RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11204/pub_detail.asp
Listening to Barack Obama laying out what he calls his new defense strategy, my first reaction was, “Here we go again.” Having basically written off the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Obama is falling prey to a temptation several of his predecessors found irresistible in peacetime: Cut defense expenditures. Shrink the military. And hope the rest of the world will neither notice nor take advantage of our weakness.

Something is decidedly different, however. This is the first time in memory that a president has voluntarily eviscerated the armed forces of the United States and redeployed what remains so as to create acute vacuums of power in time of war. Unfortunately, I am referring not just to the war in Afghanistan that we continue to be engaged in, for the time being at least.

There is also the war now developing as what might best be described as “Shariah Spring” metastasizes into grave new perils for America’s allies and interests in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. All other things being equal, “beyond” may include: the Far East, where China and North Korea are responding to domestic turmoil with outward truculence; Russia, where Vladimir Putin has already blamed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for demonstrations against his kleptocracy; and our own hemisphere, where a dying Venezuelan dictator blames us for his cancer and is working feverishly with our adversaries in Latin America and the rest of the world to turn our front-yard into a staging area for a greatly expanded “axis of evil.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11200/pub_detail.asp Even as his government back home was sentencing to death an American citizen it outrageously claims is a spy, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad embarked on a five-day visit to four of Latin America’s most anti-American regimes: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba. Naturally, Ahmadinejad’s visit started with his pal, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (whose consul […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11202/pub_detail.asp
If there is one obvious condition associated with the last century, it is the lack of government humility. Among the century’s leadership there was the self confident belief that “good ideas” will trump tradition, customs, history, even instinct. There were scarcely limits to political ingenuity. Here was the triumph of positivism, the assumption that rationality can subdue emotion. The engineers were in history’s driver’s seat and the lights appeared to be synchronized in green. Somewhere along the way things went wrong and the lights turned crimson.

For public policy sophisticates, the imperfections in the free market suggested a reliance on planned capitalism. Former President Clinton embodied this view when he said “we can pick the winners in the economy and encourage them with appropriate incentives.” Erstwhile President George W. Bush referred to his domestic policy as “compassionate conservatism,” a belief predicated on government acting as a charity. And President Obama outdid his predecessors by actually inserting government as a partial owner of private enterprises, e.g. AIG, General Motors.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/151576#.TwuqJHt5mc0

FROM E-PAL JANET LEVY

Bat Ye’or “This policy is directly obeying the order of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation), look at my book the Caliphate, pp.109—119 (English book), pp. 123—135 (French book). Showing Churches’ obedience to the OIC Caliphate is the best defense strategy. “-

——– Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Baha’is, Animists, etc. are being persecuted and massacred throughout the world. What exactly does the killing of Hindus in India have to do with Israel? What does the murder of Buddhists in Thailand have to do with Israel? Why exactly are the Copts of Egypt being decimated? NOTHING TO DO WITH ISRAEL! ”

Bethlehem to Host Church Conference Which Demonizes Israel
Theologians who are breathing new life into a kind of demonology which criminalizes all Israelis will meet in Bethlehem in March.
Next March, the Bible College in Bethlehem will host dozens of US theologians, activists and ministries for the “Christ at the Checkpoint 2012 Conference”.

It is to be a major religious and political event meant to demonize Israel and to support the Palestinian Intifada against the “ethnocentric” Jewish State.

The impressive range of Christian theologians and pastors from many churches located in the United States make the gravity of the upcoming conference clear.

Samuel Rodriguez, President of the US National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, is a speaker.

http://www.israeliadvocate.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/%

For the second time in a week, Israeli and Palestinian officials are scheduled to sit down in Amman Jordan, and agree that each sides position on a peace agreement is antithetical to that of the other. Israel, represented by an elected, constitutional government whose decisions will be binding will face off against a non-elected, self appointed cabal of “leaders” which have exceeded their term in office by two years, have no ability to make decisions of war and peace and represent no one other than themselves. Propped up by the Obama Administration, whose motives are likewise dubious, Abbas and his Palestinian Authority (PA) are the weakest of all the terrorist organizations which by the way, are adamantly opposed to even the most benign of talks. Just today, longtime Hamas bigwig, Mahmoud Zahar made the following quotes in a Jerusalem Post article entitled, “PA should focus on Palestinian Unity, not Israel.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/10/us-italy-mafia-idUSTRE8091YX20120110

(Reuters) – Organized crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country’s biggest “bank” and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday.

Extortionate lending by criminal groups had become a “national emergency,” said the report by anti-crime group SOS Impresa.

Organized crime now generated annual turnover of about 140 billion euros ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than 100 billion euros, it added.

THANKS TO E-PAL NURIT GREENGER…I AM ENLARGING MY VOCABULARY….RSK
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of achieving, and where the members of society least likely to succeed are abundantly rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ineptocracy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/repeating-a-mistake-by-downsizing-the-army-again/2012/01/05/gIQA8fHfdP_print.html
Here we go again. President Obama made the same mistake Thursday in announcing his new military strategy that virtually all of his predecessors have made since the end of World War II. He said:

“Moreover, we have to remember the lessons of history. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past — after World War II, after Vietnam — when our military was left ill-prepared for the future. As commander in chief, I will not let that happen again. Not on my watch.”

Unfortunately, Obama’s plan does exactly that. It forgets the lessons of history. Some facts: Harry Truman seeking to never repeat the costs of World War II reduced the Army from 8 million soldiers to fewer than half a million. Without the intervention of Congress, he would have eliminated the Marine Corps entirely. The result was the evisceration of both land services in Korea, a war Truman never intended to fight.

http://wvgazette.com/Opinion/Editorials/201201090073

FROM MY E-PAL B.T. FROM ROCHESTER… “YES VIRGINIA, IN AN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER A FILM IS “JEWISH” INSTEAD OF ISRAELI AND THE MURDERERS ARE CONVENIENTLY NOT IDENTIFIED……”

CHARLESTON, W.Va — Some Jews, both American and Israeli, object to Israel’s subjugation of conquered Palestinians and the endless planting of illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

The outlook of these peace-minded Jews is expressed in a remarkable Jewish movie, “Miral,” which shows the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli military suppression.

The film begins in 1948, just after creation of Israel, when fanatical Jews massacred Palestinians in a village named Dir Yassin. Children fleeing the slaughter reached East Jerusalem, where a socialite of a rich Palestinian family begins feeding them, eventually creating an orphanage for 2,000 such war refugees.

Miral, named for a red Mideast flower, is brought to the orphanage as a little girl by her uncle, a Muslim imam. She slowly grows into a lovely teen, unaware of the Jew-Arab hatred surrounding her sanctuary. Then she is sent to teach children in a Palestinian refugee camp, where she watches in horror as Israeli troops rip down homes of families suspected of insurrection.

Miral sees zealot Jewish residents of West Bank settlements protected by Israeli soldiers, who treat Palestinians with contempt. She falls in love with a young Arab militant and is drawn into violent Intifada protests. In the end, her lover is killed by rival militants, and the orphanage operator persuades Miral to leave for a scholarship in Italy, rather than plunge deeper into Jew-Arab conflict.

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/11006/in-new-hampshire-acceptable-is-pronounced-winner

FOR ANYONE gauging the Republican presidential contest, this week’s most significant poll results weren’t the ones tabulated in New Hampshire last night. They were the ones released by Gallup yesterday morning.

To say such a thing is heresy, I realize, given the long months of New Hampshire campaigning and the media’s obsessive focus on the state over the last few weeks. But more telling than Mitt Romney’s long-expected victory in the Granite State — he drew about 38 percent of the vote, followed at a considerable distance by Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman — was Gallup’s finding that among Republicans (and Republican-leaning independents) nationwide, only the former Massachusetts governor is regarded as an “acceptable” GOP nominee across the ideological spectrum.