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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; enemy</title>
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		<title>Hollywood’s Islam-Free Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-tapson/hollywoods-islam-free-terrorism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hollywoods-islam-free-terrorism</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-tapson/hollywoods-islam-free-terrorism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Jul 2013 04:13:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Man of Steel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=195055</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The entertainment industry still can’t face the real enemy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/iron.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-195095" alt="iron" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/iron-450x281.jpg" width="315" height="197" /></a><i>The Los Angeles Times</i> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-terror-plot-movies-20130628,0,7521511,full.story">reported</a> Friday that terrorism is making a comeback in Hollywood films after a dozen post-9/11 years in which they shied away from dealing with a topic that studios deemed too sensitive. The report credits this new trend to filmmakers attempting to bring to their fictional films some “real-world relevance.” There’s just one problem: Hollywood’s terrorism is still devoid of real-world terrorists.</p>
<p>The <i>Times</i> article points out that the filmmakers of several of the summer’s blockbusters feel safe again to depict acts of terrorism: “collapsing skyscrapers, spaceships flying into densely populated cities and bombers run amok… With the terror attacks more than a decade in the past, they say they no longer have to worry about alienating audiences.”</p>
<p>First of all, terror attacks are not “more than a decade in the past.” Sure, they aren’t on the scale of 9/11, but America has <i>continued</i> to endure attempted and successful terror attacks since then, all the way up to the recent Boston bombing. As for alienating audiences, did it ever occur to those filmmakers that movies in which America proudly and unapologetically kicked Islamic terrorist butt might provide audiences with that tremendous collective catharsis that Aristotle noted was the aim of good drama? That movies which affirmed our freedoms and our superior cultural values – that’s right, I said <i>superior</i> –might have united, inspired and empowered those audiences? That such movies might have sent a message to the world that we are unbowed by barbarism?</p>
<p>Instead, when Hollywood did address the clash of civilizations in those post-9/11 years, it pumped out movies disapproving of the CIA and/or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every one of them reeked with the message of moral equivalence that we’re no better than the terrorists. Every one depicted our soldiers as PTSD-ravaged. Every one condemned our presence in Iraq as a Bush lie. And every one of those films about our clash of civilizations bombed, if you’ll pardon the pun, including <i>Syriana</i>, <i>The Green Zone</i>, <i>Stop-Loss</i>, <i>In the Valley of Elah</i>, <i>Redacted</i>, <i>Brothers</i>, <i>Lions for Lambs</i>, <i>Rendition</i>, <i>The Kingdom</i>, <i>Body of Lies</i>, and more. Why did they bomb? Because Americans don’t want to see movies loaded with those defeatist, self-flagellating messages. So Hollywood ended up alienating those audiences anyway.</p>
<p>“[Y]ou write about the times you live in,” said James Vanderbilt, screenwriter of <i>White House Down</i>, about an aspiring Secret Service agent protecting the president when the White House is taken over by – wait for it – <i>domestic terrorists</i>. “I was always fascinated with the idea of how you could take over the country — who would be able to do that,” said Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I have a suggestion: if he wants to write about the times we live in, why not address credible, real-world enemies like Iran, Hezbollah, or al Qaeda and “its affiliates” (as President Obama calls them)? If he wants to imagine who could take over the White House, how about the Muslim Brotherhood, who traffic in and out of the White House now like it’s Grand Central Station? But he won’t because the truth is, too many in Hollywood are multiculturalist cowards who have already chosen to submit to Islam.</p>
<p>The latest <i>Star Trek</i> sequel is “about terrorism,” says the actor who plays Capt. Kirk, “about issues we as human beings in 2013 deal with every day, about the exploitation of fear to take advantage of a population, about physical violence and destruction but also psychological manipulation.” And yet the actor doesn’t explicitly make the obvious connection to those threats from Islamic fundamentalists. (In fact, nowhere in the <i>Times</i> article do the words “Islam” and “Muslim” appear in any form.)</p>
<p>Nor does Shane Black, director and co-writer of <i>Iron Man 3</i>, whose “ultimate terrorist” called “The Mandarin” “has this driving hatred for America which fuels his rhetoric with which he recruits these legions of followers.” Sounds like a clear stand-in for bin Laden or any number of Islamic terrorist leaders. And yet Black takes the safe route and makes his ultimate villain a vague fantasy figure.</p>
<p>In the new Superman reboot <i>Man of Steel</i>, director Zack Snyder said he was trying to evoke the 9/11 attacks “in a mythological rather than literal sense, using Superman as something like a therapist,” as the <i>Times</i> reporter puts it. “[Superheroes are] helping us understand the weird psychological and big horrible events that happen all the time,” Snyder said. “These guys deal with them in a dream-like way that makes it OK. A modern problem — a city getting destroyed — a superhero can help you understand that.”</p>
<p>Are we children who need to be coddled, who need help “understanding” “big horrible events”? During World War II Americans didn’t have to wrestle with the concept of Nazism or of Japanese imperialism in metaphorical terms. We didn’t have to undergo therapy to overcome our murky inner fears to confront those ideologies. We simply recognized them as evil and set out to eradicate them by laying waste to our enemies and their war-making capabilities.</p>
<p>As quoted in the <i>Times</i> article, Michael Taylor, chair of film and television production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, wishes filmmakers would use their platforms to explore “the root causes of terrorism” and its consequences. “Maybe there is a missed opportunity — where they can include an issue of positive social change in the narrative,” said Taylor, who also founded USC’s Media Institute for Social Change. “What can we be doing about terrorism, and how do we feel about it?”</p>
<p>How do we <i>feel</i> about it? This is typical touchy-feely nonsense from the left, whose first response to a terrorist threat is to blame America for it, then to organize a white privilege workshop or a gender-neutral drum circle to work out their deep-seated cultural guilt. Meanwhile <i>Islamic</i> terrorists – not Tea Partiers, not “anti-government types,” not angry vets, not anyone that Homeland Security considers a primary terrorist threat – continue blowing up children on our own soil.</p>
<p>Hollywood movies during WWII reflected an unconflicted confidence in our values and in the rightness of our purpose. Today, thanks in no small part to Hollywood’s deeply subversive cultural influence, it is our Islamic enemies who have that confidence, while America is paralyzed by navel-gazing, hand-wringing, moral confusion – and filmmakers who see their work as collective therapy rather than an inspirational call to arms.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Egypt Designates Israel Its Top Enemy &#8212; Obama Restores Military Aid</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/egypt-designates-israel-its-top-enemy-obama-restores-military-aid-to-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=egypt-designates-israel-its-top-enemy-obama-restores-military-aid-to-egypt</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:53:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=126296</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama’s “Arab Spring” chickens are coming home to roost.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/burn-cairo-demolish-israeli.n.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-126321" title="burn-cairo-demolish-israeli.n" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/burn-cairo-demolish-israeli.n.gif" alt="" width="375" height="248" /></a>Egypt’s parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypts-islamist-dominated-parliament-votes-in-support-of-expelling-israels-ambassador/2012/03/12/gIQA9Qfh7R_story.html">voted unanimously</a> last Monday to expel Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would “never” be Israel’s ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt’s “number one enemy.” And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-funding-for-egyptian-military-to-resume-senior-administration-officials-say/2012/03/16/gIQAoMTeGS_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost">a resumption of military aid to Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>From the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” I said repeatedly that it was not a democracy movement, as the Western press was claiming, but an Islamic supremacist takeover that would result in the creation of Sharia states that would be far more hostile to the U.S. and Israel than the Arab nationalist regimes they were supplanting. This assessment was greeted with the usual scorn: the Islamic supremacist media machine charged “Islamophobia,” on Fox Juan Williams said I was “fearmongering,” and the usual suspects made the usual ad hominem attacks. Yet everything that has happened since then has shown that the “Arab Spring” is indeed an Islamic supremacist winter, ushering in repressive Sharia regimes with the enthusiastic blessing of Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Yet even as Egypt’s Islamic supremacists rattle their sabers, their spokesmen, allies and useful idiots in the American mainstream media continue to peddle their soothing lies. The <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/last-call-on-action-alert-high-school-students-forced-to-listen-to-islamic-supremacist-reza-aslan.html">Islamic supremacist</a> and <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/the-incredible-reza-aslan-automated-insult-generator.html">adolescent mudslinger</a> Reza Aslan was at <a href="http://www.thedaonline.com/a-e/author-addresses-issues-in-middle-east-1.2818550#.T2C4Gsz7vKo">West Virginia University last week</a> speaking about the developments in the Middle East, and heaping more steaming piles of what he calls analysis on the hapless marks in his audience. “Believe it or not,” Aslan said, and anyone with eyes in his head will opt for “not,” “the greatest single aspiration in the region at this moment is to achieve democracy.” Slyly implying that those who have cast doubts on this alleged wonderful flowering of democracy are motivated by racism, he continued: “It does not matter where you pray or what skin color you were born with; democracy is a fundamental right of life.” He also, according to the report on his talk in the campus paper, “aimed to debunk that the Arab Spring is an Islamic takeover. This myth is simply an American paradox due to the primary belief that we live in a secular country that easily separates church and state, he said.” Ah yes, of course. “There is not much difference between us and them,” Aslan said. “These groups now have the opportunity to come out of the mosque and to market ideas and see how they can come to life in reality.”</p>
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		<title>Taliban: New and Improved?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/taliban-new-and-improved/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taliban-new-and-improved</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/taliban-new-and-improved/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:44:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taliban]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=121132</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Playing to an easily foolable audience in Washington.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/taliban.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121135" title="taliban" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/taliban.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Apparently the Taliban are softening, even allowing girls to get an education. Clearly this heralds an opening to the West, a heady indication that their most repressive days are past them, and that soon they will take their place among the free people of the earth. Soon they will be following the teachings of Naomi Wolf and Thomas Paine.</p>
<p>Yaroslav Trofimov, in a piece that ran Sunday in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577177074111336352.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird">Wall Street Journal</a>, noted that Maulvi Qalamuddin, who headed the Committee to Protect Virtue and Prevent Vice back when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, has completely changed his tune regarding the education of girls. Where once he oversaw the shutting-down, sometimes violently, of girls’ schools, now he says: “Education for women is just as necessary as education for men. In Islam, men and women have the same duty to pray, to fast—and to seek learning.”</p>
<p>Anyone who believes this, or believes that Maulvi Qalamuddin believes it, should contact me, as I have a lovely bridge to sell you. “War is deceit,” said Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, according to a famous hadith, and the Taliban are listening. But the Taliban are to be forgiven for thinking that this sort of thing would play well in Washington, for it very likely will. After all, Joe Biden is still the Vice President – the amiable dunce who recently said: “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.”</p>
<p>In other words, the Taliban might win, so we have to surrender and act as if we’re just fine with that. And the alternative? Hamid Karzai, who got so annoyed with his American patrons last year that he threatened to join the Taliban himself. The Karzai government, that has been so helpful in “cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us” that an increasing number of American and allied soldiers have recently fallen victim to surprise attacks from Afghan army forces that are supposed to be on our side.</p>
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		<title>Pakistan: An Enemy Regime</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/pakistan-an-enemy-regime/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pakistan-an-enemy-regime</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/pakistan-an-enemy-regime/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:08:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government of afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pervez musharraf]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[support]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taliban in afghanistan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=107082</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What America should do now over the duplicitous country. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pc_600x450.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-107287" title="pc_600x450" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pc_600x450.gif" alt="" width="375" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>What would you call a country that employs terrorism as part of its foreign policy, that allows its intelligence agencies to coordinate attacks on U.S. forces, that purposely outs CIA agents operating in its territory, that provides support to groups that wage bloody attacks on its neighbors, that participates and even bankrolls attacks on U.S. embassies and U.S. bases, that allows its army to ambush U.S. troops, that cedes its territory to America’s enemies, that knowingly, even willfully, provides safe haven to the most-wanted, most-notorious terrorist in history?</p>
<p>Most people would call that country an enemy, and they would be right. This enemy regime is better known as Pakistan, and it receives some $2 billion in American aid annually.</p>
<p>For a while, in the early days of the post-9/11 campaign against terror, Pakistan changed its ways and behaved like an ally. It wasn’t easy. After all, Islamabad had helped spawn the Taliban in Afghanistan. But an enraged superpower can be very persuasive. Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Washington <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/21/60minutes/main2030165.shtml">warned</a> Pakistan to get on board, get out of the way or “be prepared to be bombed…be prepared to go back to the Stone Age.”</p>
<p>The government of Pervez Musharraf got the message and sided with the United States—for a while.</p>
<p>Then came phase two of Pakistan’s post-9/11 relationship with the United States. This second phase—call it the “frenemy phase”—was marked by cooperation in some areas and duplicity in others. For instance, hundreds of Pakistani troops died fighting the Taliban and its al Qaeda partners, and a high percentage of NATO’s equipment in Afghanistan was carried into the landlocked country via Pakistan. But all the while, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was hatching plots against the post-Taliban government of Afghanistan, arming people who wanted to kill American troops, and providing training to groups with designs on destabilizing India and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In this frenemy phase, Pakistan was not a black-and-white problem, but rather a gray area.</p>
<p>If the frenemy phase of the relationship didn’t end on May 1—when SEAL Team 6 found Osama bin Laden “hiding” in a mansion just outside Pakistan’s capital, in a city that serves as host to the Pakistani military academy—then it certainly is over now.</p>
<p>Today, we know that “with ISI support,” in the words of Adm. Michael Mullen, Haqqani operatives in Afghanistan have planned and conducted truck bomb attacks on U.S. and NATO bases, assaults on the U.S. embassy, and deadly attacks on commercial and government facilities in Kabul. The ISI-backed Haqqani network is responsible for the 2009 attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA operatives. According to The International Herald Tribune, ISI’s “S Wing” is helping coordinate Taliban operations in southern Afghanistan.<br />
In other words, Pakistan has now come full circle. It supported terrorist groups in Afghanistan before 9/11 in pursuit of its own craven interests, and it has returned to what it knows best.</p>
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		<title>Slouching Toward &#8220;Palestine&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/louis-ren-beres/slouching-toward-palestine/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=slouching-toward-palestine</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2011 04:38:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Louis René Beres]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conventions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[geopolitical vacuum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[insurgent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legal decisions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legal principle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[operational preparations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[state]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92914</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hezbollah, Hamas and "moderate" Fatah prepare for the next war.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92921" title="al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>Intra-Palestinian politics remain on a steady course.  Following a  carefully-choreographed rapprochement with Hamas, the more “moderate”  Fatah forces, still trained and funded by millions of U.S. tax dollars, will resume their ritualized terror attacks against Israel. More or  less simultaneously, Hamas will do the same. In Lebanon, Shiite  Hezbollah, steadily mentored by Iran, and, oddly allied with Sunni  Hamas, has already begun active operational preparations, with Syrian  collaboration, for the next war.</p>
<p>Ironically, however, Israel’s  required efforts to defend its citizens will predictably be met with a  sanctimonious barrage of assorted criticisms. Although international law  allows any such imperiled state to use necessary force preemptively, Israel’s indispensable efforts to stave off existential harms will be  harshly condemned throughout the “international community.”</p>
<p>Humanitarian international law, or the law of war,  requires that every  use of force by an army or by an insurgent group meet the test of  “proportionality.” Drawn from the core legal principle that “the means  that can be used to injure an enemy are not unlimited,” proportionality  stipulates, among other things, that every resort to armed force be  limited to what is necessary for meeting military objectives. This   principle of both codified and customary international law applies to  all judgments of military advantage, and also to all planned reprisals.</p>
<p>Proper determinations of proportionality need not be made in a  geopolitical vacuum. Instead, these legal decisions may always take into  consideration the extent to which an  adversary has committed prior or  ongoing violations of the law of war. In the frequently interrelated  examples of Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Fatah terrorists in Gaza, and the  Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, there is ample evidence that all of  these belligerents have been guilty of repeated “perfidy.”</p>
<p>In  law, deception can be acceptable in armed conflict, but the Hague  Regulations expressly disallow the placement of military assets or  military personnel in any heavily populated civilian areas. Further  prohibition of perfidy can be found at Protocol I of 1977, additional to  the Geneva Conventions of 1949. These rules are also binding on the  basis of an equally authoritative customary international law.</p>
<p>Perfidy represents a very serious violation of the law of war, one that  is even identified as a “grave breach” at Article 147 of Geneva  Convention No. IV. The legal effect of perfidy committed by Palestinian  or Hezbollah terrorists, especially their recurrent resort to “human  shields,” is to immunize Israel from legal responsibility for any  inadvertent counter-terrorist harms done to Arab civilians. But even if  Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Fatah and Hezbollah have not always engaged  in altogether deliberate violations, any terrorist-created links between  civilians and insurgent warfare still bestowed upon Israel a fully  legal justification for military self-defense.</p>
<p>This is not to  suggest that Israel should now have a jurisprudential<em> carte blanche</em> in  its necessary applications of armed force, but only that the  reasonableness of these applications always be appraised in the context  of  identifiable enemy perfidy.</p>
<p>Viewed against the historical  background of extensive and unapologetic terrorist perfidy in both Gaza  and Lebanon, Israel has been innocent of any prior “disproportionality.”   All combatants, including all insurgents in Gaza and Lebanon, are  bound to comply with the law of war of international law. This important  requirement derives not only from what is known as the “Martens  Clause,” a binding paragraph which makes its first appearance in the  Preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention No. II on land warfare, but  additionally from Article 3, common to the four Geneva Conventions of  August 12,1949.   It is also found at the two Protocols to these  Conventions.</p>
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		<title>From 9/11 to 5/1</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/from-911-to-51/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=from-911-to-51</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/from-911-to-51/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 May 2011 04:36:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elite strike force]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fighting pirates]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[moral relativism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[songs of victory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Star Spangled Banner]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92009</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just how good a day was Sunday for America? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/0502_bin-laden-reaction-ground-zero.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92024" title="0502_bin-laden-reaction-ground-zero" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/0502_bin-laden-reaction-ground-zero.gif" alt="" width="375" height="328" /></a></p>
<p>There is nothing bad about Osama bin Laden’s death, nothing our post-modern, post-heroic culture should apologize for, anguish over, deconstruct or lament. The elimination of bin Laden—and not by some faceless drone or double-dealing “ally,” but by the force and skill of American arms striking at close range—is a victory for the country, for the notion of justice, for America’s troops and intelligence officers. This is a good day to be an American.</p>
<p>How good? News of bin Laden’s death made today’s crop of college students—poisoned by years of moral relativism and politically correct bunk equating all uses of force as the same, declaring war as our enemy, teaching that nothing is worth fighting for or against—take to the streets and spontaneously sing the Star Spangled Banner while waving the American flag. They were waving the Marine Corps flag and Old Glory on the streets in front of the White House, chanting “USA!” in Times Square, climbing up trees to hoist the colors—our colors—high. Anything that can do that is wonderful and wondrous.</p>
<p>They have every right to be proud and wave flags and sing songs of victory. This is a great country that can do great things in war and in peace, with a great political system that can sustain and win long, twilight struggles, protected by a great military that is amazing not just because of its reach and determination, but also because of its restraint.</p>
<p>Never forget that as our elite strike force of Navy SEALs hunted down a mass-murderer masquerading as a holy man, other U.S. forces were feeding the hungry in sub-Saharan Africa, trying to stop a massacre in Libya, nurturing a fragile peace in Iraq, building bridges while fighting the medieval Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting pirates off the Horn of Africa. In recent years, they have rescued Haiti and Pakistan and Sumatra and Japan after disasters of biblical proportion; liberated Iraqis and Afghanis from vast prison states; and shielded Kosovars and Kurds, Kuwaitis and Koreans.</p>
<p>Their work never ends and never ceases to amaze and humble. They are America’s very best not because they wear a uniform, but because of what they do in that uniform, which leads us to our system of government and politics. Our defenders take their oath to the country and its constitution, not to a man. It pays to recall that the U.S. military’s long hunt for bin Laden began in the 1990s and was the shared work of three administrations, three commanders-in-chief. They are very different men, serving at very different moments in history: one in the pre-9/11 world, in a decade when the burdens of leadership and history seemed to be quaint relics of some bygone era; one amid the flames and fury of bin Laden’s maiming of Manhattan and the Pentagon, in the early days of a new twilight struggle; one in a decade when the scars and memories of that terrible Tuesday had started to fade. Yet for all their differences and disagreements, flaws and failures, imperfections and indiscretions, they pursued the same goal, the latter two with virtually the same team of warriors, generals and commanders in place, keeping just enough of the country on the same page to realize this day.</p>
<p>That’s the kind of tenacity and resolve that, viewing America through the distorted and grimy prism of our own popular culture, bin Laden and his ilk will never understand. Beneath the soft, flabby outer edges of our nation, there exists muscle and bone that can unleash an unspeakable, unrelenting fury. As one wartime president soberly put it, “It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war.”</p>
<p>After mocking America as impotent and cowardly, the enemy now understands this.</p>
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		<title>What MacArthur&#8217;s Farewell Teaches Us Today</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/alan-w-dowd/what-macarthurs-farewell-teaches-us-today/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-macarthurs-farewell-teaches-us-today</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:36:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Farewell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gen douglas macarthur]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[joint session of congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[niall ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Dwight Eisenhower]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[President Harry Truman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strategy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[victory]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How to wage an effective war.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>
<div>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/macarthur.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91619" title="macarthur" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/macarthur.gif" alt="" width="364" height="370" /></a></p>
<p>It was 60 years ago this month that Gen. Douglas MacArthur delivered his farewell address to a joint session of Congress, effectively closing the book on a consequential and controversial public life. What do the words an “old soldier” have to do with today? More than you might think.</p>
<p>What brought MacArthur to the House chamber in April 1951—and brought his career as a soldier and general to an abrupt end—is fairly well-known: He openly challenged the commander-in-chief, President Harry Truman, who, with an eye on the Soviet Union’s global capabilities, was committed to “limited war” and “police action” in Korea. MacArthur, on the other hand, advocated expansion of the war in Korea to targets in China, criticized “those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in Asia” and famously declared, “There is no substitute for victory.” Toward that end, as Niall Ferguson details in “Colossus”, MacArthur called for blockades of China, attacks on Chinese airbases, the use of Taiwanese forces against Mainland China and the deployment of atomic weapons against China.</p>
<p>Even MacArthur’s critics, Ferguson among them, concede that the general’s proposed strategy was “seriously discussed” after his departure and, in a sense, adopted to bring the war to an end. Just months after MacArthur was ousted, Truman threatened to blockade China and contemplated atomic weapons. In fact, upon his election, general-turned-president Dwight Eisenhower raised the possibility of an atomic strike on China to bring the Chinese to heel, conveying the message to China via India. They took the threat seriously, and an armistice was quickly signed.</p>
<p>In other words, MacArthur’s proposals were not the problem; it was how and where he aired them that was the problem. And to preserve the principle of civilian control over the military, Truman had to dismiss MacArthur. The Truman-MacArthur showdown is a subject for another essay. Suffice it to say that MacArthur and Truman embodied the tension that has been at the very heart of our republic since the founding. After all, the first president was a general, a war hero, a conqueror. He wouldn’t be the last. Moreover, the Founders divided war-making authority, opening the way to disputes between the executive and legislative and between civilians and the military. Although the Constitution made civilian control over the military paramount—and thankfully so—it led to a system that encourages great deference to military command.</p>
<p><em>The Limits of Time-Limited War</em></p>
<p>This century’s version of “police action” is on display in Libya and Afghanistan. The White House, for example, calls Libya a “time-limited, scope-limited” war. NATO’s description of the Libya intervention declares, incredibly, that “NATO is impartial in this operation.”</p>
<p>Over in Afghanistan, the enemy is using Pakistan as a safe haven, allies fly fighter-bombers without bombs and shout warnings before engaging the enemy, and President Barack Obama concluded that “it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops” before <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/01/new-way-forward-presidents-address">promising</a> that “after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”</p>
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		<title>WikiLeaks Goes After Gitmo</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/rich-trzupek/wikileaks-goes-after-gitmo/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=wikileaks-goes-after-gitmo</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/rich-trzupek/wikileaks-goes-after-gitmo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:41:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[correct conclusions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gitmo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[information]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Julian Assange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[problem]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[whistle blowers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wiggle room]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91324</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The whistle-blowing website's blatant anti-Americanism reveals itself once again. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/wikileaks.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91325" title="wikileaks" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/wikileaks.gif" alt="" width="375" height="266" /></a></p>
<p>After a rather long lull in activity, WikiLeaks is <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/25/wikileaks.documents/index.html?hpt=T1">back in the headlines again</a>. This time, the target was the United States&#8217; base at Guantanamo Bay, with WikiLeaks releasing almost 800 classified military documents relating to the detainees who have been held at Gitmo. If WikiLeaks isn’t – as it claims – consciously trying to aid terrorist organizations, this latest release demonstrates, once again, that Julian Assange and his partners aren’t the benign, disinterested whistle-blowers they would like the world to believe they are. This is an organization that is blatantly anti-American and anti-West in its outlook &#8212; and its prejudice shines through every time it releases new information.</p>
<p>WikiLeaks wrestles with the same problem that the mainstream media has: they want the public to believe that they are unbiased sources of factual information, but – being leftists – they don’t trust the public to reach the “correct” conclusions on their own. So, rather than simply disseminating information and allowing people to form their own judgments, WikiLeaks feels obliged to steer readers’ opinions.</p>
<p>By the third sentence on their <a href="http://wikileaks.ch/gitmo/">“Gitmo Files” introductory webpage</a>, WikiLeaks abandons any pretense of impartiality, telling readers that they are about to learn more about “a notorious icon of the Bush administration&#8217;s &#8216;War on Terror&#8217; &#8212; the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which opened on January 11, 2002, and remains open under President Obama, despite his promise to close the much-criticized facility within a year of taking office.”</p>
<p>Adjectives like “notorious” and “much-criticized” don’t leave much wiggle room for the reader. But, just in case there is any doubt, WikiLeaks moves on to lead readers further toward forming what is – in its opinion – the right conclusion, declaring that: “Most of these documents reveal accounts of incompetence familiar to those who have studied Guantánamo closely, with innocent men detained by mistake (or because the US was offering substantial bounties to its allies for al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects), and numerous insignificant Taliban conscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan.”</p>
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		<title>Why They Didn&#8217;t Spare Vittorio Arrigoni</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/fiammanirenstein-com/why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/fiammanirenstein-com/why-they-didnt-spare-vittorio-arrigoni/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:02:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Fiammanirenstein.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arrigoni]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy of god]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fabrizio quattrocchi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[matter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public execution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shalit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=91025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The commitment to exterminating the Jews just wasn't enough.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/spare.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-91030" title="spare" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/spare.jpg" alt="" width="399" height="265" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://fiammanirenstein.com/index.asp">Fiammanirenstein.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p>The cruelty of the public execution of a young man, as was the case with Vittorio Arrigoni, is always  awful. This much is clear. What isn’t clear to the European public is  that it is patently evident that the killers were Arrigoni&#8217;s old Islamic  Jihadists friends from Gaza. But they could have been Afghanis, or  Iraqis. In 2002, Daniel Pearl was killed in Karachi by similar methods  because he was a Jew; in 2004, the decapitation of American Nick  Berg in Iraq was filmed, the Jihadists said, &#8220;to send a clear message to  the West;&#8221; the Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi was executed because he was  &#8220;an enemy of God, an enemy of Allah,&#8221; and Vittorio Arrigoni, as his  butchers say in the video in the words that scrolled across the  screen, because &#8220;he was spreading Western immorality in Gaza&#8221; and  because &#8220;Italy fights against Islamic countries.&#8221; It has been repeated  again and again that Hamas, with whom Arrigoni was on friendly terms,  has condemned the crime. But in actual fact, it doesn’t matter if the  assassins were members of Hamas or not. They have been, they will be,  they are all controlled by Hamas. Hamas is always top dog in Gaza.</p>
<p>Hamas is responsible for the captivity of Gilad Shalit. It was  responsible for the armed destruction of the UN recreational camp for  children, which did not abide by Islamic dictates. It was responsible  for arresting 150 women under the accusation of witchcraft and the  execution of several of them. It is Hamas that has introduced laws on the death penalty, whipping, cutting off hands and crucifixion, according to  Sharia. Hamas killed the 32-year old Christian book salesman Rami  Khader Ayyad, guilty of selling Bibles. Not all those who carry out Hamas&#8217;s operations, or those who fire Qassam missiles into Israel, are &#8220;members&#8221; of the terrorist organization that rules  Gaza. Indeed, at times Hamas pretends to fight them.</p>
<p>Hamas is a movement, a  party, a fundamentalist affiliation. Its charter stipulates that it wants to  destroy the Jewish State, to exterminate Jews, and impose an Islamic  caliphate on the entire world. Salafite fringes and those aligned more with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt &#8212; influenced to a greater or  lesser extent by Iran or Al Qaeda and based in the Gaza Strip &#8212; join up  and leave Hamas routinely. The fact that Hamas has now disowned the  killers of Arrigoni is not of the slightest importance. In any case,  they were still employed by Hamas as members of the Al Qassam Brigades.</p>
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		<title>Courageous Restraint?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-w-dowd/courageous-restraint/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=courageous-restraint</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-w-dowd/courageous-restraint/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 May 2010 04:42:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Administration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Berlin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Dialogue]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Gen. McChrystal]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jackson]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[restraint]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60779</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new effort to encourage “self-control” among American troops may get them killed. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/here1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60791" title="here" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/here1.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="287" /></a></p>
<p>Hoping to win more hearts and minds in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its NATO allies are planning a commendation to recognize “courageous restraint” among troops in the field. According to a NATO <a href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/article/caat-anaysis-news/honoring-courageous-restraint.html">statement</a>, the goal would be to “celebrate the troops who exhibit extraordinary courage and self-control by not using their weapons.”</p>
<p>What an apt metaphor for the Age of Obama. If there is a coherent theme to President Obama’s foreign policy, it seems to be constraining and restraining American power.</p>
<p>Consider the “New START” agreement. From Moscow’s perspective, New <a href="http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/30/new_start_vs_missile_defense_is_it_one_or_the_other">START</a> will constrain the U.S. from building and deploying additional missile defenses. New START, according to the Russian interpretation, will “be viable if the United States of America refrains from developing its missile-defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively.”</p>
<p>Where would the Russians get that idea, if not from the administration? And if this is so, then it means the administration is unable to recognize that missile defense is, by definition, defensive. In other words, the goal of missile defense is to constrain America’s enemies.</p>
<p>Then there’s the related issue of the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (<a href="http://www.defense.gov/NPR/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf">NPR</a>), which is all about constraining the United States. Among other things, the NPR pledges that the United States:</p>
<blockquote><p>• <em>Will not conduct nuclear testing, and will seek ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty</em>,</p>
<p>• <em>will not develop new nuclear warheads</em>, and</p>
<p>•<em> will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Obama’s NPR also removes the protection afforded by what Defense Secretary Robert <a href="http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4599">Gates</a> calls “calculated ambiguity.” “If a non-nuclear-weapon state is in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty and its obligations,” Gates explains, “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Instead, such an enemy “would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response”—even if that enemy “were to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies or partners.”</p>
<p>“Calculated ambiguity” has kept America’s enemies on notice and off balance for decades—and, not coincidentally, has kept America and American forces safe from nuclear, biological or chemical attack. As Eisenhower counseled at the beginning of the nuclear age, quoting Gen. Stonewall Jackson, “Always surprise, mystify and mislead the enemy.”</p>
<p>Obama clearly doesn’t subscribe to that commonsense view. In fact, he recently took a huge step in the opposite direction by <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0504/NPT-Obama-reveals-size-of-US-nuclear-weapons-arsenal.-Will-Russia-respond">revealing</a> the size of America’s nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the likes of North Korea and Iran play games with the world—and appear to be under no constraints whatsoever.  For instance, in the past 12 months, North Korea has detonated a nuclear weapon, test-fired long-range missiles and blown a South Korean ship out of the water, killing 46 sailors.</p>
<p>Likewise, Iran has shown no restraint in response to Washington’s restraint. Last summer, as the Iranian people rose up against a sham election and as Ahmadinejad’s henchmen crushed the popular revolt, the President was virtually silent. The sad irony of the President’s restrained reaction to the Twitter Revolution was that it answered his own rhetorical <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24text-obama.html?pagewanted=all">question</a> of a year before, albeit in a manner his supporters would never have imagined. “Will we stand for the human rights of…the blogger in Iran?” he asked during his 2008 rock-concert speech in Berlin. Last summer provided the answer.</p>
<p>And it gets worse. When evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear-fuel plant came to light last autumn, there was no reaction from the White House. In fact, it was French president Nicolas <a href="http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article1432">Sarkozy</a> who spoke up: “Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council resolutions…An offer of dialogue was made in 2005, an offer of dialogue was made in 2006, an offer of dialogue was made in 2007, an offer of dialogue was made in 2008, and another one was made in 2009…What did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing.”</p>
<p>Perhaps nowhere is the policy of restraint and constraint on better display than in Afghanistan itself. German forces, for instance, refer to a seven-page <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6730996.ece">guidebook</a> before engaging the enemy. Until mid-2009, they were even required to shout warnings to enemy forces—in three languages—before opening fire. The joys of coalition warfare.</p>
<p>The president has told us, over and over, that Afghanistan is a “war of necessity.” It was so important, as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11command.html">New York Times</a> reported, that the president gave his military commander “extraordinary leeway” and “carte blanche” control to choose “a dream team of subordinates.”</p>
<p>But when Gen. McChrystal asked for the resources necessary to win this war of necessity, the president balked. Then, after a lengthy re-review of his own policy, the president concluded that “it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan,” before <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/01/new-way-forward-presidents-address">promising</a> that “after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”</p>
<p>Of course, vital national interests don’t have expiration dates, and letting the Taliban know when the U.S. military will end its offensive won’t make victory any easier to achieve. But victory is probably not the goal in this era of constraint and restraint. As the constrainer-in-chief <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/23/nightline_interview_with_president_obama_transcript_97608.html">himself</a> puts it, “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory.’”</p>
<p>That brings us back to NATO’s “courageous restraint” idea.</p>
<p>The notion that there needs to be a commendation for restraint is based on the false and faulty premise that U.S. forces haven’t used restraint to date. In fact, as Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis told Navy Times, “Our young men and women display remarkable courage every day, including situations where they refrain from using lethal force, even at risk to themselves, in order to prevent possible harm to civilians.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the U.S. military is so self-restrained that the world doesn’t even notice. Just think about what happens when the U.S. military makes what we civilians, from 7,000 miles away, call a mistake: It court-martials people, changes target sets, scrubs missions, orders bombing pauses, investigates, apologizes and invests in ever-more precise weapons to prevent mistakes.</p>
<p>The fact is, the American military of today is the most lethal force in history, which makes its self-restraint so impressive. U.S. forces could flatten Kandahar, kill anything that moves in Waziristan, erase all the Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and all the terror camps in Syria, eliminate the North Korean and Iranian thugocracies, and turn Mosul into glass—all in less than 24 hours. But they don’t do those things. The reason? Thankfully, the means are as important as the ends to Americans and their military.</p>
<p>This is not an argument for shooting first and asking questions later or for countenancing battlefield brutality. Rather, it’s a reminder that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are already holding their fire enough. They already think twice before squeezing the trigger. We shouldn’t expect them to think three times.</p>
<p>The people who know best—those who have served—worry about the unintended consequences of rewarding and thereby encouraging “courageous restraint.” As Clarence Hill, national commander of the American Legion, observes, “Too much restraint will get our own people killed.”</p>
<p>Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis adds, ominously and presciently, “The creation of such an award will only…put more American and noncombatant lives in jeopardy. Let’s not rush to create something that no one wants to present posthumously.”</p>
<p><strong><em>Alan W. Dowd writes on defense and security issues.</em></strong></p>
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		<title>Calls for Holocausts and Campus Double Standards</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jonah-goldberg/calls-for-holocausts-and-campus-double-standards/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=calls-for-holocausts-and-campus-double-standards</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 04:03:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jonah Goldberg]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60563</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why UC San Diego administrators won't censure calls for genocide of Jews on their campus. ]]></description>
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<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.latimes.com">Los Angeles Times</a></strong></p>
<p>We are taught to believe that ideology is the enemy of free thought. But that&#8217;s not right. Ideology is a mere checklist of principles and priorities. The real enemy of clear thinking is the script. We think the world is supposed to go by a familiar plot. And when the facts conflict with the script, we edit the facts.</p>
<p>So, for instance, David Horowitz is a stock villain on U.S. campuses because he deviates from the standard formula of coddling the usual victims and lionizing the usual heroes. Once a committed left-wing radical, Horowitz now resides on the right. Two of his favorite targets are academia and radical Islam. He leads an extensive network of websites, books, lecture series, pamphlets and conferences aimed at exposing the folly and dangers of both. Horowitz&#8217;s detractors, and even some of his friends, sometimes roll their eyes at his confrontational tactics and rhetoric.</p>
<p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s wrong. Horowitz recently spoke at UC San Diego. You can find an excerpt from  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv=8fSvyv0urTE">his appearance on YouTube</a>. In it, a young Muslim student from UCSD, Jumanah Imad Albahri, asks Horowitz to back up his attacks on the Muslim Students Assn. Horowitz turned the tables on her. In less than two minutes, she revealed herself as a supporter of the terrorist group Hamas. Horowitz then noted that Hezbollah, another terrorist organization, wants all Jews to return to Israel so they can be more conveniently liquidated in one place. Horowitz asks Albahri whether she&#8217;s for or against that proposition. She is &#8220;for it.&#8221;</p>
<p>I asked UCSD, via e-mail, whether the woman in question was censured in any way for endorsing bigotry and genocide, or if the video was somehow misleading. In response, I received boilerplate about how, in the tradition of Aristotle, UCSD treasures &#8220;discourse and debate&#8221; and how &#8220;the very foundations of every great university are set upon the rock-solid principles of freedom of thought and freedom of speech.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>To continue reading this article, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-censor-20100518,0,5167137.column">click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Luck Is Not A Strategy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/luck-is-not-a-strategy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=luck-is-not-a-strategy</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 04:09:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[America’s safety depends on the proposition that Islamic terrorists will prove more incompetent than the Obama administration.]]></description>
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<p>There’s no better way to summarize president Obama’s approach to fighting the war against jihad than this: For the next three years, we’re betting our safety on the proposition that Islamic thugs and terrorists will prove to be more incompetent than the Obama administration. In the aftermath of the Times  Square bombing attempt, is there another way to consider it? How many “isolated incidents” have to pile up before the president wakes up to the fact that there’s a pattern, one that just might have something to do with a particular fundamentalist religious outlook, and that the politically correct bunker mentality is not going to cut it?</p>
<p>Reluctantly, Attorney General Eric Holder has conceded that it might be a good idea to adjust, not totally eliminate mind you, the law with regards to reading <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/09/holder-calls-review-miranda-rights-law-suggests-possible-changes/">a terror suspect their Miranda rights</a>, provided that it can be done within constitutional bounds, of course. Holder’s tepid foray into the waters of treating enemy combatants like enemies was prompted by the increasing volume of criticism showered on the administration for advising Christmas bomber <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239543/The-fanatic-invited-jihad-cleric-address-British-students.html">Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab</a> and Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad that they have the right to remain silent. Holder assures us that both Abdulmutallab and Shahzad talked anyway, and perhaps they have, but are we really supposed to believe that investigators got as much out of them as they would have had not these enemy combatants been treated to the courtesies of our legal system?</p>
<p>The idea that we should extend constitutional protections to enemy combatants, particularly when that enemy is not in uniform, is a concept that would have perplexed any other American president in history, with the possible exception of James Earl Carter. The famous example of FDR <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq114-1.htm">summarily executing six Nazi spies</a> found on American soil during World War II is but one case that illustrates the way our commanders-in-chief have always dealt with spies and saboteurs – until now.</p>
<p>But then few past presidents would approve of the “cower behind the walls” strategy of fighting this war that Obama has adopted. In the aftermath of Times  Square, with three enemy infiltrations onto American soil in the space of six months, Senate Homeland Security chair <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/09/lieberman-the-system-failed-with-times-square-bomber/">Joe Liebermann observed</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“We were lucky. We did not prevent the attempted attack. It’s hard to stop them every time, but that has to be our goal. … So I’d say in terms of prevention, the system failed.”</p></blockquote>
<p>We <em>were</em> lucky. We will have to continue to be lucky, because when you choose to go on the defensive, luck is the only thing that keeps a shell from landing in the wrong place at the wrong time and these particular shells have two legs and access to a bag of tricks. The history of warfare shows that in the battle between artillery and fortifications, artillery always wins, eventually. You build a castle and somebody is going to invent a trebuchet big enough to batter down your walls. Build a fort and somebody’s going to come along with a bigger cannon. The Obama administration is counting on the massive security apparatus of the United States to create the modern-day equivalent of the Maginot line around the borders of America, manned by an army of bureaucrats.</p>
<p>It’s not going to work. It’s never worked. Philosophically, Bush made it clear that he would target the enemy where he lies, for as long as it took to win. On the other hand, Obama makes it increasingly obvious that he longs to disengage from the enemy, thus providing them a host of targets over here, for as long as “isolated incidents” continue to occur.</p>
<p>In a tough, cynical world, ruthless leaders can smell weakness and this president reeks of it. During the 2008 campaign, when conservatives were critical of Obama’s offer to sit down with our enemies, a re-occurring example of the kind of hopeful change we could expect in a post-American world, liberals roundly accused them of war-mongering. In fact, there’s no mongering involved, there’s just war, right on our doorstep.</p>
<p>There’s no better example of the scorn with which angry, murderous jihadists view this president than the words of the man whom Obama really wanted to sit down with and have a chat and whom has thus become the sterling symbol of Obama’s global naiveté. Speaking to thousands of his countrymen with respect to Obama’s feeble attempts to curb Iran’s nuclear program, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/04/07/2010-04-07_iranian_president_mahmoud_ahmadinejad_mocks_obamas_cowboy_nuclear_plan.html">Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Mr. Obama, you are a newcomer to politics. Wait until your sweat dries and get some experience…. American officials bigger than you, more bullying than you, couldn’t do a damn thing, let alone you.”</p></blockquote>
<p>George W. Bush may have been the devil to Ahmadinejad and his ilk, but one would be foolish indeed not to fear the devil. To the Iranian president and his partners in waging jihad, Obama is no more than an ineffectual, unimportant, low-grade, mildly demonic imp, far down on the west’s satanic organizational chart. For them, Obama is annoying at times, sure – but not really anything to worry about.</p>
<p>If nothing changes about the way this administration fights the jihadists, consider the following scenario. In 2012 America elects a new, tough-on-terror president, in part because everyone recognizes how ineffective Obama has been as commander in chief. Ahmadinejad, seeing the writing on the wall – that his nuclear ambitions will go up in smoke courtesy of the Israeli Defense Force once the new, pro-Israel guy is sworn in and having put together a couple of nuclear tipped missiles under the UN’s noses – decides that it’s use it or lose it time.</p>
<p>Far-fetched? Sure, especially when you know that Israel has the capability to retaliate in force. But impossible? Mixing religious fanatics with weak, appeasing leadership in the west makes for a very dangerous stew. Based on his performance as a war-time leader so far, it’s going to take a significant tragedy before this president decides to fight.</p>
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		<title>Endless War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/endless-war-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=endless-war-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 05:03:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Ralph Peters reflects on how we can effectively combat an enemy that we're afraid to name.]]></description>
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<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Ralph Peters, a retired Army officer and the author of 25 books, including best-selling, prize-winning novels and influential works on strategy. He is also an opinion columnist for the New York Post and a regular contributor to Armchair General Magazine. A popular media guest, he became Fox News&#8217; first strategic analyst in 2009. He is the author of the new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0811705501/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&amp;n=283155&amp;s=books" target="_blank">Endless War: Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization.</a></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Ralph Peters, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>Tell us about your new book.</p>
<p><strong>Peters:</strong> Thanks Jamie.</p>
<p>My new book focuses on cutting through the ideological nonsense perverting our national discussion of war, peace, terrorism and justice.  My fight is to force people to deal with facts, rather than allowing them to make up cozy myths about humanity&#8211;or the inhuman creatures we call &#8220;terrorists.&#8221;  Really, the key to the entire book lies in the introduction, which lays out the terrible price we&#8217;re paying for allowing the left to take over our education system and destroy (and virtually eliminate) the teaching of history.  That means we get legislators who vote in an intellectual vacuum, journalists who can&#8217;t put the things they witness into context, and voters susceptible to wild lies.  As the book says, those who do not know history will die of myth.  And nowhere in the current yelling contest that passes for a national debate is myth more powerful than in the refusal to accept that Islamist terrorists really do exist and really do believe that they&#8217;re doing their god&#8217;s will.  So I try to base my judgements and make my cases on historical facts&#8211;the sort that are not subject to dispute (except by the left&#8217;s myth-makers, of course).</p>
<p>Beyond that, the book&#8217;s a world tour of our problems&#8211;not merely recounting them, but trying to understand why the problems have emerged and why it&#8217;s so difficult for us to combat them.  It may sound self-contradictory, but I&#8217;d describe the book as a work of &#8220;impassioned rationality.&#8221;  And by the way: I don&#8217;t toe anybody&#8217;s line.  I want to challenge independents and conservatives to think for themselves, too, since we&#8217;re so terribly susceptible, as a species, to group-think.  The herd mentality is an even greater enemy than al-Qaeda.  So I&#8217;m willing to risk unhappy readers&#8211;as long as I can spur them to think for themselves.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Why your subtitle?</p>
<p><strong>Peters: </strong>(He said with a laugh) Every non-fiction book has to have a sub-title these days, doesn&#8217;t it?  For example, Nancy Pelosi&#8217;s forthcoming autobiography, NANCY!  How I Turned a Bad Date With America into an Awful Marriage While Turning Men Into Mice on Capitol Hill&#8230;</p>
<p>Seriously, it&#8217;s an interesting question, since, in a sense, this book could have been written at any point since the seventh century, when Islam began its endless jihad.  Of course, the details would have been different, but not the overall theme: That you have to fight Islamist fanatics to the death, there&#8217;s no alternative.  That said, had the book been published at any time prior to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the sub-title would have been different, it would have been &#8220;Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Christian Civilization,&#8221; rather than &#8220;Western Civilization.&#8221;  But the West, overall, is no longer Judeo-Christian, except in heritage.  The USA excepted, we&#8217;re a secular civilization, with all the good and ill that brings along.  So that&#8217;s one more asymmetry in the current struggle: We fight for values, our enemies fight for faith.</p>
<p>The first third of the book recounts the high points (and low points) of the long military struggle with Islam, as I try to arm the reader with facts to refute the utter nonsense that &#8220;Islam&#8217;s a religion of peace.&#8221;  I document some of the most-important battles and campaigns&#8211;exciting to read about, but often grim in their results&#8211;over the centuries, looking at Islam&#8217;s centuries of military triumphs that almost destroyed our civilization, then the recent centuries in which the tide turned as Islam failed to compete as a civilization.  Those tales from history are fun to read (God knows, the left hates the thought that history might offer interesting stories that teach us something), but they&#8217;re also essential to understanding the deep roots of today&#8217;s wars.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What is wrong with the U.S. approach toward our enemy? How must we change it?</p>
<p><strong>Peters: </strong>We refuse to recognize our enemy or call him by his name (I think, always, of Goethe&#8217;s line from Faust, &#8220;Wer darf das Kind beim rechten Namen nennen?  &#8220;Who dares to call the child by its true name?&#8221;).  Recently, President Obama promised a Muslim audience that he&#8217;d eliminate any reference to Islamist terrorists or the like from our national security documents.  Good Lord!  It&#8217;s as if, in World War II, we decided we couldn&#8217;t utter the word &#8220;Nazi,&#8221; since it might hurt our enemy&#8217;s feelings.  Our mortal enemies are jumping up and down, screaming that they&#8217;re terrorists in the name of Islam.  Our response?  &#8220;Oh, they don&#8217;t really mean it&#8230;&#8221;  Yeah, well, they do mean it.  Not every Muslim is a problem, but some Muslims certainly are.</p>
<p>How can we effectively combat an enemy when we&#8217;re even afraid of the enemy&#8217;s name?  This is political correctness beyond the bounds of sanity.  So another thing the book does is to dissect the twisted language our government and even our military now uses to avoid acknowledging that fanatical religion is the crucial factor in our current struggles.  It&#8217;s astonishing: We have generals who insist that Islam isn&#8217;t involved in any of this, and doctrinal manuals that ignore religion.  We refuse to apply common sense: If you could subtract Islam from the problem, you just wouldn&#8217;t have al Qaeda or the Taliban.  They&#8217;re fighting for other factors, too, of course.  But Islam is the primary motivator, the primary sustainer, and the primary objective.  Pretending otherwise just kills our troops for nothing&#8230;although, sadly, both political parties are fine with that, as long as we don&#8217;t offend anybody.  (And this is a key point: While the Democrats are the worst offenders, plenty of Republicans in Washington are outright cowards on this issue.)</p>
<p>The book makes it clear that Islam was born by the sword, spread by the sword, and still reverts to the sword when under stress.  And it makes the case using historical facts, not rhetoric.</p>
<p>All that said, I do want to make it perfectly clear: I don&#8217;t believe that each and every Muslim spends each and every day dreaming up ways to kill us.  The problem lies among those who find their faith a spur to violence, the fanatics, the true believers who want to return the world to a &#8220;pure Islam&#8221; that never really existed (Wahhabism is an eighteenth century Bedouin heresy posing as the one true Islam).  But we don&#8217;t understand them, either.  For example, the book dissects our idiotic counterinsurgency doctrine&#8211;our guidebook for Afghanistan&#8211;which not only doesn&#8217;t mention Islam, but can&#8217;t tell the difference between ideological revolutionaries and religious reactionaries.  In Afghanistan&#8211;which is discussed at length&#8211;we&#8217;re the revolutionaries, the ones trying to bring change.  Our enemies are fighting for traditions, myths and darkness.  We&#8217;re muddled, befuddled and failing.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Obama appears to be bullying and abandoning Israel. Meanwhile, we have the horror of a nuclear Iran on our hands, and their first target will be Israel. What must Israel do, now that, it appears, it is alone?</p>
<p><strong>Peters: </strong>On a recent Fox broadcast, I made the point that I don&#8217;t believe the Obama administration would respond militarily even if Iran popped a nuke on Israel.  The situation&#8217;s hateful to me, but this administration will not defend Israel.  Obama is already resigned to the advent of an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability.  The sanctions nonsense is just window dressing, at this point.  So what does that mean?  At some point, Israel will feel compelled to act pre-emptively&#8230;but Israel only has the capability to set back, not to destroy, Iran&#8217;s nuke program (which is widely dispersed, buried deep and/or located in heavily populated areas).</p>
<p>The Israeli strike will be a bloody mess, the Iranians will respond asymmetrically by closing the Straits of Hormuz and hitting Gulf oil fields and infrastructure, and we&#8217;ll be stuck defending Arab autocracies&#8211;while avoiding resolute military action against Iran.  At best, the situation would be catastrophic.  Obama&#8217;s just hoping it doesn&#8217;t happen on his watch&#8211;and he&#8217;ll do all he can to discourage Israel from defending itself as long as he&#8217;s in the White House.  At this point, it&#8217;s clear that Obama finds Israel distasteful and that his sympathies lie with the Arabs.  The US now has a president with a Third-World outlook locked in the 1970s campus prejudices of his youth.  But, then, at no time in his past has Obama had a pro-Israel friend I can identify.  Throughout his lifetime, his public associates have been pro-Palestinian.  He is who he is.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Your thoughts on the Obama administration and how it is or isn’t dealing with the terror war and protecting U.S. national security.</p>
<p><strong>Peters:</strong> I do give the Obama administration credit for continuing and even expanding the Bush administration&#8217;s use of drones and other means to target terrorists on foreign soil.  Obama knows he can&#8217;t afford&#8211;politically speaking&#8211;a major terrorist attack on the US during his presidency.  He&#8217;s not protecting America, he&#8217;s protecting his career and the historical legacy his acolytes are already engraving in marble.  Beyond that, Obama&#8217;s actions across the board amount to a negative for our national security.  He&#8217;s a leftwing ideologue who prefers developing-world thugs to our traditional allies.  And he&#8217;s a narcissistic fool.  Obama&#8217;s most dangerous quality is his unbounded faith in his own charisma.</p>
<p>The next few years will be interesting.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>You&#8217;re a hardworking writer, every five seconds or so you have some new piece of work out. What&#8217;s your next book?</p>
<p><strong>Peters: </strong>This one will be very different.  I recently finished another novel, The Officers&#8217; Club, set on an Army post in the early 1980s.  It&#8217;s scheduled for publication next January.  It&#8217;s R-rated, and it could as readily have been called Lieutenants Behaving Very, Very Badly.  It&#8217;s set at a time when the Army was still recovering from Vietnam, our society was still reeling from the excesses of the 1970s, and Reagan had just taken the helm.  That was the battered Army in which I grew up&#8230;strait-laced on duty, but wild after hours&#8230;  On one level, the novel&#8217;s a murder mystery&#8211;it begins with the murder of a female lieutenant&#8211;but, really, it&#8217;s my memorial to a bygone Army, the good, the bad and the ugly.  Today&#8217;s military is much, much better (and certainly better-behaved).  But I&#8217;ve just never seen a well-written book about &#8220;my&#8221; Army.  The book will surprise those who know me only through my writing on strategy and security&#8211;but, fair warning, the next book after that will be even more surprising.  Writing&#8217;s an adventure.  Just like life.  When you become predictable, it&#8217;s time to pack it in.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Well, I’m very much looking forward to reading this book for sure!</p>
<p>Ralph Peters, thank you for joining us.</p>
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		<title>Obama’s Unexceptional Nation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-w-dowd/obama%e2%80%99s-unexceptional-nation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-unexceptional-nation</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:15:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Never has a U.S. president been so idealistic about the world but so cynical about America’s role in it.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2_61_100507_Obama.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58142" title="2_61_100507_Obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2_61_100507_Obama.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>America has had presidents who were realists and idealists and realistic, even cynical, about the world yet idealistic about America’s mission in the world, but Barack Obama is unique among this fraternity. For arguably the first time in 220 years, we have a president who is idealistic about the world but cynical about America’s role in it. Obama’s recent flurry of nuclear diplomacy and declarations is just the latest example.</p>
<p>First, his administration carried out a Nuclear Posture Review (<a href="http://www.defense.gov/NPR/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf">NPR</a>) that, among other things, pledges that the United States:</p>
<ul>
<li>“will not conduct nuclear testing, and will seek      ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban      Treaty,”</li>
<li>“will not develop new nuclear warheads,” and</li>
<li>“will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons      against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear      Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear      nonproliferation obligations.”</li>
</ul>
<p>Obama’s NPR also removes the protection afforded by what Defense Secretary Robert <a href="http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4599">Gates</a> calls “calculated ambiguity.” “If a non-nuclear-weapon state is in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty and its obligations,” Gates explains, “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Instead, such an enemy “would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response”—even if that enemy “were to use chemical or biological weapons against the United   States or its allies or partners.”</p>
<p>“Calculated ambiguity” has kept America’s enemies on notice and off balance for decades—and, not coincidentally, kept America and American forces safe from nuclear, biological or chemical attack. Recall Secretary of State James Baker’s implied threat to his Iraqi counterpart regarding how the U.S. would respond to Iraq’s use of chemical or biological weapons. Or consider Eisenhower’s counsel:</p>
<blockquote><p>“One of America’s great tacticians, Stonewall Jackson, said ‘Always surprise, mystify and mislead the enemy.’”</p></blockquote>
<p>Ike had quite a surprise in store for North  Korea’s patron and protector in China. As historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote years after Ike’s presidency, “Eisenhower began by invoking the nuclear threat to end the fighting in Korea,” letting the Chinese know that, in Eisenhower’s own words, he “would not be constrained about crossing the Yalu or using nuclear weapons.”</p>
<p>Fifty-seven years later, we have a president eager to constrain American power—and willing to surrender the strategic deterrent advantage of ambiguity—in hopes that thugs, dictators and outlaws can be reasoned with.</p>
<p>And yet there appear to be no constraints on the bad guys. North   Korea, for instance, tested a nuclear weapon and long-range missiles during Obama’s first year in office, just as it had during the Bush administration. Likewise, when evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear-fuel manufacturing plant came to light in September 2009, there was no punishment or sanction. French president Nicolas <a href="http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article1432">Sarkozy</a> was so furious that he detailed for the UN Security Council everything the UN Security Council has allowed Iran to get away with:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Since 2005, Iran has violated five Security Council resolutions…An offer of dialogue was made in 2005, an offer of dialogue was made in 2006, an offer of dialogue was made in 2007, an offer of dialogue was made in 2008, and another one was made in 2009…What did the international community gain from these offers of dialogue? Nothing. More enriched uranium, more centrifuges.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Finally, after signing a deal with Russia to cut America’s arsenal of nuclear warheads by 30 percent—thankfully in exchange for reciprocal cuts on Moscow’s part—Obama convened a summit in Washington “dedicated to nuclear security and the threat of nuclear terrorism,” in the words of Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes. Obama’s goal is “to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within four years.”</p>
<p>That’s a worthwhile objective. Of course, two of the gravest nuclear threats we face—Iran and North Korea—were not at Obama’s nuclear summit. In fact, they weren’t <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1265332/Barack-Obama-tells-nuclear-summit-terrorists-greatest-threat.html">invited</a>. Given that both are known terrorist states, given that Iran is racing to build a nuke, and given that North Korea already has nukes, it seems likely that this shameless pair would be prime candidates for nuclear terrorism.</p>
<p>But perhaps it’s good that they weren’t at Obama’s conference. After all, international summits and conferences are only as dependable as the parties participating in them. Again, Ike’s words are instructive. Always dubious of what he called “the conference method” to foreign policy, he noted that</p>
<blockquote><p>“We have had a lot of talks and some of them have produced very disappointing results…The pact of Munich was a more fell blow to humanity than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.”</p></blockquote>
<p>It is doubtful that Obama—the product of a postmodern, relativistic era that views American power as something to constrain and America’s role in the world as something to apologize for—would agree with that.</p>
<p>In this regard, it pays to recall that Obama himself concedes, with a shrug, “I believe in American exceptionalism…just as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.” In other words, every nation is exceptional, which means no nation is exceptional.</p>
<p>Now, contrast that with Woodrow Wilson’s idealism and liberal internationalism. Sure, Wilson envisioned a gauzy, global federalism that made—and still makes—American nationalists uncomfortable. But Wilson’s idealism was couched in a strong belief in American exceptionalism. It was America’s duty, Wilson argued, to make the world “safe for democracy&#8230;to vindicate the principles of peace and justice.”</p>
<p>Our current president simply doesn’t believe that. As Johns Hopkins scholar Foaud Ajami has observed, there is an “ambivalence at the heart of the Obama diplomacy about freedom.”</p>
<p>And there is a sad relativism about America’s place and purpose in the world at the heart of this president’s foreign policy. It pays to recall that under the Obama administration, for the first time ever, the United States will conduct a human rights review of itself, hand it over to the UN Human Rights Council, and then “submit itself to a process in which America’s record might be judged by some of the world’s worst human rights abusers,” as <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/12/state_department_preparing_human_rights_report_on_the_united_states">Foreign Policy</a> magazine reports.</p>
<p>In a similar vein, the United States is edging closer to the International Criminal Court. “That we are not a signatory,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said of the ICC, “is a great regret.” UN Ambassador Susan Rice has called the ICC “an important and credible instrument.”</p>
<p>By the way, among those currently under indictment and/or investigation by the ICC are warlords in Uganda, genocidal generals in Sudan, and, apparently, U.S. troops trying to rebuild Afghanistan: According to a <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574519253095440312.html">report</a>, the ICC is conducting a “preliminary examination into whether NATO troops, including American soldiers, fighting the Taliban may have to be put in the dock.”</p>
<p>That’s the inevitable destination of a foreign policy that is idealistic about the world but cynical about America’s role in it.</p>
<p><em>Alan W. Dowd writes on defense and security issues.</em></p>
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		<title>Finkelstein&#8217;s Slander Against Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-klein/finkelsteins-slander-against-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=finkelsteins-slander-against-israel</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:06:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abraham]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Jewish-collaborator and Hamas-apologist is at it again. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/finkelstein.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57826" title="finkelstein" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/finkelstein.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="427" /></a></p>
<p>Norman Finkelstein, the professional Israel-basher, appeared before the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York on April 7<sup>th</sup> to hawk his newest diatribe against Israel entitled <em>‘This Time We Went Too Far.’</em> Finkelstein claimed in his book that he was providing “an accurate record” of the “suffering” that the Gazan population “endured” as a result of the “merciless Israeli assault.”  He urged the UN correspondents to publicize his message about what he called the “bloodletting in Gaza.”</p>
<p>Finkelstein was referring to Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched in December 2008 to put a stop to the incessant rocket attacks launched from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists against civilians living in Southern Israel.</p>
<p>In his remarks to the UN correspondents, Finkelstein said that it was inaccurate to characterize what happened in Gaza as a war.  He described it as a “massacre” deliberately designed by the Israeli government and military to terrorize the people of Gaza with “disproportionate force.”  The real reason for Israel’s invasion, Finkelstein asserted, was to teach Arabs a lesson after Israel’s “defeat” in Lebanon in 2006.</p>
<p>To support his thesis that Israel used unreasonably disproportionate force against a defenseless civilian population and engaged in a “massacre” rather than a war, Finkelstein cited testimony from unnamed Israeli soldiers who were quoted as saying that they did not engage any combatants on the Hamas side.  He also referred, as an example of Israel’s true intentions, to former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who said at the time that &#8220;Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.&#8221;</p>
<p>Often associated with rowdiness at soccer games, “hooliganism” is a slang word that in the worst dictionary definition of the term refers to willful wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others.  Let us suppose for the moment that this is what Livni actually meant and that “willful wanton and malicious destruction of Palestinian property” in Gaza reflected Israel’s true intentions.  Is Israel expected to stand by and let Hamas and its other terrorist allies shoot rockets into Israeli civilian centers all day and night long, day after day &#8211; following repeated Israeli warnings to stop or face the consequences &#8211; without finally inflicting real damage to Hamas’ infrastructure in return?  The use of disproportionate force to inflict damage against the enemy’s infrastructure was the only means available to stop Hamas’ campaign of aggressive violence against Israeli civilians.</p>
<p>If destroying the enemy’s infrastructure were considered a “war crime” or a “crime against humanity,” then Abraham Lincoln deserves to be branded a war criminal for endorsing the strategy of his general Ulysses S. Grant who took command of the Union Army with the goal of seeking &#8220;the utter destruction of the Confederacy&#8217;s capacity to wage war.&#8221;  Grant ordered his subordinates, &#8220;To strike against [the enemy] and break it up, get into the interior of the enemy&#8217;s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can upon their war resources.&#8221;</p>
<p>Cruel, yes, but the strategy put an end to the four year Civil War.</p>
<p>I understand that this is a crude comparison, but Israel was at war with terrorists determined to destroy the Jewish state and who refused to heed Israel’s many warnings to stop the rocket attacks meant to kill and terrorize innocent Israeli civilians.  On the other hand, Finkelstein does not believe there was any war in Gaza at all to bring to an end, which would possibly justify what Israel did.  But he completely ducked my question concerning the Hamas Covenant’s threat of annihilation of Israel, backed by Hamas’ terrorism campaign.  Didn’t Israel have a legitimate existential fear for its survival, I asked him?  His response indicated the twisted nature of this Hamas apologist’s way of thinking.</p>
<p>First, Finkelstein said that my question was made up of “99% fantasy,” even though I was quoting from the Hamas Covenant:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it&#8221; (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”</p></blockquote>
<p>I also quoted Al-Zahar, the overall leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip who said:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I hope that our dream of having an independent state on the entire territory of historical Palestine will be realized one day.&#8221; This dream, he added, &#8220;will become real one day. I&#8217;m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>After refusing to directly respond to my question, Finkelstein said that even if this threat to Israel’s existence were real (which he continued to deny was the case) it would not justify Israel’s actions.  This regular mocker of his fellow Jews’ Holocaust suffering (which had included his own Holocaust survivor parents) gave an incredible response to a question from another UN correspondent, who had asked him to compare the Nazi horrors with Israel’s alleged war crimes.  Finkelstein said that he saw little difference between Jewish children being murdered in gas chambers by the Nazis and Palestinian children being burnt by white phosphorous in Gaza.</p>
<p>The loss of any innocent child’s life – whether Palestinian or Israeli – is tragic. Perhaps Israel could have done more to avoid some deaths and serious injuries in Gaza, even though the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan observed that in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza the Israeli army “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”  But even assuming the accuracy of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ worst case figure of 313 children killed among the 1414 Palestinians who died over a 23-day period (which defined a child as anyone under the age of 18), does that really compare with the more than 1.2 million Jewish children deliberately exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust?</p>
<p>By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews.  In the Gaza Strip, the Arab population grew from 82,500 to 1,428, 757     between 1948 and 2006.  There were no Jews at all living in Gaza in 2006.  The Palestinians were handed a golden opportunity to govern themselves and create the foundation for an independent state.  After Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza, there was no blockade of the borders. Only after Hamas came to power, bringing with it the real potential to make good on its threat to annihilate Israel, did Israel take more defensive precautions that included a blockade.   Finkelstein never mentioned that Hamas smuggled arms into Gaza, crossed the Israeli border to kidnap an Israeli soldier who is still languishing in Hamas’ hands if he is alive at all, and launched thousands of rockets targeted to hit schools and other Israeli civilian centers.</p>
<p>After Finkelstein got through excoriating Israel for what he called a “terrorist attack on a civilian population” and denying that Israel was engaged in a real bona fide war with a terrorist enemy sworn to Israel’s destruction, he went on to defend the findings of the <em>Goldstone Report</em> that had been commissioned by the anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council.  He called the report’s findings incontrovertible and its conclusion that Israel “might” have committed crimes against humanity the most “cautious” of all human rights reports.  Finkelstein claimed that the only reason Israel and its supporters were trying to debunk the report was because they were particularly upset about the credentials of the prime author, Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa &#8211; a Jew and a self-described committed Zionist as well as a distinguished international jurist.</p>
<p>First of all, Finkelstein conveniently left out of his praise of the <em>Goldstone Report</em> the part about Hamas’ own violations of international human rights law. Second, he neglected to mention the biased composition of the panel serving with Judge Goldstone that conducted its fact-finding mission in Gaza at the UN Human Rights Council’s behest.</p>
<p>The fact-finding mission had pledged to impartially assess “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed” in the Israel-Gaza conflict. International law requires such impartiality – an ingredient missing in virtually every UN-sponsored investigation of Israel and sadly missing in this case.</p>
<p>For example, prior to seeing any evidence a panel member, Professor Christine Chinkin, had publicly declared that one of the parties—Israel—was guilty.  She remained on the panel even after this obvious bias was pointed out.  Another biased member of the four person panel, Ms. Hina Jilani, was quoted as stating in 2005: &#8220;Israel is depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights using security as an excuse.&#8221;  A third member of the panel, Irish Colonel Desmond Travers, showed his anti-Israel bias and motivation to find Israel guilty irrespective of the facts when in an  interview he accused Israeli soldiers of having killed Irish soldiers in Lebanon with &#8220;a significant number who were taken out deliberately and shot (in southern Lebanon.).&#8221; There was no credible evidence presented for that allegation either.</p>
<p>Poor Judge Goldstone, even assuming he brought to his task the most honorable of intentions, was outnumbered 3-1.</p>
<p>How was the majority’s bias reflected in the Goldstone mission’s fact-finding?  It simply ignored inconvenient evidence that contradicted the majority opinion that Israel was guilty as charged.  For example, Israel produced photographic evidence that Gaza mosques were used to store rockets and other weapons.  That could not be, said Desmond Travers.  &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe the photographs… Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion.&#8221;</p>
<p>Finally, the <em>Goldstone Report</em> applied an outdated notion of international law that, in its interpretation, requires a democracy to sit back and wait for its citizens to be murdered in droves by armed terrorists before responding with overwhelming military force to prevent more attacks.  Israel has the right to defend its innocent civilian citizens from attack by whatever means it deems necessary after fair warning and less forceful measures were tried without success.</p>
<p>Norman Finkelstein said that he is working with Arab nations and others to wrangle an invitation to address the United Nations General Assembly about Israel’s alleged “crimes” against the Palestinians.  Of course, his arrogant pitch for attention and 15 minutes of fame should be rejected out of hand.  But knowing the present composition of the General Assembly, he may well get that invitation.  If he does, the United States and its allies should insist on a rebuttal address by someone like Professor Alan Dershowitz who can cut this provocateur down to size.</p>
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		<title>Gitmo Lawyer Julia Tarver Mason: Aiding, Abetting … and Not Talking</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/richard-pollock/gitmo-lawyer-julia-tarver-mason-aiding-abetting-%e2%80%a6-and-not-talking/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gitmo-lawyer-julia-tarver-mason-aiding-abetting-%25e2%2580%25a6-and-not-talking</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:03:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard Pollock]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A mystery man in a giant SUV nudges me off her trail. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/mason1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54837" title="mason1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/mason1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="366" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/">Pajamas</a>. </strong></p>
<p>Yesterday morning, I had an encounter on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. with Julia Tarver Mason — a lawyer who represents several accused terrorists.</p>
<p>I found that Ms. Mason is more willing to speak with terrorists then reporters.</p>
<p>My interest in Ms. Mason began two nights ago, when I read the investigative piece <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704131404575117611125872740.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular">by Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn</a> in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> regarding 400 American lawyers from high priced law firms who have “volunteered” their time to personally wage “lawfare” on behalf of enemy combatants held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. One of the premier firms involved is Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &amp; Garrison, which boasted in 2007: “Paul, Weiss achieves more victories for Guantanamo detainees.” Ms. Julia Tarver Mason is a partner in the firm.</p>
<p>In 2006, Mason was banned from Guantanamo Bay by the base commander and the U.S. Department of Justice for secretly passing on anti-American propaganda and operational detention details to her “client.”</p>
<p>This client was Majeed Abdullah Al Joudi. Al Joudi, a Saudi member of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. In 2004, it was <a title="disclosed" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majeed_Abdullah_Al_Joudi">disclosed</a> at his combat status review tribunal that he was “was captured with al-Qaeda surveillance evasion reports and after-action reports.”</p>
<p>The anti-American propaganda Mason secretly passed on to Mr. Al Joudi was a slick, inflammatory 18-page color brochure — written entirely in Arabic — that slammed American detention policy as “that of anti-Arab, anti-Islamic, and other racist abuse.” It was filled with pictures of masked, bound, and kneeling prisoners, and according to the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, “included pictures of what appeared to be detainee operations in Iraq.”</p>
<p>Ms. Mason had been secretly sending incendiary materials to her client through a system called “legal mail,” which is supposed to be strictly legal correspondence between a lawyer and the enemy combatant. According to Burlingame and Joscelyn, a 2004 protective order by federal Judge Joyce Hens Green forbids the lawyers to give out any information on political news, current events, or the names of U.S. government personnel.</p>
<p>Ms. Mason and her other Paul, Weiss lawyers were banned by Major General Jay W. Hood, then commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo. General Hood said — in a sworn affidavit submitted to the D.C. District Court, obtained by Burlingame and Joscelyn under the Freedom of Information Act — that the pamphlet aided and abetted the terrorists there:</p>
<blockquote><p>The very nature of this document gives tremendous moral support to those who would strike out against our country.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>It is not a factual report.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>[Photos] were staged, inflammatory photos from Iraq [with] provocative story captions.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>To continue reading this article, <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gitmo-lawyer-julia-tarver-mason-aiding-abetting-and-not-talking/">click here</a>.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
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		<title>Napolitano Stumbles Upon Islamic Jihad</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/napolitano-stumbles-upon-islamic-jihad-4/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=napolitano-stumbles-upon-islamic-jihad-4</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:04:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will the Obama administration now make an issue out of where Hasan got his “violent Islamic extremism” from? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Napolitano2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52027" title="Napolitano" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Napolitano2.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="374" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com">Newsreal</a></strong></p>
<p>Wow, according to Fox News, <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2392" target="_blank">Janet Napolitano</a> just described what happened at Fort  Hood as “violent Islamic extremism.”</p>
<p>This is quite a step. How long did it take her to figure this one out?</p>
<p>It must be hard, after all, when you’re a person who heads Homeland Security but who has no idea who the 9/11 hijackers were – and thinks that they<a href="../2010/01/25/brown%E2%80%99s-national-security-victory/"> came from Canada</a>. It’s really difficult when your first instinct after Abdulmutallab almost blew himself up on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, is to say that the airport security “system worked.”</p>
<p>Hmmm, I wonder if Napolitano will now confirm that thirteen American heroes lost their lives at Fort Hood precisely because of people like her, who have created a culture in which naming<em> Islamic extremism </em>and crystallizing its roots is disallowed? Major Nidal Malik Hasan would have been thrown out of the army a long time before his shooting spree if members of the army were not afraid to get in trouble for violating “diversity” and felt safe to point a finger at a Muslim who was preaching hate and violence against non-Muslims.</p>
<p>Will Napolitano and the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511" target="_blank">Obama administration</a> now make an issue out of where Hasan got his “violent Islamic extremism” from? Indeed, from where oh where could Hasan have possibly got the idea that he was supposed to kill the kafir? Hmmm, could it have been from the Verse of the Sword of the Koran (9:5)?</p>
<p>Hmmm, could it have been from all the other Koranic verses? (i.e. 9:29).</p>
<p>This is just all so mysterious.</p>
<p>Is the Obama administration now going to talk about how Hasan’s and Abdullmutallab’s actions, and, well, you know, things like 9/11, just might have something to do with the fact that <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30886">61% of the Koran</a> is devoted to the hatred of non-Muslims, that 75% of the Sira (the life of Mohammed) is devoted to jihad, and that 20% of the Hadith is in reference to the necessity of subjugating and killing the infidel?</p>
<p>I wonder, could any of this have anything to do with the fact that <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30886">nowhere in Islamic theology is there even <em>one positive reference</em></a> to kafirs and even the slightest suggestion that a Muslim should love them as much as he loves himself?</p>
<p>How do we win this terror war if our administration not only refuses to fight the enemy on many realms, but to even name him?</p>
<p>The issue here is not to demonize Muslims. Many Muslims, like Tarek Fatah and Irshad Manji, are fighting to reform Islam and to bring it into the modern and democratic world. We must support them. Millions of Muslims suffer from persecution under Sharia Law. We must help them. The key is that it is time to be honest about what Islamic theology inspires and sanctions. The key is that the onus is on the Muslim world to confront these teachings and to negate them if there is to be any possibility for an end to this conflict.</p>
<p>Napolitano’s step is a positive one. But do we hold our breath for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and to name not only <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catId=124&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">Islamic jihad</a> as our enemy, but to also name the Islamic theology that spawns it?</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><strong>To get the whole story on why the lib-Left and the Obama administration refuse to name the jihadist enemy, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, <em><a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602');" href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.</a></em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/united4.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52031" title="united" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/united4.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="515" /></a><br />
</em></strong></p>
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		<title>To Kill a Terrorist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/the-assassination-of-mahmoud-al-mabhouh/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-assassination-of-mahmoud-al-mabhouh</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:07:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[If Israel assassinated the leader of the Hamas military wing, did it have the right to?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mahmoud.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51173" title="mahmoud" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mahmoud.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="328" /></a></p>
<p>I don’t know whether Israel did or did not assassinate the leader of the Hamas military wing, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.  But assuming for argument’s sake that the Mossad made the hit, did it have the right to engage in this “extrajudicial assassination?”</p>
<p>Not all extrajudicial killings are unlawful.  Every soldier who kills an enemy combatant engages in an extrajudicial killing, as does every policeman who shoots a fleeing felon.  There are several complex legal questions involved in assessing these situations.</p>
<p>First, was the person who was killed a combatant, in relation to those killed him?  If Israel killed Mabhouh, there can be absolutely no doubt that he was a combatant.  He was actively participating in an ongoing war by Hamas against Israeli civilians.  Indeed, it is likely that he was killed while on a military mission to Iran in order to secure unlawful, anti-personnel rockets that target Israeli civilians.  Both the United States and Great Britain routinely killed such combatants during the Second World War, whether they were in uniform or not.  Moreover, Hamas combatants deliberately remove their uniforms while engaged in combat.</p>
<p>So if the Israeli Air Force had killed Mabhouh while he was in Gaza, there would be absolutely no doubt that their action would be lawful.  It does not violate international law to kill a combatant, regardless of where the combatant is found, whether he is awake or asleep and whether or not he is engaged in active combat at the moment of his demise.</p>
<p>But Mabhouh was not killed in Gaza.  He was killed in Dubai.  It is against the law of Dubai for an Israeli agent to kill a combatant against Israel while he is in Dubai.  So the people who engaged in the killing presumptively violated the domestic law of Dubai, unless there is a defense to such a killing based on international principles regarding enemy combatants.  It is unlikely that any defense would be available to an Israeli or someone working on behalf of Israel, since Dubai does not recognize Israel’s right to kill enemy combatants on its territory.</p>
<p>If it could be proved that Israel was responsible for the hit—an extremely unlikely situation—then only Dubai could lawfully bring Israelis to trial.  They would not be properly subjected to prosecution before an international tribunal.  But what if a suspect was arrested in England, the United States or some other western country and Dubai sought his extradition?  That would pose an interesting legal, diplomatic, political and moral dilemma.  Traditional extradition treaties do not explicitly cover situations of this kind.  This was not an ordinary murder.  It was carried out as a matter of state policy as part of an ongoing war.  A western democracy would certainly have the right and the power to refuse to extradite.  But they might decide, for political or diplomatic reasons, to turn the person over to Dubai.</p>
<p>Turning now to the moral considerations, which might influence a decision whether to extradite, the situation is even murkier.  The Goldstone report suggests that Israel cannot lawfully fight Hamas rockets by wholesale air attacks.  Richard Goldstone, in his interviews, has suggested that Israel should protect itself from these unlawful attacks by more proportionate retail measures, such as commando raids and targeted killing of terrorists engaged in the firing of rockets.  Well, there could be no better example of a proportionate, retail and focused attack on a combatant who was deeply involved in the rocket attacks on Israel, than the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.  Not only was Mabhouh the commander in charge of Hamas’ unlawful military actions at the time of his death, he was also personally responsible for the kidnapping and coldblooded murder of two Israeli soldiers several years earlier.</p>
<p>Obviously it would have been better if he could have been captured and subjected to judicial justice.  But it was impossible to capture him, especially when he was in Dubai.  If Israel was responsible for the killing, it had only two options: to let him go on his way and continue to endanger Israeli civilian lives by transferring unlawful anti-personnel weapons from Iran to Gaza, or to kill him.  There was no third alternative.  Given those two options, killing seems like the least tragic choice available.</p>
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		<title>Andrew C. McCarthy: Kill or Capture? &#8211; National Review Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andrew-c-mccarthy-kill-or-capture-national-review-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andrew-c-mccarthy-kill-or-capture-national-review-online</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:15:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[agenda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[alien enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[andrew c]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew C. McCarthy - National]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[argument]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[capture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clarence thomas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[creation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[detention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[due process rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy combatants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy operatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exception]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[hellfire missile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[human rights agenda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[international humanitarian law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Interrogation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intrusion]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Justice Clarence Thomas]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[second guessing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[situation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sound discretion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[system]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thesis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[treatment]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[valid options]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50909</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A few years ago, I got into an argument with an expert on military operations. I had written a white paper proposing the creation of a national-security court for terrorism cases. In the paper I criticized the trend to “judicialize” warfare, arguing that, in our system, judgments about the detention and treatment of alien enemy [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A few years ago, I got into an argument with an expert on military operations. I had written a white paper proposing the creation of a national-security court for terrorism cases. In the paper I criticized the trend to “judicialize” warfare, arguing that, in our system, judgments about the detention and treatment of alien enemy combatants are the preserve of the political branches, not the politically unaccountable courts. It was not my overall thesis to which the military expert took exception. The point of contention had to do with the incentives the legal system creates for soldiers.</p>
<p>I contended — and still contend — that the leftists who were pushing for judicial intrusion into the capture, detention, and interrogation of enemy operatives were subverting the human-rights agenda they purport to serve. There are many scenarios in which our forces are in a position either to kill or to capture the enemy, situations in which both are valid options under the laws of war. In a kill-or-capture situation, capture is the more merciful option. From an intelligence perspective, it may also be the more advantageous. The underlying objective of international humanitarian law is to civilize warfare. Yet, I posited, by freighting capture with judicial second-guessing, rather than leaving the matter to the sound discretion of our professional warfighters, the Left was virtually guaranteeing that more combatants would be killed. As Justice Clarence Thomas has observed, a Hellfire missile targeted at a jihadist who has not been given notice or an opportunity to be heard is an extremely prejudicial termination of his due-process rights.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/425301/kill-or-capture/andrew-c-mccarthy">Kill or Capture? &#8211; Andrew C. McCarthy &#8211; National Review Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Battle for Marjah</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/stephenbrown/the-battle-for-marjah/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-battle-for-marjah</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:30:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[afghan conflict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[american army]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[battle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[behind enemy lines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[booby traps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[captain ryan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Captain Ryan Sparks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Center]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[central Helmand]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[city]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clearing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dari language]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[enemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[enemy fighters]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[experience]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General Stanley McChrystal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[helicopter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[helmand province]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heroin trade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IED]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[IEDs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[invasion of afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kabul]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kite string]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marine captain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marjah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[massive assault]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NATO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[offensive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[population]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pressure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pressure plates]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rear shock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[report]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[residential neighborhood]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Reuters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shock and awe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[southern Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[street]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taliban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taliban fighters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[us invasion of afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weapon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50621</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The largest U.S.-led offensive to date in Afghanistan targets a Taliban stronghold. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ALeqM5grPysrX7e0p3MD2EBn2t0K-gpUsA.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50626" title="APTOPIX Afghanistan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ALeqM5grPysrX7e0p3MD2EBn2t0K-gpUsA.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="348" /></a></p>
<p>After promising every spring to drive foreign troops out of Afghanistan and capture Kabul, the Taliban are now facing a powerful spring offensive of their own.</p>
<p>In a massive assault launched last Saturday – the biggest since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 – about 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops successfully breached Taliban defenses around Marjah in turbulent southern Afghanistan’s central Helmand province. With about 80,000 inhabitants, Marjah is the last Taliban-held city on Afghan soil and the center for 90 percent of the world’s heroin trade, a major source of insurgent funds.</p>
<p>Codenamed Operation Moshtarak (meaning “together” in the Dari language), the offensive got off to an excellent start when US troops surprised the estimated 2,000 Taliban defenders with a helicopter lift into the city center behind enemy lines. The daring attack seized important points, disrupting Taliban defensive plans and subjecting Taliban fighters to attacks from both front and rear.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ALeqM5ikwX8LZhy47b22HUekXkaT1u_3YA.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-50629" title="Afghanistan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ALeqM5ikwX8LZhy47b22HUekXkaT1u_3YA.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="318" /></a><em> Shock and awe: A helicopter assault by U.S. Marines caught the Taliban off guard in Marjah. </em></p>
<p>Since then, the going has, as expected, been tough. This is due to the Taliban having planted booby traps throughout the city as well as to their snipers. According to one report, the enemy is concentrating in a central bazaar and in a densely-populated residential neighborhood, which they are defending fiercely. “The Taliban have booby-trapped everywhere. We can’t even come out of our homes,” one Marjah resident told Reuters.</p>
<p>The Taliban have used Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) extensively in the Afghan conflict. But the weapon’s presence in Marjah is so widespread, Marine Captain Ryan Sparks called the IED threat “the most significant…that anybody has ever faced. “I know there’s pressure plates, command-detonated, kite-string and pressure release IEDs. That will definitely be a problem, the IEDs,” he said.</p>
<p>Clearing booby-trapped neighborhoods of enemy fighters in house-to-house fighting is a time-consuming process. Fortunately, the American army has the experience of the 2004 Battle of Fallujah in Iraq to draw on, in which American troops quickly defeated, street by street, several thousand enemy combatants. This experience should also help make the Marjah battle a short one. When all is lost, the Taliban fighters are expected to melt into the civilian population or flee, as some are reported to have already done.</p>
<p>But the task of clearing Marjah has been slowed and made more difficult by the extra sensitivity American and allied troops must now show regarding civilian casualties. This was caused by what is perhaps the biggest Taliban victory of the war so far, namely, the change made to the allied Rules of Engagement (ROE) last year.</p>
<p>Due to media controversies about civilian deaths, the ROE were altered and now state American and NATO troops have to be very careful when conducting operations around civilians. It is now much more difficult, for example, for western forces to drop smart bombs or missiles on targets where civilians might be present.</p>
<p>One military analyst claims the ROE change occurred because of the Taliban’s ability to manipulate the media and western journalists’ “enthusiasm for jumping on real, or imagined, civilian deaths”, since dead civilians are considered news. In other words, the Taliban, who are very media-savvy, successfully turned civilian casualties in Afghanistan into “a powerful propaganda weapon” that many in the western media ran with.</p>
<p>In the liberal media’s world, civilian death scandals have other uses besides selling newspapers and boosting viewer ratings. They also come in very handy for assailing the military. Worst of all, the media’s agonizing over civilian casualties in Afghanistan seems one-sided. Thus, one sees few stories about the countless civilians the Taliban have brutalized and killed. And yet, according to one report, the Taliban have killed four times as many civilians as American and NATO troops. But that kind of civilian casualty scandal does not make for headline news.</p>
<p>For example, one does not often see a quote like the following from an Afghan father whose son lost his leg to a Taliban roadside IED:</p>
<blockquote><p>“I do not mind if I am killed, provided the Americans get rid of the Taliban. Those tyrants have taken my son’s leg.”</p></blockquote>
<p>There have been even fewer stories about the brutal treatment of Marjah’s civilian population under Taliban rule. One report states that Marjah families were forced to give their daughters as wives to Taliban fighters. People have also been executed as “spies.”</p>
<p>Instead, in the first days of the assault, it appeared publications like the <em>New York Times</em> were more focused on the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/world/asia/15afghan.html">12 Afghan civilians</a> that were killed in a house outside Marjah by an American missile than on the battle and the heroism of our troops. At first, it was thought this was an errant air strike, for which General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander, apologized. But it later turned out fire was being received from the house.</p>
<p>In all probability, the Taliban were using the civilians as human shields. American and NATO troops have reported similar human shield incidents in the Marjah battle. Exploiting the ROE, the Taliban have used innocent civilians as cover in attacks against western soldiers in other parts of Afghanistan as well.</p>
<p>One analyst believes the changes to the ROE have not just increased the danger to the lives of western troops, but also to those of the civilians they were supposed to benefit. Since American troops in Marjah have to advance more slowly out of concern for the civilian population, this leaves civilians longer in the unpredictable and dangerous hands of the Taliban as well as prolongs the battle.</p>
<p>Besides the bravery and professionalism of American and allied soldiers, the real story of the Marjah battle is not how many civilians have been killed, as the liberal media like to emphasize, but how few. According to one report, 15 Afghans have perished so far in the fighting. This, one observer states, is “spectacularly low by historical standards.” But that, unfortunately, is not news.</p>
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