Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Soldiers Must Know Who is the Enemy!

Ted Belman


Denying Islam's role in terror is bad for army morale.
To win a war one must know the enemy!
As US service members risk their lives to combat violent jihadists abroad, military leaders, both uniformed and civilian, capitulate to stealth jihadists at home. By bending to Islamists' appeals for religious sensitivity, these leaders ignore the most crucial lesson of the Fort Hood massacre: Political correctness can kill.
The US Army seems to have succumbed to PC-Islamist sensitivities. It has issued a special handbook for soldiers that appears to justify jihad as "communal military defense... when (Muslims) are threatened or under attack." In addition, U.S. servicewomen have been urged to don head scarves when interacting with Afghan locals while all soldiers are warned to "respect Islam" in order to prevent violence there.

The Pentagon's verbal tiptoeing is not limited to the Fort Hood rampage. The Defense Department-produced "Quadrennial Defense Review" (QDR) provides a measure of current trends. Whereas the 2006 QDR features more than a dozen instances of "Islam," "Muslim," and their variants, the 2010 QDR has none, instead describing challenges in vague terms such as "violent extremists." Then there was the testimony of Paul Stockton, an assistant secretary of defense, on December 7, 2011. When Congressman Dan Lungren (Republican, Calif.) asked if America is "at war with violent Islamist extremism," Stockton replied, "No, sir. We are at war with al-Qaeda, its affiliates." Questioned whether al-Qaeda is "an exponent of violent Islamist extremism," Stockton could muster only that these "murderers" are "dedicated to overthrowing the values that we intend to advance." He added, "I don't believe it's helpful to frame our adversary as Islamic with any set of qualifiers."
A full accounting of the military's myriad concessions to Islamists and its disturbing relationships with them could fill several articles, but the following examples offer some taste of their variety. In 2010, the Army rescinded an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to participate in the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer service, citing his comments critical of Islam. A year later, the Defense Department gave in to CAIR's demands that high school students in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps be allowed to wear hijabs with their uniforms. (A war without a clearly identified objective and enemy is bad for an army's morale and leads nowhere but defeat! These are the main reasons why the US army personnel are having so many cases of PTSD, left Iraq in disarray and are still stuck in Afghanistan after 12 years of useless war!)
Plot Foiled to Shoot up Jewish Worshippers at Western Wall
Five East Jerusalem Palestinians were indicted on Thursday on charges of setting up a terrorist cell which plotted to kidnap an Israeli and carry out a shooting attack against Jewish worshippers and police guards in the Temple Mount and Western Wall area. The cell commanded by Nour Hamdan of E. Jerusalem contacted the Hamas's military arm Ezza e-din al-Qassam and the Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs wing on the West Bank for training and weapons.
Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak
Since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem , Jews were founders and builders of many major towns and cities in Christian Europe and the Muslim world. Jews were creators of the hubs of prosperous trade, cultural exchange, scientific and artistic centres. After Jews were driven away by hateful barbaric neighbours, most of those places experienced decline and fell apart. No wonder the Islamists have no emotional attachment to the Jewish pedigree of Aleppo in Syria and brought devastation to the ancient wonder - Europeans have been doing it for quite a while!
Israel Produces more Advanced Drones
Germany is in talks with Israel to buy weaponized drones for its military that are seen as more technologically advanced than US-made ones. The chief of Germany's air force, Lieutenant General Karl Muellner, has recently gone to Israel to attend a presentation of Israel's Heron TP drone.
Hamas military wing bulldozed a part of the ancient Anthedon Harbor in northern Gaza along the Mediterranean Sea last month due to "urgent need" for military training site. The 3,000-year-old seaport discovered in 1997 was named an international heritage site by UNESCO in 2012, and is the oldest harbor in Gaza. It contains mosaic floors with historical pillars from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic ages. (Islamists have no respect to any heritage. No international condemnation and UNESCO is silent!)
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon wants America as a partner if at all possible for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. But if Washington declines and Iran is on the verge of acquiring an operational nuclear arsenal - most probably this year - Israel must go it alone. He plans to do away with the classical divisions, brigades and professional corps like artillery and tanks which characterize a conventional army, and replace them with small, self-contained, armies capable of operating independently under their own air and artillery cover.
Egypt's foreign ministry summoned Canada's charge d'affaires in Cairo, over Foreign Minister John Baird's visit to eastern Jerusalem. Egypt's foreign ministry expressed its "astonishment" at Baird's meeting with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and demanded "a clarification of the reasons for convening the meeting in the occupied capital of Palestine," it said in a statement.
President Shimon Peres said that he does not regret the Oslo Accords, despite the fact that their signing brought about hundreds of Israeli victims who were killed in terror attacks. As part of the Oslo Accords, large numbers of weapons were given to the PA. The agreements were signed with the PLO in 1993 and, according to statistics, in the four years after the Oslo Accords, between 1993 and 1996, 256 Israelis were killed in terror attacks, compared to 97 during the four years prior to the signing, between 1989 and 1992.
Obama Peacemaking in Tatters 
PA Minister Salam Fayyad has called it quits. With Fayyad gone, the Obama administration has suffered a huge setback in its peace-making efforts - a quixotic undertaking to begin with. Twenty-four hours before Fayyad and Abbas officially parted ways, Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Fayyad in a last-ditch effort to get him to rescind his resignation. Now there definitely is no serious or even halfway dependable Palestinian leader left with whom to kick-start negotiations. (It is a well-known secret - Israel has no peace partners in the Middle East!)
Hours following a pair of blasts at the Boston Marathon that left 2 dead and up to 100 wounded according to reports, a chief doctor at the hospital where many of the patients are being treated credited Israelis with teaching his team how to respond to such disastrous attacks. "About two years ago in actual fact we asked the Israelis to come across and they helped us set up our disaster team so that we could respond in this kind of manner," said Alastair Conn, Chief of Emergency Services at Massachusetts General Hospital, responding to a question about the preparedness of his staff to handle trauma on this scale.
Turkey has declined to agree to a meeting of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue group, which includes Israel and six Arab countries. They said Egypt also declined to convene the group for the first time in five years. A NATO official in Brussels declined to comment. The Mediterranean Dialogue, founded in 2004, is intended to contribute to regional security. Along with Israel and Egypt, the other participating countries are Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Algeria and Jordan.
Another Violation of Peace Agreement
At least two Grad-style rockets were fired at Israel 's southern resort town Eilat from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula early Wednesday. Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel but relations are cool. Sinai was until recently a popular destination for Israeli travellers. (Maybe Israel needs to retake Sinai, If Egypt is unable to keep peace)

PA Village in a bid to get UNESCO Funds

A village near Bethlehem applied to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The people of Battir are hopeful that world heritage status will help preserve the village's traditions and culture. Families living in the quiet valley cultivate their crops using an irrigation system dating back to the Roman era. (Recently a UNESCO site was destroyed in Gaza to accommodate a terrorist training facility)
Quote of the Week:
"It does not seem that the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is really and truly aiming for the end of the conflict. In any case, we will continue to turn over every stone to try to end the conflict. But if we go into the diplomatic process, we must do so with open eyes." - Israel Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon - Ending the occupation of Jewish land by enemies and reunification of Eretz-Israel is the only way to end the conflict.

US Senate Approved Assistance in Iran Strike

by Elad Benari
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted on Tuesday a resolution which stipulates that the US will assist Israel if it is forced to take action against Iran .
It states that the United States has a vital national interest in and unbreakable commitment to, ensuring the existence, survival, and security of the State of Israel; reaffirms the United States support for Israel's right to self-defense; and urges that if Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States will stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.
It also states that U.S. policy is to halt Iranian nuclear ambitions. Senate Resolution 65 gained the support of 70 of the 100 senators.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said that "the regime in Tehran does not see the western world as determined to stop the nuclear project, so it allows itself to continue with its plans. Only putting the Iranian regime before the dilemma of 'bomb, or survival' will lead to the end of the project".
"The world must take the lead in the standoff with Iran, but Israel must prepare for the possibility that it will need to protect itself alone," he added.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also referred to the Iranian nuclear threat on Tuesday, comparing it to the recent behavior of North Korea. He made the comments during a reception for foreign diplomats. "We have recently seen the results of a wild regime that possesses nuclear weapons," he said. "We have also seen that heavy sanctions are not always effective against a sufficiently determined regime."
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