Daunting Dog Days . . . l High Frontier

September 11, 1683 was when Muslim armies were turned back from Vienna. Maybe September 11 has meaning for the jihadi terrorists. A September 11, 2012 jihadi attack on our Benghazi consulate killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans—after the Ambassador’s requests for additional security went unanswered. And we are still wondering what happened as the FBI will be investigating the messages on then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s email server, as we approach another September 11. Stay tuned!

Two years ago I wrote about the ancient origin of the “Dog Days of Summer,” pondered some of the key issues of Dog Days 2013 and wondered whether the “powers that be” would deal constructively with them. A quick review of that message and what has since happened is not encouraging as we complete this year’s Dog Days.

Consider a few of the deteriorating set of circumstances we confront during the “silly season” for the elections next year. Two years ago, there were hopes for an end to a divided congress and for a new congress that would effectively resist Obama administration’s policies. Now, polls demonstrate that even though the Republicans now control both houses of congress, most Americans are disappointed with the results so far.

First, consider again a brief history lesson about the origin of this sultry season:

The “Dog Days” date to when our Greek ancestors, after nightfall, studied the sky in the dark—no electricity. They looked up at the billions of stars, none brighter than Sirius—this time of year, part of the Canis Majoris constellation, hence Dog Star. After a long night of wishing on falling stars, Sirius would finally awake from his slumber, rise, stretch, and bark with the sunrise as the earth proceeded in its orbit around the sun.

When the philosophers of ancient Greece were eclipsed by the warriors of ancient Rome, the Dog Days evolved to include a new ritual—the sacrifice of a brown dog to mollify Sirius, who was believed to be responsible for the hot, sweaty weather. Contemporaries of the Greeks and Romans, the ancient Egyptians connected Sirius rising to the season of the Nile’s flooding, and thought of the star as a watchdog for the event. The Dog Days were fraught with evil: “The Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.” (From Clavis Calendaria, A compendious analysis of the calendar, illustrated with ecclesiastical, historical, and classical anecdotes.)

So, what about the progressing madness of our day?

Al Qaeda, ISIS and All That.

Two years ago, we were worrying about our embassies and consulates closing for a day or more throughout the Middle East from fear of al Qaeda attacks. So, how have things improved???

Not so much … indeed they are by any reasonable measure worse.

Al Qaeda spawned a new terrorist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which calls itself the Islamic State (IS) because that fits its members’ declared objective of providing a revived Global Caliphate. It is even more radical than al Qaeda—indeed, so radical and brutal that even al Qaeda rejected them. The Obama administration calls them the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a more benign sounding title for the group that President Obama ridiculed by calling them a “Jayvee” team when they were getting started.

I prefer “ISIS” so as not to endorse their objective and because they now dominate a major portion of Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, our alleged “help” with air attacks is showing little if any progress by the indigenous forces of Iraq and Syria in countering ISIS in their acquired territory.

Moreover, ISIS is increasingly recognized to be metastasizing globally, including within the United States—a presence in every state according to FBI Director James Comey—click here for a report last February. Then last May after an attack in Garland, Texas on the margins of a conference organized by Pamela Geller, a self-described American jihadist claimed ISIS was behind that attack, and that ISIS has scores of “trained soldiers” positioned in 15 states, awaiting orders to carry out more operations—click here. Named states were Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland and California.

Some “Jayvee team,” don’t you think?

Meanwhile we are releasing known terrorists from Guantanamo: e.g., the Obama administration

Traded five known jihadi leaders for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, an acknowledged deserter, and many believe a traitor, recently captured in a Pot raid in California—click here, including a pertinent Fox News interview video;
Released over a hundred others, many of whom are reported by the Director of National Intelligence to have returned or be returning to their terrorist ways—click here; and
Is now contemplating closing Guantanamo and moving the residuals to somewhere in the United States—including my home state of South Carolina—click here.

September 11^th Celebrations?

In my message two years ago, I next turned to the fact that we were approaching the anniversary of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

I noted that September 11, 1683 was when Muslim armies were turned back from Vienna. So, maybe September 11 has meaning for the jihadi terrorists.

A September 11, 2012 jihadi attack on our Benghazi consulate killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans—after the Ambassador’s requests for additional security went unanswered.

Coincidence?

In any case, do we even understand what happened that fateful evening? Congress continues to seek pertinent information without much help from the Obama administration.

There are growing questions about what then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton knew and when she knew it. Now that the FBI has demanded her personal server on which she mixed her personal and government messages, perhaps more will be learned from Ms. Clinton’s vintage 2012 emails.

Click here for a pertinent recent National Review analysis by former Federal Prosecutor Andy McCarthy of the state of this investigation in the context of the plight of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the only person thus far credibly charged related to the attack.

You may recall the jailing of the producer of the video that Secretary Clinton blamed for the attack in her conversations with the families of our fellow Americans who were killed in Benghazi as their bodies returned to America? We now know she knew that what she disgustingly told those families was false. He was released from jail after a year and little has since been heard from him—e.g., click here for a pertinent report.

As we approach another September 11th, should we be concerned about more “celebratory” threats from home and abroad? Regrettably, I believe the unequivocal answer is “Yes.”

There is the ISIS threat briefly mentioned above. And then there is Iran, with its well-known agenda of gaining and possibly using nuclear weapons on the Little Satan Israel and the Great Satan America.

The Iranian Menace Persists, the Deal Notwithstanding.

This Iranian threat is as alive-and-well today as it was during the Dog Days two years ago shortly after the alleged “moderate” Hasan Rouhani was sworn in as Iran’s President. Iran’s real power was and is still Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has not abandoned his quest for nuclear weapons.

Indeed, the recent highly vaunted Deal at-best provides Iran a fully legal pathway to nuclear weapons in a decade.

Personally, I don’t believe that it even provides that promised benefit.

Do anyone really expect the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism can be trusted to live up to the terms of this new Deal of questionable verifiability?

Iran has violated other agreements, including key terms of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which already was supposed to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons.

Why would we expect better for this deal negotiated by our leaders and other members of the United Nations Security Council (Great Britain, France, Russia and China) plus Germany. And with verification procedures that we did not approve? These “side deals” were negotiated between Iran and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Our lead negotiators reported that they did not know these terms—but were confident in the IAEA. Excuse me???

And this deal will remove the sanctions that will free a reported $150 billion for the Ayatollah, his Mullahs and anointed leaders to spread their poison to back up their publicized chants “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”

We Need Alternatives to Such “Arms Control.”

We need urgently to deal with the vulnerability of the U.S. homeland to attacks by Iran and/or their jihadi surrogates as their ability to attack us directly grows.

As we have laid out in numerous emails including my Dog Days Message two years ago, there are four areas of great concern if/when Iran gets nuclear weapons and can mate them to ballistic missiles:

Nuclear-armed ICBM attacks from over the North Pole—we need to strengthen our current defenses especially for the Eastern Seaboard; congress is aware of this problem, but it is unclear what will be done.
Nuclear-armed Satellite attacks from over the South Pole—we are vulnerable to this mode of attack; and it still appears to be being ignored.
Nuclear-armed short, medium, or intermediate range missiles launched from vessels off our coasts—we are vulnerable to this mode of attack, but could employ Aegis ships normally near or on our coasts to provide limited defenses if we trained their crews to do so—not aware of such a plan.
Nuclear-armed short, medium or intermediate range missiles launched from the south—from the vessels in the Gulf of Mexico or from Latin America—we are totally vulnerable and need to deploy effective defenses to counter such attacks.

All of these attack modes can be used to detonate a nuclear weapon above the United States and create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that could cause irreparable damage to the key large transformers of the electric power grid—and that under certain well known conditions could cause a complete failure of the electric power grid for an indefinite period.

The ultimate result anticipated by credible experts could be that the consequent chaos would lead to the death of several hundred million Americans within the following year.

A Recess Challenge.

The federal government is failing at its primary objective to provide for the common defense. This problem must be addressed.

Or perhaps you would like to return to the ancient “dog days of summer” and contemplate the majesty of the heavens without the pleasures provided by electricity?

That condition is what our representatives in Washington are preparing for you—either deliberately of by their ignorant consent.

Let your representatives know of your concerns during this recess period. In particular, let them know how you feel about the very consequential votes on the Deal with Iran they will face shortly after they return to Washington.

Don’t forget the natural condition that destroys the electric power grid will be produced one day by a major solar storm. The only question is “Will we be prepared when it occurs?”

We are not today. And September 11th is less than a month away. Stay tuned . . .

Bottom Lines.

While allegedly seeking a decade free of Iranian nuclear weapons, our leaders are ignoring the near-term existential threat from Iran (and North Korea) posed by nuclear weapons detonated in space over the United States. This threat already exists from North Korea—and may exist from Iran. The Deal with Iran will do little if anything to reduce that threat.

Even ISIS could create this existential threat if they buy a SCUD missile (easy to do) and somehow get a nuclear weapon to mount as a payload—a difficult but not implausible task for them and/or their allies.

Still the Washington “powers that be” continue to ignore this existential threat reality. The American people need to inform themselves of these realities and demand that their current and future representative provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

The key question is, “Do we have the will and time to do so?”

Near Term High Frontier Plans.

In addition to continuing to press for building the most cost-effective ballistic missile defenses possible, we will continue working with South Carolina folks to build a coalition to engage constructively with private citizens and their local and state representatives and other authorities to work with the SC National Guard in understanding and responding to the existential threats to the electric power grid.

What can you do?

Join us in praying for our nation, and for a rebirth of the freedom sought, achieved and passed to us by those who came before us.

Help us to spread our message to the grass roots and to encourage all “powers that be” to provide for the common defense as they are sworn to do.

Begin by passing this message to your friends and suggest they visit our webpage www.highfrontier.org, for more information. Also, please encourage your sphere of influence to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter.

Encourage them to review our past email messages, posted on www.highfrontier.org, to learn about many details related to the existential manmade and natural EMP threats and how we can protect America against them. I hope you will help us with our urgently needed efforts, which I will be discussing in future messages.

Click here to make a tax deductible gift. If you prefer to mail a check, Please send it to 500 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.

E-Mail Message 150818