http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-200513.html SPENGLERSyria’s madness and oursBy Spengler “Syria’s Descent into Madness” is the cover story of the May 27 Time magazine, recounting the act of ritual cannibalism by a Syrian rebel commander that transfixed the West last week. The sort of atrocities viewable on YouTube – the slaughter by government troops of entire families including infants in Tartus province […]
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/20/how-long-is-this-war If the war on terror is to go on with no end in sight, we’re not going to win it. How much longer will we have to fight the war on terrorism? Last week the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Michael Sheehan, told a Senate hearing that “I think it’s at least […]
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/132459/dumb-and-dumber
Errors by the party in power can get America into trouble; real catastrophes require consensus.
Rarely have both parties been as unanimous about a development overseas as they have in their shared enthusiasm for the so-called Arab Spring during the first months of 2011. Republicans vied with the Obama Administration in their zeal for the ouster of Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak and in championing the subsequent NATO intervention against Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Both parties saw themselves as having been vindicated by events. The Obama Administration saw its actions as proof that soft power in pursuit of humanitarian goals offered a new paradigm for foreign-policy success. And the Republican establishment saw a vindication of the Bush freedom agenda.
“Revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush’s freedom agenda,” Charles Krauthammer observed in February 2011. “Now that revolution has spread from Tunisia to Oman,” Krauthammer added, “the [Obama] administration is rushing to keep up with the new dispensation, repeating the fundamental tenet of the Bush Doctrine that Arabs are no exception to the universal thirst for dignity and freedom.” And William Kristol exulted, “Helping the Arab Spring through to fruition might contribute to an American Spring, one of renewed pride in our country and confidence in the cause of liberty.”
They were all wrong. Just two years later, the foreign-policy establishment has fractured in the face of a Syrian civil war that threatens to metastasize into neighboring Iraq and Lebanon and an economic collapse in Egypt that has brought the largest Arab country to the brink of state failure. Some Republican leaders, including Sen. John McCain and Weekly Standard editor Kristol, demand American military intervention to support Syria’s Sunni rebels. But Daniel Pipes, the dean of conservative Middle East analysts, wrote on April 11 that “Western governments should support the malign dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad,” because “Western powers should guide enemies to stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their conflict.” If Assad appears to be winning, he added later, we should support the rebels. The respected strategist Edward Luttwak contends that America should “leave bad enough alone” in Syria and turn its attention away from the Middle East—to Asia. The Obama Administration meanwhile is waffling about what might constitute a “red line” for intervention and what form such intervention might take.
http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2013/05/19/op-ed-religion-faculty-call-for-divestment/ Op-Ed: Religion Faculty Call for Divestment Op-Ed: Religion Faculty Call for Divestment We, the undersigned members of the Religion Department faculty, are writing in solidarity with our students in the department who recently called for Swarthmore College to divest its endowment holdings from the fossil fuels extraction industries. We believe that continued investment in […]
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0513/palestinian_flag_raised.php3#.UZoPcuB6PnU
Let us not forget that Paterson is where Arab residents, some
presumably Palestinians, passed out sweets to celebrate the
deaths of Americans on 9/11…..B.T.
PATERSON, N.J— (MCT) The raising of a flag Sunday at Paterson’s City Hall was like any of the dozen or so similar events held in the city each year in a nod to its diversity.
Except it wasn’t.
That’s because the flag raised — for the first time in Paterson, and possibly at any city hall in the United States — was Palestinian. Symbols or assertions of Palestinian statehood are fraught with political sensitivities, and Khader Abuassab, the event’s organizer, said he received harassing phone calls and a text reading “Drop dead” before Sunday’s event.
But no problems were on display Sunday when the flag was raised in the rain before elected officials and about 150 people. People cheered, danced, shared sweets and shouted, “Long Live Palestine.”
“Palestine is our country and we are proud of that,” said Clifton, N.J., resident Salwa Ramadan. “We’re happy (to be) recognized finally.”
Paterson had never held the event because no one had asked, Mayor Jeffery Jones said. The mayor read a proclamation proclaiming May 19 as Palestinian American Day in the city and honoring the group’s heritage and contributions.
He said he wasn’t concerned with potential political backlash.
“If they’re citizens of the city of Paterson, they have every right to raise the flag,” Jones said. “There’s nothing that precludes them as long as they follow the process.” Turks, Haitians, Peruvians and other groups have had had their flags raised at City Hall.
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., and Democratic state Assemblyman Thomas Giblin showed up — with Pascrell presenting a letter of Special Congressional Recognition and Giblin presenting an Assembly resolution marking the event.
In 2007, then President George W. Bush appointed Gerald Walpin to be inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that oversees such subsidized volunteer programs as AmeriCorps. In 2009, in what came to be the first of the Obama administration scandals, when Mr. Walpin’s investigation revealed that an agency run by Kevin Johnson, an Obama ally and supporter, was using an AmeriCorps grant for personal and questionable expenses he was fired and asked to “move on.” In true Obamination form, the administration deliberately leaked the false information that Mr. Walpin had been acting in a “confused” manner.
Confused? Hardly. Abused is more like it. Mr. Walpin, who is my friend has written a book for those of us who really are confused about the Supreme Court and the Constitution. This is not a ” Supreme Court for dummies.” On the contrary it is a scholarly and essential book which makes the debate about original intent and practice intelligible for non lawyers.
In his own words: “You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand how Supreme court Justices have substituted their own elitist vision for constitutional guarantees that protect the average American’s security and values.”
I have started to read this book and I am already hooked on it…..stay tuned for more, but order it now.
Product Details
The Supreme Court vs. The Constitution: by Gerald Walpin (Apr 29, 2013)
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/david-solway/stephen-hawkings-moral-black-hole/print/
There has been considerable fallout of late regarding world-renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking’s refusal to attend Israel’s Fifth Presidential Conference this coming June, on the grounds of Israeli malfeasance toward the Palestinians. Whatever one’s view of the Jewish state, there should be little doubt that the physicist’s decision to boycott the event is both intellectually indefensible and morally suspect, and raises the question of how mental agility and moral folly can co-exist in the same person.
As several commentators have indicated, his position is intellectually indefensible since Hawking evinces no knowledge of the history of the Middle East, ludicrously compares Israel to apartheid South Africa, and seems wholly unaware of the provably fraudulent nature of the Palestinian narrative. Palestinian revisionism has falsified the historical record in practically every conceivable respect. The data are readily accessible and no genuine scholar or thinking person can deny them and still retain a modicum of integrity. At the same time, his attitude is morally suspect owing to the fact that Hawking, who suffers from motor neuron disease, would have been rendered mute without the advances and advantages of Israeli medical breakthroughs. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin–Israel Law Center, called Hawking’s boycott hypocritical. “His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel, he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet.”
In a stinging article for FrontPage Magazine, Ari Lieberman points to the sharp distinction between the benefits and gifts that Israel has lavished upon mankind in science, technology and medicine and the deficits and depravities that are the legacy of the Arab world: barbarism, cultural regression, ignorance, religiously sanctioned violence and terroristic savagery. It is a distinction, we should have thought, that a world-class scientist like Hawking—who, incidentally, has visited Iran without uttering a single criticism of that rogue state—should be equipped to make but is clearly unable to do. One recalls his most celebrated theory, namely, that black holes leak radiation, but he cannot, it appears, register the lies, obsessions and hatreds that routinely leak from the black hole of the Islamic world—perhaps “gush” would be the more accurate word. (Of course, we need to make an adjustment here in the interest of precision: what are emitted from the Islamic world are not photons but, say, crepusculars, not particles of light, as in the original theory, but particles of darkness.)
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ The radical-moderate continuum that has defined the dialogue on Islam in the War on Terror is not an authentic perspective, it is an observer perspective. To the Western observer, a suicide bomber is radical, a Muslim Imam willing to perform gay weddings is moderate and the Muslim Brotherhood leader who supports some acts of […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/obama-fires-irs-commissioner-as-scandal-grows The scandal involving the politicization of the IRS under the Obama administration continues to grow. Congressmen briefed by IRS officials say that instead of 300 groups that received closer scrutiny, the number has climbed to 471. More drip, drip, drip. But in an effort to stop the bleeding, President Obama has fired the acting […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-president-as-sergeant-schultz How is it that, time and again, the most powerful man on the planet doesn’t seem to have a clue what is happening in his own government? Famed for never accepting blame for anything, the more I see President Obama these days, the more I am reminded of Sergeant Hans Schultz of the TV […]
