For this, I am forever thankful.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Just a reminder..
The Bible doesn't say that you'll get into heaven by being good. It's not going to happen by us trying, because we all fall short. Jesus would not have suffered and died on a cross if all roads lead to God..
For this, I am forever thankful.
For this, I am forever thankful.
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Right Fight..
while the dems position to try to take a position that will get them the most votes(irrespective of principle) our soldiers are on the front lines of reality, not lost in the swells of nonsense in the beltway.. the longer we keep our eye off the ball, the more certain another attack on our soil becomes.
-------------------------------
The Right Fight
By Jacob Laksin
Few today are receptive to the idea of a “war on terror.” From a war-weary public, to a political commentariat impatient with such supposedly simple-minded slogans, the country seems determined to move beyond the notion that the fighting underway in Iraq is in any significant way connected to the global terrorist threat to national security. So it is to President Bush’s credit that he used his commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy this week to reacquaint a disaffected nation with a stubborn fact: Iraq remains the central theater in the fight against al-Qaeda and its jihadist brethren.
To illustrate the point, Bush adduced newly declassified intelligence that confirms what many are disinclined to hear: that al-Qaeda views Iraq as the ultimate showdown between its brand of fanatical Islam and the Western world, and that it seeks to turn the country into a staging ground for further attacks against the United States.
By way of example, Bush pointed to a 2005 plot, apparently hatched by Osama bin Laden himself, to coordinate attacks against the U.S. with al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq. According to details presented by the president, bin Laden instructed an intermediary, Hamza Rabi, to relay plans for such attacks to al-Qaeda’s then-senior leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. “Our intelligence community reports that a senior al-Qaeda leader, Abu Faraj al-Libi, went further and suggested that bin Laden actually send Rabia, himself, to Iraq to help plan external operations,” Bush explained. "Abu Faraj later speculated that if this effort proved successful, al-Qaeda might one day prepare the majority of its external operations from Iraq.” Reflecting on the import of these findings, Bush sensibly concluded that “war on terror” remained a useful concept: “This notion about how this isn't a war on terror, in my view, is naïve,” he said. “It doesn't reflect the true nature of the world in which we live.”
Where the president erred is in assuming that his critics -- especially among the Democratic Party’s leadership -- actually live in the same world. In reality, at the level of foreign policy, Democrats and their allies on the anti-war Left have long inhabited an alternate universe.
Capitol Hill this week embodied that political disconnect. Going into full bullying mode, Congressional Democrats repeatedly threatened to block war funding unless the appropriations bill for the war also included timelines for withdrawal -- a clear encroachment on the executive’s war-making powers. Finally they agreed, grudgingly, to fund the troops. Detracting from the solemnity of the Democratic opposition, however, is the fact that legislators nonetheless managed to muscle billions of dollars in earmarks into the $120-billion legislation.
For the anti-war base, even reluctant support for the war effort is apostasy punishable by political death. Far-left activist network MoveOn.org has already demanded that “every single Democrat must oppose this bill.” The marching orders are clear: Vote for defeat in Iraq, or face it at home. Accordingly, MoveOn has vowed to mount primary challenges to any Democrat who dares to show independence on Iraq.
It will please these ideological enforcers to know that no such independence is to be found within the current field of Democratic presidential hopefuls. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the latter reportedly the most hawkish of the contenders, supported a symbolic measure to cut all funding for the war by next spring. (It was unclear, as of this writing, whether the Senators would vote for this week’s funding bill.)
Among candidates in serious contention, John Edwards has staked out the hardest anti-war line. In laying out his foreign policy vision before the Council on Foreign Relations this week, the onetime vice presidential aspirant assailed the notion of a war on terror as one of President Bush‘s “discredited ideological pursuits.” Unveiling his own plan for combating terrorism, Edwards called for a new humility, and proposed “to educate every child in the world.” How that mission could be reconciled with his call for humility in foreign affairs, and why an education campaign would stop the next generation of al-Qaeda recruits -- who, as it happens, are uniformly well-educated -- were among the many questions Edwards left unanswered.
Far from the demagoguery of the presidential campaign, the hard work of actually fighting terrorism falls to the U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies. Although violence -- in the form of suicide attacks, car bombings, and gangland-style murders -- remains a constant, the “surge” of American troop strength begun in February is showing modest signs of success. For one thing, sectarian violence appears to be in decline, especially in Baghdad. For another, Iraqis, including in Sunni Arab strongholds like Anbar province, are joining the fight against al-Qaeda terrorists.
Moreover, and contrary to the popular refrain that Iraq is a “distraction” from the true fight against terrorism, al-Qaeda has in recent years suffered serious defeats. Consider that of the operatives that bin Laden hoped to involve in his plot to attack the United States, al-Libi was captured and is now out of commission in much-maligned Guantanamo Bay; al-Rabia was killed in 2005 in Pakistan; and al-Zarqawi met his unlamented end in a June 2006 strike by the U.S. military in Diyala province. For a distraction from al-Qaeda, Iraq is proving to be remarkably on-target.
Not that you will hear this from the war’s critics. To acknowledge success would require them to concede that Iraq is in fact the frontline in the global war on terror -- and, furthermore, that the war is not a White House scheme to scare American voters. In short, it would require an admission that, on the question of Iraq’s centrality to the war against al-Qaeda, President Bush is right.
Iraqis are more forthright. Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the Iraqi commander overseeing the security plan, told the Washington Post this week that while sectarian violence is the leading problem in the country, it cannot be understood apart from al-Qaeda‘s involvement. Observing that al-Qaeda often incites the violence that draws reprisals from sectarian Shiite militias, he said: “Terrorists of al-Qaeda and the enemies of Iraq, they want to start a crisis. The objective behind this is to incite sectarian strife.” Coming just ahead of Memorial Day, it was a fitting reminder that the sacrifices of American forces in Iraq have not been in vain. Just don’t tell Congress.
-------------------------------
The Right Fight
By Jacob Laksin
Few today are receptive to the idea of a “war on terror.” From a war-weary public, to a political commentariat impatient with such supposedly simple-minded slogans, the country seems determined to move beyond the notion that the fighting underway in Iraq is in any significant way connected to the global terrorist threat to national security. So it is to President Bush’s credit that he used his commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy this week to reacquaint a disaffected nation with a stubborn fact: Iraq remains the central theater in the fight against al-Qaeda and its jihadist brethren.
To illustrate the point, Bush adduced newly declassified intelligence that confirms what many are disinclined to hear: that al-Qaeda views Iraq as the ultimate showdown between its brand of fanatical Islam and the Western world, and that it seeks to turn the country into a staging ground for further attacks against the United States.
By way of example, Bush pointed to a 2005 plot, apparently hatched by Osama bin Laden himself, to coordinate attacks against the U.S. with al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq. According to details presented by the president, bin Laden instructed an intermediary, Hamza Rabi, to relay plans for such attacks to al-Qaeda’s then-senior leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi. “Our intelligence community reports that a senior al-Qaeda leader, Abu Faraj al-Libi, went further and suggested that bin Laden actually send Rabia, himself, to Iraq to help plan external operations,” Bush explained. "Abu Faraj later speculated that if this effort proved successful, al-Qaeda might one day prepare the majority of its external operations from Iraq.” Reflecting on the import of these findings, Bush sensibly concluded that “war on terror” remained a useful concept: “This notion about how this isn't a war on terror, in my view, is naïve,” he said. “It doesn't reflect the true nature of the world in which we live.”
Where the president erred is in assuming that his critics -- especially among the Democratic Party’s leadership -- actually live in the same world. In reality, at the level of foreign policy, Democrats and their allies on the anti-war Left have long inhabited an alternate universe.
Capitol Hill this week embodied that political disconnect. Going into full bullying mode, Congressional Democrats repeatedly threatened to block war funding unless the appropriations bill for the war also included timelines for withdrawal -- a clear encroachment on the executive’s war-making powers. Finally they agreed, grudgingly, to fund the troops. Detracting from the solemnity of the Democratic opposition, however, is the fact that legislators nonetheless managed to muscle billions of dollars in earmarks into the $120-billion legislation.
For the anti-war base, even reluctant support for the war effort is apostasy punishable by political death. Far-left activist network MoveOn.org has already demanded that “every single Democrat must oppose this bill.” The marching orders are clear: Vote for defeat in Iraq, or face it at home. Accordingly, MoveOn has vowed to mount primary challenges to any Democrat who dares to show independence on Iraq.
It will please these ideological enforcers to know that no such independence is to be found within the current field of Democratic presidential hopefuls. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the latter reportedly the most hawkish of the contenders, supported a symbolic measure to cut all funding for the war by next spring. (It was unclear, as of this writing, whether the Senators would vote for this week’s funding bill.)
Among candidates in serious contention, John Edwards has staked out the hardest anti-war line. In laying out his foreign policy vision before the Council on Foreign Relations this week, the onetime vice presidential aspirant assailed the notion of a war on terror as one of President Bush‘s “discredited ideological pursuits.” Unveiling his own plan for combating terrorism, Edwards called for a new humility, and proposed “to educate every child in the world.” How that mission could be reconciled with his call for humility in foreign affairs, and why an education campaign would stop the next generation of al-Qaeda recruits -- who, as it happens, are uniformly well-educated -- were among the many questions Edwards left unanswered.
Far from the demagoguery of the presidential campaign, the hard work of actually fighting terrorism falls to the U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies. Although violence -- in the form of suicide attacks, car bombings, and gangland-style murders -- remains a constant, the “surge” of American troop strength begun in February is showing modest signs of success. For one thing, sectarian violence appears to be in decline, especially in Baghdad. For another, Iraqis, including in Sunni Arab strongholds like Anbar province, are joining the fight against al-Qaeda terrorists.
Moreover, and contrary to the popular refrain that Iraq is a “distraction” from the true fight against terrorism, al-Qaeda has in recent years suffered serious defeats. Consider that of the operatives that bin Laden hoped to involve in his plot to attack the United States, al-Libi was captured and is now out of commission in much-maligned Guantanamo Bay; al-Rabia was killed in 2005 in Pakistan; and al-Zarqawi met his unlamented end in a June 2006 strike by the U.S. military in Diyala province. For a distraction from al-Qaeda, Iraq is proving to be remarkably on-target.
Not that you will hear this from the war’s critics. To acknowledge success would require them to concede that Iraq is in fact the frontline in the global war on terror -- and, furthermore, that the war is not a White House scheme to scare American voters. In short, it would require an admission that, on the question of Iraq’s centrality to the war against al-Qaeda, President Bush is right.
Iraqis are more forthright. Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the Iraqi commander overseeing the security plan, told the Washington Post this week that while sectarian violence is the leading problem in the country, it cannot be understood apart from al-Qaeda‘s involvement. Observing that al-Qaeda often incites the violence that draws reprisals from sectarian Shiite militias, he said: “Terrorists of al-Qaeda and the enemies of Iraq, they want to start a crisis. The objective behind this is to incite sectarian strife.” Coming just ahead of Memorial Day, it was a fitting reminder that the sacrifices of American forces in Iraq have not been in vain. Just don’t tell Congress.
The Wingate plan..
i read this on debka and thought it was good. Hal has a good commentary on it. the world will continue to call bad good and good bad, those who know good from bad should continue the march toward the light irrespective of world opinion..
---------------------------------------------
Israel to give terrorists own medicine?
Hal Lindsey
After two consecutive weeks of incessant pounding of Israeli cities by Palestinian missile attacks – more than 150 in one six-day period – Israeli Defense Forces are back on the offensive. The IDF stepped up air attacks in the Gaza Strip, and promised to target the Hamas leadership in an effort to stem the wave of attacks on its cities.
National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer defended the action. He told Israel Radio, "I don't distinguish between those who carry out the attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs." Thousands of Hamas supporters took to the streets of Gaza City vowing revenge one day after an Israeli air strike on the home of Hamas politician Khalil al-Hayya.
Seven members of Hayya's family were killed in the strike, though al-Hayya himself escaped. The Palestinian press made much of the fact that al-Hayya's family was killed, but no one seemed to begrudge the fact that al-Hayya went underground beforehand, leaving his family in harm's way while he protected himself.
At the funeral service, Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said, "We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned a trip to Gaza Thursday to speak to leaders about maintaining law and order. Maintaining law and order? How can they maintain what doesn't exist? He should talk to them about Establishing law and order!
Even more ridiculous is Abbas' effort to blame Israel for the conduct of his government. He told reporters in Ramallah: "The Israelis are required to exercise restraint to stop their aggression against the Palestinian people or else they will be held accountable and responsible for the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. " Is he kidding?
It would be laughable had the media not duly reported his comments as if they made sense. In another incident, at least four members of Islamic Jihad, on their way to launch rockets at Israel, were killed in an air strike that destroyed their car near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. Abu Ahmed, the spokesman for Islamic Jihad, didn't deny what the so-called victims were up to when they were killed.
Instead, he told reporters, "The Zionist attack will not stop rocket fire against Zionist towns. Leaders of the Zionist enemy will pay a price." Once again, this illogical nonsense was repeated by the Western press without question. Let's stop for a moment and make a few of the observations the journalists should have made. Since the Palestinians vow to attack Israeli towns anyway, what further price can Ahmed possibly be talking about?
Put another way, Ahmed is simply saying, "We vow to attack you at every opportunity." But if you defend yourself, we'll get so angry that we will attack you even more furiously because your defense causes conflict among us. And causing conflict among us will trigger more attacks. I've heard this kind of convoluted logic firsthand. Yet the vehemence with which such hatred-driven, illogical thinking is presented still staggers my mind. It also makes me question the qualifications or objectivity of the members of the mainstream media who repeat this stuff without question.
The Israeli online magazine DEBKAfile recently published a report by its military experts. They proposed that Israel must now revert to "unorthodox military tactics" against the Gaza-based terror organizations to halt the deluge of Qassam rocket attacks raining down on its civilian population. "Conventional warfare" is no longer an option in light of the massive amount of modern weaponry smuggled into Gaza since Israel's withdrawal. It would be impossible for the IDF to effectively combat the huge store of weapons, ammunition, lethal anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles stored in and fired from the cover of a heavy civilian population without the use of massive firepower.
Those tactics and overwhelming firepower would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in a conventional war. To complicate matters even further, Gaza is now swarming with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and al-Qaida operatives that have all mingled in the midst of the civilian population. Taken together, these factors make conventional war unacceptable in Israel's present situation.
Furthermore, the Israelis themselves would never sanction such perceived brutality – even though their enemies would wipe out every Jewish man, woman and child without a second thought if they could. Debka intelligence sources report, "Iranian and Hezbollah advisers are telling them (Hamas) how to combat a substantial Israeli ground-tank incursion. They must go underground and wage a guerrilla-terrorist war equivalent to the Iraqi insurgent campaign against U.S. troops."
This dilemma has caused some veteran Israeli military leaders to once again reach for help from a little-known Englishman. This British military figure from the past did more to develop the leaders and tactics of the IDF than any other person.
Debka quotes Israeli military sources: "Israelis have defeated Arab terror before. In the 1930s, the English military genius Orde Charles Wingate taught Jewish paramilitary defenders his Special Night Squads tactics for turning Arab guerrilla methods against them. Nothing much has changed in 71 years, except for the fact that today, Israel has a strong army of its own and does not need British or other international force to defend its sovereign territory. All that is needed is a government with resolve that lets the military do its job."
Israeli military intelligence is reportedly using Wingate's guerilla training doctrine to turn Hamas' tactics against them. The plans call for inserting small, highly trained guerilla squads behind Palestinian lines on lightening-like hit-and-run missions.
These squads will use guerilla tactics adapted to a number of new, sophisticated technical weapons developed for this purpose. They will destroy ammunition dumps, weapons workshops, bomb-making facilities, missile manufacturing plants and command centers. The plans also call for around-the-clock ambushes against Palestinian fighters and their commanders.
The goal is to make them confused, anxious and exhausted. Fighting and decisively winning a conventional battle in Gaza now would result in massive civilian casualties. Israeli society will not accept that. That's an object lesson in the difference between the moral integrity of the God of Israel and the god of Islam. The only other option available is to fight fire with fire – or in this case, guerrilla tactics with guerilla tactics. Hamas and its allies have opened Pandora's Box. I'm afraid they're not going to like what they find inside.
When I read DEBKAfile's reference to British Maj. Gen. Orde Charles Wingate's help to the Jews, I was immediately intrigued. He was a person who apparently greatly helped the Palestinian Jews at a critical time in their history. So I ran a search on his personal life. It proved to be a fascinating surprise.
I am indebted to Joseph M. Hochstein and Ami Isseroff's excellent summary of his biography. I first wanted to know why Wingate helped the Jews at a time when the vast majority of British military officers and Foreign Ministry officials were pro-Arab and almost outright anti-Jewish. Here is the key I found to his incredible life.
Wingate was born Feb. 26, 1903 in India. His father was a British officer and his mother came from a missionary family. Both parents were members of the non-denominational Plymouth Brethren Church, founded by J.N. Darby. This was a movement – originating in Ireland and England during the 1820s and 1830s – that recovered the literal interpretation of Bible prophecy. Thus they firmly believed that all the unconditional covenants to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants were still binding and could not be given to the Church.
This refuted the doctrine that had been taught in the churches for more than 1,400 years – that Israel had forfeited its covenants and God had given them to the Church. Wingate was thoroughly schooled in these truths and believed in the restoration of the Jewish people to their land in the last days – as predicted by Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel and most of the other prophets.
This movement also had a profound influence on some members of the British Parliament, including Lords Lindsay and Balfour. They introduced a motion to provide the Jews with a homeland in Palestine. In 1936, then-Capt. Wingate was assigned to Palestine as an intelligence officer. His first task was to seek to settle the Arab campaign of riots, massacres and attacks against both British Mandate officials and Jewish communities, known later as the "Palestine Arab Revolt. "
He discovered that Grand Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, a friend of Adolf Hitler, instigated these. Because of his faith, he sought out the Zionist leaders and offered to help them. At first they were suspicious of him because of the traditional British disdain for the Jews. Wingate became fluent in Hebrew and finally convinced the Jews that he was a true and valuable ally. His genius as a military tactician soon impressed them.
He proposed and later received approval for a plan to create small and mobile units of elite volunteers. He wrote, "There is only one way to deal with the situation, to persuade the gangs that, in their predatory raids, there is every chance of their running into a government gang which is determined to destroy them. " The units would carry the offensive to the enemy, take away his initiative and keep him off-balance – "and produce in their minds the belief government forces will move at night and can and will surprise them either in villages or across country."
He planned a mix of British and Jewish commandos. Night operations would give them the advantages of shock and surprise. He would base his force in Jewish communities rather than at British bases. The Jewish police and the Haganah had good intelligence contacts and knew the land. The British had the formal training, the equipment and official support. In many respects his plan dovetailed with what the Haganah was already attempting to do.
After considerable resistance by other British officers, the brilliant Gen. Archibald Wavell approved his plan. Wingate's guerrillas, known as the "Special Night Squads," immediately had great success and destroyed the grand mufti's terror campaign. Wingate trained such later Israeli generals as Moshe Dayan and Yigal Yadin. Perhaps his contribution to Israel can best be appreciated by the praises given him by leaders on the occasion of his untimely death at the age of 41 in a 1944 plane crash in Burma.
By the way, though a British officer, his accomplishments in the Asian theater in World War II earned him great respect in America, too. In fact, he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Winston Churchill said, "There was a man of genius who might well have become also a man of destiny. " Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, wrote, "Wingate would have been Israel's first military chief of staff, if he had lived. "
Heroic Gen. Moshe Dayan said, "Wingate taught us everything we know. " Gen. Yigal Yadin said of Wingate, "His basic contribution – and it was a great one – was to teach us that warfare is a science and an art at the same time. He was the perfect example of the military man. …"
Gen. Orde Charles Wingate is recognized for laying the foundation for the Israeli Defense Force. Until his death, Wingate kept a Bible with him at all times.
As one Jewish observer said, "He seemed focused on defending the Jews with an intensity that the Zionists usually did not understand." This man remains a great example of faith to us all.
He did not compromise his beliefs for personal advancement, and his military genius is still helping God's chosen people, more than 60 years after his death.
---------------------------------------------
Israel to give terrorists own medicine?
Hal Lindsey
After two consecutive weeks of incessant pounding of Israeli cities by Palestinian missile attacks – more than 150 in one six-day period – Israeli Defense Forces are back on the offensive. The IDF stepped up air attacks in the Gaza Strip, and promised to target the Hamas leadership in an effort to stem the wave of attacks on its cities.
National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer defended the action. He told Israel Radio, "I don't distinguish between those who carry out the attacks and those who give the orders. I say we have to put them all in the crosshairs." Thousands of Hamas supporters took to the streets of Gaza City vowing revenge one day after an Israeli air strike on the home of Hamas politician Khalil al-Hayya.
Seven members of Hayya's family were killed in the strike, though al-Hayya himself escaped. The Palestinian press made much of the fact that al-Hayya's family was killed, but no one seemed to begrudge the fact that al-Hayya went underground beforehand, leaving his family in harm's way while he protected himself.
At the funeral service, Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said, "We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned a trip to Gaza Thursday to speak to leaders about maintaining law and order. Maintaining law and order? How can they maintain what doesn't exist? He should talk to them about Establishing law and order!
Even more ridiculous is Abbas' effort to blame Israel for the conduct of his government. He told reporters in Ramallah: "The Israelis are required to exercise restraint to stop their aggression against the Palestinian people or else they will be held accountable and responsible for the deterioration of the security situation in Gaza. " Is he kidding?
It would be laughable had the media not duly reported his comments as if they made sense. In another incident, at least four members of Islamic Jihad, on their way to launch rockets at Israel, were killed in an air strike that destroyed their car near the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. Abu Ahmed, the spokesman for Islamic Jihad, didn't deny what the so-called victims were up to when they were killed.
Instead, he told reporters, "The Zionist attack will not stop rocket fire against Zionist towns. Leaders of the Zionist enemy will pay a price." Once again, this illogical nonsense was repeated by the Western press without question. Let's stop for a moment and make a few of the observations the journalists should have made. Since the Palestinians vow to attack Israeli towns anyway, what further price can Ahmed possibly be talking about?
Put another way, Ahmed is simply saying, "We vow to attack you at every opportunity." But if you defend yourself, we'll get so angry that we will attack you even more furiously because your defense causes conflict among us. And causing conflict among us will trigger more attacks. I've heard this kind of convoluted logic firsthand. Yet the vehemence with which such hatred-driven, illogical thinking is presented still staggers my mind. It also makes me question the qualifications or objectivity of the members of the mainstream media who repeat this stuff without question.
The Israeli online magazine DEBKAfile recently published a report by its military experts. They proposed that Israel must now revert to "unorthodox military tactics" against the Gaza-based terror organizations to halt the deluge of Qassam rocket attacks raining down on its civilian population. "Conventional warfare" is no longer an option in light of the massive amount of modern weaponry smuggled into Gaza since Israel's withdrawal. It would be impossible for the IDF to effectively combat the huge store of weapons, ammunition, lethal anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles stored in and fired from the cover of a heavy civilian population without the use of massive firepower.
Those tactics and overwhelming firepower would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in a conventional war. To complicate matters even further, Gaza is now swarming with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and al-Qaida operatives that have all mingled in the midst of the civilian population. Taken together, these factors make conventional war unacceptable in Israel's present situation.
Furthermore, the Israelis themselves would never sanction such perceived brutality – even though their enemies would wipe out every Jewish man, woman and child without a second thought if they could. Debka intelligence sources report, "Iranian and Hezbollah advisers are telling them (Hamas) how to combat a substantial Israeli ground-tank incursion. They must go underground and wage a guerrilla-terrorist war equivalent to the Iraqi insurgent campaign against U.S. troops."
This dilemma has caused some veteran Israeli military leaders to once again reach for help from a little-known Englishman. This British military figure from the past did more to develop the leaders and tactics of the IDF than any other person.
Debka quotes Israeli military sources: "Israelis have defeated Arab terror before. In the 1930s, the English military genius Orde Charles Wingate taught Jewish paramilitary defenders his Special Night Squads tactics for turning Arab guerrilla methods against them. Nothing much has changed in 71 years, except for the fact that today, Israel has a strong army of its own and does not need British or other international force to defend its sovereign territory. All that is needed is a government with resolve that lets the military do its job."
Israeli military intelligence is reportedly using Wingate's guerilla training doctrine to turn Hamas' tactics against them. The plans call for inserting small, highly trained guerilla squads behind Palestinian lines on lightening-like hit-and-run missions.
These squads will use guerilla tactics adapted to a number of new, sophisticated technical weapons developed for this purpose. They will destroy ammunition dumps, weapons workshops, bomb-making facilities, missile manufacturing plants and command centers. The plans also call for around-the-clock ambushes against Palestinian fighters and their commanders.
The goal is to make them confused, anxious and exhausted. Fighting and decisively winning a conventional battle in Gaza now would result in massive civilian casualties. Israeli society will not accept that. That's an object lesson in the difference between the moral integrity of the God of Israel and the god of Islam. The only other option available is to fight fire with fire – or in this case, guerrilla tactics with guerilla tactics. Hamas and its allies have opened Pandora's Box. I'm afraid they're not going to like what they find inside.
When I read DEBKAfile's reference to British Maj. Gen. Orde Charles Wingate's help to the Jews, I was immediately intrigued. He was a person who apparently greatly helped the Palestinian Jews at a critical time in their history. So I ran a search on his personal life. It proved to be a fascinating surprise.
I am indebted to Joseph M. Hochstein and Ami Isseroff's excellent summary of his biography. I first wanted to know why Wingate helped the Jews at a time when the vast majority of British military officers and Foreign Ministry officials were pro-Arab and almost outright anti-Jewish. Here is the key I found to his incredible life.
Wingate was born Feb. 26, 1903 in India. His father was a British officer and his mother came from a missionary family. Both parents were members of the non-denominational Plymouth Brethren Church, founded by J.N. Darby. This was a movement – originating in Ireland and England during the 1820s and 1830s – that recovered the literal interpretation of Bible prophecy. Thus they firmly believed that all the unconditional covenants to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants were still binding and could not be given to the Church.
This refuted the doctrine that had been taught in the churches for more than 1,400 years – that Israel had forfeited its covenants and God had given them to the Church. Wingate was thoroughly schooled in these truths and believed in the restoration of the Jewish people to their land in the last days – as predicted by Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel and most of the other prophets.
This movement also had a profound influence on some members of the British Parliament, including Lords Lindsay and Balfour. They introduced a motion to provide the Jews with a homeland in Palestine. In 1936, then-Capt. Wingate was assigned to Palestine as an intelligence officer. His first task was to seek to settle the Arab campaign of riots, massacres and attacks against both British Mandate officials and Jewish communities, known later as the "Palestine Arab Revolt. "
He discovered that Grand Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, a friend of Adolf Hitler, instigated these. Because of his faith, he sought out the Zionist leaders and offered to help them. At first they were suspicious of him because of the traditional British disdain for the Jews. Wingate became fluent in Hebrew and finally convinced the Jews that he was a true and valuable ally. His genius as a military tactician soon impressed them.
He proposed and later received approval for a plan to create small and mobile units of elite volunteers. He wrote, "There is only one way to deal with the situation, to persuade the gangs that, in their predatory raids, there is every chance of their running into a government gang which is determined to destroy them. " The units would carry the offensive to the enemy, take away his initiative and keep him off-balance – "and produce in their minds the belief government forces will move at night and can and will surprise them either in villages or across country."
He planned a mix of British and Jewish commandos. Night operations would give them the advantages of shock and surprise. He would base his force in Jewish communities rather than at British bases. The Jewish police and the Haganah had good intelligence contacts and knew the land. The British had the formal training, the equipment and official support. In many respects his plan dovetailed with what the Haganah was already attempting to do.
After considerable resistance by other British officers, the brilliant Gen. Archibald Wavell approved his plan. Wingate's guerrillas, known as the "Special Night Squads," immediately had great success and destroyed the grand mufti's terror campaign. Wingate trained such later Israeli generals as Moshe Dayan and Yigal Yadin. Perhaps his contribution to Israel can best be appreciated by the praises given him by leaders on the occasion of his untimely death at the age of 41 in a 1944 plane crash in Burma.
By the way, though a British officer, his accomplishments in the Asian theater in World War II earned him great respect in America, too. In fact, he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Winston Churchill said, "There was a man of genius who might well have become also a man of destiny. " Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, wrote, "Wingate would have been Israel's first military chief of staff, if he had lived. "
Heroic Gen. Moshe Dayan said, "Wingate taught us everything we know. " Gen. Yigal Yadin said of Wingate, "His basic contribution – and it was a great one – was to teach us that warfare is a science and an art at the same time. He was the perfect example of the military man. …"
Gen. Orde Charles Wingate is recognized for laying the foundation for the Israeli Defense Force. Until his death, Wingate kept a Bible with him at all times.
As one Jewish observer said, "He seemed focused on defending the Jews with an intensity that the Zionists usually did not understand." This man remains a great example of faith to us all.
He did not compromise his beliefs for personal advancement, and his military genius is still helping God's chosen people, more than 60 years after his death.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Truth in the Bible..
once again, archeology confirms the veracity of the Bible..
----------------------------------------------
For This They Were Willfully Ignorant. . .
Jack Kinsella
After searching for half his lifetime, Ehud Netzer, an archeologist from Hebrew University, claims to have found, to an historical certainty, the tomb of Herod the Great, ruled Judea from 37 BC to 4 BC.The tomb was located at the base of Herodium, a man-made mountain on which Herod had build one of his most ornate summer palaces. The tomb is located nine miles south of Jerusalem and east of Bethlehem.
Herod was the king who, according to Matthew, ordered the "Massacre of the Innocents." Herod had been elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40 BC, so the Magi's claims were news to him.
When the Babylonian astrologers (the Magi) went to Herod to enquire about the birthplace of the "King of the Jews", he ordered all male children under the age of two years in Bethlehem to be slaughtered, hoping, in the process, to kill this possible challenger to his rule.
The Bible says that Mary and Joseph fled into Egypt to avoid the slaughter, taking the infant Jesus with them.
Like all New Testament accounts, the Massacre of the Innocents is hotly disputed by 'scholars' who grow increasingly desperate in their efforts to discount the New Testament as a book of fables.
Many denied the existence of Herod the Great, despite eyewitness accounts of his life, his bloody reign and his slow, miserable and painful death.
Historical accounts by 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus indicated that Herod was buried at Herodium, and Netzer had been excavating there since 1972.
He finally found the grave midway between the upper part of Herodium and the lower palaces, an area not previously studied.
Herod was also the king credited with expanding the second Jewish Temple atop Temple Mount, which was known to history as "Herod's Temple". (The Arabs -- and in particular, the "Palestinians" continue to deny any such Temple ever existed.)
The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism declined to comment until the site could be examined by a team of Arab archeologists.
It is almost painful to watch the skeptics' efforts to deconstruct this latest in the long list of archeological finds confirming the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament accounts.
I read through some of the reader's comments on the story at the website of Canada's Globe and Mail.
Writing under such names as "Just the Truth From Canada" and "Truth Seeker" one finds comments like, "Ancient Israel, as described in biblical accounts, complete with magnificent gilt palaces, and huge, conquering armies, etc., etc. . . . is not historically accurate, but is folklore, a bunch of tribal fantasies."
Note that this comment was attached to a story about the discovery of Herod's tomb in EXACTLY such an 'magnificent gilt palace'.
Writes another: "Israeli archaeologists probably have no right to dig in the occupied Palestinian West Bank ." To this writer, the discovery is irrelevant to history.
The West Bank is Palestinian, and no stupid historical facts are going to change his mind.
The facts are these, and they ARE facts, even if someone doesn't like them. There has never been an archeological find that disputes any Bible account. Not a single one.
Pontius Pilate was once deemed by those claiming to be 'scholars' to be a New Testament myth. Why? Because there was no archeological confirmation. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the absence of evidence was universally accepted by liberal 'scholars' as evidence of absence.
But in 1962, an inscription was found in the town of Caesarea that said, "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberium to the Caesareans."
Sir William Ramsay, one of the greatest archeologists in history, was a confirmed atheist when set out on a quest to disprove the historical accuracy of Luke. What he discovered was that Luke was historically accurate to the tiniest detail. His conclusions?
"I began with a mind unfavorable to it...but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth."
Consequently, Ramsay wrote, "Luke is a historian of first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."
Sir William Ramsay died a Christian.
Dr. William F. Albright, initially as skeptical as Dr. Ramsay, eventually came to write;
"The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible [by certain schools of thought] has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of numerous details."
Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Sanhedrin who ordered the execution of Jesus, was another such New Testament myth until the Caiaphas family tomb was accidentally discovered by workers constructing a road in a park just south of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Other recent archeological digs have uncovered:
1) The synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus cured a man with an unclean spirit and delivered the sermon on the bread of life.
2) The house of Peter at Capernaum where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law and others.
3) Jacob's well where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman.
4) The Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where Jesus healed a crippled man.
5) The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where Jesus healed a blind man.
6) The tribunal at Corinth where Paul was tried.
7) The theater at Ephesus where the riot of silversmiths occurred.
8) Herod's palace at Caesarea where Paul was kept under guard.
9) An Egyptian parchment confirming the census order that brought Mary and Joseph out of Egypt to Bethlehem to be taxed.
There are at least thirty-nine verifiable extra-Biblical accounts, (including 17 non-Christian sources, that bear witness from outside the New Testament to over 100 details about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Apart from archeology, there is the question of logic. Dr. Ramsay and Dr. Albright both confirm, using scientific, archeological and historical evidences, Luke's accuracy as an historian.
It is not logical to assume that, although accurate in every possible confirmable aspect, Luke lied about Jesus and then permitted himself to be martyred for that lie.
Neither is it logical to assume that, since Luke confirms the rest of the Gospel writers, they also allowed themselves to be put to death to preserve a lie.
It is illogical to argue that they were sincere, but that they were deceived about Who Jesus was.
Each recorded more or less identical events, under more or less identical circumstances. If it were one witness, one might assume he was mentally unbalanced, or hallucinating.
But twelve? (Plus the uncounted multitudes who, within living memory of Jesus, gladly embraced martyrdom at Roman hands for their witness?)
The discovery of Herod's Tomb is just one more rock atop a mountain of overwhelming evidence confirming the reliability of the New Testament accounts. Keep in mind that in every case, (every single solitary case) where evidence DOES exist, it confirms the Bible account.
Not one shred of archeological evidence disputes a single point of the Gospel account. At worst, there remain unconfirmed details.
It is upon such thin suppositions as the absence of confirmatory evidence that Bible skeptics build their argument that the Bible is an unreliable book of myths.
As each new piece of evidence is uncovered, they scurry to seek some other unconfirmed detail to replace it as the bedrock of their argument.
Peter predicted that "there shall come in the last days, scoffers," explaining the motive for their skepticism as "walking after their own lusts."
Paul, in describing the 'strong delusion' gave as the motivation for their rejection of the truth the fact that they 'had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2nd Thessalonians 2:11)
The skeptic delights in arguing that a righteous God would never condemn someone to eternal damnation just because they were unable to believe. I agree. God doesn't condemn unbelievers because they CAN'T believe. They condemn themselves because they WON'T believe. Peter called them "willingly ignorant."
There is more historical and documentary evidence attesting to the life and times of Jesus Christ than there is of Julius Caesar. But there are no skeptics of whom I am aware that have dedicated their lives and fortunes to denying the existence of Julius Caesar.
It takes conscious, deliberate effort -- and a lot of it -- to convince oneself, especially in the face of such overwhelming evidence, that Jesus Christ was less an historical figure than Julius Caesar.
There is no price, real or perceived, attached to belief in Julius Ceasar.
Belief in Jesus Christ, however, demands a change in perspective. Logically, if one believes in eternal accountability before a Righteous Judge, it therefore follows that it would throw a damper on the 'pleasure of unrighteousness'.
In the final analysis, there is but one sin for which the unbeliever will stand convicted.
"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." (Matthew 12:31)
The term 'blasphemy' can best be understood as 'defiant irreverence'. It is a state of defiant unbelief, despite the evidence. Or, as Peter describes it, "willful ignorance."
"Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" can be understood as a continued and persistently stubborn rejection of the gospel of salvation. This would be THE "unpardonable sin" because as long as a person remains in unbelief, he voluntarily excludes himself from forgiveness of sin.
It isn't God that condemns the unbeliever to eternal separation in the Lake of Fire.
The unbeliever condemns himself by his choice to believe a lie, preferring instead, as Peter noted, to walk after their own lusts, thus ignoring the evidence out of willful ignorance.
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
The same choice faces us all
----------------------------------------------
For This They Were Willfully Ignorant. . .
Jack Kinsella
After searching for half his lifetime, Ehud Netzer, an archeologist from Hebrew University, claims to have found, to an historical certainty, the tomb of Herod the Great, ruled Judea from 37 BC to 4 BC.The tomb was located at the base of Herodium, a man-made mountain on which Herod had build one of his most ornate summer palaces. The tomb is located nine miles south of Jerusalem and east of Bethlehem.
Herod was the king who, according to Matthew, ordered the "Massacre of the Innocents." Herod had been elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40 BC, so the Magi's claims were news to him.
When the Babylonian astrologers (the Magi) went to Herod to enquire about the birthplace of the "King of the Jews", he ordered all male children under the age of two years in Bethlehem to be slaughtered, hoping, in the process, to kill this possible challenger to his rule.
The Bible says that Mary and Joseph fled into Egypt to avoid the slaughter, taking the infant Jesus with them.
Like all New Testament accounts, the Massacre of the Innocents is hotly disputed by 'scholars' who grow increasingly desperate in their efforts to discount the New Testament as a book of fables.
Many denied the existence of Herod the Great, despite eyewitness accounts of his life, his bloody reign and his slow, miserable and painful death.
Historical accounts by 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus indicated that Herod was buried at Herodium, and Netzer had been excavating there since 1972.
He finally found the grave midway between the upper part of Herodium and the lower palaces, an area not previously studied.
Herod was also the king credited with expanding the second Jewish Temple atop Temple Mount, which was known to history as "Herod's Temple". (The Arabs -- and in particular, the "Palestinians" continue to deny any such Temple ever existed.)
The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism declined to comment until the site could be examined by a team of Arab archeologists.
It is almost painful to watch the skeptics' efforts to deconstruct this latest in the long list of archeological finds confirming the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament accounts.
I read through some of the reader's comments on the story at the website of Canada's Globe and Mail.
Writing under such names as "Just the Truth From Canada" and "Truth Seeker" one finds comments like, "Ancient Israel, as described in biblical accounts, complete with magnificent gilt palaces, and huge, conquering armies, etc., etc. . . . is not historically accurate, but is folklore, a bunch of tribal fantasies."
Note that this comment was attached to a story about the discovery of Herod's tomb in EXACTLY such an 'magnificent gilt palace'.
Writes another: "Israeli archaeologists probably have no right to dig in the occupied Palestinian West Bank ." To this writer, the discovery is irrelevant to history.
The West Bank is Palestinian, and no stupid historical facts are going to change his mind.
The facts are these, and they ARE facts, even if someone doesn't like them. There has never been an archeological find that disputes any Bible account. Not a single one.
Pontius Pilate was once deemed by those claiming to be 'scholars' to be a New Testament myth. Why? Because there was no archeological confirmation. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the absence of evidence was universally accepted by liberal 'scholars' as evidence of absence.
But in 1962, an inscription was found in the town of Caesarea that said, "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberium to the Caesareans."
Sir William Ramsay, one of the greatest archeologists in history, was a confirmed atheist when set out on a quest to disprove the historical accuracy of Luke. What he discovered was that Luke was historically accurate to the tiniest detail. His conclusions?
"I began with a mind unfavorable to it...but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth."
Consequently, Ramsay wrote, "Luke is a historian of first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."
Sir William Ramsay died a Christian.
Dr. William F. Albright, initially as skeptical as Dr. Ramsay, eventually came to write;
"The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible [by certain schools of thought] has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of numerous details."
Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Sanhedrin who ordered the execution of Jesus, was another such New Testament myth until the Caiaphas family tomb was accidentally discovered by workers constructing a road in a park just south of the Old City of Jerusalem.
Other recent archeological digs have uncovered:
1) The synagogue at Capernaum where Jesus cured a man with an unclean spirit and delivered the sermon on the bread of life.
2) The house of Peter at Capernaum where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law and others.
3) Jacob's well where Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman.
4) The Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where Jesus healed a crippled man.
5) The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where Jesus healed a blind man.
6) The tribunal at Corinth where Paul was tried.
7) The theater at Ephesus where the riot of silversmiths occurred.
8) Herod's palace at Caesarea where Paul was kept under guard.
9) An Egyptian parchment confirming the census order that brought Mary and Joseph out of Egypt to Bethlehem to be taxed.
There are at least thirty-nine verifiable extra-Biblical accounts, (including 17 non-Christian sources, that bear witness from outside the New Testament to over 100 details about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Apart from archeology, there is the question of logic. Dr. Ramsay and Dr. Albright both confirm, using scientific, archeological and historical evidences, Luke's accuracy as an historian.
It is not logical to assume that, although accurate in every possible confirmable aspect, Luke lied about Jesus and then permitted himself to be martyred for that lie.
Neither is it logical to assume that, since Luke confirms the rest of the Gospel writers, they also allowed themselves to be put to death to preserve a lie.
It is illogical to argue that they were sincere, but that they were deceived about Who Jesus was.
Each recorded more or less identical events, under more or less identical circumstances. If it were one witness, one might assume he was mentally unbalanced, or hallucinating.
But twelve? (Plus the uncounted multitudes who, within living memory of Jesus, gladly embraced martyrdom at Roman hands for their witness?)
The discovery of Herod's Tomb is just one more rock atop a mountain of overwhelming evidence confirming the reliability of the New Testament accounts. Keep in mind that in every case, (every single solitary case) where evidence DOES exist, it confirms the Bible account.
Not one shred of archeological evidence disputes a single point of the Gospel account. At worst, there remain unconfirmed details.
It is upon such thin suppositions as the absence of confirmatory evidence that Bible skeptics build their argument that the Bible is an unreliable book of myths.
As each new piece of evidence is uncovered, they scurry to seek some other unconfirmed detail to replace it as the bedrock of their argument.
Peter predicted that "there shall come in the last days, scoffers," explaining the motive for their skepticism as "walking after their own lusts."
Paul, in describing the 'strong delusion' gave as the motivation for their rejection of the truth the fact that they 'had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2nd Thessalonians 2:11)
The skeptic delights in arguing that a righteous God would never condemn someone to eternal damnation just because they were unable to believe. I agree. God doesn't condemn unbelievers because they CAN'T believe. They condemn themselves because they WON'T believe. Peter called them "willingly ignorant."
There is more historical and documentary evidence attesting to the life and times of Jesus Christ than there is of Julius Caesar. But there are no skeptics of whom I am aware that have dedicated their lives and fortunes to denying the existence of Julius Caesar.
It takes conscious, deliberate effort -- and a lot of it -- to convince oneself, especially in the face of such overwhelming evidence, that Jesus Christ was less an historical figure than Julius Caesar.
There is no price, real or perceived, attached to belief in Julius Ceasar.
Belief in Jesus Christ, however, demands a change in perspective. Logically, if one believes in eternal accountability before a Righteous Judge, it therefore follows that it would throw a damper on the 'pleasure of unrighteousness'.
In the final analysis, there is but one sin for which the unbeliever will stand convicted.
"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." (Matthew 12:31)
The term 'blasphemy' can best be understood as 'defiant irreverence'. It is a state of defiant unbelief, despite the evidence. Or, as Peter describes it, "willful ignorance."
"Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" can be understood as a continued and persistently stubborn rejection of the gospel of salvation. This would be THE "unpardonable sin" because as long as a person remains in unbelief, he voluntarily excludes himself from forgiveness of sin.
It isn't God that condemns the unbeliever to eternal separation in the Lake of Fire.
The unbeliever condemns himself by his choice to believe a lie, preferring instead, as Peter noted, to walk after their own lusts, thus ignoring the evidence out of willful ignorance.
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
The same choice faces us all
Thursday, May 03, 2007
damascus
things are setting up to be interesting this summer..
"See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid." (Isaiah 17:1-2)
---------------------------------------------------
Despite Syrian military border build-up, Israel has no plans to attack but stands ready to ward off a surprise Syrian strike
May 3, 2007
Reporting that this message had been relayed from Jerusalem to Damascus, Israeli Ambassador to US Salai Meridor said in Washington Wednesday night that Syria has amassed on Israel’s borders strength and missiles capable of reaching every part of the country. On April 30, DEBKAfile reported exclusively that Bashar Assad had shifted units from the Iraqi to the Lebanese border shortly after the Winograd panel had slammed the Olmert government for its mishandling of the Lebanon War. Our military sources specified that an infantry brigade had been relocated from the Iraqi border to beef up the Syrian 14th Commando Division deployed opposite Golan and the sensitive Mt. Hermon- Shabaa Farms sector where the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli borders converge. A source in Israel’s northern command says the stationing of an infantry brigade on the forward line with Israel stiffens Syrian defenses and frees up Syrian command units for operational duties.
A careful watch is trained on these movements to ascertain whether Assad is engaging in mere muscle flexing, or trying to capitalize on the Israeli government’s weakness for a military move on the Golan Heights.
"See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid." (Isaiah 17:1-2)
---------------------------------------------------
Despite Syrian military border build-up, Israel has no plans to attack but stands ready to ward off a surprise Syrian strike
May 3, 2007
Reporting that this message had been relayed from Jerusalem to Damascus, Israeli Ambassador to US Salai Meridor said in Washington Wednesday night that Syria has amassed on Israel’s borders strength and missiles capable of reaching every part of the country. On April 30, DEBKAfile reported exclusively that Bashar Assad had shifted units from the Iraqi to the Lebanese border shortly after the Winograd panel had slammed the Olmert government for its mishandling of the Lebanon War. Our military sources specified that an infantry brigade had been relocated from the Iraqi border to beef up the Syrian 14th Commando Division deployed opposite Golan and the sensitive Mt. Hermon- Shabaa Farms sector where the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli borders converge. A source in Israel’s northern command says the stationing of an infantry brigade on the forward line with Israel stiffens Syrian defenses and frees up Syrian command units for operational duties.
A careful watch is trained on these movements to ascertain whether Assad is engaging in mere muscle flexing, or trying to capitalize on the Israeli government’s weakness for a military move on the Golan Heights.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
a prayer for death..
when we are told this to our faces and we ignore it, we risk our values and the future of our society..
-----------------
On Palestinian television last week, Dr. Ahmad Bahar (acting Speaker, Palestinian Legislative Council) delivered this sermon:
“This is Islam, that was ahead of its time with regards to human rights in the treatment of prisoners, but our people was afflicted by the cancerous lump, that is the Jews, in the heart of the Arab nation. Be certain that America is on its way to disappear, America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and Palestine. Make us victorious over the infidel people. Allah, take hold of the Jews and their allies, Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.” [PA TV, April 20, 2007]
Hat tip: Palestinian Media Watch. http://www.pmw.org/
common sense from fred thompson..
i'm not sure if he's going to run or not, but i enjoy his straight forward, fact based writing style. the world will get their cup of life without america soon enough.. i suppose the present time is just to allow their mouths to foam just a little more before getting what they ultimately want.. how does the old saying go, be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.
-------------------------------------------------------
Sticks and Stones
Fred Thompson
It bothers Americans when we're told how unpopular we are with the rest of the world. For some of us, at least, it gets our back up -- and our natural tendency is to tell the French, for example, that we'd rather not hear from them until the day when they need us to bail them out again.
But we cool off. We're big boys and girls, after all, and we don't really bruise that easily. We're also hopeful that, eventually, our ostrich-headed allies will realize there's a World War going on out there and they need to pick a side -- the choice being between the forces of civilization and the forces of anarchy. Considering the fact that the latter team is growing stronger and bolder daily, while most of our European Union friends continue to dismantle their defenses, that day may not be too long in coming.
In the meantime, let's be realistic about the world we live in. Mexican leaders apparently have an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens, while complaining about US immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own. The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo.
Russia, though, takes the cake. Here is a government apparently run by ex-KGB agents who have no problem blackmailing whole countries by turning the crank on their oil pipelines. They're not doing anything shady, they say. They can’t help it if their opponents are so notoriously accident-prone. Criticize these guys and you might accidentally drink a cup of tea laced with a few million dollars worth of deadly, and extremely rare, radioactive poison. Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet.
The hundreds of demonstrators the Kremlin has had beaten and arrested in the last few weeks alone, we are told, were not pro-democracy activists but common criminals -- like world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Demonstrating without a permit is a serious crime and, luckily for the Kremlin, it turns out that pro-government youth groups seem always to have permits for rallies at the exact times and places that anti-government protesters gather.
Another group that seems to be having trouble with permits is the media. Newspapers and television stations that aren't smart enough to know that America is the enemy and that things are great in Russia can't seem to get their paperwork in order. It’s some sort of IQ test, I guess.
President Vladimir Putin, though, shows no sign that he feels defensive about his remarkable string of luck. He knows who's really to blame for "meddling" in Russian "internal affairs." It's the United States.
He's lambasting us for yielding too much power. One example of this excessive power is the missile defense radar system we want to install in Poland and the Czech Republic -- to give the free world early warning of a missile attack by terrorists or a rogue nation like Iran. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the Russians have been supplying Iran with both nuclear and missile technology while using their UN veto to block sanctions that would force Tehran to back down. Regardless, we're clearly at fault, he says, for putting a defense system close to Mother Russia.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the criticisms we receive. We make mistakes and at times the "carping" may even be on target, but it seems to me that we ought to look at a lot of the complaints as a badge of honor.
]
-------------------------------------------------------
Sticks and Stones
Fred Thompson
It bothers Americans when we're told how unpopular we are with the rest of the world. For some of us, at least, it gets our back up -- and our natural tendency is to tell the French, for example, that we'd rather not hear from them until the day when they need us to bail them out again.
But we cool off. We're big boys and girls, after all, and we don't really bruise that easily. We're also hopeful that, eventually, our ostrich-headed allies will realize there's a World War going on out there and they need to pick a side -- the choice being between the forces of civilization and the forces of anarchy. Considering the fact that the latter team is growing stronger and bolder daily, while most of our European Union friends continue to dismantle their defenses, that day may not be too long in coming.
In the meantime, let's be realistic about the world we live in. Mexican leaders apparently have an economic policy based on exporting their own citizens, while complaining about US immigration policies that are far less exclusionary than their own. The French jail perfectly nice people for politically incorrect comments, but scold us for holding terrorists at Guantanamo.
Russia, though, takes the cake. Here is a government apparently run by ex-KGB agents who have no problem blackmailing whole countries by turning the crank on their oil pipelines. They're not doing anything shady, they say. They can’t help it if their opponents are so notoriously accident-prone. Criticize these guys and you might accidentally drink a cup of tea laced with a few million dollars worth of deadly, and extremely rare, radioactive poison. Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet.
The hundreds of demonstrators the Kremlin has had beaten and arrested in the last few weeks alone, we are told, were not pro-democracy activists but common criminals -- like world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Demonstrating without a permit is a serious crime and, luckily for the Kremlin, it turns out that pro-government youth groups seem always to have permits for rallies at the exact times and places that anti-government protesters gather.
Another group that seems to be having trouble with permits is the media. Newspapers and television stations that aren't smart enough to know that America is the enemy and that things are great in Russia can't seem to get their paperwork in order. It’s some sort of IQ test, I guess.
President Vladimir Putin, though, shows no sign that he feels defensive about his remarkable string of luck. He knows who's really to blame for "meddling" in Russian "internal affairs." It's the United States.
He's lambasting us for yielding too much power. One example of this excessive power is the missile defense radar system we want to install in Poland and the Czech Republic -- to give the free world early warning of a missile attack by terrorists or a rogue nation like Iran. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the Russians have been supplying Iran with both nuclear and missile technology while using their UN veto to block sanctions that would force Tehran to back down. Regardless, we're clearly at fault, he says, for putting a defense system close to Mother Russia.
So I wouldn't worry too much about the criticisms we receive. We make mistakes and at times the "carping" may even be on target, but it seems to me that we ought to look at a lot of the complaints as a badge of honor.
]
Thursday, April 26, 2007
ham sandwich hate crime..
i can't wait til they have pizza day.. damn the pepperoni! (or should it be somali sausage?)
------------------------------
When Ham Sandwiches Attack
Jack Kinsella
Generally speaking, ham sandwiches are quiet and unassuming and don't really seem to have much of an opinion on any given subject.Indeed, a ham sandwich can be a welcome friend, it can be a traveling companion, eventually, it can even be lunch, but there is no recorded incident in which a ham sandwich has ever exhibited any malevolence.
The last time a ham sandwich gave society a major problem was the Mama Cass Affair. When Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas -- in case you were out of town for the 70's) died in 1974, her death was popularly ascribed to having choked to death on a ham sandwich.
The ham sandwich was innocent. There was a ham sandwich and a Coke found by her bedside, but the sandwich was untouched. The coroner eventually ruled that Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity.
Blaming the ham sandwich was a bad beef. . .
Actually, the only thing a ham sandwich has ever been guilty of, in my experience, was bad judgment. Who can forget the time that a ham sandwich incorrectly assumed two packages would not get mailed unless somebody took them to the Post Office? Or how humiliated that same ham sandwich was when the Post Office Lady picked the packages up?
(Come to think of it, that particular ham sandwich had a Jewish accent. Hmmmm)
Now, sadly, another ham sandwich is back in the news. This time, however, it isn't charged with murder, or parodied in a TV commercial for its bad judgment.
In this latest incident, the ham sandwich is charged with committing a hate crime.
Once again, however, it appears that the ham sandwich is getting a bum wrap. Allow me to explain. . .
A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime because he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a cafeteria table where Muslim students from Somalia were eating their lunch.
Why Muslims students from Somalia were in a middle school in Maine eating lunch is grist for a different mill. Don't they have cafeterias in Somalia? But I digress.
Anyway, the school superintended took prompt action, ordering the student who brought the ham sandwich to school suspended, and promising more disciplinary action, should the investigation prove the ham sandwich was guilty as charged.
"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at."
(Images of ham sandwiches running amok with high-powered automatic weapons flash across my mind at this point. No wonder Clinton pulled us out of Somalia in the 1990's.)
Continued Wessler, "No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
But wait! Isn't there some other rule about not touching somebody else's lunch in a cafeteria?
Evidently, THAT'S kosher -- provided one isn't actually IN Somalia, where touching somebody else's lunch can be a capital crime punishable by death -- depending on how well-armed the owner of that lunch is at the time.
And what does the guy mean by, "No child, Muslim or NORMAL?" Surely Stephen Wessler, as executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, wasn't suggesting that Muslim children aren't 'normal', was he?
Wessler continued, "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don't live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities."
"If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?"
To which I reply with a hearty, "Heck, NO!" I can see Wessler's point. First, some kid brings a ham sandwich to school . . . and the next thing you know, Jewish kids in middle schools all over America will be forced by Nazis to eat bacon.
A joke??? I'm not laughing. And neither is the Executive Director of the Ham Sandwich Anti-Defamation League.
According to Porky Pig, "H--h-ham s-s-sandwiches are r-r-r-routinely t-t-t-t-targeted f-f-for m-m-m-m-m-m-mal-l-l-l-icous p-pprosecution. How mmmmany t-t-times have you heard that a prosecutor c--c-can g-get a g-g-g-grand jury to indict a h-h-h-ham s-s-s-sandwich?"
The middle school principle, Leon Levesque, assured Somali parents throughout Maine, "the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs."
You probably think that I'm making this up. (Ok. I admit I made up the Porky Pig quote.) But the story was reported by both Boston. com and the Lewiston Sun-Journal -- it's on the level.
According to the Sun-Journal, its been a rough week for Somalis in Maine.
"A lot of anger and hate has been flying around," said Steve Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. In the days after last Thursday's report of a hate incident at Lewiston Middle School involving a ham steak left at a lunch table to insult Somali students, a Sun Journal newspaper forum was so filled with hostility it was shut down.
Wessler said he received hate e-mail and two phone messages in which a man threatened to commit violence against him." The poor guy. What should be done? That is the question that has Pine Tree Staters all a'twitter.
Noted the Sun-Journal; "For years, Catholics suffered prejudice before being accepted." (But, as everybody knows, it is harder to use a ham sandwich to commit a hate crime against a Catholic. He would be just as likely to eat the weapon, destroying the evidence in the process.)
But change is in the works. Last year, a local man named Brent Matthews rolled a pig's head into a local mosque. Last Saturday, perhaps driven to despair by angry falafels, Matthews committed suicide in the local Marsden's parking lot.
As one local, Edward Boucher, told the paper, "Eventually these things work themselves out."
"But does it make it right?" the Sun-Journal quoted Zamzam Mohamud, 32, the mother of one traumatized victim. "Then does it just keep going? Where does it stop? There isn't much of a community if we don't make a change."
And THAT is where the laughter stops.
America's reputation was built around the concept of the Great American Melting Pot. In happier times, new immigrants would come to America to become Americans. The idea was to melt all the various cultures of all the various immigrants into a single, uniquely American culture.
Under that concept, Americans were not required to adopt the culture of its immigrants, but rather, immigrants were expected to adopt the culture of America. What made it a 'community' was that immigrants made 'the change' to conform to the existing culture.
The concept of "multiculturalism" -- the Holy Grail of the liberal Left -- insists that immigrants refuse to assimilate into American culture, forcing immigrants into cultural 'ghettos' where liberal politicians can pander to concentrated special interest lobbies.
One can't win in Florida without the Cuban vote. One can't win in Texas or California without the Mexican vote. One can't win in the Northeast without the black vote, or in New York without the Jewish vote. And one can't win in certain parts of Michigan without the Muslim vote.
So a liberal need only pander to the demands of the various concentrations of minorities to win public office -- from which he can strengthen his base by bashing America as a whole as a collection of hateful xenophobes.
One can't engage in class warfare without some underprivileged class to champion. And the best way to ensure that is to keep immigrants concentrated in ethnic ghettos as exiles from their home countries, rather than as immigrants to the New World.
Zamzan Mahamud's solution was quoteworthy because her solution fits the liberal agenda -- that America that must change its culture to conform to that of its immigrants.
Since America is made up of immigrants from every country in the world, there will always be more changes to demand, more immigrant groups to pander to, and more elections to be won.
Today, the ham sandwich. Tomorrow, Sharia law. Eventually, pictures of Osama bin Laden festooning American cities and towns.
Sound far-fetched? No more so than the fear of Nazis force-feeding bacon to Jewish kids in American concentration camps -- cleverly disguised as middle-schools.
When a ham sandwich is a hate crime, NOTHING is too far-fetched.
------------------------------
When Ham Sandwiches Attack
Jack Kinsella
Generally speaking, ham sandwiches are quiet and unassuming and don't really seem to have much of an opinion on any given subject.Indeed, a ham sandwich can be a welcome friend, it can be a traveling companion, eventually, it can even be lunch, but there is no recorded incident in which a ham sandwich has ever exhibited any malevolence.
The last time a ham sandwich gave society a major problem was the Mama Cass Affair. When Cass Elliot (Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas -- in case you were out of town for the 70's) died in 1974, her death was popularly ascribed to having choked to death on a ham sandwich.
The ham sandwich was innocent. There was a ham sandwich and a Coke found by her bedside, but the sandwich was untouched. The coroner eventually ruled that Cass Elliot died of a heart attack brought on by obesity.
Blaming the ham sandwich was a bad beef. . .
Actually, the only thing a ham sandwich has ever been guilty of, in my experience, was bad judgment. Who can forget the time that a ham sandwich incorrectly assumed two packages would not get mailed unless somebody took them to the Post Office? Or how humiliated that same ham sandwich was when the Post Office Lady picked the packages up?
(Come to think of it, that particular ham sandwich had a Jewish accent. Hmmmm)
Now, sadly, another ham sandwich is back in the news. This time, however, it isn't charged with murder, or parodied in a TV commercial for its bad judgment.
In this latest incident, the ham sandwich is charged with committing a hate crime.
Once again, however, it appears that the ham sandwich is getting a bum wrap. Allow me to explain. . .
A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by police for a possible hate crime because he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a cafeteria table where Muslim students from Somalia were eating their lunch.
Why Muslims students from Somalia were in a middle school in Maine eating lunch is grist for a different mill. Don't they have cafeterias in Somalia? But I digress.
Anyway, the school superintended took prompt action, ordering the student who brought the ham sandwich to school suspended, and promising more disciplinary action, should the investigation prove the ham sandwich was guilty as charged.
"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at."
(Images of ham sandwiches running amok with high-powered automatic weapons flash across my mind at this point. No wonder Clinton pulled us out of Somalia in the 1990's.)
Continued Wessler, "No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
But wait! Isn't there some other rule about not touching somebody else's lunch in a cafeteria?
Evidently, THAT'S kosher -- provided one isn't actually IN Somalia, where touching somebody else's lunch can be a capital crime punishable by death -- depending on how well-armed the owner of that lunch is at the time.
And what does the guy mean by, "No child, Muslim or NORMAL?" Surely Stephen Wessler, as executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, wasn't suggesting that Muslim children aren't 'normal', was he?
Wessler continued, "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don't live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities."
"If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?"
To which I reply with a hearty, "Heck, NO!" I can see Wessler's point. First, some kid brings a ham sandwich to school . . . and the next thing you know, Jewish kids in middle schools all over America will be forced by Nazis to eat bacon.
A joke??? I'm not laughing. And neither is the Executive Director of the Ham Sandwich Anti-Defamation League.
According to Porky Pig, "H--h-ham s-s-sandwiches are r-r-r-routinely t-t-t-t-targeted f-f-for m-m-m-m-m-m-mal-l-l-l-icous p-pprosecution. How mmmmany t-t-times have you heard that a prosecutor c--c-can g-get a g-g-g-grand jury to indict a h-h-h-ham s-s-s-sandwich?"
The middle school principle, Leon Levesque, assured Somali parents throughout Maine, "the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs."
You probably think that I'm making this up. (Ok. I admit I made up the Porky Pig quote.) But the story was reported by both Boston. com and the Lewiston Sun-Journal -- it's on the level.
According to the Sun-Journal, its been a rough week for Somalis in Maine.
"A lot of anger and hate has been flying around," said Steve Wessler of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. In the days after last Thursday's report of a hate incident at Lewiston Middle School involving a ham steak left at a lunch table to insult Somali students, a Sun Journal newspaper forum was so filled with hostility it was shut down.
Wessler said he received hate e-mail and two phone messages in which a man threatened to commit violence against him." The poor guy. What should be done? That is the question that has Pine Tree Staters all a'twitter.
Noted the Sun-Journal; "For years, Catholics suffered prejudice before being accepted." (But, as everybody knows, it is harder to use a ham sandwich to commit a hate crime against a Catholic. He would be just as likely to eat the weapon, destroying the evidence in the process.)
But change is in the works. Last year, a local man named Brent Matthews rolled a pig's head into a local mosque. Last Saturday, perhaps driven to despair by angry falafels, Matthews committed suicide in the local Marsden's parking lot.
As one local, Edward Boucher, told the paper, "Eventually these things work themselves out."
"But does it make it right?" the Sun-Journal quoted Zamzam Mohamud, 32, the mother of one traumatized victim. "Then does it just keep going? Where does it stop? There isn't much of a community if we don't make a change."
And THAT is where the laughter stops.
America's reputation was built around the concept of the Great American Melting Pot. In happier times, new immigrants would come to America to become Americans. The idea was to melt all the various cultures of all the various immigrants into a single, uniquely American culture.
Under that concept, Americans were not required to adopt the culture of its immigrants, but rather, immigrants were expected to adopt the culture of America. What made it a 'community' was that immigrants made 'the change' to conform to the existing culture.
The concept of "multiculturalism" -- the Holy Grail of the liberal Left -- insists that immigrants refuse to assimilate into American culture, forcing immigrants into cultural 'ghettos' where liberal politicians can pander to concentrated special interest lobbies.
One can't win in Florida without the Cuban vote. One can't win in Texas or California without the Mexican vote. One can't win in the Northeast without the black vote, or in New York without the Jewish vote. And one can't win in certain parts of Michigan without the Muslim vote.
So a liberal need only pander to the demands of the various concentrations of minorities to win public office -- from which he can strengthen his base by bashing America as a whole as a collection of hateful xenophobes.
One can't engage in class warfare without some underprivileged class to champion. And the best way to ensure that is to keep immigrants concentrated in ethnic ghettos as exiles from their home countries, rather than as immigrants to the New World.
Zamzan Mahamud's solution was quoteworthy because her solution fits the liberal agenda -- that America that must change its culture to conform to that of its immigrants.
Since America is made up of immigrants from every country in the world, there will always be more changes to demand, more immigrant groups to pander to, and more elections to be won.
Today, the ham sandwich. Tomorrow, Sharia law. Eventually, pictures of Osama bin Laden festooning American cities and towns.
Sound far-fetched? No more so than the fear of Nazis force-feeding bacon to Jewish kids in American concentration camps -- cleverly disguised as middle-schools.
When a ham sandwich is a hate crime, NOTHING is too far-fetched.
nuts in the crosshairs..
i supposed the right is called right for a reason..
---------------------------------
Nuts in the Crosshairs
By Ann Coulter
For cranky right-wingers who think politicians don't listen to them, this week I give you elected Democrats running like scared schoolgirls from the media's demand that they enact new gun control laws in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.
Instead, Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms. We've banned mass murder and that hasn't seemed to work. So now we're going to ban mass murderers. Yes, that will do the trick!
This is a feel-good measure that is both wildly under-inclusive (the vast majority of nutcases receive no formal court adjudication of their nuttiness) and wildly over-inclusive (the vast majority of nuts don't kill people). The worst thing most nuts do is irritate everybody else by driving their electric cars on the highway.
As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.
Even stalking laws can put away a person known to be dangerous for only a few years – at best – which is generally not worth spending a day sitting in court, facing your stalker and then waiting a month for the court order.
So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.
In fact, I think we should expand the mental illness exception to cover First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.
I note that before mass murder, the only harassment the Virginia Tech killer was guilty of involved speech: creepy e-mails, creepy short stories, creepy phone calls. Stalkers, too, engage in frightening speech – but that is protected. Revealing a stalking victim's address is "speech" but is little different from being the one to pull the trigger.
This small measure would have taken Dan "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" Rather off the airwaves years ago, preventing him from presenting doctored National Guard documents to the American people to try to throw a presidential election. A mental illness bar would deal a quick blow to Air America and both its remaining listeners. It would also free up about 90 percent of the Internet.
And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!
Anyone who thinks a single-minded fixation on diversity must be the ultimate goal of every human endeavor, including mass murder, is not the sort of person who should be able to buy a gun or to publish his daft ruminations in public forums.
But just to get this straight: Democrats are saying we should be able to jail "strange" or "angry" people, but we can't deplane imams who demand extra-length seatbelts after boarding?
Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the public expressions of shame and contrition from the Korean-American community after the Virginia Tech shooting? Of course, no one blames this exemplary community for the actions of one nut. The Koreans are manifestly law-abiding and decent – nipping at the heels of Italians as the greatest Americans and tied for second with the Cubans.
Indeed, I believe this marks the first time a Korean has killed anyone in the United States, not involving an automobile. Nonetheless, Korean congregations, community groups and the family members themselves are issuing statements of sorrow. Not "pleas for tolerance." But sorrow. Remorse. Remember those? They were big back in the day.
If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse – so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans – after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?
How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.
---------------------------------
Nuts in the Crosshairs
By Ann Coulter
For cranky right-wingers who think politicians don't listen to them, this week I give you elected Democrats running like scared schoolgirls from the media's demand that they enact new gun control laws in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.
Instead, Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms. We've banned mass murder and that hasn't seemed to work. So now we're going to ban mass murderers. Yes, that will do the trick!
This is a feel-good measure that is both wildly under-inclusive (the vast majority of nutcases receive no formal court adjudication of their nuttiness) and wildly over-inclusive (the vast majority of nuts don't kill people). The worst thing most nuts do is irritate everybody else by driving their electric cars on the highway.
As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.
Even stalking laws can put away a person known to be dangerous for only a few years – at best – which is generally not worth spending a day sitting in court, facing your stalker and then waiting a month for the court order.
So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.
In fact, I think we should expand the mental illness exception to cover First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.
I note that before mass murder, the only harassment the Virginia Tech killer was guilty of involved speech: creepy e-mails, creepy short stories, creepy phone calls. Stalkers, too, engage in frightening speech – but that is protected. Revealing a stalking victim's address is "speech" but is little different from being the one to pull the trigger.
This small measure would have taken Dan "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" Rather off the airwaves years ago, preventing him from presenting doctored National Guard documents to the American people to try to throw a presidential election. A mental illness bar would deal a quick blow to Air America and both its remaining listeners. It would also free up about 90 percent of the Internet.
And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!
Anyone who thinks a single-minded fixation on diversity must be the ultimate goal of every human endeavor, including mass murder, is not the sort of person who should be able to buy a gun or to publish his daft ruminations in public forums.
But just to get this straight: Democrats are saying we should be able to jail "strange" or "angry" people, but we can't deplane imams who demand extra-length seatbelts after boarding?
Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the public expressions of shame and contrition from the Korean-American community after the Virginia Tech shooting? Of course, no one blames this exemplary community for the actions of one nut. The Koreans are manifestly law-abiding and decent – nipping at the heels of Italians as the greatest Americans and tied for second with the Cubans.
Indeed, I believe this marks the first time a Korean has killed anyone in the United States, not involving an automobile. Nonetheless, Korean congregations, community groups and the family members themselves are issuing statements of sorrow. Not "pleas for tolerance." But sorrow. Remorse. Remember those? They were big back in the day.
If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse – so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans – after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?
How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
eloquence from the president..
bush isn't the best communicator in the world, but his speech at VA Tech was a highlight.. speaking from the heart, he gets it right.
"People who have never met you are praying for you. They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers. Real power. In times like this we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. "
-- President Bush, at Virginia Tech.
"People who have never met you are praying for you. They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers. Real power. In times like this we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. "
-- President Bush, at Virginia Tech.
democratic victory = american defeat
i'm not sold on Giuliani as the candidate for me, but he sure has it right on the war against islamic terror.. since the dems are invested in our defeat - meaning they lose if we win, it's more and more important people point this out. the dems are so out of bounds and out of touch and power mad.. harry reid is focused on senate seats, not what's best for america. pelosi too busy to meet with the general in charge in iraq, but speaks as if she's the expert on the subject..
----------------------------------------
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
By: Roger Simon
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
----------------------------------------
Giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if Dems win
By: Roger Simon
MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.
But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.
“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.
“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”
“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”
He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”
After his speech to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner, I asked him about his statements and Giuliani said flatly: “America will be safer with a Republican president.”
Giuliani, whose past positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights have made him anathema to some in his party, believes his tough stance on national defense and his post-Sept. 11 reputation as a fighter of terrorism will be his trump card with doubting Republicans.
“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”
Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”
Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”
The crowd thundered its approval.
Giuliani also said that America had been naive about terrorism in the past and had missed obvious signals.
“They were at war with us before we realized it, going back to ’90s with all the Americans killed by the PLO and Hezbollah and Hamas,” he said. “They came here and killed us in 1993 [with the first attack on New York’s World Trade Center, in which six people died], and we didn’t get it. We didn’t get it that this was a war. Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened, and we got it.”
for the gun control crowd..
a reminder for the bleeding heart do-gooders. while you pay for your armed bodyguards and lobby against the constitutional right of citizens to be armed, you once again ignore the facts and push forward with your self absorbed agenda.
----------------------------------------
They Never Learn
By Robert A. Levy
"What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." So said the New York Times in its predictable but wrongheaded editorial the day after the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Anti-gun advocates, however noble their motives, help create the environment in which horrors like Virginia Tech occur.
Possession and use of guns on the Tech campus violated state-imposed restrictions. But crazed fanatics, undeterred by laws against murder, will not be dissuaded by laws against guns. More such laws will accomplish nothing. Indeed, liberalized laws might have enabled responsible, armed citizens on campus to defend the hapless victims. It took two hours for the killer methodically to massacre 32 people and injure another 15. Why did nobody intervene sooner to stop the killer?
For one possible explanation, consider this report from a Roanoke Times article: A bill, introduced on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, would have given properly licensed public college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus. The bill died on January 30, 2006 in the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was pleased with the outcome. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." Tell that to the ill-fated victims of April 16 and their families.
The article goes on to relate that most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security on entering campus. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that requirement for anyone who possessed a valid concealed handgun permit. Ironically, Tech's governing board had approved in June 2005 a violence prevention policy reiterating the school's ban on students, employees, or visitors -- even those properly licensed -- from bringing handguns onto campus.
At the Virginia Tech press conference after the slaughter of 32 defenseless people, the university's president cautioned that it wouldn't be possible to have police guard every classroom and dorm. What he omitted was this cold, hard fact: By making the university a "gun free zone," his administration and the state legislature had fostered a climate in which ubiquitous police would be necessary. Without a means to protect themselves, Virginia Tech students, faculty, and other employees were more likely to be victimized by the only people on campus who had readily available guns: killers and lunatics.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, the Brady Center, and the rest of the usual suspects continue their clamor for more gun regulations -- apparently oblivious to the destructive effects of their own proposals. The evidence is clear: more guns in the hands of responsible owners yield lower rates of violent crime. Gun control does not work. It just prevents weaker people from defending themselves against stronger predators.
Here are the numbers, as summarized by legal scholar Don B. Kates: Over the 30-year period from 1974 to 2003, guns in circulation doubled, but murder rates declined by a third. On a state-by-state basis, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlates with a 4.1 percent lower rate of violent crime. Each year, approximately 460,000 gun crimes are committed in the United States. But guns are also used to ward off gun criminals. Estimates of defensive gun use range from 1.3 million to 2.5 million times per year -- and usually the weapons are merely brandished, not fired. That means defensive uses occur about 3-to-5 times as often as violent gun crimes. Just as important, armed victims who resist gun criminals get injured less frequently than unarmed victims who submit. In more than 8 out of 10 cases where the victim pulls a gun, the criminal turns and flees, even if he's armed. "So much for the quasi-religious faith that more guns mean more murder."
Finally, two federal government agencies recently examined gun control laws and found no statistically significant evidence to support their effectiveness. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. The researchers could not identify a single gun-control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on an independent evaluation of firearms and ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention laws, and zero tolerance laws. Conclusion: none of the laws had a meaningful impact on gun violence.
When will the gun controllers learn?
----------------------------------------
They Never Learn
By Robert A. Levy
"What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage." So said the New York Times in its predictable but wrongheaded editorial the day after the horrific events at Virginia Tech. Anti-gun advocates, however noble their motives, help create the environment in which horrors like Virginia Tech occur.
Possession and use of guns on the Tech campus violated state-imposed restrictions. But crazed fanatics, undeterred by laws against murder, will not be dissuaded by laws against guns. More such laws will accomplish nothing. Indeed, liberalized laws might have enabled responsible, armed citizens on campus to defend the hapless victims. It took two hours for the killer methodically to massacre 32 people and injure another 15. Why did nobody intervene sooner to stop the killer?
For one possible explanation, consider this report from a Roanoke Times article: A bill, introduced on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, would have given properly licensed public college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus. The bill died on January 30, 2006 in the Virginia General Assembly. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was pleased with the outcome. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." Tell that to the ill-fated victims of April 16 and their families.
The article goes on to relate that most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security on entering campus. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that requirement for anyone who possessed a valid concealed handgun permit. Ironically, Tech's governing board had approved in June 2005 a violence prevention policy reiterating the school's ban on students, employees, or visitors -- even those properly licensed -- from bringing handguns onto campus.
At the Virginia Tech press conference after the slaughter of 32 defenseless people, the university's president cautioned that it wouldn't be possible to have police guard every classroom and dorm. What he omitted was this cold, hard fact: By making the university a "gun free zone," his administration and the state legislature had fostered a climate in which ubiquitous police would be necessary. Without a means to protect themselves, Virginia Tech students, faculty, and other employees were more likely to be victimized by the only people on campus who had readily available guns: killers and lunatics.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, the Brady Center, and the rest of the usual suspects continue their clamor for more gun regulations -- apparently oblivious to the destructive effects of their own proposals. The evidence is clear: more guns in the hands of responsible owners yield lower rates of violent crime. Gun control does not work. It just prevents weaker people from defending themselves against stronger predators.
Here are the numbers, as summarized by legal scholar Don B. Kates: Over the 30-year period from 1974 to 2003, guns in circulation doubled, but murder rates declined by a third. On a state-by-state basis, a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlates with a 4.1 percent lower rate of violent crime. Each year, approximately 460,000 gun crimes are committed in the United States. But guns are also used to ward off gun criminals. Estimates of defensive gun use range from 1.3 million to 2.5 million times per year -- and usually the weapons are merely brandished, not fired. That means defensive uses occur about 3-to-5 times as often as violent gun crimes. Just as important, armed victims who resist gun criminals get injured less frequently than unarmed victims who submit. In more than 8 out of 10 cases where the victim pulls a gun, the criminal turns and flees, even if he's armed. "So much for the quasi-religious faith that more guns mean more murder."
Finally, two federal government agencies recently examined gun control laws and found no statistically significant evidence to support their effectiveness. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. The researchers could not identify a single gun-control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on an independent evaluation of firearms and ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention laws, and zero tolerance laws. Conclusion: none of the laws had a meaningful impact on gun violence.
When will the gun controllers learn?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
as in the times of Noah..
i felt this was a well written summary of the last week.. it's overwhelming, really. when you stop to think of the constant senseless bloodshed over issues so small, it reminds you that time is short. these are the birth pangs Jesus mentioned in Matthew 24.. and they will increase in frequency and intensity leading up to the rapture of the church.
as a Christian, it's an exciting time to be alive, the promises to generations of people are unfolding before our very eyes. but we are also reminded that we have friends and neighbors who haven't accepted the pardon Christ provides.. and for that, time is short indeed.
------------------------
The Days of Noe
Jack Kinsella
I was watching Glenn Beck's program on CNN the other day. He said something that bothered me when I first heard it, and it bothers me even more today. He mentioned how devastated he had been following the Columbine shooting in 1999.
But then he noted that the Virginia Tech massacre didn't seem to have such a devastating effect on him. Or, it seemed, on most of America. Not because it wasn't as terrible as Columbine-- the VT massacre claimed more than twice as many lives -- but because it isn't as shocking as it used to be.
Shortly after the crazy little whack-job in Virginia (I refuse to honor him by repeating his name -- he's gotten enough publicity) murdered thirty-two students at Virginia Tech, some guy at NASA shot his boss because he thought he might lose his job.
Afterwards, the guy shot himself in the head while the police 'closed in'. (I set that off in quotes because it seems the police no longer 'close in' until AFTER the gunfire stops.
There was a murder/suicide in Woodland, California (that you probably didn't hear about) where a 54 year-old guy shot his 52 year-old girlfriend and then killed himself.
Fifteen hundred miles away, another guy shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself in Houston. There was another three days ago in Portland, Texas. Two more the next day, one in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one in Murrieta, California.
In Queens, NY, Jimmie Dawkins killed his mother, her boyfriend and his health care attendant before putting the barrel of his .40 cal pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Another murder suicide in Michigan the same day also claimed four lives. And yet another; a man in Lake Havasu City, Arizone killed his girlfriend, his baby, and then himself.
This morning, I heard of a truck bomb that went off in Baghdad that killed 25 Iraqi policemen and wounded 125 Iraqi bystanders. Twenty-one members of a religious minority in Mosul, Iraq were dragged off a bus and shot dead, execution style.
In Laguna Beach, a woman and her husband were shot dead during a confrontation with police. At press time, the police weren't sure if they killed the couple, or if it were yet another murder-suicide.
One week's time. Rivers and rivers of blood.
Seriously, how did the news that 32 students were murdered at VT affect you? Or the news of the 125 people maimed by an Iraqi car bomb? Or the 21 Iraqis in Mosul pulled from a bus and executed? What about the litany of murder-suicides across the US in the past seven days that you just read about?
That list is by no means a comprehensive one -- those were just the murder suicide cases that popped up on Google's first page when I queried it. Are you shocked?
I wish that I were, but I am not. Not particularly. I thought about what Glenn Beck said about it on his program, and I realized that the calluses on my soul were even thicker than his.
The last time I can remember being truly shocked was the OKC bombing of the Murrah Building back in 1995. And I was less troubled by that event than I was the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco two years before that.
I was moved by the horror that must have permeated the Waco compound as the flames claimed the lives of 83 men, women and children. By the time of the OKC bombing, the horror was mixed with a sort of clinical detachment.
By the time the Columbine killers went on their rampage, I had already become desensitized to the evil of children murdering children. Eight blood-soaked years later, I realized my first thought at hearing of the VT shootings wasn't horror.
The first thing that came to my mind was the logistics. How did one guy carrying only two pistols manage to kill that many people? It wasn't until I caught Glenn Beck's program that I realized just how scarred my soul has become.
I used to be shocked by evil. My reaction has morphed from, "How could anybody do such a thing?" to "Not again!" to musing about the logistics involved in the commission of mass murder.
When asked of the signs of His return, among the signs Jesus gave was the "sign of Noe." (Noah)
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:37)
"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26)
Genesis 6:5-6 give us the Lord's perspective on the 'days of Noah':
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
When we aren't confronting actual evil in the form of crazy little gunmen and rivers of blood on our campuses, we seek it out for entertainment. Television and movies can rightly be called "the imagination of thoughts of our hearts" -- indeed, what is a movie if not our imagination brought to life?
And the more violence and sex a movie contains, the more popular it is. No wonder we are so desensitized to evil.
The most popular video games are also the most violent. I confess that enjoy the WWII action games like "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty" and even admit to downloading the latest 'blood patch' to make the game even more gory. What in the world is wrong with ME?
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
The more acceptable iniquity and sin becomes, the colder our love of righteousness gets.
The Bible teaches that the Tribulation Period is a period set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and to effect the national redemption of Israel. But what of the Church?
In the days of Noah, God decided to judge sinful man, but he saved Noah and his family alive out of the flood by making a way of escape via the ark. Jesus said His return would be like the days of Noah. Wickedness, evil and the promise of judgment.
Genesis 6:8 says that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." The Bible also says that the Church is the recipient of God's grace.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8)
"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:" (Romans 3:22)
Noah was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord and he was spared the judgment that came upon the whole earth. Later, when God purposed to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the cities if even five righteous men could be found within.
Only Lot was found righteous, and a way was made for he and his family to escape the judgment that was reserved for the unrighteous.
Of His return, Jesus also said;
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30)
The Church, like Noah and Lot, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. God views the imputed righteousness of Christ as being no different than that of Noah or Lot. (Romans 3:22)
God didn't judge Noah for the sins of his neighbors. Neither did He judge Lot for the sins of his neighbors. And since the Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, it follows that He will not judge the Church for the sins of a Christ-rejecting world.
I can find no other understanding of these passages that makes logical sense, apart from the promise that the Lord will return for His Church BEFORE the judgment of the Tribulation Period.
If the Church goes through the Tribulation Period, then the Lord's references to Noah and Lot are puzzling. Why refer to the only two historical instances in which God saved the righteous from being included in mass judgment in conjunction with the events that lead up to His second coming?
The only logical answer is that provided by the Apostle Paul:
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17)
As we wade through rivers of blood, our souls callused over by a constant barrage of unspeakable evil, it seems only logical that either judgment is due this old world, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Bible promises "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." (2nd Timothy 4:8)
If His appearing comes at the conclusion of seven years of judgment and death for the Church, then "loving His appearing" is an act of spiritual perfection that is unfortunately a bit above my paygrade. If that is to be the case, I'd prefer that He'd tarry.
And Paul's final words about the Lord's return for those who are 'alive and remain' would seem to make little sense.
"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." (1st Thessalonians 4:18)
as a Christian, it's an exciting time to be alive, the promises to generations of people are unfolding before our very eyes. but we are also reminded that we have friends and neighbors who haven't accepted the pardon Christ provides.. and for that, time is short indeed.
------------------------
The Days of Noe
Jack Kinsella
I was watching Glenn Beck's program on CNN the other day. He said something that bothered me when I first heard it, and it bothers me even more today. He mentioned how devastated he had been following the Columbine shooting in 1999.
But then he noted that the Virginia Tech massacre didn't seem to have such a devastating effect on him. Or, it seemed, on most of America. Not because it wasn't as terrible as Columbine-- the VT massacre claimed more than twice as many lives -- but because it isn't as shocking as it used to be.
Shortly after the crazy little whack-job in Virginia (I refuse to honor him by repeating his name -- he's gotten enough publicity) murdered thirty-two students at Virginia Tech, some guy at NASA shot his boss because he thought he might lose his job.
Afterwards, the guy shot himself in the head while the police 'closed in'. (I set that off in quotes because it seems the police no longer 'close in' until AFTER the gunfire stops.
There was a murder/suicide in Woodland, California (that you probably didn't hear about) where a 54 year-old guy shot his 52 year-old girlfriend and then killed himself.
Fifteen hundred miles away, another guy shot his girlfriend to death and then killed himself in Houston. There was another three days ago in Portland, Texas. Two more the next day, one in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and one in Murrieta, California.
In Queens, NY, Jimmie Dawkins killed his mother, her boyfriend and his health care attendant before putting the barrel of his .40 cal pistol in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
Another murder suicide in Michigan the same day also claimed four lives. And yet another; a man in Lake Havasu City, Arizone killed his girlfriend, his baby, and then himself.
This morning, I heard of a truck bomb that went off in Baghdad that killed 25 Iraqi policemen and wounded 125 Iraqi bystanders. Twenty-one members of a religious minority in Mosul, Iraq were dragged off a bus and shot dead, execution style.
In Laguna Beach, a woman and her husband were shot dead during a confrontation with police. At press time, the police weren't sure if they killed the couple, or if it were yet another murder-suicide.
One week's time. Rivers and rivers of blood.
Seriously, how did the news that 32 students were murdered at VT affect you? Or the news of the 125 people maimed by an Iraqi car bomb? Or the 21 Iraqis in Mosul pulled from a bus and executed? What about the litany of murder-suicides across the US in the past seven days that you just read about?
That list is by no means a comprehensive one -- those were just the murder suicide cases that popped up on Google's first page when I queried it. Are you shocked?
I wish that I were, but I am not. Not particularly. I thought about what Glenn Beck said about it on his program, and I realized that the calluses on my soul were even thicker than his.
The last time I can remember being truly shocked was the OKC bombing of the Murrah Building back in 1995. And I was less troubled by that event than I was the destruction of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco two years before that.
I was moved by the horror that must have permeated the Waco compound as the flames claimed the lives of 83 men, women and children. By the time of the OKC bombing, the horror was mixed with a sort of clinical detachment.
By the time the Columbine killers went on their rampage, I had already become desensitized to the evil of children murdering children. Eight blood-soaked years later, I realized my first thought at hearing of the VT shootings wasn't horror.
The first thing that came to my mind was the logistics. How did one guy carrying only two pistols manage to kill that many people? It wasn't until I caught Glenn Beck's program that I realized just how scarred my soul has become.
I used to be shocked by evil. My reaction has morphed from, "How could anybody do such a thing?" to "Not again!" to musing about the logistics involved in the commission of mass murder.
When asked of the signs of His return, among the signs Jesus gave was the "sign of Noe." (Noah)
"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:37)
"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26)
Genesis 6:5-6 give us the Lord's perspective on the 'days of Noah':
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
When we aren't confronting actual evil in the form of crazy little gunmen and rivers of blood on our campuses, we seek it out for entertainment. Television and movies can rightly be called "the imagination of thoughts of our hearts" -- indeed, what is a movie if not our imagination brought to life?
And the more violence and sex a movie contains, the more popular it is. No wonder we are so desensitized to evil.
The most popular video games are also the most violent. I confess that enjoy the WWII action games like "Medal of Honor" and "Call of Duty" and even admit to downloading the latest 'blood patch' to make the game even more gory. What in the world is wrong with ME?
"And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)
The more acceptable iniquity and sin becomes, the colder our love of righteousness gets.
The Bible teaches that the Tribulation Period is a period set aside for the judgment of a Christ-rejecting world and to effect the national redemption of Israel. But what of the Church?
In the days of Noah, God decided to judge sinful man, but he saved Noah and his family alive out of the flood by making a way of escape via the ark. Jesus said His return would be like the days of Noah. Wickedness, evil and the promise of judgment.
Genesis 6:8 says that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." The Bible also says that the Church is the recipient of God's grace.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" (Ephesians 2:8)
"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:" (Romans 3:22)
Noah was found righteous in the eyes of the Lord and he was spared the judgment that came upon the whole earth. Later, when God purposed to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy the cities if even five righteous men could be found within.
Only Lot was found righteous, and a way was made for he and his family to escape the judgment that was reserved for the unrighteous.
Of His return, Jesus also said;
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." (Luke 17:28-30)
The Church, like Noah and Lot, have found grace in the eyes of the Lord and we are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. God views the imputed righteousness of Christ as being no different than that of Noah or Lot. (Romans 3:22)
God didn't judge Noah for the sins of his neighbors. Neither did He judge Lot for the sins of his neighbors. And since the Church is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, it follows that He will not judge the Church for the sins of a Christ-rejecting world.
I can find no other understanding of these passages that makes logical sense, apart from the promise that the Lord will return for His Church BEFORE the judgment of the Tribulation Period.
If the Church goes through the Tribulation Period, then the Lord's references to Noah and Lot are puzzling. Why refer to the only two historical instances in which God saved the righteous from being included in mass judgment in conjunction with the events that lead up to His second coming?
The only logical answer is that provided by the Apostle Paul:
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (1st Thessalonians 4:16-17)
As we wade through rivers of blood, our souls callused over by a constant barrage of unspeakable evil, it seems only logical that either judgment is due this old world, or God owes an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.
The Bible promises "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." (2nd Timothy 4:8)
If His appearing comes at the conclusion of seven years of judgment and death for the Church, then "loving His appearing" is an act of spiritual perfection that is unfortunately a bit above my paygrade. If that is to be the case, I'd prefer that He'd tarry.
And Paul's final words about the Lord's return for those who are 'alive and remain' would seem to make little sense.
"Wherefore, comfort one another with these words." (1st Thessalonians 4:18)
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
guns in the gun free zone..
i'm in favor of sad-free..
----------------------------------------
Let's Make America a "Sad-Free Zone"
By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com April 19, 2007
From the attacks of 9-11 to Monday's school shooting, after every mass murder there is an overwhelming urge to "do something" to prevent a similar attack.
But since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed.
Most of the time they can't be locked up until it's too late. It's not against the law to be crazy – in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.
It's certainly not against the law to be an unsociable loner. If it were, Ralph Nader would be behind bars right now, where he belongs. Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing – as appears to be in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter.
The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur, as they will in a free and open society of 300 million people, most of whom have cable TV.
Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the inestimable economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.
And the effect was not insignificant. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.
Apparently, even crazy people prefer targets that can't shoot back. The reason schools are consistently popular targets for mass murderers is precisely because of all the idiotic "Gun-Free School Zone" laws.
From the people who brought you "zero tolerance," I present the Gun-Free Zone! Yippee! Problem solved! Bam! Bam! Everybody down! Hey, how did that deranged loner get a gun into this Gun-Free Zone?
It isn't the angst of adolescence. Plenty of school shootings have been committed by adults with absolutely no reason to be at the school, such as Laurie Dann, who shot up the Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, IL, in 1988; Patrick Purdy, who opened fire on children at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, CA, in 1989; and Charles Carl Roberts, who murdered five schoolgirls at an Amish school in Lancaster County, PA, last year.
Oh, by the way, the other major "Gun-Free Zone" in America is the post office.
But instantly, on the day of the shooting at Virginia Tech, the media were already promoting gun control and pre-emptively denouncing right-wingers who point out that gun control enables murderers rather than stopping them. Liberals get to lobby for gun control, but we're disallowed from arguing back. That's how good their arguments are. They're that good.
Needless to say, Virginia Tech is a Gun-Free School Zone – at least until last Monday. The gunman must not have known. Imagine his embarrassment! Perhaps there should be signs.
Virginia Tech even prohibits students with concealed-carry permits from carrying their guns on campus. Last year, the school disciplined a student for carrying a gun on campus, despite his lawful concealed-carry permit. If only someone like that had been in Norris Hall on Monday, this massacre could have been ended a lot sooner.
But last January, the Virginia General Assembly shot down a bill that would have prevented universities like Virginia Tech from giving sanctuary to mass murderers on college campuses in Virginia by disarming students with concealed-carry permits valid in the rest of the state.
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker praised the legislature for allowing the school to disarm lawful gun owners on the faculty and student body, thereby surrendering every college campus in the state to deranged mass murderers, saying: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
Others disagreed. Writing last year about another dangerous killer who had been loose on the Virginia Tech campus, graduate student Jonathan McGlumphy wrote: "Is it not obvious that all students, faculty and staff would have been safer if (concealed handgun permit) holders were not banned from carrying their weapons on campus?"
If it wasn't obvious then, it is now.
----------------------------------------
Let's Make America a "Sad-Free Zone"
By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com April 19, 2007
From the attacks of 9-11 to Monday's school shooting, after every mass murder there is an overwhelming urge to "do something" to prevent a similar attack.
But since Adam ate the apple and let evil into the world, deranged individuals have existed.
Most of the time they can't be locked up until it's too late. It's not against the law to be crazy – in some jurisdictions it actually makes you more viable as a candidate for public office.
It's certainly not against the law to be an unsociable loner. If it were, Ralph Nader would be behind bars right now, where he belongs. Mass murder is often the first serious crime unbalanced individuals are caught committing – as appears to be in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter.
The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur, as they will in a free and open society of 300 million people, most of whom have cable TV.
Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the inestimable economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.
And the effect was not insignificant. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.
Apparently, even crazy people prefer targets that can't shoot back. The reason schools are consistently popular targets for mass murderers is precisely because of all the idiotic "Gun-Free School Zone" laws.
From the people who brought you "zero tolerance," I present the Gun-Free Zone! Yippee! Problem solved! Bam! Bam! Everybody down! Hey, how did that deranged loner get a gun into this Gun-Free Zone?
It isn't the angst of adolescence. Plenty of school shootings have been committed by adults with absolutely no reason to be at the school, such as Laurie Dann, who shot up the Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, IL, in 1988; Patrick Purdy, who opened fire on children at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, CA, in 1989; and Charles Carl Roberts, who murdered five schoolgirls at an Amish school in Lancaster County, PA, last year.
Oh, by the way, the other major "Gun-Free Zone" in America is the post office.
But instantly, on the day of the shooting at Virginia Tech, the media were already promoting gun control and pre-emptively denouncing right-wingers who point out that gun control enables murderers rather than stopping them. Liberals get to lobby for gun control, but we're disallowed from arguing back. That's how good their arguments are. They're that good.
Needless to say, Virginia Tech is a Gun-Free School Zone – at least until last Monday. The gunman must not have known. Imagine his embarrassment! Perhaps there should be signs.
Virginia Tech even prohibits students with concealed-carry permits from carrying their guns on campus. Last year, the school disciplined a student for carrying a gun on campus, despite his lawful concealed-carry permit. If only someone like that had been in Norris Hall on Monday, this massacre could have been ended a lot sooner.
But last January, the Virginia General Assembly shot down a bill that would have prevented universities like Virginia Tech from giving sanctuary to mass murderers on college campuses in Virginia by disarming students with concealed-carry permits valid in the rest of the state.
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker praised the legislature for allowing the school to disarm lawful gun owners on the faculty and student body, thereby surrendering every college campus in the state to deranged mass murderers, saying: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
Others disagreed. Writing last year about another dangerous killer who had been loose on the Virginia Tech campus, graduate student Jonathan McGlumphy wrote: "Is it not obvious that all students, faculty and staff would have been safer if (concealed handgun permit) holders were not banned from carrying their weapons on campus?"
If it wasn't obvious then, it is now.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
war posturing..
the looming Israeli, iranian showdown is heating up.. it could be that Israel and US forces strike a serious setback to the iranian nuclear plan, killing invested soviet engineers, creating the stage for a larger escalation.. we could certainly see a 2 front war opened up on Israel from the north and south, allowing iran to use it's proxy hizballah and puppet syria to inflict losses on Israel. Israel will more than likely be less inclined to offer a disorganized response as they did last summer, which could result in significant losses for both hizballah and syria.. it would not be out of the question to see syria use chemical/biological weapons on Israel, eliciting a nuclear response.
the summer could be rocky..
Espionage Galore under a Middle East Nuclear Cloud
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
April 17, 2007, 9:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
It sounded like a contest.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Shin Bet intelligence service reported Iranian intelligence had intensified its efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, targeting former Iranians applying for visas to visit their families. One young man had been snared and paid “expenses” for enlisting a friend in security and collecting information. The Shin Bet detained him on landing home, before he did any harm.
Two hours later, in Cairo, a nuclear engineer Mohammed Gaber, was accused by Prosecutor-General Abdul-Maquid Mahmoud of spying on Egypt’s nuclear program on behalf of the Mossad, which was said to have paid him $17,000. An Irishman and Japanese were sought in connection with the affair. Israel dismissed the charge as another of Cairo’s unfounded spy myths, whose dissemination was not conducive to good relations.
Neither case is isolated. Two days earlier, the Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Azmi Beshara admitted from a safe distance to the Qatar-based al Jazeera TV channel that he was under suspicion of spying for Hizballah during its war with Israel and would not be returning home any time soon.
Add on the US defense secretary Robert Gates’ visits to Jordan, Israel and Egypt this week reportedly to coordinate and oversee preparations connected to a potential military operation against Iran and, in the view of DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, these espionage rumbles denote a far greater upheaval boililng up below ground.
Most can be traced one way or another to the mysterious disappearance of the Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari from Istanbul in February. Tehran’s job description of the missing general – a former deputy defense minister, who also worked with the Lebanese Hizballah in the 1980 - is correct as far as it goes. But the failure to bring it up to date is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that, at the time of his disappearance, he headed Iran’s Middle East spy networks.
The cases disclosed Tuesday may be just the tip of the iceberg, with more spy dramas on the way. But even at this early stage of a potential intelligence earthquake, certain conclusions are indicated.
Firstly, Israeli will soon have no choice but to declare Iran an enemy state and ban Israeli travel to the Islamic Republic for the first time in the 28 years since Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Surprisingly, Israelis are still legally permitted to visit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
The Shin Bet did not need to publicize Iran’s intense hunt for Israeli spies in order to stop those visits; there are other ways. The espionage case would not have been brought out in the open without the knowledge of the relevant ministers – certainly not a graphic account of how the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, whence Gen. Asgari vanished, doubles as the distribution center for visas to Iran and a recruiting center for spies. Israelis applying for visas are obliged to deposit their Israeli passports there and issued with travel documents which gain them entry to Tehran. This process is drawn out to enable Iranian intelligence agents to make their first pitch to the targeted Israeli. It is followed up after he enters Iran.
The Shin Bet’s sudden outburst of transparency indicates that the scene is being set for a major diplomatic, military or intelligence step in the summer. This time, the Israeli government will not repeat at least one of the mistakes committed in July 2006, when it refused to declare that Israel was at war and the Hizballah an enemy, even after its forces crossed in to northern Israel, kidnapped two soldiers and let loose with a Katyusha barrage.
Israel is now putting the horse before the cart and declaring Iran an enemy country before the event.
It is therefore vital to deter Israeli nationals from visiting Iran in advance of potential Middle East hostilities. If Iran is involved, even through its allies or the Hizballah, Israelis in the Islamic Republic would be in danger of being taken captive or hostage.
Israel’s latest posture and precautions are likely to have the dual effect of raising Middle East tensions and placing Iran’s ancient Jewish community, reduced now to 25,000, in jeopardy.
“Israeli spy rings” may soon be “uncovered” by Iranian security agents.
Second, the Middle East has embarked on a nuclear arms race. It is no secret that at last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi ruler strongly urged his fellows to unite their national nuclear programs under a single roof. Though played down, this was the summit’s most important decision – not the so-called Saudi peace plan, although it made the most waves. It was a step intended to produce an Arab nuclear option versus the Iranian weapons program.
Every aspect of the unified Arab nuclear program is therefore extraordinarily sensitive and hemmed in with exceptional security measures. Each has become a prime intelligence target - and not only for Israel. Hence the song and dance the Egyptian prosecutor general made Tuesday of an alleged Israeli spy network said to operate out of Hong Kong, with an Irish and a Japanese agent charged with planting Israeli espionage software in Egyptian nuclear program’s computers, together with an Egyptian engineer. Egyptian intelligence was making sure to warn off any Egyptian tempted to work for Israeli intelligence, just as the Shin Bet was cautioning Israelis to beware of falling into Iranian intelligence traps.
The events of a single day brought Iran and its nuclear threat into sharp relief as the most pressing issues for Israel. Relations with the Palestinians and Syria, on which so many words are poured day by day, pale in comparison.
the summer could be rocky..
Espionage Galore under a Middle East Nuclear Cloud
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
April 17, 2007, 9:19 PM (GMT+02:00)
It sounded like a contest.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Shin Bet intelligence service reported Iranian intelligence had intensified its efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, targeting former Iranians applying for visas to visit their families. One young man had been snared and paid “expenses” for enlisting a friend in security and collecting information. The Shin Bet detained him on landing home, before he did any harm.
Two hours later, in Cairo, a nuclear engineer Mohammed Gaber, was accused by Prosecutor-General Abdul-Maquid Mahmoud of spying on Egypt’s nuclear program on behalf of the Mossad, which was said to have paid him $17,000. An Irishman and Japanese were sought in connection with the affair. Israel dismissed the charge as another of Cairo’s unfounded spy myths, whose dissemination was not conducive to good relations.
Neither case is isolated. Two days earlier, the Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Azmi Beshara admitted from a safe distance to the Qatar-based al Jazeera TV channel that he was under suspicion of spying for Hizballah during its war with Israel and would not be returning home any time soon.
Add on the US defense secretary Robert Gates’ visits to Jordan, Israel and Egypt this week reportedly to coordinate and oversee preparations connected to a potential military operation against Iran and, in the view of DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, these espionage rumbles denote a far greater upheaval boililng up below ground.
Most can be traced one way or another to the mysterious disappearance of the Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari from Istanbul in February. Tehran’s job description of the missing general – a former deputy defense minister, who also worked with the Lebanese Hizballah in the 1980 - is correct as far as it goes. But the failure to bring it up to date is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that, at the time of his disappearance, he headed Iran’s Middle East spy networks.
The cases disclosed Tuesday may be just the tip of the iceberg, with more spy dramas on the way. But even at this early stage of a potential intelligence earthquake, certain conclusions are indicated.
Firstly, Israeli will soon have no choice but to declare Iran an enemy state and ban Israeli travel to the Islamic Republic for the first time in the 28 years since Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Surprisingly, Israelis are still legally permitted to visit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
The Shin Bet did not need to publicize Iran’s intense hunt for Israeli spies in order to stop those visits; there are other ways. The espionage case would not have been brought out in the open without the knowledge of the relevant ministers – certainly not a graphic account of how the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, whence Gen. Asgari vanished, doubles as the distribution center for visas to Iran and a recruiting center for spies. Israelis applying for visas are obliged to deposit their Israeli passports there and issued with travel documents which gain them entry to Tehran. This process is drawn out to enable Iranian intelligence agents to make their first pitch to the targeted Israeli. It is followed up after he enters Iran.
The Shin Bet’s sudden outburst of transparency indicates that the scene is being set for a major diplomatic, military or intelligence step in the summer. This time, the Israeli government will not repeat at least one of the mistakes committed in July 2006, when it refused to declare that Israel was at war and the Hizballah an enemy, even after its forces crossed in to northern Israel, kidnapped two soldiers and let loose with a Katyusha barrage.
Israel is now putting the horse before the cart and declaring Iran an enemy country before the event.
It is therefore vital to deter Israeli nationals from visiting Iran in advance of potential Middle East hostilities. If Iran is involved, even through its allies or the Hizballah, Israelis in the Islamic Republic would be in danger of being taken captive or hostage.
Israel’s latest posture and precautions are likely to have the dual effect of raising Middle East tensions and placing Iran’s ancient Jewish community, reduced now to 25,000, in jeopardy.
“Israeli spy rings” may soon be “uncovered” by Iranian security agents.
Second, the Middle East has embarked on a nuclear arms race. It is no secret that at last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi ruler strongly urged his fellows to unite their national nuclear programs under a single roof. Though played down, this was the summit’s most important decision – not the so-called Saudi peace plan, although it made the most waves. It was a step intended to produce an Arab nuclear option versus the Iranian weapons program.
Every aspect of the unified Arab nuclear program is therefore extraordinarily sensitive and hemmed in with exceptional security measures. Each has become a prime intelligence target - and not only for Israel. Hence the song and dance the Egyptian prosecutor general made Tuesday of an alleged Israeli spy network said to operate out of Hong Kong, with an Irish and a Japanese agent charged with planting Israeli espionage software in Egyptian nuclear program’s computers, together with an Egyptian engineer. Egyptian intelligence was making sure to warn off any Egyptian tempted to work for Israeli intelligence, just as the Shin Bet was cautioning Israelis to beware of falling into Iranian intelligence traps.
The events of a single day brought Iran and its nuclear threat into sharp relief as the most pressing issues for Israel. Relations with the Palestinians and Syria, on which so many words are poured day by day, pale in comparison.
the continuing evolution of the axis among iran, syria and russia falls right in to place with the words of Ezekiel 38.. what a very interesting time to be alive.
_______________________________
Israel's Next War
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com April 17, 2007
Ze’ev Schiff—left-of-center, not a hawk, and considered by many to be Israel’s foremost military analyst—cites security sources as saying those Qassams that Islamic Jihad has been raining on Gaza-bordering communities during the “ceasefire” with Hamas are in fact supplied by Hamas.
Hamas, the sources said, while “maintaining a front of abiding by the ceasefire,” is actually “emerging as the lynchpin of Palestinian terrorist activities against Israel.” That is believed to include providing Islamic Jihad with Russian-made 16-kilometer-range Grad rockets, already used last year to target the town of Ashkelon with its strategic facilities.
An analysis last month already warned that Hamas is “improving its rocket capabilities” while “seeking to build anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems that will neutralize Israel’s current ability to easily penetrate Gaza.”
The deteriorating situation in the south led Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Tzvika Fogel, formerly chief of staff for Southern Command, to warn on Israel’s Channel 10 that Israel faces two choices: to “continue its ostrich-like stance” until the Gaza terror forces mount a surprise attack, or to launch a full-scale preemptive attack of its own.
Meanwhile, shifting the lens to the north, last week the head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, reported to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Syria is “purchasing massive amounts of ground-to-ground and anti-tank missiles from Russia”—a country whose name tends to turn up in these contexts—and that, while “there is a low probability that Syria will initiate a war against Israel,” Syria could launch attacks in the Golan Heights even though it could lead to war.
Another report gave an even more ominous picture of an “unprecedented military buildup in Syria,” including the deployment of 300 home-manufactured Scud missiles just north of the Golan Heights, the establishment of new commando units, and a spike in training for urban and guerrilla warfare.
A source in IDF Northern Command said that “Syria saw the difficulty the IDF had during the fighting inside the southern Lebanese villages [last summer] and now . . . wants to draw us—in the event of a war—into battles in built-up areas where they think they will have the upper hand.”
And over in Lebanon itself, the fallout from last summer’s war is just as negative and the prognosis no better. In his same testimony to the Knesset committee last week, Maj.-Gen. Yadlin noted that up to several hundred Al Qaeda members have arrived in Lebanon with the aim of attacking UNIFIL and other Western targets; and that Hezbollah remains entrenched in southern Lebanon and keeps amassing large quantities of arms from Syria and Iran.
Rounding out the circle by returning to the south, Yadlin also said some Al Qaeda operatives have infiltrated Gaza as well, and that Hamas is gaining financial and political strength while its members receive training in Syria and Iran.
Overall, “the MI chief stressed that Iran continues to provide funding and weapons to Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and has close military and intelligence coordination with Syria.” Add Russia to the mix and the picture is complete: a Shiite-Sunni-Russian terror-military axis seeking to surround, pressure, and harass Israel and ultimately eradicate it.
Tragically, this is happening at a time when Israel has a government hobbled by incompetence, unpopularity, scandals, infighting, and delusory dovishness, and that, apart from stepped-up training for some IDF units, is essentially doing nothing about the growing threats. It does not help that Israel’s U.S. ally keeps obsessively choreographing diplomatic dances with the likes of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Saudis, and the Arab League with which Israel dutifully complies—achieving nothing except to further project weakness to Israel’s enemies and lull the parts of the Israeli public that are eager to be lulled.
As Schiff points out in another analysis, it was the reluctance to enter a two-front war that led Israel to allow Hezbollah’s major military buildup in southern Lebanon in the first place. After Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000 against the advice of most of the IDF top brass, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon found themselves facing a Palestinian terror onslaught mounted from the West Bank and Gaza and did not want to further complicate matters by doing something about Hezbollah in Lebanon.
So Israel, Schiff notes, “never once struck at the convoys transferring the missiles to Lebanon, and never struck even one Hezbollah missile warehouse, or even the short-range rockets near the border.” The end result was that Israel found itself at war on two fronts anyway—when Hamas attacked from Gaza and kidnapped a soldier last June, and Hezbollah followed suit the next month with an attack and kidnapping from Lebanon; and now faces the prospect of a further two-front war against enemies with enhanced capabilities.
Hope resides mainly in the interim report later this month of the Winograd Committee, set up to investigate the failures in last summer’s war and also expected to address the whole period of 2000-2006. Sufficiently harsh conclusions against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could lead him to resign or cause other political ferment leading to new elections. As time goes on and Israel, aside from antiterror policing work in the West Bank, remains almost entirely passive against the growing threats, it does not appear that Olmert’s government has the will or ability to do anything about them, and its continued tenure appears to spell disaster.
If there is a chance—apart from a strike on Iran that would alter the region’s strategic balance—for Israel to avoid another two-front entanglement, it lies mainly in regaining its deterrence by making an effective move in Gaza. A hard-enough blow to Hamas and its friends there could make Hezbollah and Syria think twice about starting more trouble in the north. But there may be little time left, and such an outcome requires a functioning government in Jerusalem. It also calls for a Washington able to look past short-term diplomatic concerns and give Israel the backing it needs.
_______________________________
Israel's Next War
By P. David Hornik
FrontPageMagazine.com April 17, 2007
Ze’ev Schiff—left-of-center, not a hawk, and considered by many to be Israel’s foremost military analyst—cites security sources as saying those Qassams that Islamic Jihad has been raining on Gaza-bordering communities during the “ceasefire” with Hamas are in fact supplied by Hamas.
Hamas, the sources said, while “maintaining a front of abiding by the ceasefire,” is actually “emerging as the lynchpin of Palestinian terrorist activities against Israel.” That is believed to include providing Islamic Jihad with Russian-made 16-kilometer-range Grad rockets, already used last year to target the town of Ashkelon with its strategic facilities.
An analysis last month already warned that Hamas is “improving its rocket capabilities” while “seeking to build anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems that will neutralize Israel’s current ability to easily penetrate Gaza.”
The deteriorating situation in the south led Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Tzvika Fogel, formerly chief of staff for Southern Command, to warn on Israel’s Channel 10 that Israel faces two choices: to “continue its ostrich-like stance” until the Gaza terror forces mount a surprise attack, or to launch a full-scale preemptive attack of its own.
Meanwhile, shifting the lens to the north, last week the head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, reported to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Syria is “purchasing massive amounts of ground-to-ground and anti-tank missiles from Russia”—a country whose name tends to turn up in these contexts—and that, while “there is a low probability that Syria will initiate a war against Israel,” Syria could launch attacks in the Golan Heights even though it could lead to war.
Another report gave an even more ominous picture of an “unprecedented military buildup in Syria,” including the deployment of 300 home-manufactured Scud missiles just north of the Golan Heights, the establishment of new commando units, and a spike in training for urban and guerrilla warfare.
A source in IDF Northern Command said that “Syria saw the difficulty the IDF had during the fighting inside the southern Lebanese villages [last summer] and now . . . wants to draw us—in the event of a war—into battles in built-up areas where they think they will have the upper hand.”
And over in Lebanon itself, the fallout from last summer’s war is just as negative and the prognosis no better. In his same testimony to the Knesset committee last week, Maj.-Gen. Yadlin noted that up to several hundred Al Qaeda members have arrived in Lebanon with the aim of attacking UNIFIL and other Western targets; and that Hezbollah remains entrenched in southern Lebanon and keeps amassing large quantities of arms from Syria and Iran.
Rounding out the circle by returning to the south, Yadlin also said some Al Qaeda operatives have infiltrated Gaza as well, and that Hamas is gaining financial and political strength while its members receive training in Syria and Iran.
Overall, “the MI chief stressed that Iran continues to provide funding and weapons to Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and has close military and intelligence coordination with Syria.” Add Russia to the mix and the picture is complete: a Shiite-Sunni-Russian terror-military axis seeking to surround, pressure, and harass Israel and ultimately eradicate it.
Tragically, this is happening at a time when Israel has a government hobbled by incompetence, unpopularity, scandals, infighting, and delusory dovishness, and that, apart from stepped-up training for some IDF units, is essentially doing nothing about the growing threats. It does not help that Israel’s U.S. ally keeps obsessively choreographing diplomatic dances with the likes of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the Saudis, and the Arab League with which Israel dutifully complies—achieving nothing except to further project weakness to Israel’s enemies and lull the parts of the Israeli public that are eager to be lulled.
As Schiff points out in another analysis, it was the reluctance to enter a two-front war that led Israel to allow Hezbollah’s major military buildup in southern Lebanon in the first place. After Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000 against the advice of most of the IDF top brass, Prime Minister Ehud Barak and then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon found themselves facing a Palestinian terror onslaught mounted from the West Bank and Gaza and did not want to further complicate matters by doing something about Hezbollah in Lebanon.
So Israel, Schiff notes, “never once struck at the convoys transferring the missiles to Lebanon, and never struck even one Hezbollah missile warehouse, or even the short-range rockets near the border.” The end result was that Israel found itself at war on two fronts anyway—when Hamas attacked from Gaza and kidnapped a soldier last June, and Hezbollah followed suit the next month with an attack and kidnapping from Lebanon; and now faces the prospect of a further two-front war against enemies with enhanced capabilities.
Hope resides mainly in the interim report later this month of the Winograd Committee, set up to investigate the failures in last summer’s war and also expected to address the whole period of 2000-2006. Sufficiently harsh conclusions against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could lead him to resign or cause other political ferment leading to new elections. As time goes on and Israel, aside from antiterror policing work in the West Bank, remains almost entirely passive against the growing threats, it does not appear that Olmert’s government has the will or ability to do anything about them, and its continued tenure appears to spell disaster.
If there is a chance—apart from a strike on Iran that would alter the region’s strategic balance—for Israel to avoid another two-front entanglement, it lies mainly in regaining its deterrence by making an effective move in Gaza. A hard-enough blow to Hamas and its friends there could make Hezbollah and Syria think twice about starting more trouble in the north. But there may be little time left, and such an outcome requires a functioning government in Jerusalem. It also calls for a Washington able to look past short-term diplomatic concerns and give Israel the backing it needs.
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