http://send.hadavars.com/index.php?action=message&l=2096&c=15310&m=13810&s=a317a26441993bdd8f740ee9a6c71bce Chuck Hagel established himself as a Palestine Firster on October 27, 2009, speaking at “J Street’s” 1st national conference: “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central, not peripheral, to US vital security interests in combating terrorism, preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, stability in the Middle East and US and global energy security.” Really?! In contrast with […]
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/moor-strategy_695215.html?nopager=1
Mauritania’s President Mohamed Abdel Aziz on Islamists and underdevelopment in the Sahel
Of all the security threats Americans did not expect in 2013, a military breakthrough by Islamists into the heart of West Africa is the most urgent. At this writing, Malians are fleeing the Niger River hub of Mopti, and elements of a French airborne brigade are deployed nearby to reinforce Malian infantrymen, as Islamist fighters advance. Last month, the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of force to rescue northern Mali, which fell under the control of several al Qaeda affiliates in March 2012.
The French-sponsored plan, for which the United States has expressed lukewarm support, is being jump-started by the terrorists’ preemptive use of force. They have had a year to strengthen their position. An individual with a keen interest in the alarming strategic situation is the Islamists’ arch-foe and Mali’s neighbor, Mohamed Abdel Aziz, president of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. While acknowledging that the crisis calls for an immediate reaction on the part of Mali and its friends to keep the Islamists north of the Niger River, he stresses that there is no longer any excuse for not taking a hard look at the whole Sahel region and its persistent problems.
So little known is Mauritania that few Western news outlets bothered to report the wounding of its president last October. Victim of a reportedly accidental shooting while passing an army guard post on a desert road outside this capital, Abdel Aziz required surgery and weeks of convalescence in France, during which neither the White House nor the State Department called him directly. He does not bring this up during a conversation in his office at year’s end, but goes straight to the point he wants to get across: The terrorist groups and criminal gangs in northern Mali must be eradicated.
Having watched jihadists establish sanctuaries in the Sahara for over a decade, Abdel Aziz is wary of quick fixes. He fought them alone early last year, vainly urging his neighbors to join him in coordinated action at a time when, he still believes, the problem could have been dealt with by a terrible swift and well-aimed sword. “There were only a few hundred armed men back then,” he says, adding, “Even during the Tuareg war, we could have intervened and solved the problem.” Last year, a secessionist movement among Tuareg nomads routed the U.S.-trained Malian Army and was in turn chased out of the north by better-equipped jihadists who entered the fray.
In the first three months of 2012, the Mauritanian Army entered Mali on at least two occasions, using ground troops and airpower to dissuade the rebels from any idea of moving toward their frontier. This was in keeping with a policy adopted after Abdel Aziz came to power in 2008. Its main components include modernization of his forces and a willingness to engage in hot pursuit of the troublemakers by crossing the 500-mile border his country shares with Mali.
http://times247.com/
State of the Union to come on Lincoln’s birthday
MAYBE DANIEL DAY LEWIS SHOULD DELIVER THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS?….RSK
The Washington Times
Friday, January 11, 2013
News
President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Feb. 12, House Speaker John Boehner said. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HlbPOWZa
Judge lets Taliban terrorist pray with prisonmates
Associated Press
Friday, January 11, 2013
News
A federal judge has ruled that a convicted Taliban fighter should be allowed to pray daily in a group with other Muslim inmates at their high-security prison in Indiana. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HlcP09RK
Iran threatens to kidnap Western diplomats
The Washington Free Beacon
Friday, January 11, 2013
News
The United States government is concerned about new threats of Iranian-backed terrorism against diplomats and high-profile religious leaders in the Middle East from operations by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HlcAiFPS
Perry pokes Cuomo on state economies
Politico
Friday, January 11, 2013
News
Texas Gov. Rick Perry singled out New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Thursday while arguing that other governors should be envious of the Lone Star State’s economic record. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2HlbnV1sl
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/obama-383164-hagel-defense.html Obamacare at home leads inevitably to Obamacuts abroad. If you had buttonholed me in the Senate men’s room circa 2003 and told me that a decade hence Joe Biden would be America’s vice president, John Kerry Secretary of State, and Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense, I’d have laughed and waited for the punch line: […]
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2013/01/david-singer-on-abbas-attitude.html The latest article by my e-pal Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer….rsk ‘Annexation of large areas of the West Bank by Israel has now become a distinct possibility with the unilateral decision this week to scrap any trace of the existence of the Palestinian Authority by its President Mahmoud Abbas. In a […]
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2422/made_in_iran_islamist_anti_semitism rench magazine Charlie Hebdo has never been one to shrink in the face of Islamist threats. Having had its offices firebombed in the past, the ‘provocative’ outfit has taken the decision to publish for a third time cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. In response, it has been reported by Farsnews that an anti-Semitic cartoon […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ DRONING ON It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the report is propaganda manufactured by FFR and Reprieve on behalf of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. And if there is really any doubt about that at all, the following should clear it up. “I know a lot of people, girls and boys, whose […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ CRIMINALS HATE GUNS Criminals hate guns. Whether it’s the street mugger, the corrupt CEO or the dirty politician, they hate the idea that any of their victims might be armed. Mugging an armed man is dangerous. Throwing an armed man out of his home is dangerous. Repressing an armed man is dangerous. If your […]
IN MEMORIAM: Norman Fruman, soldier, scholar, loyal friend “Shame and contrition, because we have not done enough,weigh even more heavily upon the Jews of the free countries [than on the Allied powers]. Not only do wehave the greater responsibility of kinsmen, but our own weakness may be one of the causes why so little has […]
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/two-israeli-films-harshly-critical-of-israel-get-oscar-nod/2013/01/11/
IN ISRAEL FILM MAKERS ARE FREE TO CRITICIZE AND BASH ISRAEL…..IN ALL THE ARAB NATIONS SUCH MOVIE MAKING WOULD RESULT IN JAIL TIME FOR THE PRODUCERS AND A RIOT OR TWO IN THE ARAB GUTTER….RSK
The nominations for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards best movies of 2012 were announced yesterday, January 10, and two Israeli films are among those nominated.
Of course, both movies portray Israel in a negative light, so calm down before kvelling.
The movies, “5 Broken Cameras,” and “The Gatekeepers,” were both nominated in the category of Best Documentary film. Both films portray Israelis as primarily violent thugs who are intent on oppressing the Arab Palestinians.
“5 Broken Cameras” is produced and directed by an Arab Palestinian, Emad Burnat, and an Israeli Jew, Guy Davidi. It won the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Festival.
Emad Burnat, the storyteller in “5 Broken Cameras,” is from the village of Bil’in, which is the site of a weekly protest by the villagers and numerous activists hungry for fights with Israelis. The protests are ostensibly about the creation of Israel’s security fence – which opponents often refer to as an “Apartheid wall,” and the film documents these protests. The 5 broken cameras in the movie’s title refer, according to Burnat, to five different cameras of his which have been broken by the Israelis in “brutal” attempts to squash the Arabs’ “non-violent” protests.
