RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347108/irrelevant-middle-east

Thanks to oil discoveries elsewhere, the region is losing its geostrategic clout.

Since antiquity, the Middle East has been the trading nexus of three continents — Asia, Europe, and Africa — and the vibrant birthplace of three of the world’s great religions.

Middle Eastern influence rose again in the 19th century when the Suez Canal turned the once-dead-end eastern Mediterranean Sea into a sea highway from Europe to Asia.

With the 20th-century development of large gas and oil supplies in the Persian Gulf and North Africa, an Arab-led OPEC more or less dictated the foreign policy of thirsty oil importers like the United States and Europe. No wonder U.S. Central Command has remained America’s military-command hot spot.

Yet the Middle East is becoming irrelevant. The discovery of enormous new oil and gas reserves along with the use of new oil-recovery technology in North America and China is steadily curbing the demand for Middle Eastern oil. Soon, countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are going to have less income and geostrategic clout. In both Iran and the Gulf, domestic demand is rising, while there is neither the technical know-how nor the water to master the new art of fracking to sustain exports.

The recent Boston bombing reminded the West that nearly twelve years after 9/11, most terrorism still follows the same old, same old script, acted out by angry young men with Muslim pedigrees claiming to act on radical Islamist impulses, without much popular rebuke from the Muslim world.

He feels a “kinship” with the Jewish state. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347151/rand-paul-and-israel Rand Paul is describing an episode from his trip to Israel in January: “I went to a Shabbat,” he tells me, “it was the first time I’ve ever done that, and I had a wonderful time. I went to the yeshiva, and all the young men […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347070/government-accomplice-murder The Gosnell trial is winding down, and the pro-abortion crowd’s line seems to be that yes, this guy was an unfortunate outlier but he’s of no broader significance. This conveniently overlooks the fact that he couldn’t have done what he did without the assistance of government. Gosnell’s “clinic” went uninspected for 17 years — that’s […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/1/cia-women-who-hunted-bin-laden-in-the-spotlight/

The look at those who hunted Osama bin Laden begins with the sisterhood — a collection of female CIA analysts who became somewhat obsessed with al Qaeda and its leader.

They now are talking on camera for the HBO documentary “Manhunt,” which debuted Wednesday night, two years after the terrorist mastermind was killed and weeks after another jihadist attack on America at the Boston Marathon.

The film, which HBO is showing throughout May, is not about the raid that killed bin Laden but the inside story of the CIA’s bin Laden hunters — their frustrations, guilt, joy and, for one, a violent death.

“The night of the raid, I just had this gut feeling that there was a deeper, darker, richer story other than just the story of the raid itself,” said Greg Barker, a journalist and the director of “Manhunt.” “It’s about an intelligence story that spoke to the decisions made in secret inside our government that led us to Abbottabad.”

Appearing on camera are Susan Hasler, who edited the daily intelligence brief to the president; Cindy Storer, who tracked bin Laden after the CIA opened a special off-site base; Nada Bakos, who ended up focusing on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the most ruthless al Qaeda killer in Iraq; and Jennifer Matthews, who appears hauntingly only in photographs.

“Manhunt” is stark, devoid of voice-over narration or final judgment. Viewers who want condemnation of the CIA for not stopping the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. or for conducting “enhanced interrogations” of senior al Qaeda members will not find it here.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/1/white-house-denies-any-benghazi-muzzling/ The White House denied Wednesday that State Department officials are muzzling would-be whistleblowers about last year’s terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi by blocking security clearances for their attorneys. “These allegations are part of an unfortunate pattern of spreading misinformation and politicizing this issue,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. […]

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/

Just after Obama’s re-election we heard Republican leaders explain that Obama had just gotten lucky — the economy was in the recovery phase of a normal business cycle, and Obama caught the right wave. As the stock market rallied through the first four months of 2013 and regained its old peak, the story seemed credible — until a couple of weeks ago, that is.

We’ve had one depressing economic report after another. Employment is barely growing, according to the ADP survey, which showed just 119,000 new jobs created in April and 118,000 in May. The April purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing fell sharply from 54.6 to 52.1 (50 is dead in the water).

The Shadow Government Statistics website calculates the true unemployment rate — the proportion of the working-age population that can work but doesn’t — at 23%. That includes so-called “long-term discouraged workers” not included in the labor force. Even the government’s own broad measure of unemployment still stands at almost 15%, twice the pre-crisis level.

On a GDP basis, the economy grew at an 0.8% rate in the fourth quarter of 2012 and at a 2.5% in the first quarter. That’s just 1.5% without counting inventories. Investment in industrial equipment actually fell during the quarter. It’s an economy that is flying barely above stall speed.

No, Obama didn’t win re-election because the vote happened to occur at the cusp of a normal business cycle recovery. The economy really is that bad. So is Obama. Sadly, so was the Republican ticket.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/how-american-muslims-radicalize/?print=1 If radicalized means self-segregated, embittered, and angry enough to be ambivalent about the mentorship of jihadists, then America needs to pay close attention to neighborhood Islamic centers. There is a nexus between disaffected Muslims and those who graduate to violence, and two [1] studies [2] point to the American mosque. Now that another plot has been executed […]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/vladimir_putin_and_the_boston_bombings.html

Did you really think an proud KGB spy-turned-Russian president would let a crisis in Boston go to waste

The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is singing you a siren song, Mr. and Mrs. America, about how you and he are struggling together against global terrorism. Don’t you believe it, though — not for one neo-Soviet second. Russia stands with the terrorists, not against them. Russia stands against America, and all she represents.

On April 25, 2013, the Israeli air force shot down a drone aircraft five miles from its port city of Haifa, which has a population of about 300,000. Hezb’allah denied sending the drone, but six months ago, when another drone was intercepted by Israeli Defense Forces, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezb’allah, openly boasted that his fighters had assembled and dispatched the Iranian-designed aircraft and declared ominously that “it was not the first time, and it will not be the last.”

One day after the latest drone attack, Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with a Hezb’allah official in Beruit and told assembled reporters: “We cooperate with Hezb’allah and respect the Lebanese people’s will… this party, which has proven its credibility [over the course of time], must [have its opinions] respected.”

The United States recognizes Hezb’allah as a terrorist organization, as does Israel. But for Russia, Hezb’allah is a partner and ally. Similarly, Russia actively supports the genocidal anti-U.S. regime in Syria, and it actively supports Iran. Before they were swept away by popular insurrections, Russia also supported the anti-democratic rulers of Egypt and Libya while the U.S. sided with the popular revolts against them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628004578457001748448248.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

The World’s Greatest Orator appeared before the press yesterday, and here are some highlights of his remarks: “This is hard stuff. . . . Maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly. I think it’s a little–as Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point. . . . Right now things are pretty dysfunctional up on Capitol Hill. . . . You seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there [in Congress] have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job. . . . I cannot force Republicans to embrace those common-sense solutions. . . . We’re going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what’s going to be best for the country.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324482504578454592426005024.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The new arrests in Boston look like criminal cases. But why was the interrogation of the accused bomber handled like a criminal matter too?

The three suspects arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing case appear to be considered accomplices after the fact. It is likely that they will be treated as common criminals rather than terrorists. Unfortunately, law-enforcement has approached the accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that way as well.

A miasma of conflicting views about Mr. Tsarnaev’s legal status has engulfed the case. The rules and principles that should govern the relevant facts are pretty straightforward, but they alone do not explain the actual outcome thus far, which seems rooted instead in the Obama administration’s gauzy notions about what is required of law informed by morality.

At the time of Mr. Tsarnaev’s April 19 apprehension, no warrant had been issued for his arrest. The case law on warrantless arrests requires the initiation of the court process within 48 hours, with exceptions arguably not relevant here. The reason for the 48-hour requirement, as explained by the Supreme Court in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin (1991), is to prevent secret arrests unsupported by probable cause, as determined by what the law calls a neutral magistrate. Of course, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest was not secret, and the facts surrounding it far surpassed the modest probable-cause standard. All that was missing was the finding by a neutral magistrate.