http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/142199/sec_id/142199 [N.B.: the latest episode in the Syrian Soap Opera intervened as I embarked on the final version of this text that has been modified, amplified, elaborated, extended and abridged over the past two weeks. The imminent military response to the alleged use of nerve gas by Basher al Assad, delayed by the refusal of […]
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/09/13/israel-on-yom-kippur-renewing-life-amid-traumas-of-the-past/ With the backing of his Russian patron and arms supplier, New York Times columnist [1]Vladimir Putin, Syria’s President Assad has agreed to sign on to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the treaty that President Obama has described as representing the will of 98% of the people on the planet to rid us all of […]
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/09/13/israel-on-yom-kippur-renewing-life-amid-traumas-of-the-past/ Saturday marks Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the solemnest day of the Jewish Year and, at least in Israel, the most widely observed. Israel shuts down totally on Yom Kippur. No transportation; no TV, radio, or activity on websites; no stores, cinemas, or restaurants open. Kids exploit the utter stillness […]
http://cnsnews.com/commentary/m-stanton-evans/defense-diana-west#sthash.WX2cqtbK.dpuf Out of the public eye and far from the daily headlines, a fierce verbal battle is currently being waged about the course of American policy in the long death struggle with Moscow that we call the Cold War. At ground zero of this new dispute is author Diana West, whose recent book, American Betrayal (St. […]
In observance of Yom Kippur, there will be no postings tomorrow. May the new year bring the blessings of peace to America and Israel.
On this holiday I reflect with great rue on how many futile and suicidal efforts Israel has made to find peace- Camp David, Oslo, Wye, Gaza, -all based on the delusion that it is about territory. The great American poet Emily Dickinson who strung words together like pearls sums it all up.
The Legacy of 9-11 Hero Danny Lewin
By Steven Plaut
The Israeli-American hero of September 11, 2001 has remained largely unknown and his role largely unacknowledged. Danny Lewin was an American-Israeli, an internet entrepreneur, and the very first person to be murdered by the Al-Qaeda barbarians on September 11, 2001. He was aboard the American Airlines Flight 11 plane out of Boston headed for Los Angeles when it was hijacked by the terrorists. A veteran of the special forces in the Israeli army, Lewin quickly understood what was going down. He spoke fluent Arabic. He single-handedly attempted to attack and subdue the terrorists. He was stabbed to death on the plane by terrorist Satam al-Suqami, a Saudi law student. He was 31 years old when he was murdered.
A new biography of the hero of 9-11 just hit the book stores and is entitled, “No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet.” It is written by Molly Knight Raskin.
Lewin grew up in Denver and immigrated to Israel with his family in 1984. He served in the ultra-elite special forces combat unit “Sayeret Matkal,” perhaps best known for the operation in Entebbe to release the kidnapped Jews. He attended the Technion in Haifa, where in 1995 he was named the year’s Outstanding Student in Computer Engineering. He then worked for IBM in developing high-tech products, later doing graduate work at MIT.
Lewin had been working with MIT Professor F. Thomson Leighton, and the two developed mathematical algorithms for optimizing internet traffic. These became the basis for Akamai Technologies, which the two founded in 1998. Lewin served as the company’s chief technology officer and a board member. The company went public in 1999 and its stock market valuation rose rapidly to 345 billion dollars. Lewin was posthumously named one of the most influential high-tech figures in the world.
After his death, the intersection of Main and Vassar Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was renamed Danny Lewin Square in his honor.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/358437/print
A year and two days after the deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, militants attacked the U.S. consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, this evening at 5:30 a.m. local time (9 p.m. Eastern time). According to a release from the State Department, no Americans were injured; some Afghan policemen were likely hurt and one foreign security contractor may have been injured.
The unidentified attackers assaulted the front entrance of the consulate with a truck that quickly exploded, damaging the front gate. Afghan and contractor security engaged with the attackers, who were “possibly firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles,” outside the consulate; American security personnel also engaged with the assault and dealt with any attackers inside the perimeter (local police typically secure the outer perimeter and entrances of U.S. diplomatic facilities). Some of the attackers were apparently wearing suicide bombs, the statement says.
Herat is in northeastern Afghanistan, in one of the country’s more secure regions — and near the border with Iran, which has invested in the area and helped turn it into one of the country’s more developed regions.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358436/hostage-foreign-extremists-andrew-doran
As the secretaries of Defense and State testified before the House Armed Services Committee about American military intervention in Syria on Tuesday, I spoke with two Syrians to discuss the war in their homeland. It was a perspective few in the West have heard, one that complicates the U.S. government’s intervention storyline. With President Obama’s announcement that war will be averted for the time being, there is an opportunity to examine the realities on the ground for the Syrian people.
The Syrians, whose names are withheld for their safety, fear reprisal. The Syria they describe is a more complex place than that seen on the news by Americans.
Prior to the outbreak of civil war in Syria, the Sunni majority, Alawi, Shia, Druze, Kurds, and Christians lived in peace. When the protests began in 2011, “the idea of change was welcomed by all Syrians,” says one of the Syrians. “But there was an external agenda.” The other interjects: “Saudi Arabia . . . the Wahhabi, the Salafi.” As peaceful protests gave way to rebellion, violence, and civil war, Syria began to splinter into sectarian and tribal affiliations. “Most of my friends are [Sunni] Muslim,” says one. “Today, you cannot even say hello.” But it was not so simple as Syrian Sunnis versus religious and ethnic minorities.
Not long after protest gave way to rebellion, the influx of foreign fighters to Syria began, coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and even Europe and North America. Syria became the front line of a broader conflict: Sunni versus Shia, Islamist versus secular, an intra-civilizational civil war. These foreign Sunni jihadists flocked to make holy war as the mujahedeen had done in Afghanistan a generation earlier. “Most of them come through Turkey . . . their weapons stamped from Saudi and Qatar.” They quote a report from Jacques Bérès, of Doctors Without Borders, who claimed that “at least half” of the wounded rebels he treated were not Syrian.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358427/liberals-retreat-john-fund Three elections in the last week have challenged long-held liberal premises about how elections are fought and what the public wants. It’s worth examining those results in such widely separated places as Australia, Norway, and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. In Colorado, liberals are already in denial about the fact that two Democratic state […]
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/13/pruden-measuring-putin-for-mount-rushmore/ But ridding Syria of its chemicals won’t be easy If you’re reading or listening in the wrong places, you might think they’re already measuring a place for Vladimir Putin on Mount Rushmore, sandwiched between Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. That’s where Barack Obama, who may have to give Mr. Putin the Nobel Peace Prize […]
