RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/13/report-from-an-asymmetrical-wa

Once again, Iran’s proxies in Gaza set off an early sign of something much bigger.

The moral asymmetry between Israel and its enemies has been strikingly on display in the latest flare-up between Gaza terror groups and Israeli forces.

By Monday afternoon the Israeli air force had reportedly killed 19 terrorists in pinpoint strikes on Gaza targets — mostly rocket-launching crews — and two Palestinian civilians as collateral damage, a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy. According to UN data cited by Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, the typical ratio when armies fight terror groups is 3:1 — three civilians killed per every terrorist killed by the military forces.

By contrast, the over 200 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel since Friday have been aimed solely at civilian targets. Most have been lobbed at cities — Ashkelon, Ashdod, and (my own) Beersheva — in the hope of killing and maiming as many men, women, and children as possible.

The far larger of the two groups doing the firing, Islamic Jihad, is, as noted by the Israeli army spokesman, “an arm of the Iranians. It is completely funded and supported by Tehran when it comes to weapons and resources.” A senior officer said Iran was directly encouraging Islamic Jihad to keep up the shelling.

The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat by Bill Siegel (Jan 12, 2012)

Why do we continue to indulge the fantasies about the real threats to our society, our judiciary, our academies , our security, our national culture and our survival posed by Islamic jihad? In praising this book, Andrew McCarthy (among others, including Steve Emerson and Herb London) states it perfectly:

“Willfull blindness, today’s refusal to come to grips with the Islamic threat to the West, is America’s most profound national security vulnerability. Supremacist Islam’s campaign has targeted the United States by violent jihad. a softer and more insidious march through our institutions, and lawfare salvos fired in American courts and international tribunals. Desperate to avoid offense to Islamist activists and their allies, we surrender to the politically correct narrative that the vital measures taken on our own defense are the cause of our peril. The Control Factor powerfully unfolds the process of self delusion and the ssstruggle to remove the scales we’ve placed over our eyes. Survival of the West’s freedom culture- our commitment to critical inquiry based ordered liberty, and human reason- hangs in the balance.”
The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat by Bill Siegel (Jan 12, 2012)

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577257533531110466.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

In the Persian Gulf, A Vulnerable FleetThe Navy’s capabilities are impressive. But we need more ships.
Aboard USS Bunker Hill

It didn’t take Chief Warrant Officer Jason Echevarria more than a glance through the ship’s binoculars to figure out what the Iranian-flagged dhow 3,400 yards off the starboard beam wasn’t doing.

For one thing, the gaily colored boat was larger than the dhows that typically ply the confined waters of the Persian Gulf. Its deck was clear of netting and tackle, and the paint job seemed fresh. The Furuno radar was another giveaway. And it was shadowing us, coming at one point within a mile.

“If that’s a fishing boat, I’m a monkey’s uncle,” said Mr. Echevarria, a native of Melbourne, Fla. Later, the boat would be photographed flying the colors of the IRGC-N, the naval branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204781804577269903743850814.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
By WARREN KOZAK

It was simply called the “Dayton Exercise” and for obvious reasons it was kept secret for decades. It was also one of the clearest examples of the trouble the United States encounters when it decides to precipitously draw back its military in a troubled world.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. had the most modern and best-equipped military on earth. No one else came close. It had taken the entire war to build it, and at great sacrifice.

U.S. troops fought at a distinct disadvantage until 1944 because of an earlier self-imposed disarmament. But when the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese surrender and preventing a land invasion of the Japanese islands, the U.S. abruptly demobilized again. It had done the same thing 27 years earlier, after World War I.

In the Army Air Forces alone (there was no independent Air Force until 1947), the number of men dropped to just over 300,000 in 1947 from 2.4 million in 1945. On the day the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, there were 218 combat groups in the Army Air Force and 70,000 planes. One year later, there were 52 groups—only two of which were considered combat-ready. The airplanes that American factories had churned out were parked end-to-end in the desert, sold to other countries or junked.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/13/debunking-obamas-energy-policy-lies/

Debunking Obama’s Energy Policy Lies

As U.S. gas prices steadily rise to alarming levels, Republican presidential hopefuls have pointed to the Obama administration’s dysfunctional energy policies as a significant influence in the distressing trend. It’s an issue that endangers the president’s re-election prospects and Team Obama is now in full defensive mode, simultaneously claiming that it is “all in” with respect to energy sources of all sorts, while it says that it has also made important inroads toward increasing domestic oil production and reducing dependence of foreign oil.

In order to support these claims, the administration turned to the tactic that has become a staple among global warming alarmists: pick a couple of convenient data points that support your position, claim they are representative of an overall trend and let the ever-gullible, technologically ignorant mainstream media regurgitate the message. For example, Obama has tried to mollify critics by saying that domestic production of crude oil is up to the highest levels that we’ve seen over the past eight years. While that is technically true, it’s a meaningless factoid, for the president doesn’t seem to understand – or refuses to acknowledge – that market forces have raised the value of crude oil enough that domestic production has marginally increased over the already pitiful rates of 2004.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/13/10-ways-obama-has-made-war-more-likely/print/

Wars begin in a thousand ways. Some begin with lies, others with truth. Some with aggression and others with appeasement. But behind those many beginnings are some familiar qualities. Arrogance, incompetence, ignorance and cowardice.

Those qualities should be familiar because we can hardly go a day without seeing them displayed behind the teleprompter in its familiar place in Washington D.C. or on the endless road trip to the Muslim world that is the Obama Doctrine. We have seen them in Istanbul and Cairo, and we can see their consequences in Tehran and Tunis. In a world where America has kept the peace, they are swiftly leading us to war.

Bombs Away in North Korea

The words “North Korea” and “diplomacy” are a running joke even in diplomatic circles, and seeing a headline like “Clinton hails North Korea food deal” doesn’t give you enough information to determine whether you are seeing a news story from 2011 or 1994. Sadly, the answer is 2011, as the Hope and Change crew have put their faith in their own diplomacy, rather than in history or common sense.

North Korea is more than just a Communist mafia with nuclear weapons; it’s the starting point in the supply chain for any Muslim country that wants its own nuclear weapons. Its ability to blackmail the West encourages nations like Iran to push for their own nuclear programs to be able to have their own atomic blackmail card… and brings us closer to the day when a bankrupt North Korea decides that America really is a paper tiger and our soldiers find themselves fighting a second Korean War.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/293261/costly-united-nations-brett-d-schaefer

WHY DON’T THEY JUST CLOSE IT, SEAL IT AND HANG OUT A SIGN….”CLOSED FOR ALTERCATIONS” ???
Behind schedule and over budget — and still the U.N.’s Capital Master Plan (CMP) is getting high grades. “The first major renovation of the 60-year-old headquarters has been slowed by extra security measures,” the Associated Press reports, noting that “The final cost will be nearly $2 billion — about 4 percent over the original budget.” Still, the article leaves the general impression that the CMP has done a heckuva job of cost containment.
Really?
That 4 percent overrun amounts to real money — more than $80 million. But that’s chump change compared to the real stakes in this story.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/293274/holder-s-identity-problem-rich-lowry

For Attorney General Eric Holder, life must present a hellish vista of pervasive racist practices.

Wherever he goes, people are required to show identification. When cashing a check. When signing up for a library card. When boarding a plane. When entering certain office buildings. When checking into hotels. When (in the case of the youthful-looking) buying a beer or cigarettes, or entering a bar. The tyranny of the photo ID is so all-encompassing that people can’t enter Holder’s own Justice Department without showing one.

Holder is outraged that in a nation where requests for photo ID are ubiquitous, more and more states are requiring that people show them when they vote. In a speech last year, Holder characterized these voter-ID laws as an assault on the voting rights that Congressman John Lewis — the hero of Edmund Pettus Bridge — fought for in the mid-1960s. Back then, blacks in the South had to fear for their safety if they showed up at the courthouse to try to register to vote. Now, states are merely asking everyone, regardless of race, to show identification that is readily available to all, regardless of race.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/nicky-larkin-israel-is-a-refuge-but-a-refuge-under-siege-3046227.html
Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege Through making a film about the Israeli-Arab conflict, artist Nicky Larkin found his allegiances swaying.
Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege

I used to hate Israel. I used to think the Left was always right. Not any more. Now I loathe Palestinian terrorists. Now I see why Israel has to be hard. Now I see the Left can be Right — as in right-wing. So why did I change my mind so completely?

Strangely, it began with my anger at Israel’s incursion into Gaza in December 2008 which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead, compared to only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by this massacre I posed in the striped scarf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for an art show catalogue.

Shortly after posing in that PLO scarf, I applied for funding from the Irish Arts Council to make a film in Israel and Palestine. I wanted to talk to these soldiers, to challenge their actions — and challenge the Israeli citizens who supported them.

I spent seven weeks in the area, dividing my time evenly between Israel and the West Bank. I started in Israel. The locals were suspicious. We were Irish — from a country which is one of Israel’s chief critics — and we were filmmakers. We were the enemy.

Then I crossed over into the West Bank. Suddenly, being Irish wasn’t a problem. Provo graffiti adorned The Wall. Bethlehem was Las Vegas for Jesus-freaks — neon crucifixes punctuated by posters of martyrs.

These martyrs followed us throughout the West Bank. They watched from lamp-posts and walls wherever we went. Like Jesus in the old Sacred Heart pictures.

But the more I felt the martyrs watching me, the more confused I became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was one of “non-violent resistance”. It was their motto, repeated over and over like responses at a Catholic mass.

Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_necessity_of_anti-sharia_laws.html
The Necessity of Anti-Sharia LawsBy Robert Spencer

Louisiana, Arizona ,and Tennessee have already passed legislation restricting the use of foreign law in state courtrooms, and twenty-one other states are considering similar laws. These statutes are designed to halt the use of Islamic law, sharia, by American judges — a measure that many see as necessary, since sharia has already been involved in cases in twenty-three states. Many see this as an alarming encroachment upon First Amendment protection of religion; however, anti-sharia laws do not actually infringe upon religious freedom at all, and they become more urgently needed by the day.

In the March issue of First Things, law professor Robert K. Vischer equates anti-sharia laws with recent intrusions upon the religious freedom of Christians, such as laws that now require “pro-life pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill” and “Christian adoption agencies to place children with same-sex couples, and religious entities to pay for their employees’ contraceptives.” He asserts that “[t]he recent spate of ‘anti-Sharia’ initiatives is just the most politically popular example of such threats” to religious freedom.