RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/288483/eternal-peril-simple-answer-thomas-sowell

The Eternal Peril of the Simple Answer
History is harder to untangle than politicians would lead us to believe.

Anyone who has ever been in a Third World country, or even in a slum neighborhood at home, is likely to wonder why there can be such dire poverty among some people while others are prospering.
Both politicians and intellectuals have tended to have simple answers to that question, even if these simple answers have been different in different eras.

Did military rules cost a soldier his life? .http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57362374/did-military-rules-cost-a-soldier-his-life/ Combat medics call it the golden hour — the window of opportunity to provide treatment and save a life. On a September night in Afghanistan, the minutes ticked away as an American soldier lay wounded, waiting to be evacuated. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin […]

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19003-Wuterichs-Tough-Choice-Exit-or-Honor.html
Nat Helms at Defend Our Marines and Tony Perry at the Los Angeles Times, both able reporters of the Haditha prosecutions, have similar stories up about the choice that Frank Wuterich must make tonight. As Perry puts it, “This could be the longest night of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich’s life since he became a defendant in arguably the largest war-crime case from the war in Iraq.” Helms brings in the deeper meaning: “The 31-year-old father of three can bite the proverbial bullet and ask for administrative separation, or he can dig in his heels and fight for the principles he has already proved he is willing to die for.”

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/01/20/monkeys-with-clubs-the-case-of-la-gingrich/?print=1

I am down in Antigua for a few days with friends sorting out the problems of the world. It seems as remote as it is beautiful here high on a bluff overlooking Green Island then three thousand unobstructed miles to the coast of Africa. Modernity is just about everywhere, though. The beach below my window is empty all day long, except when we do our daily perambulation and the heartier among us plunge into the ocean to swim. But there is plenty of ice for the rum punches and, more to the point, the satellite-enabled wifi silently connects us to the chatter back home.

And what chatter it’s been. Yesterday, I popped out of my room to announced that Rick Perry had dropped out of the race and was endorsing Newt Gingrich to the chagrin of some and the delight of others in my party. I popped out again to provide a précis of Marianne Gingrich’s nasty and indecorous rant about her ex-husband in an interview with ABC’s Brian Ross. “Monkeys with clubs,” said one of our band of studious researchers. “That’s what politics is: monkeys with clubs.” He was not, by the way, a Gingrich partisan, but he could recognize a monkey — and a club — when one paraded by.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/russia_re-elect_obama_or_its_world_war_iii.html#ixzz1jtbUgsue  Russia: Re-Elect Obama, or It’s World War III Last week, Americans learned that they are, or soon may be, at war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. That is, of course, unless they do just exactly what the Kremlin asks, which is pretty simple, really, and consists largely of re-electing Barack H. Obama, the best friend […]

http://schanzer.pundicity.com/11043/the-palestinian-campaign-to-delegitimize-israel
The Palestinian Campaign to Delegitimize Israel

Israeli envoy Isaac Molcho met Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat recently for the third time in the new year. The talks, widely praised across the international community, have been billed as a much-needed jumpstart for negotiations between the two sides. But they are actually a distraction from the real game, in which the Palestinians are working to outmaneuver Israel in the international arena.

The game began last year when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas launched a bid for full UN membership for a sovereign state of Palestine. Abbas sought to gain international recognition for his bureaucracy and strengthen the consensus against Israel’s presence in the disputed territories of the West Bank, which Palestinians hope to claim for their national project. Abbas pursued this strategy while shunning direct talks with his Israeli counterparts.

In the end, the Palestinians fell short of the nine votes necessary for consideration in the UN Security Council. The Obama administration further vowed that the United States would veto the resolution, even if it passed in the future. As a result, the bid stalled.

But the Palestinians had another option. Indeed, they had enough votes to pass a nonbinding measure in the General Assembly. Apparently unsatisfied with anything less than formal recognition, Abbas elected to punt.

But this does not mean that the crisis has passed.

As it turns out, Abbas has been regrouping. On January 1, several countries that would have voted against the Palestinian bid rotated off the Security Council, making way for Guatemala, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Morocco and Togo. Notwithstanding the looming threat of a U.S. veto, these states afford the Palestinians new opportunities in the diplomatic battles that are likely to unfold this year. And Palestinians have been vague about the General Assembly option, which is still a viable one.

The Palestinians may have other strategies in store, too.

Senior Fatah official Nabil Sha’ath recently said on Palestinian radio that 2012 “will be the start of an unprecedented diplomatic campaign on the part of the Palestinian leadership, and it will be a year of pressure on Israel that will put it under a real international siege. The campaign will be similar to the one waged against apartheid in South Africa.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has been the official negotiating partner for the Israelis since the late 1990s, is already bringing pressure to bear.

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/01/20/the_land_of_obama_makebelieve
Where did President Obama go after killing off thousands of Keystone XL pipeline construction and manufacturing jobs? Why, Disney World, of course. Sabotaging work is hard work for Goofy and his pals.

_And where’d he head after that? Why, up to Manhattan for more high-priced campaign fundraisers charging up to $38,500 per partier. The business of wining and dining politically connected donors ain’t child’s play, you know.

Obama touted a White House foreign tourism initiative on Thursday with Cinderella’s castle as his backdrop. “America is open for business,” he proclaimed chirpily to the rest of the globe.

Tell that to the Keystone managers in Canada whom Obama and his State Department rebuffed — after years of planning and review — in order to appease militant environmentalists and Hollywood celebs. The Animatronic Divider robotically lambasted Republicans for pushing him to make a decision this week. But Senate and House Democrats issued the sharpest rebukes to White House obstructionism:

“President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a major setback for the American economy, American workers, and America’s energy independence,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said.

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2770/palestinian-hero

Mahmoud Abu Rahma is perhaps one of the bravest Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Because of his courage, he has been stabbed several times in various parts of his body.

This is what happens under Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority governments to anyone who dares to speak out against torture and assaults on innocent civilians and freedom of speech.

Abu Rahma’s “crime” is that he dared to publish an article strongly criticizing Palestinian armed groups as well as the Hamas and Palestinian Authority governments for human rights violations and the use of civilians as human shields in the war against Israel.

In the Palestinian territories, human rights activists and journalists are permitted to criticize only Israel. Those who do not toe the official line find themselves either behind bars or in the hospital. The attack on Abu Rahma was intended to deter others from endorsing his critical approach.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=254384
Why a failed policy of appeasement prevails and why the Right keeps winning elections but never gets into power.
I am absolutely astounded to find so many of your “luminaries” in the universities who are teaching the [youth] that Israel was basically born in sin. Quite a lot of the [anti-Israel] animosity in the [international] media is fed by organizations such as the Haaretz newspaper. It is coming out from Israel academics. This cuts ground from under the feet of those who tell the truth. Somebody should be putting the truth into the public domain, and the government of Israel has not done this for many years – British columnist Melanie Phillips, IBA TV, 2011.

In the first part of this analysis, the reasons for Israel’s feeble performance in the conduct of public diplomacy and in countering its accelerating international delegitimization were investigated. The causes were traced to a lack of resolve to prevail among those charged with the conduct of Israeli diplomatic strategy.

To recap briefly
This lack of will to win is reflected in the hopelessly inadequate resources allotted for the fight for Israel’s image and is rooted in large measure in the worldview of dominant civil society elites in the media, academia and legal establishment.

Their positions of unelected power and privilege, together with the nature of their personal and professional interests, provide these elites with the ability and the motivation to impose on the elected politicians – no matter what their electoral platform – an agenda that reflects their own unequivocally “PC” (Palestinian-compliant) perspective on the conflict.

Inevitably, this is an agenda that militates strongly – both implicitly and explicitly – towards endorsement of the Palestinian narrative, at the expense of the Zionist one.

Deprived of material resources and motivational drive, Israel’s public diplomacy is doomed to anemic, ineffectual failure.

Perplexing political paradox
For those skeptical as to the validity of this analysis, the following astounding facts regarding Israel’s political history may prove illuminating.

From 1977, when the Likud first came to power on a platform of “Greater Israel,” to 2005, when the Likud withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in stark contradiction to its electoral pledges, there were 28 years. For 20 of these years, the prime minister came from the ranks of the Likud.

Soros Firsters Bash Israel Posted By Daniel Greenfield

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/18/soros-firsters-bash-israel/

When the far left took on the far right’s habit of referring to Jews who don’t support their drive for the destruction of Israel as “Israel Firsters” they forgot one important thing. To accuse someone else of being unpatriotic, you have to be able to assert your own patriotism. To accuse someone else of dual loyalty, you first have to be loyal to the United States.

The Muslim bloggers at the Center for American Progress, an Obama Administration think tank funded by George Soros, a Nazi collaborating billionaire, along with a secret list of other rogue titans, have no such credibility, not because they are Muslim, but because they have a long record of undermining and attacking American national defense and national security. The Soros Shadow Party may use the name “American” in organizations such as the Center for American Progress or the New America Foundation but those groups are invariably Anti-American.