RUTHFULLY YOURS

The historian Arnold Toynbee once wrote – in what has become a cliché – that “Civilizations die as a result of suicide, rather than murder.” Toynbee was obviously referring to self-inflicted wounds – moral breakdown, loss of confidence. Alas, that can now be observed across the western civilization landscape. The irrational attacks on the First Amendment by students at Yale and University of Missouri and the metastizing spread of hateful and divisive diatribes in institutions of so-called higher learning point to a desire to destroy western civilization.

It appears to be working. The cowardice of those who should resist the loud and defiant is also on display. The White House is conspicuously absent from this assault on basic freedom. Fear seems to have locked the lips of sensible voices. And mainstream media rationalize the mindless and bullying behavior of soi disant campus revolutionaries. It is a magisterial failure that warrants attention as a civilizational affliction.

We live in the age of the sanctified tantrum—the political and religious furies we dare not name or shame, much less confront.

Students bully college administrators with contrived political demands. The administrators plead they can do better, then capitulate. Incompetent writers pen trite racial screeds aimed at the very society that lifts them above their ability. They are hailed as geniuses. Donald Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination epitomizes the politics of the tantrum. He’s angry as hell, and so is his base. We’re supposed to respect this.

And then there is the tantrum of Islam, another eruption of rage that feeds off our astonishing willingness to indulge it.

Before Friday’s carnage in the City of Light, the world was treated to the hideous spectacle of Palestinians knifing Jews in Israel. The supposed motive of these stabbings was a rumor among Palestinians—fanned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—that the Israeli government intended to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

Foreign Minister states opposition to “irrational” guidelines, in presence of top EU representatives.
Hungary will not place special labels on products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a breakfast meeting of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations in Jerusalem on Monday, characterizing the European Union’s decision to affix special labels on such products as “irrational.”
Szijjártó, 37, who has been in politics since 1998, and a member of the National Assembly of Hungary since 2002, said on a lightning 24-hour visit to Israel labeling these products will not contribute to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could cause more problems and damage.

“He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” Koran 61:9

Islamic violence is a religious problem.

Islam derives meaning from physical supremacy, so war becomes an act of faith. To believe in Islam, is to have faith that it will conquer the entire world. And to be a true Muslim, is to feel called to aid in that global conquest, whether by providing money to the Jihadists or to become a Jihadist.

The fulfillment of Islam depends on the subjugation of non-Muslims so that violence against non-Muslims become the essence of religion.

When Hamas states that, “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah” or the ISIS rapists tell Yazidi girls that rape “draws them closer to Allah”, they really do mean it.

They are not perverting a great religion, as our politicians claim, they are living it.

Everything they do is based on the Koran, the body of Islamic law and the greater history of Islam.

In the wake of the Paris attacks, it is vital to acknowledge that 14 years after 9/11, even the lexicon we use in connection with the slow-motion global jihad continues to be fatally flawed.

Lack of clarity and precision in terminology and definitions indicates a lack of cogency in our own minds; as it pertains to our understanding of the Islamic supremacist enemy — never referred to by our “leaders” as such — incoherence portends failure with respect to defending America against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Take our use of the word “terrorist” for example. I would submit that this term in and of itself misclassifies the enemy, and in effect serves its efforts by witting or unwitting obfuscation.

Terrorism is a tactic; the enemy properly defined consists of adherents to an Islamic supremacist, theopolitical ideology — that is, self-described jihadists. As others have noted, in World War II we did not refer to our enemy as “the blitzkrieg.”

French leaders consistently act in ways that undermine their stated goal of eradicating Islamic terror.

Critics of the policy say “Daesh” is a politically correct linguistic device that allows Western leaders to claim that the Islamic State is not Islamic — and thus ignore the root cause of Islamic terror and militant jihad.

French leaders have also been consistently antagonistic toward Israel, a country facing Islamic terror on a daily basis. France is leading international diplomatic efforts to push for a UN resolution that would lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within a period of two years. The move effectively whitewashes Palestinian terror.

French critics of Islam are routinely harassed with strategic lawsuits that seek to censor, intimidate and silence them. In a recent case, Sébastien Jallamion, a 43-year-old policeman from Lyon was suspended from his job and fined 5,000 euros after he condemned the death of Frenchman Hervé Gourdel, who was beheaded by jihadists in Algeria.

“Those who denounce the illegal behavior of fundamentalists are more likely to be sued than the fundamentalists who behave illegally.” — Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s Front National.

French President François Hollande has vowed to avenge the November 13 jihadist attacks in Paris that left more than 120 dead and 350 injured.

In terms of population size, the 129 persons murdered in Paris were equivalent to losing 1,000 Americans in our nation’s capital. With echoes of 9/11, President Hollande declared the massacre an “act of war,” pledging to fight with “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies.” Allies include America. An attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all. France stood with us in Afghanistan. Will the U.S. join with France in going to war? And what does war mean?

President Obama’s Options. A few days ago, President Obama claimed that ISIS had been “contained.” Now the Islamists have called him out. He has no choice; he has to do something. He has three options.

Option 1. Do nothing, with a flourish. Given his track record of the past seven years, the odds are that he will create a fog of rhetoric and a thicket of high-level meetings, while substantive military actions will be slight. There will be an uptick in videos of laser-bomb strikes released by the White House. Public attention will fade after a few months.

Option 2. A defensive no-fly zone. The second option is to create a no-fly zone in northern Syria. To date, he has firmly declared that he will not do this. Our military would need substantial air-related assets, costing in the billions. The odds are overwhelming that both the Russians and Assad’s air force would stay away from the zone, not least because they stand no chance against our air.

However, a no-fly zone by itself is a defensive move that gets us into a war without the resolve or resources to win it. The zone would still be vulnerable to ground-based attacks. To prevent that and to apply pressure against ISIS, the allies would have to turn the zone into a forward operating base, moving in tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships, trainers, logistics, etc. To do that requires a major force numbering more than 10,000. At that point, the no-fly zone has morphed into a ground war.

Option 3. An Arab-NATO ground offensive. That brings us to Obama’s third option: pulling together a NATO-Sunni Arab coalition to prosecute a land campaign. By themselves, the rebels in Syria cannot destroy either the Assad regime or ISIS. A Sunni Arab army composed of forces from Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf states, backed by American advisers and forward air controllers, is needed.

NEW YORK — News of the terrorist attacks in Paris reached New York around sunset, as people rode home on buses and subways, and began to fill bars and restaurants. But the way such news breaks these days is no longer communal — we no longer have to gather around a ticker in Times Square or even a TV set showing CNN, as so many Americans remember doing on 9/11.

Now, we find out about tragedies first from our cell phones, one by one. The best way to follow the developing story was on Twitter, where eyewitnesses from Paris were being retweeted by journalists in the U.S. On Facebook, New Yorkers who had friends in Paris checked in to make sure they had survived.

There was grief, and horror, and fear — surely it is only a matter of time before the kind of coordinated terrorist attacks that have shaken Madrid and London, Mumbai and Paris, come to New York and Washington as well. What was missing — and this is a part of the horror — was any real sense of surprise.

If ever there was an atrocity foretold, it was these mass murders in Paris, following as they do on the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the Hyper Cacher killings at the beginning of the year.