Self-Hatred or Self-Help? One of the most insightful scenes from Larry David’s comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, begins with David and his on-air wife, Cheryl, standing at the entrance to a movie theater. As they chatter aimlessly, David starts whistling a tune composed by Richard Wagner. Cheryl’s delight at the bewitching melody is offset by […]
My E-Pal and dear friend Dr. Yale Kramer is a psychotherapist, author and historian. This is an excellent essay…. no url…rsk
Who owns history?
Some would say those who win the struggle, others would say whoever claims it. The trouble with history is human nature. Even the best history cannot escape its powerful gravitational pull–the human nature of its principal actors, its writers, and its readers. If one doubts this, there is no better example than the history of the last several months of the Great War–from March 1918, to November.
We are approaching the one hundredth anniversary of the signing of the armistice between the Allied Powers and Germany at five a.m. on the morning of November 11, 1918 in the iconic railway car as it stood in the chilly darkness of the forest of Compiègne. It may be illuminating to review from today’s perspective the rapidly fading but dramatic and highly important events leading to that morning.
The United States Congress declared war on the Central Powers on April 6, 1917, after the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February and went on to sink seven American ships. At the time our army was pathetically undermanned, consisting of around a hundred thousand men and ranked 16th or 17th in the world. But by the summer of 1918 four million American soldiers were in training and on their way to the Western Front. However, they were not yet ready to meet the onslaught of what the German High Command believed would be their tie-breaking offensive, finally forcing the Allies to beg for a negotiated peace.
On the whole, the military situation of the Central Powers at the beginning of 1918 was not at all bad. With the help of Lenin and the Bolsheviks they had forced the Imperial Russian Army out of the war, had easily conquered and occupied thousands of square miles of Russian territory, and forced the Bolsheviks to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, ending the war on the Eastern front for the Germans and thus releasing thousands of men to fight the Allies on the still stalemated Western Front. From their point of view the Germans had at least won half of the war.
By the Spring of 1918 the military dictators of the Central Powers, Generals Paul von Hindenberg and Erich Ludendorff, were planning their final throw of the strategic dice–a monumental offensive using all of their manpower, even to their last reserves–to bring the Allies to the bargaining table. With their new infusion of first-rate troops from the Eastern Front they believed that they would have numerical superiority in the struggle.
Ludendorff conceived of the crucial new offensive based on his successful victory over the various Russian armies during the previous year–powerful and violent forward thrusts akin to the German Blitzkrieg of the early months of World War II. Beginning on March 21, 1918, the field commanders were ordered to push forward and keep moving no matter what; if they encountered resistance, to make an end-run around it and push forward.
The Germans understood the key to winning the battle was tempo. It meant beating the Allies quickly before the Americans could arrive in force. And for the first days of the powerful offensive things went well for the Germans. They stormed forward relentlessly and drove the British back with such force that by April 5 the Germans had advanced twenty miles along a fifty-mile front and stood within a few miles of Amiens, defended only by a group of makeshift units.
But in war things can change in the blink of an eye and several things took place within the German high command as well as on the field. First of all, as John Keegan, the British historian notes, “The accidents of military geography also began to work to the Germans’ disadvantage. The nearer they approached Amiens, the more deeply did they become entangled in the obstacles of the old Somme battlefield, a wilderness of abandoned trenches, broken roads, and shell-crater fields left behind by the movement of the front a year earlier.”
In addition, the men of the German army began to discover the niceties of the British rear areas, “…stuffed with the luxuries enjoyed by the army of a nation which had escaped the years of naval blockade that in Germany had made the simplest necessities of life rare and expensive commodities, time and again tempted the advancing German troops to stop, plunder and satiate themselves.”
Basking in the glory of their early success, the German generals split their forces into three different spearheads without realizing that none of the prongs would be strong enough to achieve a breakthrough. And shortly afterword the Allies counter-attacked and stopped the crucial offensive dead in its tracks, leaving the most elite units of the German army in tatters–a quarter of a million men killed or wounded. The German high command had to acknowledge that their greatest hope, the war-winning Kaiser Battle, was lost. More than ninety divisions were exhausted and demoralized. “The enemy resistance was beyond our powers,” Ludendorff finally recorded in his diary.
http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&P%20Auto%201&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5194
The helpless little lady, who depends on a man to defend her honor, her ego and her perks, was thought to have been driven out of town by the feminists. But she’s back.
“The president’s native eloquence has gotten him out of jams with ladies all his life, and he has not yet learned that the buck (and the bunk) stops with him. He has been encouraged to think he is immune from reality by his Chicago pals, his rich Hollywood friends and donors, party hacks, and by the scribbler class, which wants only to caress and coddle — and shut up anyone with a question. But reality is not a lady, unimpressed by election returns, and ultimately demands a full accounting of swindle and deceit.”
President Obama, who demonstrated in the election just past that he’s still the tall, dark and handsome prince of feminine fantasy, stepped up manfully to defend the honor of Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations who eagerly joined the spinning of the enormous fib that the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was about a home-made video.
He didn’t say much about the specifics of the lie she told, but warned skeptics of the administration’s cockamamie excuse for the Libyan calamity to stay away from her. If certain U.S. senators want to go after somebody, he told a press conference (his first in eight months), “they should go after me, and I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/11/not_the_little_mosque_on_the_prairie.html When Islamic advocate Ahmed Bedier traveled to Santa Clara County a few months ago to lend support for a proposed Islamic center, he declared that opposition to the mosque was “Islamophobic” in nature. He disingenuously compared objections against a mosque south of San Jose with the Washington, D.C. exposé of the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3455/arab-gulf Turkey plans to revive its Ottoman Empire, Iran its Persian hegemony over the Gulf region, and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists announce that they want to fulfill their dream of the revived Caliphate – all in the name of democracy. Nothing can teach us more about the perils of a promised rapid transition […]
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3456/hamburg-muslim-treaty The most controversial part involves a commitment by the city government to promote the teaching of Islam in the Hamburg pubic school system. The agreement grants the leaders of Hamburg’s Muslim communities a determinative say in what will be taught by allowing them to develop the teaching curriculum for Islamic studies. Muslim officials will […]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/petraeus-scandal-taliban_n_2136121.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk2%26pLid%3D235054 “From a Pashtun point of view, Petraeus should be shot by relatives from his mistress’s family,” the Taliban official explained. “From a sharia point of view, he should be stoned to death.” The sex scandal that has brought down CIA chief David Petraeus may be causing heartache in the Washington security establishment but the […]
Dear Mr. Romney:
After having been subjected to a tsunami of vicious attacks from the Democrats, you are now facing a circular shooting squad from disgruntled Republicans who blame you for the loss. You, sir, are a gentleman. You were bloodied in the Republican primary debates by attacks from the other contenders, some of whom started the “Bain attacks” subsequently taken up by your opponent. You sustained them and emerged as the last man standing after all the others conceded and bowed out.
Was your campaign perfect? No. Were you my absolute first choice? No. But I did not need too much to convince me when I heard the boos against Israel at the Democratic Convention. Instead of bowing to that bias, you stood by Israel and its embattled Prime Minister. You rightly averred that the Palestinian Arabs are not a productive people, engulfed by their resentment and hatreds.
You were up against an unprincipled and biased media; you fought while our President obscured the real news that our Benghazi consulate and CIA office were left undefended while he and his representatives blamed a video for the Arab uprisings against us; that an American drone had been attacked by Iran; that our head of the CIA was involved in a sordid affair with its inherent security problems; that the unemployed and people on food stamps had reached an all time high.
Thank you for your service to America, for your inspiring personal history, for the wonderful example your great success is to democracy and free enterprise, for your admirable family, for your adherence to faith when coercive secularism is rampant, and for standing tall and dignified against the scurrilous attacks against you.
You did not win the election, but you won the respect and admiration of Americans. May god bless you with health, success and a fruitful life.
RSK
Republican primary debates by attacks from the other contenders, some of whom started the “Bain attacks” subsequently taken up by your opponent. You sustained them and emerged as the last man standing after all the others conceded and bowed out.
Was your campaign perfect? No. Were you my absolute first choice? No. But I did not need too much to convince me when I heard the boos against Israel at the Democratic Convention. Instead of bowing to that bias, you stood by Israel and its embattled Prime Minister. You rightly averred that the Palestinian Arabs are not a productive people, engulfed by their resentment and hatreds.
You were up against an unprincipled and biased media; you fought while our President obscured the real news that our Benghazi consulate and CIA office were left undefended while he and his representatives blamed a video for the Arab uprisings against us; that an American drone had been attacked by Iran; that our head of the CIA was involved in a sordid affair with its inherent security problems; that the unemployed and people on food stands had reached an all time high.
Thank you for your service to America, for your inspiring personal history, for the wonderful example your great success is to democracy and free enterprise, for your admirable family, for your adherence to faith when coercive secularism is rampant, and for standing tall and dignified against the scurrilous attacks against you.
You did not win the election, but you won the respect and admiration of Americans. May god bless you with health, success and a fruitful life.
Ruth King
http://times247.com/
White House Benghazi timeline suggests cover-up
Rowan Scarborough
The Obama administration’s public versions of events in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya have been riddled with discrepancies, starting soon after the American dead and survivors left behind a charred diplomatic compound and bullet-scarred CIA building in Benghazi.
Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2CIVJgYOu
Egypt asks U.S. to intercede for Hamas
Associated Press
Thursday, November 15, 2012
News
Egypt has asked the United States to push Israel to stop its offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, warning that the violence could “escalate out of control.” Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2CIVXyjiV
Gaza rockets kill 3 as Israeli-Hamas conflict heats
Voice of America
Thursday, November 15, 2012
News
Israeli media say rockets fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip have killed three people, a day after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed the top military commander of Hamas. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2CIVkAcN6
Broadwell computer full of classified material
Reuters
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
News
A computer used by Paula Broadwell contained substantial classified information that should have been stored under more secure conditions. The contents and amount of the classified material are significant enough to warrant a continuing investigation. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2CIVtJYlM
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/when-obamas-mask-comes-off-on-the-glazov-gang/
On this week’s Glazov Gang, Dwight Schultz, Nonie Darwish and Tommi Trudeau gathered to discuss When Obama’s Mask Comes Off. The discussion occurred in Part I and focused on why Americans embraced the pain of more “hope and change” and what Obama’s second term means for America. Part II focused on Obama carrying out Islamic blasphemy laws and what the true motives are behind his Islamist odyssey. Below are both parts of the two part series:
