RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/19/iraq-in-the-rearview-mirror#

“America’s definable enemies — the nations that sponsor Islamic terrorism — have been fortunate that we have sunk in the self-imposed quagmire of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. By choosing to fight their proxies instead of them, we have not moved closer to victory but away from it. As we leave Iraq, the picture in our rearview mirror is dimly lit with fleeting images of purple-thumbed voters, victims of street bombings, and the smiling visage of Moqtada al-Sadr.Our enemies have learned much about us in the decade since 9/11. It is not clear that we have learned much, if anything, about them. Or about ourselves. ”

So now that we’re out, what did we accomplish?

Historians may someday conclude that the most curious incident of Barack Obama’s presidency occurred in October 2011. When Obama announced that the last of our troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by year’s end, the news was almost lost amid the tsunami of economic news and metronomic campaign debates. There were no great outpourings of emotion, ringing speeches, or UN hyperbole. The moment was, like Sherlock Holmes’ observation of the dog in the night-time, curious because of the silence that surrounded it.

Why would the most controversial war since Vietnam end without as much controversy as when it began? The reason is that that America tuned out the Iraq war years ago. The horrific Sunni vs. Shia violence that overwhelmed Iraq after the Samarra mosque bombing in February 2006 was quelled by General Petraeus’s troop surge. When the violence subsided to Iraq’s new normal, so did the controversy. From late 2008, America has been interested in almost nothing but economic news. And, from 2009, we’ve had a president who kept the willing media focused on everything other than the war.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1037

The issue of the legality of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria has become an American presidential campaign issue of sorts. Just recently, Wolf Blitzer, former Al HaMishmar correspondent, pressed Rick Perry in a CNN interview, asking him: “Since ’67, every U.S. president, Democrat and Republican, has called Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories, in the West Bank, illegal under international law. Would you continue that activity?”

Perry responded, “No I wouldn’t. I consider the Israeli settlements to be legal, from my perspective, and I support them … where the Israelis are clearly on Israel’s land that they have hard fought to win and to keep, absolutely.” In November, Rick Santorum, another Republican contender, was asked if Israel should dismantle its settlements, and insisted the territory was “part of Israel.” He compared it to the status of New Mexico and Texas as part of the U.S. and asked his questioner, “Should we give Texas back to Mexico?” The interviewer countered, “Well, I don’t think you should recognize recent annexations,” to which Santorum retorted, “Oh, so it depends whether it’s recent or not? … The bottom line is that is legitimately Israeli country. And they have a right to do within their country just like we have a right to do within our country … all the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian, this is Israeli land.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ Islam is peaceful. At least that is the likely defense of Rafiqi Islam, a loving husband, who told his wife that he had a present for her, blindfolded her to make it a surprise and then cut off her fingers. Then the rest of the Islam family mopped up the blood, while Mr. Islam […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11069/pub_detail.asp The unceasing drumbeat of Israel-bashing on the pages of the New York Times is not exactly a secret. But in mid-December, the limit on the NYT’s image of promoting “objective journalism” was reached. When it comes to Israel, it means a page in which Israel’s friends are unwelcome while its critics and enemies enjoy […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1685/pub_detail.asp North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il Has Died [FOX] House GOP threatens to kill bipartisan payroll tax deal in vote set for Monday [THE HILL] French credit downgrade could come ‘within days’ – Standard & Poor’s expected downgrade could create panic in the financial markets and make eurozone crisis even worse [GUARDIAN] China villagers […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11067/pub_detail.asp
Carol A. Taber, president of the Family Security Foundation, Inc., and publisher of familysecuritymatters.org, was awarded both the U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team’s (USCTAT) Winston Spencer Churchill Award (for tenacity and resourcefulness) and the Combatant’s Cross (the highest recognition by the USCTAT) during ceremonies at the S.C. State House, Friday.

Approved and signed by Clare M. Lopez – retired CIA operations officer and today deputy national director of the USCTAT– Taber’s awards were presented for her personal sacrifice and tireless work since Sept. 11, 2001 in promoting and supporting both public awareness of national security and the importance of public participation of the same.

Taber’s awards were presented by former White House advisor DeWitt Zemp to Lt. Col. Bill Connor, U.S. Army (Res.) who accepted the awards on her behalf. Both Zemp and Connor are USCTAT advisors.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/724/europe_s_clueless_politicians_are_so_incompetent_that_they_can_t_even_figure_out_how_to_do_the_wrong_thing
The latest EU agreement uses the fiscal crisis as an excuse to erode national sovereignty and impose more centralization, more harmonization, and more bureaucratization.
There’s always been a simple and desirable solution to Europe’s fiscal crisis, but nobody in Europe wants to do the right thing because it means admitting the failure of big government and it would result in less power for the political elite.

So we get the spectacle of never-ending emergency summits as the political class blindly searches for some magical solution. Not surprisingly, the “solution” concocted by the latest gathering is not getting good reviews.

Here’s what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

What remarkable petulance and stupidity. The leaders of France and Germany have more or less bulldozed Britain out of the European Union for the sake of a treaty that offers absolutely no solution to the crisis at hand, or indeed any future crisis. It is EU institutional chair shuffling at its worst, with venom for good measure. …There is no shared debt issuance, no fiscal transfers, no move to an EU Treasury, no banking licence for the ESM rescue fund, and no change in the mandate of the European Central Bank.

David Cameron Bats Another Century Posted By Roger Kimball

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/12/18/david-cameron-bats-another-century/?print=1

David Cameron just batted another century. I think I’ve got that right: On this side of the pond we say “hit a home run.” In Blighty, I believe one says “bat a century.” (English and other members and former members of the Empire will feel free to correct me.) [UPDATE: As many have. The correct equivalent is “hit a six.” And, I am reliably informed, one “scores a century.”] Just a week or so back, Mr. Cameron demonstrated that he was not, as many of us believed, a sort of blancmange with legs. In vetoing the proposed revisions to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, he showed that he actually possessed a back bone and that he was willing and able to stand up for Britain. “It has to be in Britain’s interests” was his constant, and correct, refrain. When he went to Brussels for the Merkozy all-nighter, he had reportedly intended to go along to get along. But when he absorbed what the Treaty revisions would mean for the city of London (billions of pounds in new fees), he told Angela and Nicolas that they would be sailing to Eutopia without Britannia.

Mr. Cameron must enjoy standing tall. For just yesterday in a speech about religion in the public square, he told Rowan Williams, the self-described “hairy lefty” and “Druid,” who also happens to be Archbishop of Canterbury, where he could get off. He has made a pastime of criticizing the Cameron government’s spending cuts, the legitimacy of its coalition, and has recently demanded increased taxes on banks.

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2682/belgium-islamist-state

An Islamist group in Belgium is intensifying a propaganda and intimidation campaign aimed at turning the country into an Islamic state.

Over the past several months, Sharia4Belgium, a Muslim organization that wants to implement Islamic Sharia law throughout Belgium, has become increasing belligerent in its appeals to fellow Muslims to overthrow the democratic order in the country.

The latest installment of Islamist agitprop comes in the form of a video in which the Belgian Islamist Sheik Abu Imran declares that the black flag of Islamic Jihad will “soon be flying on top of all the palaces in Europe.”

The December 11 video, which has been translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), shows Imran dressed in military camouflage calling for the destruction of the Atomium, a monument in Brussels that is the national symbol of Belgium.

MR. CODEVILLA HAS GRACIOUSLY GIVEN ME PERMISSION TO POST AND CIRCULATE A PERSONAL LETTER HE RECENTLY WROTE ….RSK

Is there a Republican Establishment that differs from and is antagonistic to people who vote Republican?

Whether such a thing existed before, say, 1950, is problematic. But since about that time it has manifested itself undeniably. Consider:

Beginning circa 1940, Robert Taft of Ohio rebuilt the Republican Party’s credit with the American people. He spoke of smaller government at home and the pursuit of the national interest abroad- including opposition equally to Communists and Nazis. Wars were for winning. But the Party’s machinery and money were in New York. J. D. Rockefeller, Wendell Wilkie, John Foster Dulles, and Thomas Dewey, supported heavily by old money, were Progressives in the mold of Herbert Hoover and Woodrow Wilson. They believed that they could bring the world together onto the path of progress and improve America by tweaking FDR’s New Deal. Wilkie and Dewey lost. By 1952 the party was almost unanimously for Taft. But the Republican Progressives bought and stole delegates to the ’52 convention, especially in the South where delegates had no voters who could hold them accountable. When that did not work, they used the Credentials committee to exclude the elected Texas delegation and replaced it with one formed by them. Dwight Eisenhower was a great man. But he was foisted on the party – not picked by it.