Trump Is Lucky in His Choice of Enemies

By Michael Walsh

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/23/trump-is-lucky-in-his-choice-of-enemies/

January 23, 2019

2018 State of the Union Address

No matter when or where Donald Trump finally delivers his State of the Union speech—late last night, he gave up on the notion of an alternative venue and tweeted that the speech will take place in the House according to “history, tradition, and importance of the House Chamber,” after the shutdown is over—one thing is certain the President is lucky in his choice of enemies.

The Left, of course, thinks it has him on the run: his popularity can’t crack 50 percent, a Vichycon Republican majority foot-dragging during Trump’s first two years resulted in a grand total of bupkis, policy-wise (thanks, Paul Ryan!), and the progressive media has turned every news story—from BuzzFeed’s catastrophic confabulation about the Trump Moscow project to the innocent high schoolers in MAGA hats targeted for a classic propaganda stunt that’s now backfired badly—into an instant referendum on Trump. And yet he’s still standing.

That’s because Trump, as combative a personality who’s ever occupied the White House, thrives on conflict. While Washington is often called Hollywood for ugly people, few of the dullards, clods, clowns, rapscallions, and mountebanks who occupy seats in the Congress or in the hierarchies of their respective branches of the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party have his flair for drama or his tolerance for high-stakes risk. These two things infuriate the PBFP and its media claque, a.k.a. the Washington press corps. The very things they despise about him, including his insouciant, gleeful rudeness, are the things that bind him to his base and his base to him. As far as the base is concerned, the enemy of my enemies is my president.

“Enemy” is a word that has almost dropped from the American vocabulary, to our great loss. In the days when we could name our enemies—the French and Indians, the British, the Barbary pirates, the Germans, the Japanese, the Germans again, the Russians—we could muster the will, the firepower and the sheer joy of destroying them. Since the end of World War II, and with the notable exception of Reagan’s victory in the Cold War (over the obstructions of the Democrats, naturally), we’ve been leery of “demonizing” everyone from the North Koreans to the Iranians to the Arabs and the Afghans, and instead have tried the near-useless methods of negotiation and a “peace process” that only serves to prolong indecisive conflicts in order to give full employment to lawyers, bureaucrats, the State Department, and the Clinton Foundation.

Ah, but now once again decent Americans who believe in the country as founded—and not in the crackpot fascist world of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or their ilk—have enemies they can relish, as well as a champion who enjoys giving battle.

Domestically, foremost among them at the moment is Maerose Prizzi, princess of Baltimore, who learned her ethics and morality at the feet of her father, Tommy d’Alesandro, Jr., quaintly described as a “machine politician” in his obituaries. Pelosi’s battle with Trump erupted in full tit-for-tat glory this month when she disinvited him from giving the SOTU and then, when Trump said he was going ahead with it anyway, vowed not to let him on the floor of the House as long as the government continued in partial shutdown. Trump’s sudden and disappointing capitulation to the Speaker Wednesday night has temporarily ended the tussle, but the fact remains that whenever he gives the speech, Pelosi—sitting behind him, next to Vice President Pence—will still look petty and churlish, while Trump stands gloweringly in front of the Sour Patch Kids across the aisle, making them feel America’s pain for having put the country through this.

As for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), he manages to be both snarling and unctuous at the same time, a born villain who plays the part perfectly. Shorn of his mini-me protégé, Carlos Danger, Schumer has seemed far less cocky than in those glorious early days when the sky was the limit for Anthony Weiner, now just the punch line to an evening of dirty jokes having to do with his surname.

Meanwhile, in the socialist workers paradise to the south known as Venezuela, the administration has pulled the rug out from under “president” Nicolas Maduro and in the wake of an obviously fraudulent election, has recognized his opponent, Juan Guaidó, as the legitimate head of state. Caracas is burning and it’s only a matter of a very short time before Maduro meets the fate of other tinpots: as a refugee in some Third World hellhole or as a corpse, stood up against a wall and shot.

That this is all happening during the media-fueled ascendancy of the bird-brained Ocasio-Cortez is just one of those lucky accidents. Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have done as thorough a demolition job on what was once Latin America’s most prosperous country, rich in oil and other natural resources, but unfortunately subject to the same toxic caudillo culture blended with the kind of half-baked Marxist theory that has rendered most every former Spanish colony in the Americas a kleptocratic basket case. When Maduro goes, Trump needs to make what happened to Venezuela an object lesson for all Americans, so that we never fall for the siren song of “never really been tried” and instead say, “been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”

In Europe, Trump has forced the western Europeans—led by who else but the Germans again—to harden their immigration-at-all-costs stance, thus handing the balance of patriotic power over to the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) and other small nations in the region desirous of maintaining their own cultural identities. Their grit and determination in the face of the usual taunts of “racism” have now inspired other countries, such as Italy, to rediscover the meaning of their pasts and kindled a determination to salvage their future in the face of a semi-unarmed invasion from the Middle East into the heart of historic Christendom.

In Asia, Trump has stood up to China’s expansionism, at least temporarily tamed its North Korean house pet, Li’l Kim, and reassured our principal ally, Japan, that we’re not about to abandon them to the Red Dragon. Trump’s tariff war with the Chinese (whose own economy is something of a Potemkin village) is paying dividends in their willingness to buy $1 trillion worth of American goods and reduce its trade surplus with the United States to zero by 2024—coincidentally, near the end of what will be Trump’s second term.

A showdown over the State of the Union? Possible military intervention in Caracas to protect American lives and property while a socialist dictator is deposed? By the time this is over, Democrats will be begging for the return of Vladimir Putin and the Russian collusion bear.

And don’t even get me started on Michael Cohen.

Mexican Journalist Reveals the Truth About the Caravan

By Rachel Alexander
https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2018/11/19/mexican-journalist-reveals-the-truth-about-the-caravan-n2536154
November 19, 2018


Migrants climb the wall in Tijuana as caravan arrives. (KGO TV)

Mexican journalist Alex Backman has released a stunning expose on the caravan from Central America. He says the migrants are robbing and stealing in Mexico. They carjack cars containing just one occupant. There are even accounts of rapes. Many of the migrants will not let people film them. If they see someone filming them through a car window, they stop the car and demand the phone. Backman suspects the reason they don’t want to be filmed is because they have criminal histories. 

He said the Mexican president hasn’t done anything to stop it. The Mexican government is instead providing them with necessities including medical aid. This despite the fact that 48 percent of Mexicans disapprove of the caravan. Almost 2,700 Central Americans have applied for asylum in Mexico since the caravan started. However, the Mexican government says it does not have the resources to house all the caravan members for six months.  

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández told Vice President Mike Pence that “the caravan was organized by leftist organizations.” Left-wing organizations are providing assistance. They include the coalition CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, which stands for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. At least three of the groups are funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.  

Of course, exposing this is risky, because the left is fond of denying that Soros funds its ventures, labeling anyone who points out the connection as a conspiracy theorist. Kelly Johnston, a vice president at Campbell Soup, was fired after he tweeted about Soros funding the caravan. 

Backman says the rocks being thrown by caravan members are not just little rocks, but large ones that can kill people. Mexican law enforcement vehicles have iron mesh over all of their windows due to the rock throwing. Unfortunately, law enforcement is armed with guns that are little more than paint guns. 

The rock throwing escalated in recent days as the caravan reached Tijuana. The migrants are clashing with the locals, who are marching in the streets demanding that they leave public spaces and report to shelters. The locals yell “Go home. We don’t want you here!” Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum referred to the arrivals as “bums.” “Human rights should be reserved for righteous humans,” he said. At least three journalists were injured in fistfights and other violence. Some of the migrants refuse to stay in the shelters, comparing them to jails. According to The New York Times, the caravan “is already threatening a potential crisis for Tijuana and the surrounding state of Baja California.” 

Instead of trying to illegally cross the border into California, the caravan members are waiting at the border to apply for asylum. But they don’t qualify for asylum under international law, Backman observes. There’s no war going on in Honduras. At least 1,400 have applied for asylum in the U.S. It will be weeks before their turn to present their case comes. Meanwhile, they are remaining in Tijuana near the border, where locals and churches are providing them with food and clothes.

The U.S. Border Patrol is out in force along the Tijuana-California border. American workers rushed to complete the border wall there. President Trump is sending the military to the border merely as assistance to the National Guard — he’s not militarizing the border. But the Mexican media is warning that Trump is going to use force on the border. They are also falsely attempting to portray the caravan as primarily women and children.

President Trump tweeted about the caravan, “Isn’t it ironic that large caravans of people are marching to our border wanting U.S.A. asylum because they are fearful of being in their country – yet they are proudly waving their country’s flag,” he wrote. “Can this be possible? Yes, because it is all a BIG CON, and the American taxpayer is paying for it.” Trump refers to the caravan as “an invasion.”

It is no way near over. A man within the Mexican government told Backman there are more caravans coming from three other countries; Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela. Officials in Baja California say there are currently 9,000 migrants moving through Mexico in caravans.

The Great Cultural Revolution, American-Style

BY MICHAEL WALSH
https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-great-cultural-revolution-american-style/
October 4, 2018


(AP)

Who knew that even Gold Rushers were symbols of the racist hegemonic toxic male patriarchy that has plotted against women and minorities from time immemorial? First Father Serra, now Prospector Pete:

Towering over the courtyard at California State University, Long Beach, is the barrel-chested statue of Prospector Pete, the epitome of the rugged 49ers who came to the state looking for gold and land. To some, it is an innocuous icon harkening back to the university’s first president, Pete Peterson, who frequently spoke of having “struck the gold of education.” For others, the bearded and weathered statue is an upsetting relic that sanctions the brutish treatment of indigenous people in the state during the Gold Rush. 

As scholars and students on campuses across the country grapple with debates over free speech and political correctness, Prospector Pete has emerged as a divisive symbol in California. “Walking by a statue that’s put in a prominent place on campus, in an almost honorary way, that’s another type of trauma that’s being imposed on me. This is a part of our family history,” said Miztlayolxochitl Aguilera, 20, who is of Tongva Indian descent. “I heard the stories of murder and rape and genocide growing up. Somebody else, they might not notice the statue. They might not feel what I feel as a California Indian when I see that symbol on campus.”

With a name like that, perhaps Miztlayolxochitl Aguilera ought to check out the history of the native peoples of the Americas, such as the Aztecs:

For decades, historians were skeptical of Spanish accounts documenting Aztec human-sacrifice rituals. They were generally thought to be historiographical—intended to portray indigenous Mesoamericans as more savage than they actually were, thus necessitating “civilized” colonial governance. This was, after all, a common justification employed throughout the 500 or so years of European colonialism around the world.

But archaeological evidence suggests human sacrifice was indeed a regular aspect of Aztec religious practices. And the zeal with which it was practiced can be traced back to the political reforms of one man—imperial vizier Tlacaelel, who, in 1428, launched a campaign of religious codification, military development, and territorial expansion that would, for lack of a better term, really piss off the Aztec’s neighbors.

In a 2011 article written for History Today magazine, historian Tim Stanley wrote:

“[The Aztecs were] a culture obsessed with death: they believed that human sacrifice was the highest form of karmic healing. When the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan was consecrated in 1487 the Aztecs recorded that 84,000 people were slaughtered in four days. Self-sacrifice was common and individuals would pierce their ears, tongues and genitals to nourish the floors of temples with their blood. Unsurprisingly, there is evidence that Mexico was already suffering from a demographic crisis before the Spanish arrived.”

There’s no use denying it: Aztec sacrifice was a bloody, messy, brutal affair. There was nothing noble about it.

 

But hey let's blame Prospector Pete:

The school was built on the former site of the sacred village of Puvungna, where the Tongva indigenous people lived long before European contact. And beyond its early branding by Mr. Peterson, the university has no historical ties to the Gold Rush, having been founded a century after the so-called 49ers struck gold.

Now, after years of activism and a formal committee inquiry, Jane Conoley, the university’s president, announced last month that the statue will be formally moved. The cartoonish Prospector Pete costume mascot used at athletic games, which has been slowly phased out in recent years, will also be formally retired.

Ms. Aguilera, who recalled when her grandmother forbade her from acknowledging her indigenous ancestry, out of fear that it would lead to further marginalization, praised the move. “This is an acknowledgment of our trauma as indigenous people who suffered,” she said. “And it’s also an acknowledgment that we have to learn about these histories, about what’s going on around us.”

Ok, Ms. Conoley, let's learn some more!

Conquistadors sacrificed and eaten by Aztec-era people, archaeologists say

Spanish conquistadors, women, children and horses were imprisoned for months, sacrificed and eaten by contemporaries of the Aztecs, archaeologists report after unveiling new research from ruins near Mexico City. Although Spanish chroniclers including Hernán Cortés, who led the conquest of Mexico in 1520, recorded the capture of a convoy that year, archaeologists are for the first time uncovering details of what happened when a native people first encountered the Spanish, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said in an announcement of its findings.

Only a few dozen miles from the relative safety of the Spanish army, the convoy of conquistadors and allies encountered a local people known as the Acolhuas, allies of Tetzcoco, a major Aztec city. Somehow, the caravan – archaeologists estimate it included 15 Spaniards, 45 soldiers from the colonies, 50 women, 10 children and a large number of indigenous allies – was captured. Over the next six months, its members met a grisly end.

Traces of construction show that the Acolhuas had to remake Zultepec, a town just east of the capital, then called Tenochtitlan, to accommodate the prisoners, archaeologist Enrique Martinez said in a statement. The town was eventually renamed from Zultepec to Tecoaque, which in the native Nahuatl language means: “The place where they ate them.”

The archaeologists said the townspeople sacrificed people in honor of the serpentine fertility god Quetzalcoatl, the jaguar god Tezcatlipoca and the aquiline warrior god Huitzilopochtli. “Different deities needed different sacrifices,” Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Guardian.

To seize the future, the Left must first erase the past.So to which deities are today's progressives sacrificing American history?

The Democrats Go Full Venezuela

BY ROGER L SIMON
https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/the-democrats-go-full-venezuela/
June 27, 2018

Progressive challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez celebrartes with supporters at a victory party in the Bronx

How many times do we have to learn that socialism doesn't work, that, as Margaret Thatcher said, at some point you run out of "other people's money," that sooner or later all the teary idealism, the stirring strains of The Internationale, devolve into gulags and death squads? Wasn't the Soviet Union enough, Communist China, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba, etc....?

Now those death squads appear to have surfaced in Venezuela, the wealthiest country in Latin America before Hugo Chavez brought his brand of socialism to the then oil-rich nation.

Venezuelan security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary killings under the guise of fighting crime, the UN's human rights body says. 

In a report, it cites "shocking" accounts of young men being killed during operations, often in poor districts, over the past three years. 

The UN's human rights chief said no-one was being held to account, suggesting the rule of law was "virtually absent".

Caracas is now the world's most violent city. The people are starving and without medicine as inflation goes through the proverbial roof.  The rich flee to Miami and the poor to Colombia.  Venezuela is the shell of itself, a disaster area, currently close to the saddest story on Earth, given where it started.

Meanwhile, with exquisite timing, our Democratic Party has found the solution toits woes -- socialism! Er, excuse me, democratic socialism.  We're going to do it differently.

A woman named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants us to believe that.  She just defeated -- in a "stunning," the MSM assures us, primary upset of old-line Democratic Party politician Joe Crowley in a Queens congressional district.

Ms. Ocasio is not entirely to blame for her nonsense.  It's understandable she is naive and "idealistic" in such a clichéd juvenile manner.  (Naturally, she supports impeachment.) Only 28 years of age, she wasn't even born when the Berlin Wall fell in August 1989. What could she really know of communism or scientific socialism, as it's called, or, for that matter, socialism as it's actually practiced? (I guess she's choosing to ignore Venezuela or perhaps she secretly admires Maduro and the Chavistas.) And being a product of the current American educational system where Karl Marx is almost uniformly preferred to James Madison, it's unlikely anyone at school asked her to read, say, The Gulag Archipelago or Darkness at Noon.

With all this, the ironic good news for Ms. Ocasio is that socialism is the exact reverse of what it purports to be.  It's lousy for the masses it's supposed to help, but great for its leaders like her, who often become billionaires like Castro.

The ones who are really to blame in this are those anointing her at the moment who should know better.  That includes the noxious phonies on "Morning Joe" and, most of all, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, speaking of enriched leftists.  It is he who has made socialism acceptable again with the deceptive use -- in this case -- of the modifier "democratic," an adjective employed by nearly all the most brutal communist regimes at one time or another to describe themselves. Lenin called the Bolshevik system "democratic centralism."  They may start that way, but they won't stay democratic for long.

Without Bernie, there would be no Alexandria.  Sanders is a kind of child molester, dressing up for our extraordinarily uneducated younger generation this same tawdry ideology that is as totalitarian today in 2018 as it was in 1918 and doing it without the slightest acknowledgment of what transpired from those ideas.  He is in many ways a Father Coughlin of the left, a (somewhat) riveting speaker preying on the minds of a gullible public.

Ms. Ocasio -- superficially more charming than Sanders -- has swallowed his message whole.  It will be interesting to see if, working together, they swallow the Democratic Party.  From the looks on the faces of Schumer and Pelosi these days, they're worried.  They should be.

Roger L. Simon - co-founder and CEO Emeritus of PJ Media - is a novelist and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter.  Follow him on twitter @rogerlsimon.

'MISS ISRAEL' AND 'WONDER WOMAN' TO PRODUCE MOVIE GLORIFYING FIDEL CASTRO

“The Fuhrer’s swastika is today Israel’s banner” - Fidel Castro.

Humberto Fontova

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270276/miss-israel-and-wonder-woman-produce-movie-humberto-fontova

May 30, 2018

“Gal Gadot is on board to produce and possibly star in a movie based on Peter Kornbluh’s Politico article “‘My Dearest Fidel’: An ABC Journalist’s Secret Liaison With Fidel Castro.” “When I first read Peter’s article, I was entranced by his thrilling account of a complicated, fascinating woman [Castro and Che Guevara groupie Lisa Howard] in the midst of a high-stakes, real-life drama,” Gadot said. “I knew immediately that I had to be involved creatively with telling Lisa Howard’s story, and am thrilled to be producing this film with Sue.”

Fidel Castro’s habitual references to Israel as “Fascist!””Nazi!” and “Genocidal!” are the least of it. He also put his (stolen) money where his mouth is: sending tanks and troops to Syria during the Yom Kippur war attempting to “erase Israel.” His Stalinist regime also sponsored the famous UN resolution equating “Zionism with Racism” and drove out 90 per cent of Cuba’s Jewish population.

In fact, what Czar Nicholas failed to accomplish with 20 years of pogroms, “My Dearest Fidel” pulled off in three years of his Stalinist rule. He drove out a higher percentage of Jews from Cuba than Czar Nicholas drove from Russian and even Hafez Assad drove out of Syria. Yet “Miss Israel” seems as charmed by him as was Lisa Howard-- who also had the hots for Fidel’s sidekick Che Guevara.

In fact, in December 1964 Lisa Howard threw a celebrity-studded party in her Manhattan bungalow in honor of Che Guevara, who was addressing the UN that week. “Executions?!” Che Guevara exclaimed to the claps and cheers of that august international body. “Certainly we execute!—and we will continue executing as long as necessary!...the U.S.is carnivorous animal feeding on the helpless!” More claps and cheers greeted Che Guevara—followed by a simply fab party thrown by Lisa Howard, Gal Gadot’s new heroine.   

By the way, in between signing autographs for Manhattan’s glitterati at Lisa Howard’s place during that trip Che Guevara was also plotting with the Black Liberation Front to blow up the Statue of Liberty. Think of the drama this side-plot would add to Gadot’s movie!

I offer this sure-fire nail-biter on the part of Howard’s heartthrob to Gal Gadot’s screenwriters on the house. Don’t mention it, Ms Gadot! Happy to help with your project!  Thorough documentation for this terror-plot provided here.   

Politico writer Peter Kornbluh, by the way (who “entranced” Gal Gadot with his Politico article), is among the Castro-regime’s most active (but unregistered) U.S. agent/lobbyists. Kornbluh’s links to the terror-sponsoring Castro regime are so intimate that the Stalinist regime’s KGB-tutored secret police use Kornbluh as a celebrity prop in the ransom notes for their hostages. 

Think I jest?

Well, remember when Castro grabbed Alan Gross as a U.S. hostage to blackmail Obama into releasing the Castro terrorist/spies convicted of (among other crimes) conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens?…

Oh, I know, I know, the Fake News Media and Castro’s propaganda ministry (but I repeat myself) refer to this as “Obama’s historic opening to Cuba!” In fact it was a craven, sniveling (and typically Democrat) caving to blackmail by aterror-sponsoring, hostage-taking regime.

And why did Castro choose a Jewish American hostage (Alan Gross)?  Perhaps this might provide a clue:

“The control that Israel has over the United States is enormous.” Fidel Castro,

And here’s what the Simon Weisenthal Center’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper heard from a Castro official while visiting hostage Alan Gross in his Havana prison cell: "Everyone knows that the Jews have a lot of clout in Washington.”

At any rate, here’s a picture (i.e.ransom-note) taken by KGB-mentored Cuban apparatchiks of Alan Gross in captivity featuring Peter Kornbluh. You’ve got to admit that’s quite an honor!

Recently a ceremony was held at the Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., in honor, homage and tribute to the mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring dictator Fidel Castro. This strikes me as perfectly proper for Cuban diplomats. 

But what should you make of U.S. “scholars” billed as “impartial” gleefully offering “honor, homage and tribute” to the mass-murdering, terror-sponsor who craved to nuke their homeland? Wouldn’t this seem to make a sorry joke of their “impartial scholarship and expertise?” When featuring an article by such a person shouldn’t Politico provide its readers with a term a tad more revelatory of his agenda than mere “scholar?”

Well, here’s a picture of that celebration of “honor, homage and tribute” to Fidel Castro featuring, Gal Gadot’s “entrancer” Peter Kornbluh among other “U.S. Scholars.”

Oh, and if the term “heartthrob” for Fidel and Che in relation to Lisa Howard strikes some of my amigos as unnecessarily hyperbolic, I invite them (especially the ladies who are much better than men in these matters) to  study Lisa Howard’s face in these pictures of her with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Scroll down a bit and you’ll find that Ann Margaret never gazed upon Conrad Birdie more adoringly than (early feminist) Lisa Howard gazed upon Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, the jailers and torturers of the longest-suffering women political prisoners in the modern history of the Western Hemisphere.

Iran in the US Backyard

by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12268/iran-latin-america

May 8, 2018

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (left) meets with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on August 27, 2016 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Image source: Euronews video screenshot)

Iran and Hezbollah have been operating in Latin America since the 1980s, effectively undisturbed. During this time, Iran and its proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah, have been Islamizing Latin America, seemingly to create a forward base of operations for the Islamic Republic in the backyard of the United States.

No Latin American country has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization: Hezbollah can operate with relative impunity there. In April 2017, a Hezbollah operative, Mohamad Hamdar, arrested in Peru, was acquitted of all terrorism-related charges. The Peruvian court found that Hamdar's role within Hezbollah was in itself insufficient to consider him a terrorist[1]. This legal vacuum regarding Hezbollah might also be why Islamic terrorism, drug-trafficking and organized crime in the region is frequently underestimated.

According to testimony at a United States House of Representatives panel hearing on Iran's global terrorism network on April 17, 2018, Iran and Hezbollah have converted and radicalized thousands of Latin Americans to Shia Islam. In some Latin American countries, such as Venezuela, Iran's and Hezbollah's efforts have even been promoted by local political elites. Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami -- of Lebanese and Syrian origins and with ties to both cocaine trafficking and Hezbollah -- oversaw the illicit sale and distribution of at least 10,000 Venezuelan passports and other documents to persons from Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. These reportedly included Hezbollah terrorists and members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. More than a decade ago, a US congressional report warned that Venezuela was providing support to radical Islamic groups, including the supply of identity documents. El Aissami could, in the foreseeable future, become president of Venezuela.

Not only has Latin America's passive acceptance of Iranian infiltration also allowed the Islamic Republic to create large networks of mosques and cultural centers across the region; in addition, Iran and Hezbollah operate in multiple areas and across multiple sectors, both licit and illicit, apparently to strengthen and expand their influence in Latin America and to enrich Hezbollah as a way to finance its growing terrorist and paramilitary activities.

These areas of operation encompass diplomacy, commercial enterprise, religious dominance, and perhaps most significantly, substantial criminal activity. Iran has employed diplomacy to evade sanctions imposed on it before the Iran "nuclear deal." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then president of Iran, visited Latin America six times during 2005-2012, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif went on a tour of six Latin American nations in 2016. These diplomatic efforts resulted in, among other things, access to the use of Venezuelan territory to advance Iran's solid rocket-fuel production.

Culturally, Iran has helped Hezbollah establish itself as the dominant force among Shia Muslim communities throughout the region, and has taken control of their mosques, schools and cultural institutions. In 2012, there were 32 Iranian cultural centers across Latin America the purpose of which is to facilitate the spread of the Iranian Islamic revolution; today, less than a decade later, the number of centers has grown to more than 100. Among other ways of presumably spreading its influence, Iran also runs a Spanish-language 24-hour news broadcast, HispanTV -- operated by IRIB, Iran's state-owned public broadcasting corporation -- which broadcasts across Latin America.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) and Vice-President Tarek El Aissami. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

Hezbollah has become a substantial international crime syndicate, which utilizes its position in Latin America to deal in drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, human trafficking, trade in counterfeit goods and money laundering, the proceeds of which it uses to finance its activities.

Drugs, such as cocaine, are funneled into the United States to be sold there. Some investigators believe that Hezbollah amasses $ 1 billion a year from its criminal activities, which involve close cooperation with Latin American drug cartels and criminal syndicates. Together, these create havoc in Latin America and contribute to driving immigration into the United States. One expert recently described Hezbollah as "the gold standard" of the crime-terror convergence.

In 2008, the US began a secret law enforcement project, Operation Cassandra, to stop Hezbollah's activities in Latin America. According to an exposé in Politico, however, the Obama administration obstructed that operation:

"In practice, the administration's willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah in the Middle East, combined with its desire for a negotiated settlement to Iran's nuclear program, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others."

After Israel's revelations on April 30, 2018, that the Iran deal was based on Iranian lies, it is probably safe to conclude that the Obama administration empowered Iran and its proxy in Latin America to ensure the Iran deal, which has apparently turned out to be nothing but a smokescreen for Iran's nuclear plans.

Having a seasoned and generously state-funded terrorist organization such as Hezbollah in the US's backyard unsurprisingly poses a genuine threat to the US homeland. According to Emmanuel Ottolenghi, speaking at the April hearing on Iran's global terrorism networks:

"A survey of cases prosecuted against Hezbollah operatives in the past two decades shows that the terror group remains a threat to the security of the U.S. homeland and the integrity of its financial system. Iran and Hezbollah sought to carry out high casualty attacks against U.S. targets multiple times. Additionally, they built networks they used to procure weapons, sell drugs, and conduct illicit financial activities inside the United States.
...
"operatives blend in; they nestle within existing expatriate communities; they find spouses; and set up seemingly legitimate businesses, acquiring permanent residency and citizenship in the process – all attributes that are part of their cover story".

One recent example of Hezbollah operatives in action in the United States was the arrest of Samer El Debek and Ali Mohammad in New York. Both held US citizenship and had been trained by Hezbollah -- including in the use of weapons such as rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns -- and acted on its behalf in the US. The two were charged with serious terrorism charges, such as conducting surveillance of potential targets in America[2].

The question is, whether the US government will adopt a comprehensive strategy to counter the ongoing efforts of Iran and Hezbollah to solidify their base of operations in Latin America against the United States and US interests. Such a strategy, as pointed out by several experts at the April 17 hearing, does not currently appear to be in place.

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

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[1] The prosecution appealed and Hamdar will be tried again this year on the same terrorism charges in the Peruvian Supreme Court. If convicted he will be the first Hezbollah operative to be sentenced in Latin America, amounting to a de facto designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group in Peru.

[2] These included military and law enforcement facilities in New York City, as well as conducting missions in Panama to locate the U.S. and Israeli Embassies and to assess the vulnerabilities of the Panama Canal and ships in the Canal.

How the Epic Story of "El Padrino" and the Cuban Mafia Started with...the Lottery

BOB RUGGIERO

http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/a-cuban-godfathers-cinematic-tale-of-crime-cocaine-andthe-lottery-10309010

March 20, 2018

The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
By T.J. English
592 pp.
$28.99
William Morrow

There is perhaps no better modern chronicler of organized crime and criminals than T.J. English. Combining the research of a historian with the narrative flair of a novelist, he’s chronicled bad men of Italian, Irish, Asian descent, along with the taking a bite out of racially-tinged crimes in the Big Apple.

English has covered some of the Cuba-Italian Mafia story before in his essential Havana Nocturne. But for this hefty tome, his focus is on Cuban-American crime and criminals in America.

And the whole thing swirls around the life and activities of one man: José Miguel Battle, or “El Padrino.” That roughly translates into The Godfather. Battle was obsessed with the mafia film saga, would quote lines endlessly, and many say even changed his voice at times to sound more like Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone.

An avowed anti-Castro true believer, earlier in life Battle participated as part of Brigade 2506, the 1,100 or so Cuban expatriates who fought in the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion. By all accounts, his actions proved heroic on the ill-fated expedition, and he saved many lives of his fellow expatriates. How the U.S. government and President John F. Kennedy screwed over those soldiers has filled other books, but it did allow Battle and his surviving members a ticket to the United States – initially through military service, and then citizenship.

Battle’s civilian criminal empire centered around his dominance of bolita– the ages-old, off-the-books lottery system favored by Hispanics and Cubans where kids, business people, and grandmothers of mostly lower class economic situations took a chance at betting on daily numbers with various amounts at stake and to win. At one point, Battle’s operations were grossing $2 million a week in New York City alone. All in cash, and worth millions more in 2018 dollars.

English’s narrative jumps from many locales including New York City, Miami, Cuba itself, Peru, and the unlikely venue of Union City, New Jersey were Battle started his empire. An empire that quickly expanded from gambling to drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, and even running a shady South American casino.

Like a revolving door, English introduces a cast of characters who may appear on a handful of pages, or pop in and out of the entire story. And sometimes, it’s hard to keep track of so many characters in such an epic narrative. Through, English also weaves an equally interesting story of the experience of thousands of Cuban Americans in exile in America, with thehated Fidel Castro looming large for decades.

There’s shadowy anti-Castro terrorist groups with names like “Omega 7” and “Alpha 66,” and a Scarface-like side story about the Mariel boat lifts of refugees coming to Florida and looking for work – any work.

Battle’s enterprise – which he called “The Corporation” – included a litany of shootings, beatings, assassinations, arson, shifting alliances trade-offs with dirty cops, cockfighting, heists, and sex. And as the body count piles high, victims are not always male and not always involved with Battle’s world.

There’s even dark comedy in the form of one Jorge “Palulu” Enriquez. He murdered one of Battle’s brothers, and then survived a dozen retribution assassination attempts over a decade (while losing a lot of blood from shootings and stabbings…and a leg along the way).

With Enriquez seemingly protected by a Divine force, the obsessed Battle even consulted black magic practitioners to make his target more vulnerable. He was eventually done in on the 12th try by assassins while lying in a hospital bed recovering from wounds suffered during the 11th attempt.

If all this sounds like it would make for a great movie…it will! Even before the book’s publication, the rights were sold to Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, and Benicio Del Toro has been cast to play Battle. And he’ll certainly have a chance to show his acting range, as Battle in this book can be at times evil, noble, vain, emotional, lustful, heroic, proud, and even a committed pet lover (he had a thing for taking in stray dogs by the dozens). Yet, he was also a man who could order the brutal murder of a mistress, possibly for embarrassing him in front of his crew with her hysterics.

Tracking Battle like a hound for much of many years of his empire was Miami cop David Shanks, who once found a live rattlesnake planted in his mailbox, likely by Battle as a sign to lay off. Fortunately, he realized the hissing coming from within was not the sound of cicadas and emptied two guns in it before opening.

In the end, the saga of “El Padrino” ends with somewhat of whimper. A very ill and defeated man by the time he pleaded guilty to racketeering (of all things) in 2006, he died the next year at the age of 78 from a host of ailments, though liver failure was the cause of record. But his deeds live on here, and English takes readers on the methodical criminal journey, every dirty step of the way.

Bob Ruggiero has been writing about music, books, and entertainment for the Houston Press since 1997, with an emphasis on classic rock. He used to have an incredible and luxurious mullet in college as well. He is the author of the band biography Slippin’ Out of Darkness: The Story of WAR.