RUTHFULLY YOURS

Seventy years ago first Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, were obliterated. Three generations later the grand-strategic consequences of those events can be discerned with reasonable clarity. They are by no means uniformly bad.

The claim that the destruction of two large cities and the killing of over two hundred thousand humans was justified in order to prevent an even greater carnage on both sides, resulting from the putative U.S. invasion of Japan in late 1945, is historically disputable and morally unsustainable. The horror itself—including the unexpected effects of radiation and fallout—has had a salutary impact on the great and minor powers alike in the ensuing decades, however. It is arguable that its deterrent effect has spared the world a major war costing millions of lives.

In most bipolar confrontations known to history—from Assyria versus Egypt, Persia vs. Greece, Athens vs. Sparta, and Rome vs. Carthage onwards—coexistence (peaceful or otherwise) was not an option. In a classic bipolar model, America and the USSR likely would have gone to an all-out war some time 10-15 years after 1945, a war probably no less destructive than the one preceding it. The constraints against first use of nuclear weapons, and the related fear of escalation leading to their inadvertent application, introduced an element of caution and moderation on both sides—the “nuclear taboo.” A complex system of informal checks and balances within the political, military and bureaucratic apparata operated in different ways on different sides of the Iron Curtain, but its effects were broadly similar. It was in evidence in the U.S. for the first time in the critical Korean winter of 1950-51, when President Harry Truman overruled General Douglas MacArthur. President Eisenhower did say in 1955 that nuclear weapons could be used “just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else,” but during the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis he admitted that, with the bomb, “you cross a completely different line.” That line was in Central Europe and in the homeland then, and it had remained there until the fall of the Wall. Restraint was notably present on both sides during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: ideological differences and divergent strategic interests were transcended by mutually compatible rational calculations. Neither side seriously considered the possibility of preemptive attacks thereafter, Nixon’s and Kissinger’s fleeting “madman” threats to Hanoi notwithstanding.

IATA, the largest international airline group, will work with Tel Aviv University to improve on- and off-line security for its members.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has signed an agreement with Tel Aviv University under which a new joint center for innovation in aviation will be established in order to develop technologies to protect airline reservations systems, authentication for security purposes, and financial systems, as well as to develop ways to run airlines more efficiently using big data and advanced intelligence.

Dozens of scientists are heading to Israel next week, including 15 Nobel Prize winners. According to the Foreign Ministry, the upcoming World Science Conference Israel (WSCI) will see the participation of Nobel laureates along with over 400 young scientific prodigies from 70 countries.

The WSCI was originally set for August of last year, but with Israel otherwise engaged in Operation Protective Edge, sponsors – including Hebrew University, the Science Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry – decided to postpone the event. It was rescheduled for August 15-20 of this year, giving students from Israel and abroad a first-hand opportunity to meet some of the top minds in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics.

The event will take place at the Hebrew University campus, with festivities open to anyone interested in hearing some of the world’s top minds discuss and debate esoteric concepts in the physical and social sciences. Besides the discussions, a number of other events will take place during WSCI week, including a mini-conference in which entrepreneurs will discuss the roots their tech products and services have in “hard science.”

http://jamieglazov.com/2015/08/10/victim-of-muslim-groomingrape-gangs-speaks-out-on-the-glazov-gang/

This special episode of The Glazov Gang was joined by Toni Bugle, the founder of M.A.R.I.A.S. (Mother’s against Radical Islam and Sharia).

She came on the show to discuss her victimization at the hands of Muslim Grooming/Rape Gangs — and her efforts to help victims and to protect future potential victims of a barbaric ingredient of Islamic Jihad.

And make sure to watch the special episode of The Glazov Gang that was joined by Steve Emerson, the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

He came on the show to discuss “Obama vs. US Victims of Palestinian Terror?” — unveiling how the Obama administration is considering intervening in a landmark court case against Palestinian terrorists. He explains why the administration would plot to thwart justice for US victims of Palestinian — as well as Iranian — terrorism.

Don’t miss it!

After a lot of arm twisting, the Gulf Arab states publicly backed the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran. On the surface, this appears as a diplomatic victory for the president as he seeks to build support for his signature foreign policy initiative. But is this true?

The positive response from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) composed of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain emerged after months of intense lobbying by the White House. What the administration gave up to achieve its goal is a matter of some speculation.

There isn’t any doubt that the U.S. will offer advanced military material, intelligence-sharing and training. However, from the outset Saudi Arabian officials have said that whatever capability Iran obtains from the deal should be offered to their country as well.

Only days after Senator Charles “Chuck” Schumer announced he would vote against the Iran appeasement, a strange thing has happened — he’s disappeared. It has been said that the most dangerous place in Washington is between Schumer and a television camera. But the senator was absent on the Sunday talk shows that might otherwise have been expected to be a platform for him to explain his decision. He’s nowhere to be found.

Not to be misunderstood here, I am thrilled that the senator announced, as he did last week, that he would vote against U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan of appeasement. I had been predicting he would eventually swing behind the president, and I’m delighted that he’s decided to stand apart. I’ve called it “Schumer’s finest hour.” It’s particularly so because it puts into at least theoretical jeopardy his chances to emerge as the Democratic leader in the Senate, his lifelong ambition.

Contrary to early suggestions that the rift between President Obama and Senator Charles Schumer over the New York Senator’s decision to vote against the Iranian nuclear deal that allowed for the belief that some sort of mutual understanding of each other’s positions existed, a picture of rancor and vendetta is emerging. A growing number of voices in Washington are suggesting that first and foremost, Schumer not pick out furniture for the Senate Democratic leader’s office because the Obama team will doubtless do what it can to sabotage what until now was seen as Schumer’s job to lose.

Politico is reporting that it is believed that President Obama went back on an agreement not to release Schumer’s decision until the weekend by leaking it during the Republican debate; while White House spokesman Josh Earnest enlarged the differences between the two men from the issue-at-hand to a much larger rift that has fomented since the two served in the Senate together when he told reporters, “There’s no denying that this difference of opinion that emerged overnight is one that has existed between Senator Schumer and President Obama for over a decade.” Blow-back from liberal groups against Schumer has begun with word from MoveOn.org that the New Yorker can forget about donations it controls.

The Obama administration’s efforts to defend its controversial nuclear deal with Iran have turned ugly.

In a speech at American University last week, the president portrayed domestic opponents of the nuclear agreement as partisan Republicans in common cause with “death to America”-chanting Iranian hardliners.
The speech went too far for former Ambassador Nicolas Burns. He told MSNBC after the speech:

I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. I have great respect for the president but frankly I think that speech — the tone of it was ill-advised because what’s really happening here as Congress prepares to vote just after Labor Day is really a battle within the Democratic Party.

To suggest that the opponents of the deal are all in effect Iraq War supporters or warmongers, to suggest if the deal is disapproved than war is inevitable — I don’t think the facts support those contentions.

There is no “Palestinian” people ever mentioned, not even by the Romans that invented the term, not in the Bible, not in other ancient records, not in the 19th century – only since Yasser Arafat.

They are the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.

They are indistinguishable from those Arabs who live in the surrounding artificial states such as Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or the other entities throughout the Middle East created by the colonial powers, France and Britain. Both powers were victorious after the Ottoman Turkish Empire lay defeated at the end of World War I.

Both of these European powers carved artificial borders across the corpse of what had been Turkey’s empire in the Middle East, and both France and Britain have left a resulting legacy of war and violence ever since. One such territory, previously occupied by Ottoman Turkey for 400 years, was the geographical entity known sometimes as Palestine.

But there is no such thing as a Palestinian people; no such thing as a Palestinian history; and no Palestinian language exists. There has never been any independent, sovereign Palestinian state in all of recorded history — let alone an Arab independent state of Palestine.

Tablet, which describes itself as “a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture,” has not taken an editorial position on President Obama’s deal with Iran. “Some of us support the deal,” the editors explain, “because—like a majority of American Jews—we support the president, and we sympathize with his aims of ending Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons while keeping America out of another Middle Eastern war.” Others oppose it as unlikely to achieve those goals, while still others “are less concerned with the specifics of the deal than with the prospect of an American alliance with the theocratic Iranian regime.”

Last week New York’s Chuck Schumer became the first Senate Democrat to oppose the deal. That complicated the president’s campaign to push it through Congress, which, as we noted last week, has been characterized by a partisanship vicious even by his standards. (The deal is structured in such a way that Congress will “approve” it if it sustains a veto, something Democrats are numerous enough to do on their own.)