RUTHFULLY YOURS

Germany, Wavering AllyPosted By Kenneth R. Timmerman

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/09/germany-wavering-ally/

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy do their best to put on a public face of cooperation in resolving Europe’s escalating sovereign debt crisis, behind the scenes both leaders are seething.

They are angry with each other, angry with each other’s policy choices, angry with each other’s friends and allies.

It’s well-known that German taxpayers are fed up with footing the bill for Greeks who take longer vacations than they do and retire on full government pensions many years earlier than they can. Less known is that the German government is actively considering allowing Greece – and possibly Portugal and even Italy and Ireland – to drop out of the Euro-zone.

“If the Euro fails, it will be Merkel’s fault,” a senior advisor to French president Sarkozy told me recently. “Germany has been resisting efforts to prop up the Euro. If the Euro collapses, it will be as much Germany’s fault as it will be that of the over-indebted Euro-zone members.”

Europeans are used to duplicity. That’s why they weren’t surprised to hear President Obama sharing derogatory personal remarks about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to French president Sarkozy when both leaders apparently thought the microphones were off.

But the duplicity of German Chancellor Merkel – smiling at Sarkozy in public, while throwing daggers at him in private – takes the cake.

The European media often talks of the Paris-Berlin axis, a code phrase meant to signify a marriage of reason between Europe’s two biggest economies.

MPAC Hosts Terror-Supporting Islamist From Tunisia Posted By Ryan Mauro

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/09/mpac-hosts-terror-supporting-islamist-from-tunisia/

The Muslim Public Affairs Council says it condemns Hamas and “all terrorism, including suicide bombing.” Yet, it is praising the Tunisian Islamist leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, who supports almost everything that MPAC claims to be against. MPAC even arranged two speaking engagements for the Muslim Brotherhood member on November 29, with one taking place inside Capitol Hill’s Canon Office Building.

In its announcement of the events, MPAC complimented Ghannouchi “One of the most important figures in modern Islamic political thought and theory.” As the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports, the director of MPAC’s office in Washington D.C. said he is a “modern intellectual giant on Islam and governance.”

MPAC asserts that Ghannouchi has “long been an advocate of the Islamic principles of pluralism, freedom and democracy,” leaving its supporters completely unaware of the extremism he has long advocated. This includes Sharia-based governance, Hamas, suicide bombings, terrorism, anti-Westernism, the destruction of Israel and even the murdering of Israeli children.

Reuters’ Apparent Pro-Palestinian Bias

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/

A big hat tip to Paul in Oz for sending me the following article by Henry I. Silverman from Roosevelt University in the USA.

The abstract of the article (in the current issue of The Journal of Applied Business Research, and entitled ‘Reuters: Principles Of Trust Or Propaganda?’) runs as follows:

‘This paper examines a sample of fifty news-oriented articles related to the Middle East conflict published on the Reuters proprietary websites across a three month study window. A combination of Ethnographic Content Analysis and primary survey data are employed to identify, code and validate reporting/ethical failures in the articles, i.e., propaganda, logical fallacies, and violations of the Reuters Handbook. Tests are run to measure for 1) shifts in audience attitudes and support for the primary belligerent parties in the Middle East conflict following readings of the sample and, 2) associations between the reporting/ethical failures and audience attitudes/support. Over 1,100 occurrences of reporting/ethical failures across forty-one subcategories are identified and a significant shift in audience attitudes and support following article readings is observed. Significant associations are found between 1) the use of atrocity propaganda and audience favorability/sympathy toward the Arabs/Palestinians; 2) the use of the appeal to pity fallacy and audience favorability/sympathy toward the Arabs/Palestinians; and 3) the use of atrocity propaganda, appeal to pity and appeal to poverty fallacies, and audience motivation to take supportive action on behalf of the Arabs/Palestinians. It is inferred from the evidence that Reuters engages in systematically biased storytelling in favor of the Arabs/Palestinians and is able to influence audience affective behavior and motivate direct action along the same trajectory. This reflects a fundamental failure to uphold the Reuters corporate governance charter and ethical guiding principles.’

Iran Shows Off Captured U.S. Drone [TELEGRAPH] Would-be U.S.A. Terrorist Walli Mujahidh Avoids Life Sentence with Guilty Plea Regarding Plans to Attack a Seattle Military Installation [SEATTLE PI] Obama’s Dream for Iran Becoming a Nuclear Nightmare [AT] Senate defeats Democrats’ latest payroll tax cut plan [WT] Wall Street Walloped as European Optimism Fades [FOX BUSINESS] […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11003/pub_detail.asp
The totalitarian nature of Sharia law can only be grasped when one appreciates how thoroughly it permeates and dictates everything in a believer’s life—including when and to whom a Muslim may smile.

Popular Islamic TV preacher Sheikh Muhammad Hassan appears in this video clip asserting that, according to Sharia, it is “not at all permissible” for Muslims to smile at non-Muslims, “except in cases of da’wa.”

Often translated as “missionary work,” the word da’wa means to “call” or “summon” non-Muslims to Islam. Because it shares the same goals of jihad—empowering and spreading Islam—da’wa is often seen as jihad’s nonviolent counterpart.

In fact, Sheikh Hassan himself asserts that “da’wa mode differs from jihad mode. Jihad mode requires power, zeal, manliness—basically, a stern face and such. But when in da’wa mode, you must smile, you must be gentle.”

As proof, he pointed out that when Allah ordered Musa and Harun (the biblical “Moses” and “Aaron”) to go and persuade that great infidel, pharaoh, to submit, Allah commanded them “to speak to him gently” (Quran 20:44).

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1974/US-General-Invites-Libyan-Officers-to-US-War-Colleges.aspx

Question: When the Libyan “military” comes to US staff colleges — a real possibility– do they get to bring their flags of al Qaeda with them?

This is a joke, right? I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Either give me a pitchfork, or wake me up when it’s over.

From USA Today:

The United States is in discussions with Libya over ways to help rebuild the country’s military, which the U.S. military considers essential to unify the country and bring rival militias under national control.

We’re looking for ways in which we can be helpful,” said Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command. “They have to find some way to form a national army.’

Who cares if Libya isn’t a “nation,” but a motley patchwork formerly run by a personality-cultish dictator?

In an interview with USA TODAY in Washington, Ham said the discussions had not reached the level of agreeing to specific cooperation. If the two countries do establish a relationship, it would not be the scale of U.S. efforts to rebuild the militaries of Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s how it always starts.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.89023bec9211372336a3fc65d4c78723.4a1&show_article=1

TO CALL ANY INCH OF JERUSALEM “OCCUPIED” IS RIDICULOUS AND EVIL…..AND ALL THOSE LEFTIST JERKS WHO MADE ISRAEL’S CAPITAL A “NEGOTIABLE” ITEM ARE COMPLICIT AND EVIL AS WELL…

PSALM 137: IF I FORGET THEE OH JERUSALEM, LET MY RIGHT HAND FORGET HER CUNNING. IF I DO NOT REMEMBER THEE LET MY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH, IF I PREFER NOT JERUSALEM ABOVE MY CHIEF JOY….

The United States expressed disappointment Thursday over Israeli settlement activity after the approval of construction of a new Jewish enclave in annexed east Jerusalem.

However, the US State Department also said that it opposed a call by the Palestinians to take the issue to the UN Security Council, where Washington vetoed in February a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

“We’re disappointed by recent announcements in Jerusalem and we’ve raised this issue with the Israeli government and continue to make our concerns about it known,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.

“As we’ve said, we don’t believe that there’s any answers that lie in pursuing a path through the UN for the Palestinian Authority. The only way to reach their goal of an independent state is through the negotiating table.

“Neither of these activities get us to where we need to go,” Toner said of settlements and United Nations resolutions.

http://www.radicalislam.org/ Saudi Arabia is often considered to be a more modern, moderate and enlightened Arab state compared to its conservative regional neighbors like Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States considers Saudi Arabia and its monarchy a friend and ally, and yet, as this week’s newsletter highlights, Saudi Arabia is far from moderate. On the contrary, […]

Jordan Is Palestinian

http://www.meforum.org/3121/jordan-is-palestinian

UNEASY LIES THE SPURIOUS THRONE ON KINGLET ABDULLARD’S HEAD…..RSK

Thus far the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has weathered the storm that has swept across the Middle East since the beginning of the year. But the relative calm in Amman is an illusion. The unspoken truth is that the Palestinians, the country’s largest ethnic group, have developed a profound hatred of the regime and view the Hashemites as occupiers of eastern Palestine—intruders rather than legitimate rulers. This, in turn, makes a regime change in Jordan more likely than ever. Such a change, however, would not only be confined to the toppling of yet another Arab despot but would also open the door to the only viable peace solution—and one that has effectively existed for quite some time: a Palestinian state in Jordan.

http://townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/2011/12/09/its_time_to_stop_keeping_secrets

Last month, I noted that Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of Virginia had written to national archivist David S. Ferriero on Nov. 7, asking him to open the records of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Ferriero has summarily sealed for 20 years. Guess what? Webb’s office tells me it still hasn’t received a reply. Where’s WikiLeaks when you need it?

We heard an awful lot about “blood” being on WikiLeaks’ hands, but it all seemed to come down to egg on officials’ faces. The fact is, a government of the people, by the people and for the people — whose officials, as information security experts Elizabeth Goitein and William Leonard recently wrote in The New York Times, “made 77 million decisions to classify information” in 2010 alone — should have the shutters yanked off so the sun can shine in.

Unfortunately, we just get more shutters. For example, the Obama administration just sealed the court records on the murder of federal agent Brian Terry, whose killers, Mexican drug smugglers, used weapons from a failed federal program to smuggle arms into Mexico. As Judicial Watch noted: “No one will know the reason for the confiscation of public court records in this case because the judge’s decision to seal it was also sealed.”