Egypt’s True Colors

“When the only diagnosis Egyptians can offer for their various predicaments—ranging from sectarian terrorism to a recent spate of freak shark attacks at a Sinai beach resort—is that it’s all a Zionist plot, you know that the country is in very deep trouble.”

A good Wall Street Journal editorial by Bret Stephens

For the whole editorial:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704735304576058382591955692.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

A Warrior is Held up to the American People as an Example to his Fellows

The Newest Medal of Honor

The man who has earned it is the first from this war to live to see it.

• By WILLIAM MCGURN

Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta Receives the Medal of Honor Today at the White House

At one o’clock today in the East Room of the White House, an Iowa-born soldier will receive the nation’s highest decoration for valor in combat. In our nine-year war in Afghanistan and Iraq, this is only the eighth Medal of Honor. Even more rare, the man who has earned it is the first from this war to live to see the president place it around his neck.

The soldier is Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. On Oct. 25, 2007, then-Specialist Giunta and his team were on a mountain ridge in Afghanistan’s violent Korengal Valley when they were ambushed by the Taliban. He took a bullet stopped by a protective vest as he helped pull one soldier to safety.

Then he went forward to help the sergeant, Joshua Brennan, who had been walking point. Two Taliban were carrying Sgt. Brennan away. Spec. Giunta shot the Taliban and brought Sgt. Brennan back.

For the rest of the article in the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703326204575616572168606014.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_carousel_2

An Extremely Provacative and Insidious Cover Story for Time Magazine

The recent cover of Time magazine, damaging and insulting to Israel

 This biased cover story in the recent issue of Time Magazine lays a dangerous precedent and is a sad statement to the magazine’s current standing. 

It is titled: “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.”  This is an insulting and absurd notion in a country where nearly every Israeli has a child, sibling, boyfriend or parent in the army. Nearly every Israeli has been to the funeral of a fallen soldier, or a friend killed in a terrorist attack. Most Israeli homes and businesses come equipped with safe rooms or bomb shelters; every Israeli owns a gas mask. The whole country exists under the encroaching shadows of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the prospect of a nuclear Iran. How many Americans, to say nothing of Europeans, can say the same about their own lives?

Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal agrees and says it eloquently in his recent Op-Ed piece:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703946504575469502667359126.html

Palestinians with No Rights in Arab World

A short editorial piece from the Wall Street Journal addressing the issue of Palestinian “refugees” with no rights in the Arab world. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575435933047619568.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop#articleTabs%3Darticle

The facts reported in this short piece are understated, and many more examples could be mentioned (Egypt blockading the Palestinians in Gaza for decades). This issue is key in the Palestinian – Israeli conflict. These people have been used as pawns by the greater Arab world against Israel since the Arab armies failed to drive the Jews into the sea.

Furthermore, the Lebanese discriminatory laws against Palestinians were passed in 1946 and have nothing to do with the State of Israel or the conflict that resulted in its establishment (1949 following the war of ’48-49 where the “refugees” were created).

It is also significant to mention that an equal number of Jewish refugees were created at the same time from ALL of the Arab and Middle Eastern Muslim nations. These refugees were not forced from their homes by actual fighting, as in the case with Palestinians in Israel, but by racist collective punishment policy implemented over frustrations with the creation of a Zionist State. The Jewish refugees were accepted openly and quickly into the tiny 7,000 sq miles of fledgling 1949 Israel. Should these Jews be attempting today to reclaim the homes, businesses, and lives that were blatantly confiscated from them by the governments of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and other Muslim states?

True Stories of Inspiration

This great NY Times article detailing the struggles of injured US soldiers to recover and rehabilitate was featured in today’s paper.  The stories of these men are inspirational and leave us with changed perspectives on our own lives.  Please read some. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/nyregion/04soldier.html

Modern Methods of Warfare

NYTimes ran this fascinating article about the changing trends in global warfare and the use of the internet in recruiting for the Jihad. 

“Wars Fought and Wars Googled”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/weekinreview/27shane.html?ref=weekinreview

While Much of the World Worries About "Settlements"…

This excellent WSJ editorial written by the former US Marine commander in Lebanon highlights how Iran is making a mockery of the world.

Iran Expands Its Target List
I was the Marine commander in Beirut in 1983. I’ve seen these tactics before.
By TIMOTHY J. GERAGHTY
The nagging question of the nuclear age has been what if a madman gets hold of an atomic bomb? That question is about to be answered as Iran’s defiance puts it on a collision course with the West.

On Nov. 4, 2009, Israeli commandos intercepted an Antiguan-flagged ship 100 miles off the Israeli coast. It was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran and bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Since the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war, Iran has rearmed Hezbollah with 40,000 rockets and missiles that will likely rain on Israeli cities—and even European cities and U.S. military bases in the Middle East—if Iran is attacked. Our 200,000 troops in 33 bases are vulnerable. Shortly before this weapons seizure, Hamas test-fired a missile capable of striking Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv.

Iran is capable of disrupting Persian Gulf shipping lanes, which could cause the price of oil to surge above $300 a barrel. Iran could also create mayhem in oil markets by attacking Saudi oil refineries. Moreover, Iran possesses Soviet made SS-N-22 “Sunburn” supersonic antiship missiles that it could use to contest a naval blockade.

Iran could unleash suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan or, more ominously, activate Hezbollah sleeper cells in the U.S. to carry out coordinated attacks nationwide. FBI, CIA and other U.S. officials have acknowledged in congressional testimony that Hezbollah has a working partnership with Mexican drug cartels and has been using cartel smuggling routes to get personnel and contraband into the U.S.

While Iranian centrifuges continue to produce low-enriched uranium, the mullahs and their henchmen have been carrying out a campaign of deception. In October 2009, Iran rejected a plan to ship its low-enriched uranium out of country, primarily to Russia and France, to be highly enriched and then sent back to Iran for “peaceful medical purposes.”

On Nov. 28, 2009, reacting to increased pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran warned it may pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would seriously undermine international attempts to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Two days later, Iran announced plans to build 10 new nuclear plants within six years.

In another sphere, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez are openly cooperating to “oppose world hegemony,” as Mr. Ahmadinejan has said, while weekly flights between Iran and Venezuela are not monitored for personnel and cargo. Meanwhile, Russia is building an arms plant in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the country.

I have seen this play before. In 1983, I was the Marine commander of the U.S. Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Beirut, Lebanon. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Lebanon contingent trained and equipped Hezbollah to execute attacks that killed 241 of my men and 58 French Peacekeepers on Oct. 23, 1983.

Today, Hezbollah directly threatens Israel, destabilizes Lebanon, and undercuts the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. Something similar is underway in Venezuela. Remember Hezbollah used the Beirut truck-bomb model for the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires on March 17, 1992 and the July 18, 1994 attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association that killed 85 and wounded 200.

The man directly responsible for those bombings was the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. He is listed on Interpol’s most wanted list and was a key operative in the 1983 attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon. In August 2009, he was named Iran’s minister of defense. He succeeded Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, who was the commander of the IRGC Lebanon contingent and the chief organizer of the 1983 Beirut bombings. Both have Beirut peacekeepers’ blood on their hands and are the same key leaders who today are orchestrating Iranian deception and defiance as they march lock-step toward their ultimate goal—nuclear weapons.

Col. Geraghty, USMC (Ret.), is the author of “Peacekeepers at War; Beirut 1983—The Marine Commander Tells His Story” (Potomac Books, 2009).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704152804574628334107697564.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

A Story Close to Home With Many Israelis

Israeli households are filled with many stories similar to those of these women featured here in the The New York Times. In this tribute story to American women combat veterans, heroic stories of service are told, and the issue of post traumatic stress disorder is addressed. Few countries find their servicewomen on front lines or in dangerous battlefields. Driven by necessity and extraordinary will, women serve vital roles in both the American and Israeli armed forces. Their exploits serve to inspire us all.

“In early October 2004, her convoy of about 30 vehicles set out from Kuwait for Mosul, one of Iraq’s most violent cities. On the way, she said, they were hit three times with roadside bombs. One exploded 200 feet from the unarmored Humvee in which Mrs. Pacquette spent day and night pointing her rifle out an open window. ” Please take a look at the rest of the article to learn more about their stories.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/us/01trauma.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us