A Lebanese Town’s Dilemma Teaches about Islam, Freedom, and the Future of Europe

Barry Rubin  "In the Middle East, the best policy is to ally with people of Muslim religion who despise Islamist rule, like the oppositions in Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon; real democratic forces in Egypt and Syria; and Christian minorities who don’t want to be wiped out. Otherwise, nationalist dictatorships — some of which are friendly to the West; most of which had become cautious — will be replaced by Islamist dictatorships — all of which are hostile to the West, eager for sponsoring terrorism and starting wars.

"This battle isn’t against “Muslims.” It is against radical Muslims? Are all Muslims radical Islamists? Ask those who are their victims and hate them. If one-third of Egyptians seem ready to vote for Islamism, a majority don’t want an Islamist state. They may get one anyway because the Islamists are better-organized, often better-financed, more ruthless, and even often seem to enjoy more Western sympathy*."

*Western sympathy pictured.

UPDATED: Iwo Jima today -- it's still a gut-clutcher

UPDATE: Marine who led WWII charge up Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima dies   February 17, 2016  "The Marine who led the charge to place the first American flag above Iwo Jima has died.

First Lt. John Wells, 94, died Feb. 11 at the Arvada Care Rehabilitation Center in Arvada, Colorado.

Wells received the Navy Cross, Bronze Star and Purple Heart after leading his Marines in a frontal assault up the slopes of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

He didn’t make it to the top after taking multiple enemy rounds, but continued to command, leading his men to victory. His platoon raised the first flag atop the mountain, hours before the iconic photo of the second flag raising was captured.

. . . 

His published his memoir of the Battle of Iwo Jima, “Give Me 50 Marines Not Afraid to Die,” in 1995.

. . . "The engagement gained his platoon the distinction as the most decorated platoon to fight in a single engagement in the history of the Marine Corps." . . .


Solo's Hideaway Fun Pages

"A heavy machine gun, possibly a Japanese Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun, lies abandoned in

a bunker overlooking the landing beaches. There are still dozens of these bunkers all over

the island. Most of them were destroyed during the battle. This pillbox still bore the scars of

the fighting. It was pockmarked with bullet holes and the inside was blackened. I imagine a

flame thrower was used to clear that pillbox."

This monument was erected on the spot where Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, Michael Strank, John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes raised the American flag 4 days into the battle for Iwo Jima . Iwo Jima is like Mecca for the Marines. Visiting Marines leave personal mementos behind during their 'pilgrimages'.

The Eagle, Globe and Anchors on the left and right side of the monument are completely covered in dog tags left by visiting Marines and service men to honor the 6,131 killed.

Hat tip to Ron Gazda, Texas.

None of Navy SEALS killed in Afghanistan were part of team that killed Osama bin Laden, but belonged to same elite unit/ how to defend our aircraft?

God bless our warriors fighting this evil that is radical Islam.

Miami Herald  "The 30 U.S. troops killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down Saturday in western Afghanistan - many of them Navy SEALs - were fighting a war rarely talked about.

"They were not battling Afghanistan's ingrained corruption, or building new roads or crafting nascent local governments. They were part of a group of elite troops that operate stealthily in the night and go after the U.S.' most wanted targets of the war."
Islamists will be handing out sweets to passersby in the Middle East and Code Pink-types will be popping champaign corks here in the US.  The only mourning that I expect from the left will be PETA's anger over the lost dog.

Chinook helicopter

Laser-Based Missile Defense for Helicopters Being Developed.  Make it quick in case Iran has a hand in anti-aircraft technology going to Afghanistan.

Helicopters Equipped With Acoustic Shot Detection Bound for Afghanistan    "Army and Marine helicopters have been equipped with electronic detection and countermeasures to protect against shoulder fired and larger missiles for years. Yet, there are no systems to tell pilots when they’re coming under small arms fire. That’s about to change."

The way things are

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2011/08/weekend-humor-or-not.html

Blame this on President Bush too

http://dougpowers.com/2011/08/06/miss-me-yet-credit-rating-edition/

Gateway Pundit

The 18 Countries With a Better Credit Rating Than the United States

The Inexplicables; Trying to fathom the liberal way of thinking.

Victor Davis Hanson  "There are a number of things I don’t fathom about contemporary American popular culture and politics. Here is a small sample."

1) Is there a theoretical limit to our national borrowing?....

2) What are we to make of the self-referential wealthy who demand higher taxes?....

3) Is contemporary American aristocracy compatible with, antithetical to, or the logical complement to modern liberalism?....

4) Fairly or not, the entire illegal immigration debate is couched in terms of anger at the U.S.....

5) I can never quite understand the writ against our ancestors.....

...."The tragedy of the entire university, postmodern race/class/gender writ against past Americans is the fact that our generation has little to show for its moral posturing. When Obama lists our sins from Hiroshima to supposed genocide, I wonder how he would have managed a wagon train, or what he would have done when facing the horrific choices of either sending the napalm-carrying B-29s over Japan or invading the island to trump an Okinawa ten times over. Would he have voted present?"

Economics: The politics of blame

Politico  "The clarity of the downgrade intensifies suggestions that the next year will be in no small part about pinning blame. Republican presidential candidates will blame Obama, and if he wants to escape that, he's likely to launch a more aggressive and direct round of finger-pointing at Republican Congressional leaders than we've seen to date."  Via Taegan D. Goddard's Political Wire

Obama partisans ignore facts when bashing Bush  "As far as tax cuts are concerned, Bush did indeed cut taxes for the wealthy -- along with everybody else who paid income taxes. But does Brown remember that tax revenues actually increased in the years after the Bush tax cuts took effect?"  Byron York.

Obama’s Two Financial Crises  "Why is Barack Obama president of the United States? Media coddling? A weak McCain campaign? A strong, if dishonest, effort by Obama to present himself as a pragmatic centrist? All of these things played a role, but the advent of the subprime crisis at the height of the 2008 presidential campaign was the decisive factor. No drama Obama responded well, while McCain seemed over his head."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

Iran Commander: We Have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

Reza Khalili  "The radicals ruling Iran have now passed a major threshold in both their nuclear and missile programs. Barring any military action, which seems unlikely, there is no stopping them.

"We only have ourselves to blame as it is now certain that the Jihadists in Tehran will have nuclear bombs with the delivery system to target any country on the planet. Though the West relies on the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction, it will find how wrong this policy is with Iran."

Related: Iran's Nuclear Program  "American officials have also suggested that technical complications may have slowed Iran, which was once seen as being only a year or two away from a bomb. But the single biggest factor was seen as being the so-called Stuxnet worm, which analysts describe as likely the product of an Israeli-U.S. collaboration. They described it as the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed."

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 20, 2011: Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran's nuclear systems

"But then, they were stunned to discover that the Stuxnet virus, far from being eradicated, was back with a vengeance and on the offensive against their centrifuges. Iran was forced to adopt a course it had avoided last year, namely to destroy the entire plant of approximately 5,000 working centrifuges and replace them all with new machines."

From the left:

How Iran defeated Obama  "Obama rashly dismissed this highly promising approach. Instead, yielding to his ill-intentioned advisers, he pressed for a new round of Security Council sanctions against Iran. But by making an enemy of Iran, he has simply increased the bill the United States will eventually have to pay – in Afghanistan, and no doubt in Iraq and elsewhere as well."

hyscience.com/

Obama’s Hopeless Iran Strategy  November 04, 2010  "Sometimes, in diplomacy, creative ambiguity can be helpful. But, in the looming showdown over the Iranian nuclear programme, it’s time for some plain speaking."

From the right:

Andrew C. McCarthy;  Understanding Obama on Iran  "It would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs, so Obama’s instinct was to do the next best thing: to say nothing supportive of the freedom fighters. As this position became increasingly untenable politically, and as Democrats became nervous that his silence would become a winning political round for Republicans, he was moved grudgingly to burble a mild censure of the mullah’s “unjust” repression — on the order of describing a maiming as a regrettable “assault,” though enough for the Obamedia to give him cover."

Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran   "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document."

Dick Morris: The left turns on Obama

The Hill:   "The pathetic performance of President Obama in the debt debate is showing the left how incompetent and weak a leader it selected. Many are wishing they had Hillary Clinton in the White House instead! Once the man has to move beyond a set teleprompter speech, he is lost. During the BP disaster, he showed what a poor administrator he is. And now he has belied any pretensions to legislative skill. He is the un-Lyndon Johnson."

The stock market drop

Stocks Drop 1% Amid Global Jitters; Vix Soars  "Stocks tumbled in abother choppy session Friday, erasing their earlier rally as investors were quick to take profits following a stronger-than-expected government jobs report and amid ongoing jitters in the euro zone."....

"Come on! Tell me who these new hires are," said Todd Schoenberger, managing director at LandColt Trading. "A number (which still isn't anywhere near normal for a recovery period) surprised like this after the data we received, not to mention the significant layoff announcements we've been hearing about lately, just doesn't seem to add up."

From Heritage: “The White House Does Not Create Jobs”   Read this solid, in-depth article listing the specific hurdles this president is putting before the economy. 

 "The government cannot create private-sector jobs, but it can strongly affect the conditions for job-creating economic growth. But instead, the Obama Administration has helped create the conditions to stifle job growth. This morning, the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent. The positive news was that the unemployment rate went down from 9.2%."

....

"So what are just some of the job-killing conditions that are making the markets and employers nervous?"  Read more:

....

"But it is also crystal clear looking at Administration policy—coupled with unemployment as well as increased debts and deficits—that it also does not produce the conditions to create jobs."

Emphasis added.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Making the Case Against Gold ; Look past the hype -- gold isn't invincible:    "The implication is the swelling demand that has made gold such a red-hot commodity could just as quickly turn around and send gold prices south again — if all these buyers have a sudden change of heart."  For you who like to sell low and buy high, check out this chart for GLD.

The Case for and Against Gold  "It's also true that you may pay a markup for buying gold; the cost of buying a security should be factored in any investment decision. However, there are plenty of popular vehicles that, in my view, charge reasonable prices for exposure to gold: GLD, for instance, costs 40 basis points annually.

"Another complaint is that some ways of buying gold come with extra risks. I agree that investors should take those risks into consideration. Gold-mining shares, for one, are definitely more volatile and can be correlated with the stock market especially in sharp declines—so buyer beware."

Obama Glamour Can’t Fix Charisma Deficit (Updated)

Bloomberg.com

...."The alluring icon of hope and change has become just another pol, derided by his supporters as well as his opponents. As one headline succinctly put it: “Obama succumbs to the ways of Washington.”

"Most striking was how irrelevant the president seemed to the entire debate. Obama didn’t present his own alternative to the various congressional plans or make a case for a particular policy. When he tried to address the public, he came off as condescending, self-interested and detached. His pulpit proved anything but bully.

Victor Davis Hanson: Doing Without Sermons From Master Of Invective*    "After the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, President Obama made yet another call for a new civility, urging us all to tone down our partisan rhetoric. But slash-and-burn talk is unfortunately the mother's milk of politics — and no one knows that better than Chicago politician and apparently amnesiac Barack Obama, who as a state legislator, U.S. senator and president has always excelled in the use of uncivil rhetoric and personal invective."

* Dictionary.com  noun;

1. vehement or violent denunciation, censure, or reproach.

2. a railing accusation; vituperation.

3. an insulting or abusive word or expression.

adjective

4. vituperative; denunciatory; censoriously abusive.

What Is Obama Doing About the Economy? His Spokesman Fumbles for an Answer

"Q  Other than calling on Congress to pass things that you’ve been calling on Congress to pass for months -- what is he doing to help the economy?"

The top five Obama regulations that American businesses hate most  "From more than 100 different new regulations either proposed or finalized by the Obama administration, these are the five business groups hate the most, based on the number of separate organizations that wrote Issa to recommend he look into them:"....Read about them here, plus this one:

Home Depot Founder: Obama’s Regulations Are Killing Businesses  

His speeches are wonderful. His output is absolutely, incredibly bad. As he speaks about cutting out regulations, they are now producing thousands of pages of new ones. With just Obamacare by itself, you have a 2,000 page bill that’s probably going end up being 150,000 pages of regulations.

John Kerry: Media Has "Responsibility" To "Not Give Equal Time" To Tea Party

Bully Pulpit

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

..."The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual." "

More examples of Democrats doing what Democrats do here:

Nancy Pelosi: Republicans Don't Care About Deficit, Want To Destroy Government

Sen. Boxer: Republicans Want ‘Attack On Working Men and Women’