RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65535In 2008, Senator Obama wrote an op-ed for the New York Times laying out his plan for Iraq. “I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda,” he wrote to explain his opposition to the Iraq War.

Obama’s plan for Iraq consisted of the obligatory Bush-bashing combined with the Democratic Party’s favorite counterintuitive talking point of the time claiming that, “only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation.”

It was a talking point that Obama would repeat over and over again in the Senate and on the campaign trail. And the more he repeated it, the less sense it made.

Why would the Sunnis and Shiites be more likely to reach an accommodation if American troops were no longer present in Iraq, with Iran leaving over the shoulders of the Shiite majority and Al Qaeda making a comeback as the defenders of the Sunni minority?

Obama never did get around to answering that question. During the Democratic primaries, he insisted that the best way “to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year – now.”

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65532It’s Colder? Hotter? Blame Climate Change

When Fargo is 25 below zero, Baton Rouge 24 above, and nearly the entire nation is in the grip of a record-breaking frigid spell, one’s thoughts naturally turn to global warming — or, rather, make that climate change.

The former term — “global warming” — as it turned out, was too specific; to believe that global warming was a real threat required…well, that global warming actually occur. That did not happen, as the data have proven, and for once Al Gore was right: truth can be so inconvenient, because the fact that the globe failed to heat up as advertised not only swelled the ranks of doubters, but also tarnished the global warming brand. A new label was needed.

Some people claim that the phrase “climate change” better expresses the complexity of what is happening weather-wise.

But others among us believe that the purpose of replacing the old, discredited label was to keep the climate crisis pot boiling and bubbling, in order to maintain the flow of funds pouring into the coffers of environmental groups, politicians, academics, and businesses dependent on a zeitgeist of climate crisis.

And some of us believe that even more nefarious actors are at work, perpetuating the empowerment of that perfect storm of interests on the left that seek to overturn the traditional order and impose their visions of utopian conformity, via regulatory salvation from certain death by CO2. Any propagandist worth his salt will tell you: if the old narrative fails, create a new one.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65529
It seems in modern times that the post-colonial history of Muslim societies has been over-determined by violence in the name of religion.

Bangladeshis, despite significant internal opposition from militant Muslims supported from the outside, have shown a preference for their secular culture, based on language and not religion.

Islamic solidarity, then as now, meant support for the architects of genocide, not for the victims.

Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, is in the news. Forty-two years after the country won its freedom, the nation witnessed the first of several convicted war criminals executed. The death by hanging of Abdul Quader Molla, a senior member of the Jamaat-i-Islami [JI], on December 12, 2013 was a cathartic moment for the long-suffering people of Bangladesh, and an event almost unique in the annals of Muslim history.

Since 9/11, there seems genuine concern in the West and among non-Muslims about the nature of Islam and of Muslim history. Violence is neither unique to Islam nor among Muslims, but it seems in modern times that the post-colonial history of Muslim societies has been over-determined – again not uniquely – by violence in the name of religion.

There also seems genuine concern in the West about the role of religion in politics. World history, as Hegel noted, is a world court; and the evidence in this court discloses that the fusion of religion and politics has held for the longest time. As politics is about power, religion has undeniably been used as the most potent instrument of power.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65526Last month was a bloody one in Russia. On December 29th and 30th, two suicide bombings in the southern city of Volgograd killed a combined total of 34 people and injured many more. In the process, they shone a rare spotlight on the true state of Russia’s counterterrorism policy.

The picture isn’t pretty. Some two decades after it was ignited by the USSR’s breakup, the Islamist insurgency in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus regions has proven to be remarkably resilient. In its most recent Country Reports on Terrorism, the State Department noted that 182 terrorist incidents, resulting in 659 casualties, took place in Russia just in the year 2012 (the last for which complete statistics are available). The overwhelming majority of these attacks took place in the North Caucasus.

Moreover, this state of affairs persists despite the overwhelming military force marshaled over the past two decades by the Russian government, first in Chechnya and subsequently in adjoining regions (in particular Dagestan and Ingushetia). In fact, although the number of terrorist incidents in Russia has declined significantly from an all-time high of nearly 800 in 2009, the past several years nonetheless have seen a number of major attacks — including the 2010 bombing of the Moscow subway, the 2011 attack on Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, and three separate suicide bombings in Volgograd last year. In other words, despite Russian president Vladimir Putin’s declaration several years ago that the country had turned a corner in its fight against what Russians generally term “Wahhabism,” Islamic extremism in Russia is still very much alive and kicking.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65523Now comes news that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has doubled down on his middle finger to the American citizenry by turning away – without comment, which the SCOTUS gets to do – an emergency stay request, filed by the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons and the Alliance for Natural Health USA, to block the implementation of Obamacare.

In an almost ignored story, FOX News reports:

“Chief Justice John Roberts turned away without comment Monday an emergency stay request from the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. and the Alliance for Natural Health USA.

“They asked the chief justice Friday to temporarily block the law, saying Congress had passed it incorrectly by starting it in the Senate instead of the House. Revenue-raising bills are supposed to originate in the lower chamber. They also wanted blocked doctor registration requirements they say will make it harder for independent non-Medicare physicians to treat Medicare-eligible patients.

“Still pending is a decision on a temporary block on the law’s contraceptive coverage requirements, which was challenged by a group of nuns.”

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65520
So now it turns out that for all the blood, sweat and tears, we have lost Iraq. The terrorists are back. They have recaptured virtually every part of the country that had been won by our valorous men and women. The cost? More than 4,000 Americans dead and more than 30,000 wounded. Plus billions of dollars — and all for what?

When it comes to the Arab world we simply do not know what we are doing and because of that everything we do is wrong.

On TV yesterday one expert said we never should have gone into Iraq. He was right. The other expert said we never should have left Iraq. He was also right.

Because when it comes to the Arab world we are strangers in strange lands and we will always be strangers. There is nothing we can fix unless they fix it themselves.

Will that day ever come? Be advised not to take such a bet, not in this lifetime.

So Secretary of State John Kerry’s panic-stricken efforts to make peace between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish State amounts to this: Nonsense.

Nothing can come of this except more wasteful concessions from Israel.

Concessions of the past – Sinai, Hebron, Gaza – have yielded no concessions in return, only more demands and more intransigence.

Kerry’s most recent offering, that Israel accept 80,000 Palestinians into the Jewish homeland, leads to this question – how will these people fragment themselves? Into what rival groups? How many will be Hamas and how many will be Islamic Jihad and when will the fighting begin, this crowd against that crowd?

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=65516
Canada’s new ambassador to Tel Aviv is a lawyer and outspoken commentator on Middle East issues who has criticized Palestinian leaders for their “intransigence” and “ideological commitment” to Israel’s destruction.

Vivian Bercovici, who was appointed to the diplomatic post Wednesday by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, has been voicing her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the opinion pages of the Toronto Star for the past year.
Ambassador Vivian Bercovici, in her own words
“For Israel, a nuclear Iran is a clear existential threat. It’s no joke.”
“The Iranian regime is a brutal theocracy … I wouldn’t buy snake oil from these guys, much less trust them, on a smile, when they assure that they enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.”
“To simply impose the apartheid paradigm on Israel is a Big Fat Lie.”
“Consensus in the Middle East is rare, but it seems that President Barack Obama has forged one inadvertently. Whether supporting or opposing American military intervention in Syria, there is little, if any, enthusiasm in any quarter for his dithering decision-making.”
“A weak president means a weak America, a very worrisome proposition for Israel.”
“In the UN, no country on the planet can be a more heinous violator of human rights than Israel.”
“That Western leaders, among them President Barack Obama and U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, regard Israel as the peace spoiler, defies logic.”

rodman-kim
Dennis Rodman’s Kim Jong-Un Romance — on The Glazov Gang »

This week’s special edition of The Glazov Gang was hosted by Superstar Ann-Marie Murrell and joined by Titans Morgan Brittany, Dwight Schultz and Michael Chandler.

The Gang gathered to discuss Dennis Rodman’s Kim Jong-Un Romance. The dialogue occurred in Part II (starting at the 11:20 mark) and shed light on the bizarre and twisted world of a new political romance. The discussion was preceded by a focus on the ongoing ObamaCare Meltdown.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/moral-narcissism-and-the-mlas-obsession-with-israel/print/ Characterized by the same paroxysms of self-righteousness as were evident in the much-maligned and tendentious academic boycott by the American Studies Association (ASA) last month, members of the Modern Language Association (MLA) head to Chicago during the first week of January for the organization’s 129th convention. The annual meeting, which is generally attended by […]

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/the-fruit-of-obamas-abandonment-of-iraq/print/

MUCH AS I LIKE BRUCE THORNTON AND DISLIKE OBAMA THE FAILURE IN IRAQ SHOULD ALSO BE PINNED ON PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS “MISSION UNACCOMPLISHED”- FIGHTING A LIMITED WAR WITH RULES OF ENGAGEMENT THAT WERE SUPER-SENSITIVE TO LOCAL BARBARIAN MORES WHICH COST AMERICAN LIVES WAS A FAILED STRATEGY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING….RSK

Anbar province, the region of Iraq that 1,300 American soldiers died pacifying, is at risk of being taken over by al Qaeda jihadists and their affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Fighting between Iraqi government forces and the jihadists is currently going on in Ramadi and Fallujah, the latter city the site in 2004 of the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. If the Iraqi government fails to retake the city and push back against the jihadist “al Qaedastan” fiefdom now forming in eastern Iraq and western Syria, the American hard-fought victory in Fallujah will be the emblem of how once again an incompetent administration snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, with repercussions for the whole region.

The debacle in Iraq, of course, has many causes. The dysfunctions of tribal cultures and Islam’s theology of violence––papered over by a national identity imposed from without and indifferent to the religious, regional, ethnic, and tribal fault lines of the region––ensured that absent a ruthless strongman to keep order, violence would explode between sectarian and tribal rivals. For the same reasons, the misguided American attempt to create liberal democracy in a country and culture with few of the preconditions for it was doomed to fail, and as a result sour the American people on any more involvement in a region of indiscriminate violence and ingratitude towards those who had liberated the Iraqi people from a psychopath like Hussein.