RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324100904578401083677703420.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Ten more Marines per ship won’t matter if there aren’t ships in the Mediterranean Sea to deploy from.

In the rush to paper over its delinquencies in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the Obama administration seems unaware that its failures are fundamental rather than merely anomalous. They are, unfortunately, a portent of the future.

On March 26, this newspaper reported that “In the wake of the attack, the military has examined how to improve its rapid response forces,” specifically by “adding special operations teams of roughly 10 troops to ships carrying larger Marine Expeditionary Units.” MEUs shipborne in amphibious ready groups usually number 2,200 Marines in special forces, reconnaissance, armored reconnaissance, armor, amphibious assault, infantry, artillery, engineer and aviation battalions, companies and platoons. They can get over the beach fast, and they fight like hell.

On March 21, 2011, during Operation Odyssey Dawn, an American F-15 went down in Libya. Immediately after the Mayday, the 26th MEU started rescue operations from the USS Kearsarge, and a short time later two of its Harrier fighter jets, two CH 53 helicopters, and two MV 22 Ospreys were at the scene, with more than a hundred Marines. Hundreds more might easily have arrived if required. Forces like this could have shattered the assault in Benghazi in minutes. Adding 10 men to such echelons rich in special forces would have little relevance. Fine in itself, the proposal is an obfuscation. The issue is not the composition of already capable MEUs but rather that one was not available when the attack took place.

From World War II onward, the U.S. Sixth Fleet stabilized the Mediterranean region and protected American interests there with the standard deployment, continued through 2008, of a carrier battle group, three hunter killer submarines, and an amphibious ready group with its MEU or equivalent. But in the first year of the Obama presidency this was reduced to one almost entirely unarmed command ship. No MEU could respond to Benghazi because none was assigned to, or by chance in, the Mediterranean.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ The BBC’s Panorama series has gone undercover at Sharia councils where Islamic law is doled out in the state within a state within the multicultural bureaucracy to discover that the dispensers of Islamic law have failed abused women. Failing abused women is the nice genteel way that lefties use to mean that the judicial […]

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104476
Mrs. Thatcher was a remarkable woman and leader, but hagiographies are not a replacement for some disappointing aspects of her leadership…..rsk

Prime Minister, one aspect of your policy is particularly disturbing to the Jewish community, that which seems to make Britain the leading advocate of the Arab case against Israel. Knowing your past admiration for Israel, where do you personally stand now?

I’m not an advocate for any particular cause of any particular country. I am an advocate, have always been an advocate, of fair dealing between countries, and an advocate of steadily trying to improve the democratic rights of people, because I believe passionately in a free society. Because of that, I have stood in the middle of Damascus and said, “I will not see the PLO.”

Because of that, I have said frequently in the House to the PLO, “if you demand self-determination for yourself and the right to live within secure borders, you cannot deny those same things to other peoples.” Because of that, I have said “I uphold international law. Once we go away from that we shall not know where we are.”

So if any country is an aggressor, an unprovoked aggressor on another, I will condemn that country whatever that country is, and against whomsoever it operates. I believe firmly in fair dealing and fair principles, the right of each country to live at peace and security within its own borders.

You have described the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant as a grave breach of international law.

Most certainly it is.

But surely the fact that the Iraqis are in a self-confessed state of war with Israel, have never even signed an armistice with her, let alone a peace treaty, puts the Israeli raid in a different light?

Well, hardly. Are you saying that, while there have been absolutely no aggressive attacks between Iraq and Israel for what, many years, something like that, yet all of a sudden it’s right to go in and bomb? No. If anyone had done that to Israel, my goodness me, I should have been the first person to be up in arms about it. Is Israel saying now that she is at open war with Iraq?

But should Israel have waited until she was attacked?

Is Israel or any other country saying that because some other country happens to start up a nuclear plant, that warrants a bombing attack by another country? What sort of international anarchy is that?

Can you not appreciate how worried the people of Israel must feel when they are surrounded by those who don’t recognise her—the PLO, Syria and others? Israel has to be in a state of preparedness—do you appreciate that?

You can always be in a state of preparedness. We are in this country. Every country has the right to defend herself, every country in the world.

If we are not going to live by a system of international law, we are going to live by international anarchy. Then no people anywhere in the world are safe. That is why we do struggle hard to try to get a Middle Eastern settlement. It is why I openly say and condemn the PLO for not recognising the right of Israel to exist. I openly condemn them for terrorism—but don’t you see, if I openly condemn the PLO for terrorism, I have to condemn everyone for the use of violence and terrorism. They will say to me, “You condemn us for terrorism, but now look, there has been an attack on another country by bombing.”

But Israel doesn’t want to wait to be bombed.

You cannot be selective in your defence of law—you cannot say, “I like that law, I will uphold that one, I will not uphold the other.” Is anyone saying that because any country has a nuclear installation, that another country is justified to bomb that nuclear installation? Of course not. As a matter of fact, Israel and Iraq belong to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But they are still at war with Israel …

Are you saying that Israel and Iraq are in open war with one another, although, Mr Modlyn , there have been no hostilities for many years? Look, I do beg of you, never espouse the cause of violence; if you do, then you are saying, other people are entitled to be violent against your own people. I would never say that. I try to stop it wherever it happens.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3649/back-to-jahiliyya Jahiliyya: The “state of ignorance of Divine guidance” — how Muslims refer to the pre-Islamic era. For years the sheiks of the Islamist movements have been promising us that “Islam is the Solution.” The sad fact is that it is the sheikhs of the radical Islamist movements of the global jihad — the Muslim […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3661/lutherans-israel It is intolerable that every Christmas, and from time to time at other events in the Christian festival year, the LWF makes participation in worship conditional upon the acceptance of a political opinion. Congregants who disagree can only walk out or stay away. No Christian should face such a choice on a Sunday, let […]

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/54357 I remember an article some few years ago in the Wall Street Journal titled, The Ugly Premise of Settlement Opponents, in which James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence under President Clinton, pointed out that the charter of the Fatah party – which is that of the Palestinian Authority’s putative president, Mahmoud Abbas – […]

Facebook freedom Journalist Mamdouh Hamamreh served only one day of the year-long sentence imposed on him for “insulting” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook. Fearing a backlash and denying personal involvement in the case, Abbas decided to magnanimously “pardon” Hamamreh. But Abbas needn’t have feared. He is the darling of free world opinion – regardless of the incitement […]

US Army Removes Slideshow Listing Ultra Orthodox Jews as Extremists Alongside Hamas and Al Qaeda The US Army has removed a slideshow used as training material for US Army Reserve recruits that describes “Ultra-Orthodox” Jews as religious extremists, equivalent to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to a report in London’s Daily Mail newspaper. The […]

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/novelists-view-world/2013/apr/7/president-obama-kamala-harris-and-rules-compliment/

NEW YORK, April 7, 2013 – President Obama last week angered many with his comments about California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Even Michelle Obama seems to have retaliated for the Presidential praise of the California attorney general.

Probably just coincidence, or Freudian Slip, but in an interview with CBS affiliate WCAX last Thursday, First Lady Michelle Obama plumb forgot she was married. She said, “Believe me, as a busy single mother – or, I shouldn’t say single – as a busy mother.” Okay, she quickly corrected herself, but what’s-his-name still has some explaining to do.

These days, it seems all we’re doing is explaining and apologizing. Ever since Gloria Steinem declared that women need men as much as a fish needs a bicycle, men have been properly put in our place and keep trying to make amends for 20 million years of sexism. Do the math. Women’s lib only began a few decades ago.

Please, give us a chance to learn the rules. Give us a minute to catch our breath.

The rules do keep changing. We can’t keep up, as is evidenced by two hot commentaries along these pages, one for Obama’s “sexist” remark, the other against.

It is folly for anyone to try to sort it out for the betterment of mankind (oops), but here is a reminder, anyway: A while back we were summoned to be gallant and chivalrous.

We were taught (most of us were) that girls and women were to be given flowers for their beauty of character and good looks.

Exactly what is wrong with this?

But one morning we were told that it is okay, even required, to tell a woman that she looks marvelous. Next morning, hey, we can go to jail for this!

Yesterday’s compliment is today’s complaint. We mean praise but get clobbered for making you feel “uncomfortable.”

We are finding this tough to follow.

If our culture has become so neutered, soon we may be forbidden from watching Guys and Dolls.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3945

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel for his third trip to the region since he took office on Feb. 1, and for the second time in the span of two weeks. The impetus for these visits is the urgency he feels in the face of the “clock ticking” toward a point of no return.

Too bad the deadline he has set for himself has nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear program. No, on that score, he is confident that his boss, President Barack Obama, has everything under control.

“All options are on the table,” Kerry reiterated on Monday, following his participation in the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. But diplomacy, he stressed, is still the preferred route.

He’s right about one thing: Diplomacy is certainly Iran’s preference, particularly in light of North Korea’s military muscle-flexing, which is testing the waters for a buoyed Tehran.

In fact, the reason for Kerry’s country-hopping is to reignite peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. To this end, first he flew to Istanbul on Sunday, where he made an appeal to the Turkish government to “play a role” in pushing the process forward.

To say that this is delusional would be to diminish the depth of its derangement. Turkey has been making overtures to Hamas in Gaza and remains hostile to Israel, in spite of Obama’s brokering a restoration of ties between the two countries during his own visit to Jerusalem last month. And though a group of Israeli diplomats is scheduled to go to Ankara in the near future, the purpose of the delegation is to discuss the multi-millions of dollars in compensation to be paid to the families of the Turkish radicals who were killed during the “Free Gaza” flotilla raid in 2010.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made it clear to Kerry that Israel would have to meet a stringent set of preconditions before Turkey would agree to kiss and make up. These include lifting the naval blockade of Gaza.