RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346220/afghanistan-unknown

National Review has asked me to comment upon the current state of affairs in Afghanistan. I don’t know what the current state is; I do know it doesn’t much matter. Let me explain.

Our reason for invading that remote, medieval country in 2001 was to destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, which had murdered 3,000 civilians at the World Trade Center. Our military failed to destroy AQ but did drive it into Pakistan. To keep AQ from reestablishing a base inside Afghanistan, modest U.S. assets (say, 10,000 troops) are needed.

However, the UN, NATO, and the U.S. decided in 2002 to broaden the Afghan mission to infinite dimensions. The triumvirate determined that 30 million illiterate, fractious tribesmen deserved to be reformed into an economically viable democracy defined by Western values and laws. The West would accomplish this Herculean task while handing total sovereignty over to its hand-picked, “elected” ruler, Hamid Karzai. Unlike the British, who had ruled a century ago via colonialism and reprisals, the West in the 21st century scrupulously abjured direct interference in Afghan affairs, while nonetheless guaranteeing countrywide security, propping up government officials, building an infrastructure, and paying for a viable economy. Once the U.S. established that mission, it could never be ended. Like Detroit or Jersey City, Afghanistan would always need more money.
Throughout the past decade, Pakistan has given sanctuary and aid to the Taliban because Pakistan is determined to keep Afghanistan in a subservient geopolitical position that does not benefit India (or any other power). So by 2006, the American troops in Afghanistan were waging war against the resurgent Taliban. This was not the original mission. And, like the task of ensuring democracy, it guaranteed the U.S. could not leave. Our forces fell under the political control of Karzai, and gradually our generals tightened proscriptions against air strikes to the extent that today, U.S. forces neither patrol nor go out as advisers, while Afghan forces are forbidden to call in air. Fighting rifle against rifle guarantees the Taliban can continue attacking year after year.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346166/conservative-case-immigration-reform

After winning election to the U.S. Senate last year, I expected to be teaming up often with my fellow conservative Marco Rubio (R., Fla.). What I never expected was that Senator Rubio and I would be working on immigration-reform legislation with liberals like Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Dick Durbin (D., Ill.).

While conservatives are justified in their skepticism of any legislation that Senators Schumer and Durbin sign off on, I hope we don’t let their association with the bill that is now before the Senate overshadow the conservative elements that Republicans have included.

The first section of the bill addresses border security. It requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop a “Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy” and appropriates $3 billion to implement the plan with resources such as military-developed surveillance systems, additional Border Patrol and customs agents, and unmanned and fixed-wing aircraft. DHS is also required to develop the “Southern Border Fencing Strategy,” with $1.5 billion to ensure that all parts of the border that need a fence have a fence (some parts of the border are so mountainous that a fence would be impractical and redundant).

Because DHS hasn’t always addressed the situation at the border realistically, the bill requires that if they do not achieve a 90 percent effectiveness rate within five years (meaning that 9 of every 10 illegal border crossers is apprehended), another $2 billion will be spent to implement recommendations from a commission of border stakeholders, who, for the first time, will have meaningful authority to increase border security. This funding can be directed toward more manpower, technology, and infrastructure strategies.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346228/putting-lipstick-obamacare-pig The Department of Health and Human Services has just handed out a $3.1 million PR contract to improve the public image of Obamacare. Advertising Age reports that the firm Weber Shandwick will help “roll out a campaign to convince skeptical — or simply confused — Americans the Affordable Care Act is good for them […]

We have the worst possible president to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/04/21/boston-and-america-where-the-fish-rots-from-the-top/?print=1

Apropos of the #BostonBombers, CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted this weekend: Big q is why FBI didnt keep an eye on/talk to Tamerlan Tsarnaev after he returned from Chechnya last year. So far from FBI: crickets.

Tapper’s right. The FBI is not looking particularly good as far as their surveillance of murderous Caucasian Islamists on our soil is concerned. And Tamerlan, evidently , left quite a trail, from domestic violence to reportedly attacking an imam for holding up MLK as someone to emulate. [1] Not exactly subtle. They were even warned about Tamerlan by the Russians [2] apparently.

The Feds must have been pretty clueless to ignore all this.

Probably. But I offer in their defense one of the hoariest of cliches: The fish rots from the top.

The Obama administration and most of those working for it have taken Islamic terrorism about as seriously as I am taking the Memphis Grizzlies/L.A. Clippers game currently on my TV — in other words, at best mildly interested. Not being a fan of either team, I could watch — I could switch to something else.

And when Islamic terrorism does rear its head, as in Benghazi, the administration evinces something worse than disinterest — dishonesty, lies, coverup and prevarication (sometimes aided by Tapper’s CNN cohort Candy Crowley).

And they don’t stop. They haven’t offered anything yet even remotely resembling a transparent account of the Libyan events or of their motivation. The secretary of State has told us it’s not even important. (How does that look in the light of Boston?)

So why would we expect the nation’s police department — the Federal Bureau of Investigation — to take these matters with the requisite seriousness? The message they are getting from the top is …meh. Until something happens, Islamic terrorism is way down this administration’s list of priorities. And when it happens, the “t-word” is only mentioned under the most extreme duress (or possible political fallout). And the word “Islam” is abjured even when someone yells “Allahu Akbar!” while shooting everyone in the room.

Do you think the FBI agent on the street doesn’t notice? Ah, let this Tamerlan guy go argue with his imam. It’s lunch time. Legal Sea Foods, anyone?

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/refugee-trauma-and-the-boston-terrorists/?singlepage=true Following the past week’s marathon of terror in Boston, the news is full of articles trying to explain the Tsarnaev brothers. What would motivate two young men, granted asylum by America, to answer that welcome by assaulting a crowd with bombs packed with nails and ball bearings, with maiming and murder? Given the Chechen […]

http://www.romirowsky.com/13197/blaming-victim-antisemitism Of late we have witnessed a new methodology used to suppress those who speak out against anti- Semitism in academia. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, and Ronnie Fraser, a lecturer in mathematics in London, have respectively taken on their schools and unions with regard to how anti-Semitism has infected their […]

http://acdemocracy.org/?utm_source=Hezbollah%27s+Internet+Network&utm_campaign=ACD%2FEWI+BLOG&utm_medium=email

It is now clear that the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out by Islamist jihadis. It has to been kept in mind that there are two kinds of Chechen terrorists: anti-Russian Chechen nationalists and Chechen Islamists. The terror in Boston was carried out by jihadis who were ethnically Chechen.

Although it will take a while for all the details to come out regarding the Tsarnaevs’ exact connections and motives, it is also highly unlikely that that the brothers were completely independent operators.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother, linked his YouTube page to another video entitled “The Emergence of Prophecy:The Black Flags From Khorasan.” The video, which was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, was reported in October 2011. It was sent by a terrorist group from the Afghan-Pakistan region, identified as the “Caucasus Mujahideen in Khorasan, to their ‘brothers’ in the Islamic Caucasus Emirate and their emir, Doku Umarov.”

Khorasan plays an important role in the Islamic prophecies where Muslims led by a savior, the Mahdi, will defeat the lastDajjal–the false prophet–at the time of a war that will end all war. The Sunnis believe the Mahdi has not yet been born, while the Shia believe that the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is alive now and hidden by God. However, the “happy end” for both is the same: “An army of black flags from Khurasan that will come to help Imam Mehdi to establish his Caliphate, in Kaaba (Mecca), Saudi Arabia and rule the world under ’the one true religion,’ Islam.”

Jihadist groups, such as the Taliban, the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), al-Qaeda, Hamas and others have been using the “Black Flags from Khorasan,” to rally their jihadi troops. Al Qaeda, for example, regularly puts out an online magazine titled “Vanguards of Khorasan.”

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/6357/features/zionism-before-herzl/

THERE HAS BEEN A JEWISH PRESENCE IN PALESTINE FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL….ZIONISM LONG ANTEDATES GEORGE ELIOT…..AS A JEWISH DREAM……BUT SHE DESERVES TOTAL CREDIT AS WRITER AND PHILOSEMITE…..RSK

In the beginning, there was Theodor Herzl. Or so I thought. I have a Ph.D. in European history, but I have long been aware of the deficiencies in my knowledge of Jewish history and my Israel literacy. So when I discovered the opportunity to take a non-credit course on Zionism here in New York, I jumped at the chance.

Once enrolled, I learned just how much Zionist history there was before Herzl. Our initial sessions were devoted to a variety of Zionist forerunners and an extensive documentary legacy that anticipated Herzl’s visionary 1896 pamphlet, The Jewish State.

I was dutifully taking notes during our second class meeting when our professor mentioned another text that expressed Zionist sentiments well before Herzl took up his mission. But unlike the writings of Rabbis Yehuda Alkalai and Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, or those of Leon Pinsker and Ahad Ha’am, this text was written in English, and by a woman who wasn’t even Jewish. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t a polemic or a pamphlet. It was a novel by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Anne Evans), Daniel Deronda, published in 1876, 21 years before Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress.

Now, my Jewish literacy may be sub-par, but I’ve read my share of 19th-century European novels. In one undergraduate seminar titled “Victorian Women Writers,” I was assigned another Eliot tome, The Mill on the Floss. It was around that time, more than two decades ago, that I first discovered—and filed away somewhere in my mental notes—that Eliot had also written a novel with a particularly Jewish dimension, Daniel Deronda. I bought a paperback of the book soon afterward but, confronted with chunky opening chapters that appeared to follow an all-too-traditional plotline (beautiful young Protestant Englishwoman, unexpectedly impoverished, seeks husband), I gave up before I reached the material that truly engages with Jews and Judaism, a narrative that grows more complicated as the mystery of the parentage of the hero, Daniel Deronda, unfolds and his relationships with certain other characters—Jewish characters—deepen.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/the_i_word.html

Henry Percy is the nom de guerre for a technical writer living in Arizona. He may be reached at saler.50d[at]gmail.com.

“Islam” is the I word, the greatest taboo amongst “journalists” and government spokesmen today.

Consider this article at CBS News. Two years ago the FBI interviewed the older brother, Tamerlan, looking for “extremist ties” or “ties to Chechen extremists.” That’s it, just “extremists.” No hint as to what kind those might be, for we dare not name the Religion of Peace.

The boys’ mother gives the game away (sort of): “Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said her son got involved in ‘religious politics’ about five years ago, and never told her he was involved in ‘jihad.'”

“Religious politics.” Now that’s a little more suggestive. Lutherans petitioning for a zoning variance to turn their church into multi-family housing units? The National Council of Churches looking “for political leaders for whom a foreign policy based on cooperation and global justice is an urgent concern”? Tamerlan could have been lending a hand to most any kind of “religious politics.” But then mother mentions “jihad.” That is troubling. I’ve never heard of Lutherans, Methodists, or, for that matter, Baptists being involved in jihad, in trying to persuade politicians with pressure cookers.

Incidentally, look up Tamerlan’s namesake. According to some estimates, the 14th century Muslim conqueror of south-central Asia killed 5% of the world’s population. That’s impressive, a wonderful role model for a modern follower of the Religion of Peace.

Meanwhile, our president is baffled as to motive. In his press conference Friday, Mr. Obama did not mention religion at all, much less the I word. “Why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence [1:58]?” His heart is not in the sentiment, read listlessly, the question purely rhetorical, merely a throw-away line. But he is filled with certitude when it comes to diversity, using the word twice: “That American spirit includes staying true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong [3:30].” Strong? Strong enough for a great city to be held hostage for four days by only two true believers? And the three dead bombing victims “reflected all the beauty and diversity of our country [4:40].” Didn’t Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reflect our diversity as well?

Welcome to self-censorship. “Islam” is the I word.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/i_saw_something_so_im_saying_something.html Are you fed up with the antiseptic slogan, “If you see something, say something?” The authorities expect us to report suspicious backpacks, but stay silent as the tomb about the nature of the men who put them there. We’re instructed to speak up about a bloodied man’s movement under a boat tarp, but to […]