RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/apr/23/after-boston-age-suspicion/

NEW YORK, April 23, 2013 – I’ll probably get over this fever of suspicion – until at least the next Islamic terror attack – but meanwhile I’ve gotten too skeptical even for my own taste.

Since the capture of those two monsters who committed the atrocity in Boston, we’re being overfed with their names, faces, and their charms. Their schoolmates keep insisting, unanimously, that they were nice kids, just like any regular “Joe College.” Who knew?

Who knew that beneath the surface, these “all-American boys” from Chechnya were smitten with hearts of darkness? Or – as I suggest – maybe their pals did know, but were afraid to say, given the rules of political correctness that govern our college campuses. Would you be the first to blow the whistle?

I did nearly as much and am still hearing about it when I wrote, “Suppose by their own (hateful) words and (malicious) deeds they turn you into a bigot?”

So, with Boston on my mind, along with many Americans I have grown some fresh skin of wariness that includes the following:

We have become suspicious of men who come to America with names that cannot be pronounced without buying a vowel.

We have become suspicious of “students” from Saudi Arabia who, by the increasing thousands, are given special visas to come here to “study.”

(Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.)

We have become suspicious of Palestinian Arabs who, in the pretext of diversity, keep getting invited here with scholarships unavailable to citizens. They come from places like Gaza and Ramallah that celebrate terrorism and cheer even as we weep over our losses.

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Now he’s in trouble.

It is one thing for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be seen on security camera videos placing one of the bombs that killed three people at last week’s Boston Marathon.

But now he’s really crossed a line.

Tsarnaev is telling investigators he and his brother were motivated by religion to plot their carnage, media reports citing anonymous federal sources say.

Radical Islam. It’s a label banned by the Obama administration. National Islamist groups say it doesn’t belong in conversations about terrorism. Tsarnaev didn’t get the memo.

Recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, Dzhokhar told investigators from his hospital bed that he and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev were driven by religious fervor and took their instructions from al-Qaida’s Inspire magazine, NBC News reports. Anger at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fueled their rage, the Washington Post reports.

That motivation echoes justifications offered by Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan for the Fort Hood shooting spree that killed 13 people and Faisal Shahzad’s sentencing rant about his attempt to bomb Times Square in 2010. “The crusading U.S. and NATO forces who have occupied the Muslim lands under the pretext of democracy and freedom for the last nine years and are saying with their mouths that they are fighting terrorism, I say to them, we don’t accept your democracy nor your freedom, because we already have Sharia law and freedom,” Shahzad told the court. “Furthermore, brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.”

Despite this candor from terrorists, the Obama administration and Islamist groups have argued that referring to terrorists’ religious motivations somehow grants them religious legitimacy. “Nor does President Obama see this challenge as a fight against jihadists,” CIA Director John Brennan said in 2009 when he was White House terrorism adviser. “Describing terrorists in this way, using the legitimate term ‘jihad,’ which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve.”

Similarly, Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul Stockton squirmed and obfuscated when asked about the role radical Islam played in past terror plots.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4085

RUMOR HAD IT THAT ONE OF JOHN KERRY’S MEDALS WAS WON FOR SOME SHRAPNEL IN THE DERRIERE….WHICH COULD EXPLAIN HIS FAULTY BRAIN SYNDROME….RSK

On Sunday, when U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Israel to seal an arms deal and reiterate Obama administration platitudes about not allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Ankara, trying to shift reconciliation between Turkey and Israel into high gear.

Israel is ready and willing. Not only did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issue an apology to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month, but he sent a delegation to Turkey on Monday to iron out details of the compensation package that Israel will provide for the families of the activists killed by Israeli soldiers during the 2010 “Free Gaza Flotilla” raid.

It is the Turkish officials who are being intransigent, in spite of the fact (or perhaps because of it) that not a single person would have died on the Mavi Marmara ship had Turkish and other activists not brutally attacked Israeli soldiers who had been dispatched to prevent the flotilla from violating the naval blockade on Gaza.

Neither the Turkish authorities nor much of the Turkish public sees it that way. Erdogan is an Islamist through and through, which is why he is planning a trip to Gaza in the near future to pat his Hamas buddies on the back.

This is problematic for Kerry, who doesn’t want it to be so obvious that this American “ally” is growing closer by the minute to a terrorist organization. And it is a source of dismay for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is playing two hands simultaneously: portraying himself as the only legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, and trying to bury the hatchet with Hamas.

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/saudi-connection-to-boston-bombing/ Questions remain about whether there is a Saudi connection to the Boston Marathon bombing last week and if the Obama administration has been interfering in the investigation of the Islamic terrorist attack. These questions take on greater urgency as Islamic terrorist organizations continue preparing attacks. Canadian authorities yesterday upended an ambitious […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/u-s-israeli-arms-deal-aimed-at-iran/print/

U.S.-Israeli Arms Deal a Warning to Iran

On Monday in Tel Aviv U.S. defense secretary Chuck Hagel and Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon announced the finalizing of a major U.S.-Israeli arms deal. At a reported cost of $10 billion, Israel gets Bell Boeing V-22 transport helicopters (known as Ospreys), Boeing KC-135 in-flight refueling planes, advanced radar systems for fighter planes, and anti-radiation missiles.

It’s part of a larger deal, first reported in the New York Times last week, that also involves Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A U.S. official calls it “one of the most complex and carefully orchestrated arms sale packages in American history.”

And its focus is Iran. As far as Israel is concerned, all the hardware it’s getting enhances its ability to carry out long-range operations.

Hagel, for his part, was explicit about it. On the way to Israel, he told reporters that “Israel will make the decisions that Israel must make to protect itself, to defend itself.” He also called the sale a “very clear signal to Iran.”

Aharon Lapidot, a veteran Israeli military analyst and now deputy editor of popular conservative daily Israel Hayom, notes that “Israel will be the first country in the world to get the Osprey outside of the U.S.” and that it will “give the Israeli Air Force an advanced, modern aircraft….”

Lapidot also describes the Boeing KC-135 refueler as “of the utmost tactical importance” and as allowing Israel’s fighter jets “to partake in operations far from the country’s borders…. There is no doubt this is a force multiplier for the IAF.”

Or as Hagel himself put it, the sale will “ensure Israel’s air superiority in the future and allow the Israeli Air Force long-range capabilities.”

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/when-america-is-weak-its-enemies-attack/

On September 12, 2012, Obama stepped out into the Rose Garden and told the millions of Americans watching at home, “We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”

More than half a year has passed since then and justice is nowhere in sight. The perpetrators of the attack openly walk the streets of Benghazi long after the FBI team sent there has gone home.

It may well be a coincidence that the first major successful terrorist attack comes as the administration plots a withdrawal from its second lost war. The Boston marathon massacre may have succeeded by a simple roll of the dice. Or it may have inaugurated a new series of terrorist attacks on the homefront.

For over a decade, Islamic terrorists who wanted to kill Americans headed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Obama’s grand security plan was to replace boots on the ground with drones carrying out pinprick strikes and then flying away again. It was a comfortable technocratic vision but it doesn’t account for what happens to all those fighters on the ground with no one left to fight and no reason to stick around except to act as drone targets.

Some have headed for Syria and others for North Africa. But the big question is how long will it be until they make another serious pass at the United States? Or have they made it already?

In Libya, Obama tried to avoid casualties by bombing from the air under the guise of a No Fly Zone. But once Gaddafi was dead and the zone was down, nothing protected the Americans in Benghazi. Obama had used the United Nations to sanction regime change, but without its sanction or the sanction of the Arab League, he refused to use air power to scare away the Salafist militias besieging the trapped Americans.

The new soft power strategy was big picture. It had nothing to offer the Americans fighting and dying while waiting for help to arrive.

Al Qaeda understood soft power as a weakness. Unlike the decrepit Clinton policy wonks, it was not impressed by the old strategy of refusing to engage while hiding behind the drones that were standing in for Bill Clinton’s favorite terrorist-fighting cruise missiles. It understood that limited engagement was not some bright and new philosophy, but an unwillingness to take casualties and inflict collateral damage.

“We will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people,” Obama announced in the Rose Garden and the terrorists laughed. They laughed because they had support from within the Libyan government. They laughed because the Libyan government had obstructed the arrival of rescue teams and denied the use of armed drones over Libyan airspace.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Terrorism, like urban crime, is one of those things that you’re not supposed to think about too much. It’s fine to talk about your emotions after a bombing or a mugging. You can even share stories and eventually learn to laugh about it. What you cannot do is talk about where it comes from except in the vaguest terms of social conditions. Like pollution from industry or corruption from government, it’s one of those toxic spinoffs of our modern society. It’s just there and we don’t much talk about it.

Islamic terrorism is considered a social problem in Europe. Ask an expert and they’ll talk your ear off about unemployment, racism, overcrowded housing and the same long list of reasons used to explain urban crime. The United States is slowly coming around to that same point of view.

Forget the great debate between whether people kill people or guns kill people. The conclusion reached by most governments before your grandfather was born is that social conditions kill people.

The Tsarneav brothers are being talked about in the same way that most serial killers are. “They were so nice. What made them do it?” It’s the empty repetition of a question to which no one really wants to hear the answer. “What could have made them do it?” isn’t a genuine question, it’s a ceremonial washing of the hands. A ritualistic statement that we couldn’t have known anything was wrong. How could we? They were so nice.

Tamerlan Tsarneav slapped around one girlfriend, dragged another into a barefoot, pregnant and veiled arrangement, and went around telling everyone they were infidels. Sure he might have settled down at some point, picked up his membership card in the requisite front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood and limited his terrorist activities to donating to Islamic charities that just happen to do business in the middle of war zones. He could have stuck to beating his wife in the privacy of his home and told his neighbors that America would one day be destroyed knowing they would only nod and walk away humming, “But he’s so nice”.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/boston-and-the-drone-debate-why-rand-paul-et-al-will-probably-lay-low-for-a-while?f=puball So, will Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Dianne Feinstein go to bat for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? In December, with many conservatives cheering him on, Paul (R., Ky.) railed against the “abomination of designating American citizens as enemy combatants” e.g., detaining them indefinitely outside the civilian criminal-justice system. Mike Lee (Utah), a conservative favorite, was his […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/boston-the-msms-exploded-journalism

Over the years, I have watched via Internet video countless IED (Improvised Explosive Device) explosions detonated on American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, when I read the news of the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15th, and watched the videos of the incident, I was certain that it was a terrorist bombing that killed three people and injured over 170, some losing their limbs, and not an exploding fire hydrant or propane-fueled hot dog stand.

Then came the avalanche of hastily-written bulletins and aired news reports with earnest-looking reporters, half-thought-out educated guesses, “expert” speculations, and plain “yellow” journalism and words and images strung together just to fill print space and air time.

Shortly after the Boston bombings flung bodies and limbs and shrapnel over a Boylston Avenue sidewalk, the Mainstream Media itself exploded to reveal the debris of modern journalism.

Certain that it was indeed a terrorist act, and once the authorities had confirmed that two pressure-cooker IEDs had been set off, I began researching and writing a column about it, and attempted to sift through all the cascading hysteria and hair-pulling and come up with some solid facts and conclusions. I found it virtually impossible to compose a coherent article on the subject. The haphazard stories of who was responsible or not responsible for the bombings, and whom the authorities had arrested or not arrested, or whom the authorities were looking for, kept flickering in the news and my mind like a badly edited silent movie whose last nitrate frames had disintegrated. My mind shut down, and refused to function as it usually would when addressing an important topic.

I gave up on the effort and decided to wait it out. That patience paid off, for the terrorists turned out to be two Chechen brothers who “inexplicably” turned jihadist. They were Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26. But in the meantime, some distracting but interesting developments also caught my attention, and none of them reflect well on either the MSM or the Obama administration or on the FBI.

There was the episode of the “running man” seen in a security camera video fleeing the scene of one explosion. He was reportedly tackled by a civilian and somehow turned over to the police. Whether or not he was the same 20-year-old Saudi student who suffered burns and was taken to a local hospital, or someone else entirely, hasn’t been confirmed. His name and that of the civilian who apprehended him remain unknown.

The student was Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi. Photographs of a smiling, geeky-looking kid in a hospital gown were published. He looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. It turned out that he was definitely a “person of interest” because his family has terrorist ties. Not long after the bombing, both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John “Swift Boat” Kerry, he of the bogus combat film, combat medals, and French pedigree, met with Saudi officials in Washington and arranged for the kid to be deported back to Saudi Arabia.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346349/radical-islam-once-again We are in the midst of the least-suspenseful investigation ever launched by American law enforcement. Hundreds of investigators are seeking leads around the world to discover the motive of the Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. This probe is considered a foray into the unknown, and perhaps the unknowable. “Do you have any […]