RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/blog/craig-karpel/2009/02/22/irans-strategic-nuclear-deception-n17618

Iran’s satellite launch earlier this month should have been a wake-up call. Instead, the West has reached over and hit the snooze button.

Swift, vigorous measures need to be taken to deal with the new reality that Iranians, who could possess a nuclear weapon by the end of next year, have demonstrated that their Safir 2 rocket, which was used as the launch vehicle, is able to deliver a warhead to southern Europe.

The New York Times reported:

The Iranian rocket had two stages, Mr. [Charles] Vick said. If it were carrying a small warhead, he said, the Iranian missile could fire the weapon about 2,500 kilometers, or slightly more than 1,550 miles. The rocket could send a weapon to targets in Israel, but experts said that Iran had already possessed that capability.

That falls short of the range of an intercontinental ballistic missile, Mr. Vick said. For Iran to achieve that technical step, he added, it would have to develop a more powerful basic rocket or more upper stages — two goals that weapons experts think it is pursuing.

Dr. [Charles] Ferguson of the Council on Foreign Relations said that Iran’s technical advance, if translated into a military missile, might put a warhead within range of southern Europe, including Turkey, Greece, and Italy.

Heritage Foundation senior fellow and former deputy assistant secretary of defense Peter Brookes’ reaction to the launch: “In theory, if you can launch a ballistic missile that can place a satellite into Earth orbit, you have the scientific wherewithal to hit a target anywhere on Earth with a warhead.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18766/lebanon-leaders-reality

The Lebanese authorities are accusing Bishop al-Hajj of treason for bringing money to the poor and the sick, at a time when Iran is delivering — through Hezbollah — money and weapons to be used in the next war against Israel.

The money and the weapons that the Iranians are sending to Lebanon are designed to strengthen the mullahs’ control over the country. Iran, incidentally, is already occupying three other Arab countries: Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

“In our days, a bishop is being arrested and interrogated as if he was a foreign agent, while Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is received with full honor.” — Joseph Abu Fadel, Lebanese political analyst, Twitter, July 19, 2022.

[T]he Lebanese people are being forced to seek aid from their families and relatives in Israel “because of the failure of the Lebanese states at all levels.” — Alain Dargham, reporter for MTV Lebanon News, Twitter, July 21, 2022.

The Christians who fled to Israel did so out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families. They ran away from the terrorism and intimidation of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

If the Christian families living in Israel are able to send money and medicine to their relatives in Lebanon, it shows that those who moved to Israel are doing much better than the Christians they left behind in Lebanon.

Bishop al-Hajj is not a traitor. He is a hero to his community and the rest of the Lebanese people.

Iran and Hezbollah are afraid that such aid would open the eyes of the Lebanese people and make them realize that Israel is not their enemy. God forbid, they may even see that life in Israel is not so bad after all — and that their Israeli neighbors are prepared to help them.

The leaders of Lebanon, who have to report to their masters in Tehran, are evidently seeking to keep their people living in misery and poverty. The leaders are worried that if the people lead good and comfortable lives, they will stop thinking about violence and jihad (holy war) against Israel because they would have a lot to lose. The leaders also want their people to continue living in misery and poverty so that they can shift the blame for it to Israel.

For the past few years, the failed state of Lebanon has been experiencing one of its worst economic, political and social crises in recent history due to years of political strife and economic downfall. Yet instead of focusing their efforts on finding ways to end the crisis, the Lebanese authorities and leaders are spending their time intimidating those who seek to alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese people.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/zawahiri-deserves-to-rot/

The al-Qaeda mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri has rejoined his co-conspirator, Osama bin Laden, somewhere in the thereafter. The terrorist leader was reportedly killed in Afghanistan by a drone strike ordered by President Biden, who addressed the country Monday evening. A sociopathic maestro of mass murder is no more, and all Americans should welcome this victory against an Islamist mass-murder cult that has waged war against the free world.

Al-Zawahiri was second only to Osama bin Laden himself within al-Qaeda’s hierarchy. Alongside bin Laden, he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, in addition to a wave of Islamist violence across the world. To al-Zawahiri, mass death was a religious duty “for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” he wrote in 1998. Accordingly, from New York City to London to Baghdad, Zawahiri was responsible for plotting acts of terror that murdered thousands.

Although Washington took out bin Laden in 2011, and although the threat of jihadism has faded to background noise in recent years — replaced with anxiety about the threat from China and Russia, in addition to other, more conventional nation-state threats — the threat to the American homeland remained. In fact, the threat from one of those adversaries, Iran, joined with al-Qaeda’s worldwide networks spanning the Mideast, Africa, and even the Philippines, is still considerable. Even with Zawahiri gone, much of that network remains in play, including the Iran–al-Qaeda nexus.