RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206972422374842.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion After the Oslo Massacre, an Assault on Free SpeechNorway’s left seeks to silence Islam’s critics by linking them to a mass murderer. Last July 22, a powerful explosion rocked a government building in downtown Oslo, killing eight people. Later that day, 69 people, mostly teenagers, were shot to death by a lone gunman at […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206943198066220.html

(How) Should Israel Bomb Iran?
Diplomacy has run its course, sanctions are too late, and Israel can’t cry wolf again.

Can Israel attack Iran? If it can, will it? If it will, when? If when, how?And what happens after that?

On Sunday with Matt Lauer, President Obama said “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.” That didn’t square with the view of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who’s been reported as saying he expects an Israeli attack this spring. Nor does it square with public warnings from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the Iranians would soon enter a “zone of immunity” from foreign military attack if nothing is done to stop them.

GIVE THIS FOOL THE TOM FRIEDMAN PRIZE….RSK

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/06/leslie-h-gelb-israel-and-netanyahu-pipe-down-the-threats-of-war-on-iran.html
Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s constant threats to Iran only make a difficult settlement more unreachable. Tone down the threats and give economic sanctions time to work, writes Leslie H. Gelb.

Bibi, Israel, curb your over-the-top war rhetoric toward Iran. I urge this as one who cherishes Israel and values military power. But you’ve got to understand that your constant threats to attack Iran to stop its nuclear program aren’t working. Unending military threats unite Iranians and fire up their resistance. Economic sanctions weaken and divide them—and often produce constituencies for compromise. Give sanctions time to play out.

You cannot actually believe Iran will prostrate itself in the face of your threats. As Amos Yadlin, a retired Air Force general and former head of Israeli military intelligence, said Sunday: “These statements have reached the point where they have crossed the line from bringing benefit and are beginning to cause damage.” Your warnings will ignite war and will not foster Iran’s abandoning its nuclear program. Did Saddam Hussein kneel before George W. Bush’s threats? Did the Taliban handcuff itself when faced with America’s military might? Has Kim Jong-un bowed before his Western master? None capitulated even to the American superpower. Thus, it’s hard to believe that you truly calculate that Ayatollah Khamenei will cry “uncle.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/ Ayaan Hirsi Ali:The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World From one end of the muslim world to the other, Christians are being murdered for their faith. We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a […]

THIS SUBJECT IS DEAR TO MY HEART. AT THE URGING OF ZEEV JABOTINSKY, MY FATHER LEFT POLAND  THROUGH SWITZERLAND, WHERE HE BECAME A PHYSICIAN AND WAS OFFERED A JOB IN BOLIVIA TO SERVE IN THE CHACO WAR IN 1932. BECAUSE OF HIS SERVICE IN THAT WAR BOLIVIA REWARDED HIM AND MADE HIM SURGEON GENERAL. 10,000 […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206980068367936.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama’s largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees?

President Obama has frequently justified his policies—and judged their outcomes—in terms of equity, justice and fairness. That raises an obvious question: How does our existing system—and his own policy record—stack up according to those criteria?

Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?

Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country’s income-tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?

Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?

Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C.—but millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and forced to send their kids to rotten schools?

Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money—paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars—must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and as much as 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?

JUST IMAGINE THE FOLLOWING HEADLINES:

MAY 23, 1944: IN SECRET CONVERSATIONS WITH CHURCHILL, IKE REVEALS THAT ON JUNE 6TH, AN INVASION OF NORMANDY NAMED OPERATION OVERLORD IS PLANNED. IT WILL BEGIN WITH PARACHUTE AND GLIDER LANDINGS, MASSIVE AIR ATTACKS AND NAVAL BOMBARDMENTS. THIS SHOULD REALLY SURPRISE THE HUNS.

MAY 1981: SOURCES IN ISRAEL REVEAL THAT A TOP SECRET ATTACK ON IRAQ’S NUKE REACTOR 17 MILES SOUTHEAST OF BAGHDAD IS IN FINAL STAGES OF PREPARATION. THE ACTION CODE NAMED OPERATION BABYLON ON JUNE 7TH SHOULD CERTAINLY SURPRISE SADDAM HUSSEIN.

JUNE 31, 1976: TOP SOURCES IN ISRAEL HAVE CONFIRMED A SECRET OPERATION TO RESCUE THE ENTEBBE HOSTAGES ON JULY 3. A HERCULES PLANE WILL LAND IN ENTEBBE AIRPORT AND SWOOP UP THE HOSTAGES. THIS SHOULD CERTAINLY SURPRISE IDI AMIN.

IF ISRAEL IS GOING TO DO IT….JUST DO IT….AND STOP THE MEDIA BABBLE.

Obama Seeks New Ways to Insult the American Warrior Community!

http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/2012/02/obama-seeks-new-ways-to-insult-american.html

While I understand that only a fraction of the population of this nation is directly affected by what you are about to read, I would never-the-less like to remind you that the remainder of the population is affected coincidentally. While the majority of the American population probably never even considered the Armed Forces as a possible career objective, there are those who never considered life without serving their country, in uniform, on a field of combat. Most of these young men and women never take the time to internalize some idealized vision of charging death for God and Country, they just have a burning desire for the call on their lives to do so and then, most importantly, they act!

President Obama, however, was apparently never burdened with that urgent call to serve others – or his country selflessly. And because the only thing he ever answered to was a call to “self-empowerment” and self-ingratiation, he has been a brutal failure as a moral leader and Commander in Chief. In addition, his unquenchable desire to “win over” that portion of the world population to whom he has sold his soul has led him to a new round of actions that should anger every red blooded American and will disgust every American who has ever donned the uniform of a United States Marine!

This week, President Obama blocked legislation that would hold Iran accountable for
the Hezbollah bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983 . This inexplicable move hasn’t any bearing on the current crisis except for it’s ability to tilt world opinion in favor of US interests. The Obama administration’s actions to derail this legislation in Congress, then, can only be seen as an effort to bolster support for the Iranian regime which can only be understood through the prism of this sitting President’s indefatigable efforts to “reconcile” with the Islamic nations of the world.

If three plus years of his purposeful attempts to insult the country he has sworn to defend through his many prostrating speeches on Islamic soil and this latest otherwise despicable move haven’t enlightened you, then maybe this next story will help finish your education!

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/06/pushing-israel-to-war

When one ally abandons another, the latter is left with no choice.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May, or June. This is according to a 2 February Washington Post column by David Ignatius, apparently relying on a conversation with Panetta. Ignatius’s column came out at the same time as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s speech in which Barak declared that Iran would soon enter a stage where its nuclear program would be immune from attack.

In his speech, according to a report in the Financial Times, Barak said, “The world today has no doubt that the Iranian military nuclear program is slowly but surely reaching the final stages, and will enter the immunity stage from which point the Iranian regime will be able to complete the program without any effective intervention and at its convenience.” He added, “Dealing with a nuclearized Iran will be far more complex, far more dangerous and far more costly in blood and money than stopping it today. In other words, those who say ‘later’ may find that later is too late.”