israeli operations are not without solid reasoning. Aside from the oft-repeated desires of Iran’s Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map, the Islamic country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “Israel is a cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”

Obama and Panetta have “cautioned the Israelis that the US opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful economic sanctions program,” said Panetta.

Success? Panetta and Obama must be using a newfangled dictionary. “Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course,” said Khamenei.

And beware of China, who has long opposed sanctions against Iran. German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has strongly attempted to impress upon China the need to have them persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

Who are Obama and Panetta to tell Israel how to or even if it should defend herself? Do they want Israel to be a sitting duck waiting for Iran to produce the enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon? By continuing to enrich its already stockpiled uranium, Iran could produce four atomic bombs, the first inside of a year, according to Major General Aviv Koch Avi, Israel’s Military Intelligence chief.

Just how obtuse is the Obama administration? Iran has been transparent in its thoughts and plans. Israel must be wiped off the map. Israel is a cancer. Do these notions sound remotely complimentary or desirous of a nation seeking the road toward peace and coexistence? Of course not! Yet Obama and Panetta would have Israel turn the other cheek and await a disastrous fate at the hand of part of the Axis of Evil.

And at what cost?

After attacking and potentially destroying Israel, Iran has set its sights on the United States and Western Civilization as a whole in its attempt to establish a global caliphate.

Iran again threatens to block shipping from the Strait of Hormuz. The United States must not blink first. A Hormuz blockade will hurt Iran before it hurts the United States if the US has the smarts to rethink the XL Keystone pipeline deal with Canada and drill domestically for oil as well as fraking for shale.

Israel should do to Iran what she did to Iraq in 1981. It would be a gift to humanity for which she will never be thanked. So in advance, toda raba, Israel.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.