http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444273704577637560538194478.html?mod=opinion_newsreel Beijing’s navy and weapons systems are intended to push the U.S. back from the Western Pacific. China’s assertive territorial claims in the East and South China Seas have flared intermittently over the years into diplomatic and even physical confrontations. Until recently, however, these incidents—seizures of islands, reefs or rock outcroppings, or naval vessels ramming […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444017504577645783452753176.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop No ‘red lines’ for Iran and no time to meet Netanyahu. Does President Obama want Israel to bomb Iran before the election? If we had more faith in this Administration’s competence, we’d be tempted to think so. Both publicly and behind the scenes, Administration officials have insisted they oppose a unilateral Israeli strike for […]
http://www.steynonline.com/5130/the-abhorrent-vacuum
“In an American election year, the Middle East is a side issue in a nation ever broker and, in large part, weary of global responsibilities it never sought. But, to modify Trotsky, you may not be interested in Islam, but Islam is interested in you.”
In the breast of the Western media, hopes of Arab Spring spring eternal. First we were told the Muslim Brotherhood would contest only a third of the seats in the Egyptian parliament, just to ensure they had some representation in the legislature among all those students, women, and Copts. Then we were told it would be half the seats, but don’t worry, they had no plans to contest the presidency. Next we were told they were taking a run at the presidency, but most unlikely to win compared with all those far more appealing time-serving hacks from transnationalist bureaucracies like the Arab League and the International Atomic Energy Agency who were itching to jump in the race. And finally, after the Brothers took the presidency and swept the parliament, we were assured that they could govern only in a finely calibrated balance of power with the secularist military.
Inevitably, within a few weeks of taking the oath of office, President Morsi fired the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, purged the top brass, including the chief of staff and the heads of the air force and navy, and reversed such restraints on his power as they’d imposed. Equally inevitably, the view from Washington was that this was no more than “a generational change in military leadership.” It is true that General Sisi is a younger man than Field Marshal Tantawi. However, the fact remains that, in his first month in office, Mohamed Morsi has accomplished what it’s taken the post-Kemalist regime in Turkey its first decade to pull off: the end of the army’s role as constitutional guardian.
Indeed, he seems to have ended the constitution, such as it is. No piece of paper gives him the unilateral power to revoke Article 25 of the constitution, but he did. No piece of paper gives him the authority to dismiss the Supreme Council’s constitutional declaration on parliament, but he did. Whatever new piece of paper eventually emerges will be written by men appointed by him alone. And why stop there? The independent newspaper al-Dustour (“The Constitution,” indeed) has just had a print run seized for “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.” In whatever lucid moments he still enjoys in his prison cell, the unloved ex-“Pharaoh” must marvel at that CNN coverage of the “Facebook Revolution”: As Zvi Mazel wrote in the Jerusalem Post, “Morsi now holds dictatorial powers surpassing by far those of erstwhile president Hosni Mubarak.”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/true-caring-compassion-and-social-justice
THIS IS NICE AND DANDY….BUT I AM ALSO A FORMERLY “LIBERAL” DEMOCRAT….AND CARING, COMPASSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE HAVE TAKEN A BACK BURNER TO SURVIVAL AS A JEW, AS AN AMERICAN, AS A DEFENDER OF ISRAEL….THE REST IS FEEL GOOD STUFF IN THE FACE OF BLATANT ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI ISRAEL LIBELS….READ ROGER SIMONS COLUM “HOW DO YOU SLEEP’….THAT’S MORE LIKE IT…RSK
A former Democratic Jew reflects on our politics of caring and compassion.
I’m part of a minority within a minority: a Jewish Republican who volunteers for the Jewish Republican Coalition and Republican Party. I know Jews take pride in being socially conscious and compassionate. However, I also know there is a tension in the American Jewish world over defining these virtues.
Now that the Holiday and election seasons are upon us, moral and intellectual clarity is demanded.
My experience suggests that most Jews today see “caring” through a lens far astray from a Biblical one. It’s called Progressive, Leftist or Liberal.
The minority, including myself and many traditional Orthodox Jews, believe this viewpoint is not the true Jewish or American perspective. We believe conservative Republican values and policies actually express the true definition of caring and compassion, especially on two central topics of this year’s elections: abortion, and the size and role of government.
The typical response I receive from typical liberal Jews is that , “Conservatives are terrible on social issues. They have a war on women. They support government invasion into women’s bodies and elimination of woman’s right to control her reproductive freedom.”
It’s a classic straw-man argument, mixed with distortion and untruth, but it effectively guides Jewish votes to liberal Democrat candidates, election after election, as though abortion were the only social issue and this deliberately narrow interpretation the only valid viewpoint.
The irony is that the conservative philosophy actually holds the most nuanced, just, Jewish and traditional American views on this social justice topic. This philosophy says abortion cannot be merely some binary pronouncement on a “right to choose or not.” The issue is far more complex, involving life and death, the nature of our moral compass. It is deeply connected to our traditional Biblical and American belief that all people are created in the image of God. It demands a profound consideration of the developing human.
Most fundamentally, it is not simply a woman’s “right” to decide to eradicate a developing human baby – especially if it is merely for convenience. Society, our moral character, potential adopting parents, the child’s father, grandparents, sisters and brothers, all have claims and interests that must be carefully regarded.
The Liberal turns the mother alone into the final arbiter, the philosopher, policeman, lawyer, judge, jury and death administrator regarding this human life. The Liberal approach is also illogical, producing a viewpoint that at one moment a human inside a woman’s uterus has only the worth of a tooth abscess to be shed, often at whim; but a moment later, outside the uterus, that same life is of infinite God-level worth.
But that is where the argument tends to end with the Jewish Democrat. The conservative is seen as regressive on abortion, and abortion is by definition “social issues.” That is incorrect.
The size and scope of government, and its proper role in our lives and economic system are likewise vital to our society – central “social issues.” Abortion affects each of us rarely, while these other social issues profoundly impact our daily lives.
THIS IS NICE AND DANDY….BUT I AM ALSO A FORMERLY “LIBERAL” DEMOCRAT….AND CARING, COMPASSION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE HAVE TAKEN A BACK BURNER TO SURVIVAL AS A JEW, AS AN AMERICAN, AS A DEFENDER OF ISRAEL….THE REST IS FEEL GOOD STUFF IN THE FACE OF BLATANT ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI ISRAEL LIBELS…..RSK
A former Democratic Jew reflects on our politics of caring and compassion.
I’m part of a minority within a minority: a Jewish Republican who volunteers for the Jewish Republican Coalition and Republican Party. I know Jews take pride in being socially conscious and compassionate. However, I also know there is a tension in the American Jewish world over defining these virtues.
Now that the Holiday and election seasons are upon us, moral and intellectual clarity is demanded.
My experience suggests that most Jews today see “caring” through a lens far astray from a Biblical one. It’s called Progressive, Leftist or Liberal.
The minority, including myself and many traditional Orthodox Jews, believe this viewpoint is not the true Jewish or American perspective. We believe conservative Republican values and policies actually express the true definition of caring and compassion, especially on two central topics of this year’s elections: abortion, and the size and role of government.
The typical response I receive from typical liberal Jews is that , “Conservatives are terrible on social issues. They have a war on women. They support government invasion into women’s bodies and elimination of woman’s right to control her reproductive freedom.”
It’s a classic straw-man argument, mixed with distortion and untruth, but it effectively guides Jewish votes to liberal Democrat candidates, election after election, as though abortion were the only social issue and this deliberately narrow interpretation the only valid viewpoint.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/911s-aftermath-of-lethal-tolerance?f=puball The one thing I have never understood is the way Americans seem to refuse to accept the fact that the worst attack on the homeland since Pearl Harbor was planned, funded, carried out by Muslims, and was celebrated by Muslims around the world. Perhaps the reluctance to relate the attack to “a religion” had […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/political-money-talks In my last column, “The Islamic Vigilantes of Speech,” I discussed how Islamic activists oppose freedom of speech which either criticizes Islam by word or image, or which violates Islamic moral dicta, such as the one prohibiting the depiction of uncovered women. But Islamists are not the only ones who wish to stifle freedom […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/eleven-years-after-911-the-threat-remains-the-leading-al-qaeda-operative-remains-at-large-part-i Eleven years after 9/11, al Qaeda has been partially dismantled; Osama bin Laden is sleeping with fishes, and the war on terror has subsided into a military shuffle in Afghanistan. The leading experts on counter-terrorism no longer make nightly appearances on national news programs, and books on militant Islam no longer line the shelves […]
http://news.yahoo.com/u-ambassador-libya-three-staff-killed-rocket-attack-091505030.html
BEIRUT (Reuters) – The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on Tuesday night that targeted his car in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, a Libyan official said on Wednesday.
“The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when gunmen fired rockets at them,” the official in Benghazi told Reuters. Asked about the deaths, a U.S. Embassy employee in Tripoli said: “We have no information regarding this.” The employee said the embassy could confirm the death of one person.
The Libyan official said the U.S. ambassador had been on his way to a safer venue after protesters attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and opened fire, killing a staff member, in protest at a U.S. film that they deemed blasphemous to the Prophet Mohammad.
The official said the ambassador and three other staff were killed when gunmen fired rockets at his car. He said the U.S. Embassy had sent a military plane to transport the bodies to Tripoli to fly them to the United States.
Gunmen assaulted the Benghazi compound on Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces, who withdrew under heavy fire. The attackers fired at the buildings while others threw handmade bombs into the compound, setting off small explosions. Small fires were burning around the compound.
The assault followed a protest in neighboring Egypt where demonstrators scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy, tore down the American flag and burned it during a protest over the same film which they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
http://news.yahoo.com/american-killed-libya-protest-over-film-030047940.html CAIRO (AP) — Protesters angered over a film that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad fired gunshots and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing one American, witnesses and the State Department said. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and tore and replaced the […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
On these shores, Americans commemorated the cold-blooded gleeful murder of thousands of their fellow men and women by bowing their heads and enlisting in one of the free work projects of the National Day of Service listed at Serve.gov, a combination that says all that needs to be said about our present day relationship with our government.
In newly liberated Benghazi, the city that Obama named as his moral imperative for fighting an illegal war against the will of the American people, gunmen opened fire on the American embassy and killed an American security guard. That dead man is the first American casualty in the Libyan War– a casualty that will be acknowledged and honored around the same time that someone in the media calls the Libyan War, a war, instead of sticking to the shameless lie of a No Fly Zone.
In Cairo, a mob of a thousand climbed the wall, tore down the American flag, tore it to pieces, burned it and tried to replace it with their own flag with the words, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger”. That message was the same one that the murderers of Americans have shouted, written and videotaped themselves chanting in one form or another.
As befits a great power, the US Embassy in Cairo responded by condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” The US Embassy’s statement was virtually indistinguishable from the one issued by the beleaguered Christian Copts of Egypt. The Christians of Egypt act that way because they live at the merciless mercy of Muslims. Apparently so do we.
When the Prophet-Criers climb our walls and murder us, we apologize for having offended their religious feelings. The same religious feelings that took down the World Trade Center as part of a murderous crusade going back over a thousand years. They kill us and we elect a man with a Muslim background to tour the world and explain to all the angry Muslims that we’re really very nice people once you get to know us.
If they want to be ruled by Muslim governments under Islamic law, we’ll give that to them. If they want a billion dollars, we’ll send it to them. If they want us to apologize for having free speech, we’ll do that too.
If they burn a couple more embassies, we’ll even see do something about that Bill of Rights which does not permit the gendarmes of tolerance to arrest a man for blasphemously calling Mohammed a pedophile and burning a Koran bought and paid for with his own money. Not like our more enlightened European cousins who put a stop to that behavior long ago and are sniffing around the flanks of Sharia law to see which parts of it can fit safely into their tolerant order.
