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October 2012

The Ideology Problem in Timbuktu Is Not al-Qaeda’s Making — It Is Classical Islam: Andrew McCarthy

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/331635 Andrew’s post describing the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Mali is essential, if excruciating, reading. Beyond the monstrously cruel but all too usual punishments being imposed, I’m struck by two things, which really show how willful blindness leads inexorably to spring fever: The Guardian attributes the atrocious penalties to the “menace of al-Qaida”; it also […]

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CBS sat on Obama Benghazi clip since Sept. 12
Human Events
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Blogs
CBS sat on Obama Benghazi clip since Sept. 12
A curious bit of video has been released by CBS News, taken from an interview President Obama gave to Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” on Sept. 12. Here Obama professes himself suspicious that “there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start.” What’s curious about this video clip is that we’ve never seen it before. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2AJlGbtqp
Powell endorses ‘transformational’ Obama — again
CBS News
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Breaking_news
Powell endorses ‘transformational’ Obama — again
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican Party during the 2008 election, to endorse then-candidate Barack Obama for president, calling Obama a “transformational figure.” Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2AJlqnSBa

LORI LOWENTHAL MARCUS REVIEWS ‘TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET-CARTER, OBAMA, AND THE ARAB SPRING” BY RUTHIE BLUM

 http://www.jewishpress.com/news/media/carter-and-obama-he-who-is-merciful-to-the-cruel-ends-up-cruel-to-the-merciful/2012/10/25/0/?print When the Iranian student revolutionaries took American hostages in 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter chose a path consistent with his character, but inconsistent with the American character. He tried desperately, again and again, to prove to the Islamist revolutionaries and their ruling Mullahs that the big bad United States would not be a bully […]

DIANA WEST: ANOTHER QUESTION FOR JAY CARNEY

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2292/Eighth-Question-Jay-There-Are-Some-Emails-That-Have-Emerged.aspx Yesterday, Reuters, Fox, CNN, CBS and other media reported that on 9/11/12 emails went to top Obama administration officials alerting them that the Benghazi consulate was under terrorist attack. The first arrived at 4:05 pm ET on 9/11/12 — 10:05 pm Benghazi time, about 25 minutes into the attack. At 6:07 pm ET, another […]

DIANA WEST: EX SEAL FATHER: WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHO GAVE THE ORDER NOT TO SAVE BENGHAZI

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2291/Ex-SEALs-Father-We-Need-to-Find-Out-Who-Gave-the-Order-Not-to-Save-Benghazi.aspx Charles Woods, father of fallen ex-SEAL Tyrone Woods, called in to the Lars Larsen radio show yesterday to express his thoughts about the news that Benghazi was known to be a terrorist attack right away, was observed via Drone cameras in real time, and that relief forces remained undeployed from nearby countries. Tyrone and […]

NEWS AND BUZZ: 24/7

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White House reprimands official for testimony
Fox News
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
News
White House reprimands official for testimony
Congressional sources tell Fox News that a top administration counterterrorism official was reprimanded by the White House last month after he testified that the Sept. 11 attack in Libya was terrorism. Read more…
Failed Benghazi response will haunt Obama
Fox News
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
News
Failed Benghazi response will haunt Obama
If Barack Obama fails in his bid for a second term as president, historians and political analysts will spend years trying to answer why and how he and his administration so badly mishandled the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Read more…
Democrats already placing blame for Obama loss
Commentary
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Commentary
Democrats already placing blame for Obama loss
Some Democrats are apparently not waiting for Barack Obama to lose the presidential election before starting the inevitable recriminations. New York Times political writer Matt Bai’s choice for the person who steered the president wrong this year is none other than Bill Clinton. Read more…

Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz2AJCrUPPJ

A TRIBUTE TO ZEEV JABOTINSKY BY MENACHEM BEGIN IN 1980

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/my-mentor-zeev-jabotinsky-zeev-jabotinskys-centennial-birthday-1980-prime-minister-menachem-begin.html

(Editor’s Note: Ze’ev Jabotinsky was born in October so in reprinting this tribute to him we commemorate him on the one hundred and thirty second anniversary of his birth. Jabotinsky remains AFSI’s inspiration as he was the inspiration for his one-time secretary Shmuel Katz, who had a more direct role in AFSI’s birth. For those who would like to see a five part video on his life–25 minutes in all–we strongly recommend David Isaac’s new project, Zionism 101, The Founding Fathers, at http://www.zionism101.org).

One hundred years ago, at the port city of Odessa, a son was born in the house of Jabotinsky. Today, as we gather to memorialize and rejoice marking the 100th anniversary of his birth, we must say his life and work had changed the history of the Jewish people.

From his youth and up until his passing, Jabotinsky devoted his life to the salvation of our people, to free its land, Eretz Yisrael, to renew its Jewish forces, to educate a generation of warriors, to preach for social justice and its implementation, to create a sense of pride in every Jew for being born as such, and above all – to renew Zionism and fight the continuous battle for the establishment of an independent Jewish state.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky was a man of many talents in various fields, but his efforts and thoughts were concentrated on achieving his goal of educating the new Jewish character: The quiet, proud, devoted, faithful one who loves his people and is willing to make any sacrifice for their salvation, national freedom and honor. In both of these fields he achieved complete success and his victory met his aspirations. Indeed, he acknowledged the heroic fighters, and he was the one to provide them and the people as well with the flag raised by Herzl, the flag of renewed Jewish nationalism.

There are a few who claim that Jabotinsky was a tragic figure, for he dreamed, made sacrifices and suffered greatly, but yet he did not live to see his work come to fruition, for he had collapsed while working to achieve his goal and his life ended while on foreign land. This is far from the case. It is true – as of many others in history – that Jabotinsky’s victory was achieved after his passing. However, he was a winning figure; his goal was accomplished, a generation of fighters had come to life and the State of Israel was renewed from the pit of decay and dust. A Jewish force had come to life – a kind not seen since the time of the Maccabees.

Few are the men in history that have such powerful, clear triumphs. For us, Ze’ev Jabotinsky was a tutor, the carrier of hopes. Our souls were bound. We never, G-d forbid, anticipated his death and I can therefore say, 40 years after his passing, that he continues to live in our hearts. Throughout troubling times of rebellion and revival, we continue to stop and ponder: Under these conditions, what would Ze’ev Jabotinsky have done, how would he conduct himself and what would have been his decision.

Menachem BeginBut it is not only incumbent on us, the Jewish people in our land and in the Diaspora, to make this day marking the 100th anniversary of his birth one of high spirits and a renewal of faith. It is a day to pledge that we continue to follow in his footsteps and to work toward accomplishing his social and political beliefs until our final living days. Indeed – Ze’ev Jabotinsky is among us, he is eternal!

BRUCE BAWER: A NEW ATTACK ON ISLAM’S CRITICS

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/a-new-attack-on-islams-critics/print/

The partiality of the news media, heaven knows, is an international phenomenon. But there are few places on this fragile blue planet of ours where consumers are forced to shell out so much money to be fed so much outright, shameless, and (not infrequently) downright vile propaganda as is the case in little Norway. At present every Norwegian household that owns a TV must pay an annual “license fee” of $451.00 a year to subsidize NRK, the government-owned TV and radio network. (Next year the fee will climb to $568.57.) You have to pay, even if you never, ever watch NRK, most of whose programming is not unlike a triple dose of Ambien. Take the schedule for Wednesday, October 24, which consisted of a blizzard of national and local news programs (one of them in Sami); “Murder, She Wrote”; reality shows, one set on a remote Finnish island, another on a Danish chestnut farm whose proprietors run it “the good old-fashioned way”; an investigative program that asked why the number of moose in Norway has tripled in the last decade; and a musical tribute to United Nations Day by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. (You may not know that October 24 is United Nations Day, but I can assure you that every kid in Norway does.)

But what’s worst about NRK is not the comical dullness of much of its daily menu but, well, two things: first, the day-to-day, knee-jerk, petty mendacities of its news reporting, which is almost invariably tilted against the U.S., Israel, capitalism, and so on; and, second, the larger, grander, more sweeping, and even, at times, utterly breathtaking duplicities of some of the few high-profile prime-time programs that NRK actually produces itself. Case in point: Brennpunkt, or “burning point,” a series that pretends to be devoted to investigative journalism, and that, on the evening of October 23, served up an hour entitled “Intet kommer i en lukket hånd.” It was explained that this title, which literally translates as “Nothing comes in a closed hand,” was a quotation from Indira Gandhi; a quick Google search established that the original quotation was: “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”

P.DAVID HORNIK: ESCALATION IN GAZA

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/escalation-in-gaza/print/ Those who have long dreamed of a Palestinian state need dream no longer. Hamas-ruled Gaza, while not internationally recognized as a state, is now a self-governing entity in every meaningful sense. On Tuesday it even had its first official visit, with full pomp and splendor, by a foreign head of state—the emir of Qatar, […]

THE GAME OF BATTLESHIPS? OBAMA LOSES THAT ONE

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203630604578074840878757714.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

Obama would need Romney’s Navy to fulfill his own military strategy.

‘And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities.

That was President Obama at Monday night’s debate, rebuking Mitt Romney for noting that the U.S.Navy is the smallest it’s been in nearly a century and may soon get smaller. It would be nice to think the President has been up late reading Alfred Thayer Mahan. To judge by the rest of his remarks on the subject, he hasn’t.

We mean Mr. Obama’s well-rehearsed jibe that “we also have fewer horses and bayonets” than we did during World War I. This was followed by the observation that “we have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”

Yes, Mr. President. And we have fewer of all of those things, too.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the Navy counted 529 ships in the fleet, including 15 aircraft carriers and 121 nuclear submarines. In 2001 the Navy was down to 316 ships, with 12 carriers and 73 subs. In 2011 the numbers were 285, 11 and 71, respectively. On current trajectory, Mr. Romney said, “we’re headed down to the low 200s,” a figure Mr. Obama did not dispute.

The President is right that the ships the U.S. puts to sea today are, for the most part, much more capable than they were 20 or 30 years ago. But that’s true only up to a point. Aegis cruisers and destroyers responsible for defending their immediate battle space are now taking on the additional role of providing ballistic missile defense. The tasks multiply, but the ships aren’t getting any additional missile tubes.

A smaller fleet is also more stressed. The usual model for ship rotations—one-third deployed, one-third preparing for deployment, and one-third in overhaul—has given way to a reality in which 40% of the fleet is deployed and another 19% is underway for training operations. As one Naval friend with recent command experience tells us, “we are crushing our sailors.”