http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/01/16/ksms-prison-communiques/ I was invited to provide commentary Tuesday night on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News program (“The Kelly File”) regarding the all too predictable but nevertheless appalling news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — al Qaeda heavyweight, 9/11 mastermind, decapitator of Daniel Pearl, jihadist warring against America for the better part of two decades, and murderer of […]
http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2014/01/17/ksms-prison-communiques-2/ We explained in yesterday’s Ordered Liberty post that the publication of jihad heavyweight Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s communiqués, disseminated from the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, herald the return of the pre-9/11 paradigm: jihadist terror treated as a mere law-enforcement problem, not a war. Now, we turn to the propaganda aspects of KSM’s published […]
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/2013_digital_yearbook Chuck Brooks is VP for Homeland Security at Xerox and was first Director of Legislative Affairs for the Science and TechnologyDirectorate at DHS. As an Adjunct Faculty Member at Johns Hopkins he taughta graduate course on Congress and Homeland Security, and was a Senior Advisor to the late Senator Arlen Spector. Chuck is leader […]
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176395#.UtpcF7ROmUl
An American pro-Israel group has weighed-in on the brouhaha over Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s recent controversial comments about US Secretary of State John Kerry, in which Ya’alon branded America’s top diplomat “obsessive and messianic” in his quest to impose a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Ya’alon particularly took issue with what he saw as the plan’s disregard for Israel’s security concerns, saying that the security arrangements it detailed were “not worth the paper it was written on”. A recent report suggested that the Defense Minister’s diatribe was provoked by a concerted American campaign to use top military officials to convince Israel to make sweeping concessions.
Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI) added its voice to countless others – including politicians, military veterans and rabbis – who spoke up in support of Ya’alon’s comments.
In a bid to “remind” Kerry of the existential threat posed by a withdrawal – particularly by rocket attacks – AFSI took the initiative to republish a recent presentation by Langfan illustrating the strategic importance of the Judea-Samaria region, and translated it into Hebrew and Russian “in case he doesn’t understand plain English”.
http://www.commdiginews.com/todays-best/does-john-kerry-want-israel-destroyed-2207/ December 15, 2014 — That man John Kerry, our Secretary of State, sure has some appetite. He is insatiable, at least for Israel. Reports keep coming in telling us that Kerry wants peace and security for Israel, even at a price of Israel without Israelis. So Kerry has been engaging in dogged shuttle diplomacy. […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2748/Secrets-of-Katyn-Forest-Whats-Really-Buried-There.aspx
The power of history to speak to us depends on our ability to hear it. When we are deaf to its secrets, or too confused or conditioned to decipher them, we miss the opportunity to be empowered by them. We thus fail to overcome the propaganda our own government, like the dictatorships we revile, has all too often deceived us with.
I am struck by this aura of static around a sensational new discovery. Researcher and author Krystyna Piorkowska, the Associated Press reported this week, has unearthed a “lost” U.S. document, dating back to 1945, known as the Van Vliet report on the Katyn Forest Massacre. Few Americans are familiar with the World War II-era massacre, let alone with U.S. Army Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet, so what is history telling us?
Its message is one that we as a people are deeply conditioned to reject. It concerns decades of U.S. appeasement, support and collusion regarding the USSR, and even in some of the evil empire’s worst atrocities. In American Betrayal I re-examine this terrible pattern, long obscured by false narratives of the “good war” that I learned along with everybody else, for evidence of Soviet agents’ influence on U.S. strategy. Equally important is the corrosive impact this subversion has had on our nation’s character. Nowhere is this moral impact more evident than at Katyn.
http://spectator.org/articles/57426/each-according-his-delusions
The latest faux issue to insinuate itself into our political polemics travels under the unedifying name of “income inequality.” As political abstractions go, this one is more incoherent than most. (Shabbier too in its naked appeal to envy and resentment.) Almost no one who uses the term says what he means by it. But it has the ring of yet another incitement to leftist larceny.
Since President Obama heaved this dead cat into the room a few weeks ago, I’ve been waiting for anyone speaking for the Republican Party to say that this hustle is nothing more than Marxist boilerplate. Since no one in the Grand Old Party has either the courage or the awareness to say this, I guess it’s up to me.
If income inequality is the problem, then income equality is the goal. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, to coin a phrase (or to each according to his or her fanciful desires, if we are to adopt the Sandra Fluke addendum to the original Marx).
Are we to have a government committee to insure that the corporate CFO with the 10th floor corner office makes the same as the security guard sitting in the ground floor lobby? Should universities add what the full professor of women’s studies and the janitor in her building make and pay them both half the total? Should the guy who drives the studio limo make the same as Tom Hanks did on his last picture? Should the burger flipper at the corner McDonald’s make the same as the chef de cuisine at the Chez Pretense? On a more personal example of blatant income inequality, Obama, with his presidential salary and other sources of income, fetches in a multiple of what I make. Will he be sending me a check to equalize things between us? I won’t hold my breath.
http://bit.ly/1aYGyua
1. (Bloomberg, Gwen Ackerman and David Wainer, January 8, 2014): “Israel’s technology industry is growing up and the stock market is benefitting. Investors and entrepreneurs are increasingly choosing initial public offerings (IPO) over buyouts, with eight Israeli companies raising $361MN in 2013, the most since 2007. While mergers and acquisitions still represent the highest proportion of transactions, with $6.3BN in 2013, Israeli companies opting for listings from London to NY are closing the gap…. Owners of Israeli companies no longer seek to sell their early-stage companies to get a speedy return on their money…. Israel’s Enzymotec raised $71MN in September, and its shares have almost doubled since then. Israel’s Eix.Com garnered $127MN from investors in November; Israel’s largest IPO in the US in more than six years, and its stock is up 48%. Technology companies contribute about 80% of Israel’s industrial exports…. Among the largest Israeli technology companies changing hands in 2013 were the purchase of Waze by Goggle for $966MN and Cisco’s acquisition of Intucell for $475MN. Other companies have resisted buyers. Check Point grew by raising money from selling shares, multiplying in value since its 1996 NASDAQ IPO and is now worth $13BN.”
2. In 2013, twenty Israeli companies were acquired, for over $4BN, by foreign companies, compared to $3.9BN in 2012, $5BN in 2011, $1.6BN – 2010, $1.3BN – 2009, $2.6BN – 2008, $3.6BN – 2007, $10.1BN – 2006, $3.4BN – 2005 and $0.7BN in 2004 (Globes Business Daily, Nov. 13, 2013).
3. In 2013, Israeli companies raised $1.565BN on Wall Street, compared to $627MN in 2012, $1BN – 2011, $400MN – 2010, $190MN – 2009, $200MN – 2008, $1.84BN – 2007, $974MN – 2006, $1.16BN – 2005 and $1.25BN in 2004 (Globes, Nov. 13, 2013).
4. The NY-based International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) acquired Israel’s Aromor for $88MN (Globes, Jan. 16). Canada’s Dorel acquired Israel’s Tiny Love for $50MN (Yedioth Achronoth, Jan. 12).
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4270/hizballah-preparing-for-war-with-israel Hizballah continues to entrench itself in the Syrian civil war, while facing a string of radical Sunni bombing attacks in their Lebanese strongholds. The terrorist organization is also facing renewed international backlash regarding its alleged role in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. These challenges contribute to the group’s deterioration in […]
http://www.timesofisrael.com/australia-fm-dont-call-settlements-illegal-under-international-law//
In an exclusive interview with The Times of Israel, Julie Bishop suggested that, contrary to conventional diplomatic wisdom, the settlements may not be illegal under international law. She refrained from condemning Israeli initiatives to build additional housing units beyond the Green Line or from calling on Israel to freeze such plans, merely saying the fact that settlements were being expanded showed the need for the sides to quickly reach a peace agreement.
“I don’t want to prejudge the fundamental issues in the peace negotiations,” Bishop said. “The issue of settlements is absolutely and utterly fundamental to the negotiations that are under way and I think it’s appropriate that we give those negotiations every chance of succeeding.”
Asked whether she agrees or disagrees with the near-universal view that Israeli settlements anywhere beyond the 1967 lines are illegal under international law, she replied: “I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal.”
The position that settlements breach international law — adopted by the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and many other states and international bodies, but rejected by Israel — is based on an interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 49, paragraph 6, states that an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Violations of the convention are considered war crimes under international law. Israel is a party to the convention and therefore bound by it.
