RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/feds-further-investigating-role-bombers-wife_719130.html

Feds Further Investigating Role of Bomber’s Wife

Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva notified husband that the FBI had released his picture.

Stephen F. Hayes

Law enforcement officials are carefully reexamining any possible role that Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva, the wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, played in the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15, according to three federal officials with knowledge of the investigation. The intense scrutiny comes as a result of information provided by Dzokhar Tsarnaev in his on-again, off-again interrogation by FBI officials before he was read his rights by a federal magistrate.

According to those officials, Dzokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators that the information that set in motion the series of events leading to Tamerlan’s death and Dzokhar’s apprehension came in a phone call from Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva to her husband. “She notified him and there certainly didn’t seem to be any notion of surprise – just a report that ‘you’re being watched,’” said one official with knowledge of the investigation. Tsarnaev had seen the photographs and videos distributed by the FBI on television and called her husband to give him a heads up.

After receiving that phone call, authorities believe, Tamerlan decided he could not continue to hide from law enforcement and triggered the brothers’ bizarre flight from authorities – a wild chase that included the murder of an MIT police officer, a convenience-store robbery, a carjacking, shootouts with police officers, the death of Tamerlan and the capture of Dzokhar.

An attorney for Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva said earlier this week that her client knew nothing about her husband’s plans and wanted to help authorities conducting the investigation. “She is doing everything she can to assist with the investigation,” said Amato DeLuca, her attorney, in a statement. “The report of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them all.”

Tsarnaeva, 24, grew up in Rhode Island and converted to Islam after meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev. She has been staying with her parents in Rhode Island.

http://sarahhonig.com/2013/04/26/another-tack-the-lesson-of-april-26/

It didn’t seem that way, but this day – April 26 – exactly 65 years ago was pivotal in yet-to-be-born Israel’s history. Its little-celebrated and hardly remembered events remain central for debunking the lies about the circumstances of the Jewish state’s inception. Its trials and tribulations tell a unique story of individual courage and defiant daring quite literally against all odds.

Yet shamefully too few – even among us – are at all aware of it. As time goes by, the numbers only dwindle.

April 26, 1948 was shaping up to be quite a dismal day. The single exception was the fact that on that day the IZL (Irgun Zvai Leumi) and the large Labor-led Hagana signed a cooperation agreement whereby the Irgun undertook to carry out only missions beforehand authorized by the Hagana, as well as to assume whatever operational roles the Hagana would assign it.

The evening of April 26 was particularly wretched for Menachem Begin. In his role as IZL commander he had decided to halt the Irgun’s attack on Jaffa’s Manshiyeh quarter, then already in its second ill-fated day.

Mounting casualties and bleak assessments had outweighed the Hagana’s green light to continue the offensive. A grim Begin explained to his men:

“Were it not for the British tanks and armored vehicles, we could have achieved our objectives. But the tanks are there, and we cannot ignore their presence… We will hold on to the line we had reached and leave a strong advance guard there for days to come. The other units will be withdrawn… This is no failure. The combined power of the enemy is many times greater than ours… I don’t think we should continue bashing our heads against strongholds reinforced by British tanks.”

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/is-fear-of-blaming-islam-greater-than-a-need-to-fight-terrorism/2013/04/25/0/ “The lights are going out in the enlightenment” Professor Barry Rubin told The Jewish Press in an interview this week.  “Reporters have no interest in reporting accurately, professors have no interest in speaking accurately, and the policy makers have no interest in promulgating responsible policy.” Rubin was talking about the reluctance to name Islam […]

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/phillips/130426   Abe Foxman, the ADL’s longtime National Director, seemed to want to do everything possible to direct attention away from the possibility that the Boston Marathon attack was the work of Islamic terrorists when he issued his April 15 statement on the attacks. Foxman stated: “This apparent terrorist attack comes during a week when […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/if-only-the-boston-bomber-had-been-a-white-american?f=puball One of the most unpleasant things, in the aftermath of terrorist attack, is the way commentators want the perpetrator to fit a particular profile. The title of this piece tells you pretty much all you need to know: ‘Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American‘. It’s a silly article, whose author probably now […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/its-the-religion-stupid

It amazes me what lengths to which the left will go to avoid mentioning terrorism and Islam in the same sentence. During the days between the bombing Monday and identifying the two bombers early Thursday, the left desperately wished they would be American white guys. Leftist Salon.com ran the headline: “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon Bomber is a white American.” Writer David Sirotta invoked the leftist creed of so-called White Privilege “There is a double standard: White terrorists are dealt with as lone wolves, Islamists are existential threats.”

US Representative Peter King (R-NY) has tried to investigate links between Radical Islamists in the US and terrorism, but he’s accused of bigotry for his efforts. He proposed it again on Fox News Sunday with Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Cal) when she said: “I – I don’t think all of this is very helpful. . . . I don’t think we need to go and develop some real disdain and hatred on television about it.”

Three years ago, Radical Muslim Major Nidal Hasan shot forty-five soldiers and killed thirteen at Fort Hood while chanting “Allahu Akbar!” (God is great), but our officials in Washington still refuse to call the incident terrorism. The Pentagon’s 86-page report on the shooting refused to mention Islam as a motive! Texas Congressman John Carter whose district includes Fort Hood was appalled. “People are afraid to speak out and label someone because they’ll be accused of being a racist or accused of profiling or being prejudiced against a certain religion or race of people,” Carter told POLITICO. “But in a time of national crisis, which I believe we are in, all identifiers must be discussed.”

An officer in the US Army, Hasan publicly identified himself as a “Soldier of Allah” on Army documents, yet the army’s top officer – General George Casey said of the mass murder: “as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

So General, political correctness is more important than the very lives of soldiers under your command?

Unbelievable.

Our leftist commander-in-chief suffers from the same willful blindness. “Why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and country resort to such violence?” asked President Obama last Saturday.

It’s the religion, stupid.

Obama’s Mini-Me – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick – said on Good Morning America last Sunday that he had no idea why the Tsarnaev brothers would do such a thing.

It’s the religion, stupid.

Former Maine Governor John Baldacci, a very liberal Democrat, played down Muslim association when he hosted a Saturday morning “Inside Maine” radio talk show last Saturday. He claimed poverty was the major factor in motivating the Tsarnaev brothers to bomb the Boston Marathon. Fellow liberal Ken Altshuler was Baldacci’s obsequious parrot and strongly supported this foolish contention.

It’s the religion, stupid.

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2487/Saudi-Follies-Part-2.aspx

Let’s pick up where last week’s column left off with that Saudi national in Boston – Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the 20-year-old “student” who was acting suspiciously enough after the Boston bombing to be “detained” under guard at the hospital and named a person of interest in the April 15 attack.

That same day, law enforcement searched Alharbi’s Boston-area apartment for seven hours, leaving with bags of evidence at around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, April 16. On Tuesday afternoon, a sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security created what is called an “event file” on Alharbi, calling for his visa to be revoked due to ties to terrorism. That same afternoon, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper would inform the Senate Intelligence Committee that Alharbi was now merely a “witness.”

This exonerating designation pulled the public eye off of Alharbi, but only temporarily. On Wednesday night, April 17, Steven Emerson refocused our attention on Alharbi when on Fox News’ “Hannity” show, the terrorism expert broke the news that Alharbi was scheduled to be deported on “national security grounds.”

Since then, however, it has been a struggle to keep this sensational story in sight. The administration has categorically dismissed it, and the media have followed suit – which is better than anything the Saudi dignitaries sweeping through Washington after the Boston bombing could have hoped for.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has done her overbearing best to discredit even elected officials with the temerity to ask questions about it. In an April 18 exchange with Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., Napolitano exploded when Duncan, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, asked why the Saudi witness, apparently connected to terrorism by his deportation order, was slated to leave the country when the Boston investigation was just beginning? Calling the premise of the congressman’s question a “rumor,” Napolitano replied: “I’m not going to answer that question. It’s so full of misstatements and misapprehensions that it’s just not worthy of an answer.”

Really?

Maybe Her Secretary-ness was relying on alterations to the original Alharbi file that, The Blaze would later report, were made on the evening of Wednesday, April 17, “to disassociate him (Alharbi) from the initial charges.”

But it was too late – and here’s where the story gets really juicy. Glenn Beck and The Blaze have now reproduced a copy of a page from the original April 16 file on Alharbi. In terse government lingo, this document makes clear that 1) Alharbi was a terrorism risk to the public, and 2) federal authorities who permitted him into the country were negligent. No matter what Napolitano says, this story is no rumor.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/346664/print

Aid for veterans is much in the news: No one will confuse “Lest We Forget,” the epitaph engraved on countless memorials, with the motto of the Department of Veterans Affairs, mired in its inability to provide timely medical care to hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans. While government exposes its inherent ineptitude, some young warriors are taking matters into their own hands to make sure wounded comrades receive the care they and their families need. I wanted to share with NRO readers the story of Nine Line, founded by Danny Merritt — a brave soldier and member of the extended National Review family — and its efforts to help a real American hero, Eddie “Flip” Klein, and others who have paid dearly to protect our freedoms.

JACK FOWLER: Danny, tell the uninitiated what “Nine Line” means as a military term, and how that translates to your new mission.

DANNY MERRITT: A Nine Line MEDEVAC request is a call for help when you-know-what hits the fan in combat. In military terms, “you have to call in a Nine Line” means the most important call you will ever have to make. It’s a call to get a wounded soldier off the battlefield.

When they are out of harm’s way and back home, these soldiers still need and deserve our help. So I started Nine Line Apparel and Nine Line Foundation to continue to help them, not only along the road to recovery, but also as they try to rebuild their lives in the most normal of ways. Nine Line is going to be a lifeline and an advocate for these true heroes.

FOWLER: There are a number of foundations and organizations that aim to help wounded warriors and their families. What makes Nine Line different? What is the back story here?

MERRITT: We started Nine Line in order to help out a classmate — Eddie Klein, better known as Flip — of my brother, Tyler Merritt. While on patrol in Afghanistan last October, Flip lost both legs and his arm during combat operations. We wanted to be able to help Flip, other service members, and their families, and we were going to do it differently. The philosophy of Nine Line is simple: “One Service member and their family at a time.”

Nine Line is payback. After my first enlistment in the Army, I got accepted into Valley Forge Military College for their Early Commission Program. I was excited but realized quickly that I could not afford it. The Mustang Scholars Foundation provided a scholarship that helped offset the cost. That charity made getting a commission through Valley Forge Military College a possibility. It made it a reality. And it changed my life.

The guys behind Mustang — Tony McGeorge, Peter Connors, Tom Bentley, and others — came up with a direct way to support soldiers like me. Their kindness gave me a great push in the right direction in life. I have benefited from other people’s help, and now I am in a position to pass it along, to pay back to others the kindness shown me. My brother Tyler and I decided to help others in our own way, to do it directly, to make it personal. And that’s how Nine Line came about.

Nine Line Apparel and Nine Line Foundation is our vehicle to help others who paid a significant price fighting for all Americans abroad. Our mission is to help severely wounded service members by raising funds to offset their cost of recovery, to retrofit their homes and vehicles, to support their children’s education, to give deserving service members and their families that important additional support they need in order to get their lives back to normal — to a new normal — as soon as possible. Who better to help combat veterans than combat veterans?

FOWLER: Tell us a bit about Tyler and Flip — what class were they in?

MERRITT: Tyler and Flip were classmates at West Point, and their class motto was “Never Falter, Never Quit.” But this is more than just a motto — Tyler and Flip live by this term. And even after more than 100 surgeries, Flip continues to fight on. He has overcome some of the most physically and mentally tough challenges, and he seems to do it like it’s just another day.

Tyler is an Army captain, currently a SOAR Special Operations pilot for the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which was credited with delivering SEAL Team 6 to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The “Night Stalkers,” as it’s known, is not Tyler’s specific unit, but he’s among the top 1 percent of Army pilots.

FOWLER: Flying helicopters?

MERRITT: Yes.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/346680/black-flags-behind-those-green-lines

I don’t often disagree with my good friend Cliff, but we continue to see things very differently when it comes to Syria. Five thoughts.

1. It is not certain that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. I heard Defense Secretary Hagel, who is not the clearest fellow in any event, say our intel community had “some degree of varying confidence” that Syria had twice, on a “small scale,” used sarin. That is a hedge if ever there was one. Coming days after it seems the government had a uniform degree of strong confidence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was nothing to be concerned about, it’s not exactly something I’d bet the farm on.

2. Let’s assume Assad did it. This would not change the underlying problem: Assad’s opposition is rife with assorted Islamic supremacists and jihadists. These include elements of al-Qaeda, the organization with which we are at war, and whose ardent pursuit of chemical and biological weapons has not only been noted but formally alleged in indictments for years. I am not saying we have no friends in the opposition. But, as in Egypt, they are a weak part of an opposition led by Muslim supremacists who hate the West. That is not going to change, no matter what weapons Assad uses.

On this score, Cliff’s argument repeats the standard interventionist narrative: Obama failed to act in support of the pro-American (or, at least, anti-Islamic-supremacist) faction(s) of the opposition, creating a void that allowed “well-funded jihadist and Islamic forces [to] take the lead on the battlefield.” I wrote about this narrative in a recent column. There is no evidence in Syria, any more than there was in Egypt or Libya, that there was, at any point, a thriving, pro-American faction that was capable of taking the lead against the dictatorial regime. The most virulent opposition to the Assad regime has, for decades, been the Islamic supremacists — the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied violent jihadists. There is no void. This is the dynamic in the Muslim Middle East: You rationalize U.S. aid and sacrifice by telling yourself you are only helping the good guys, and then, once the regime is toppled, it turns out there aren’t enough good guys — so you end up with the Muslim Brotherhood. If Assad is replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood, that is not progress for America.

3. To be clear, I am not joining the argument of my friend Daniel Pipes that we should support Assad. I have contended, as Daniel does, that if America’s enemies are determined to make war on each other, we should let them. But I don’t believe we should strategically orchestrate or elongate the war — jumping from side to side to keep it going. I am advocating that we stay out of something that is their problem and that we had no role in instigating. To put ourselves in the position of being responsible for the terrible suffering attendant to someone else’s war in the absence of any vital American interest is something I beieve we’d come to regret deeply.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/kerrys-shocking-demand-to-israel-free-terrorists/print/

It may seem amazing, but in the wake of the Boston attack the Obama administration is pressuring Israel to free terrorists guilty of particularly heinous acts of murder.

On Wednesday the Knesset “discussed America’s demand that Israel release terrorists as a good will gesture to the Palestinian Authority.” The demand is part of intensive efforts by Secretary of State John Kerry to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a peace settlement—efforts that are amazing in their own right considering that the Palestinian Authority has consistently shown for 20 years that it is incapable of accepting Israel and not interested in a state “living in peace” beside it.

Kerry—with Iran at the brink of a nuclear capability, Syria a maelstrom of clashing terror factions, Egypt close to economic collapse, and North Korea threatening nuclear aggression—has in recent weeks been meeting with PA president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Riyadh, Amman, and Istanbul.

Abbas’s preconditions for resuming negotiations are the same as they have been for years: Israel committing beforehand to a withdrawal to indefensible borders, prohibiting Jewish building in Judea, Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem, and releasing terrorists from prison. Israel is reportedly, at this point, rejecting all these demands.

The Obama administration is also “preparing a multi-billion dollar economic initiative that would bring international businesses and major infrastructure projects to the West Bank”—again, nothing essentially new but, rather, part of a 20-year tradition of Israeli, U.S., and European efforts to bribe the Palestinians into adopting Western norms and practices of peace, prosperity, and tolerance.