Am I missing something here? I thought that the anti-Israel bias surrounding the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict was fairly evident to most objective observers who heard the BBC reports describing the Hezbollah katyushas as “harmless rockets” and saw the doctored Rueters’ photos intended to exagerate destruction to Lebannon’s infrastructure.
But apparently CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) apparently doesn’t see it that way.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire/ — On Monday, August 28, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will host a panel discussion on “The Israel Lobby and the U.S. Response to the War in Lebanon” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The panel will feature Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of a recent Harvard University paper titled “The Israel Lobby.”
In that paper, the authors stated: “Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country — in this case, Israel — are essentially identical.
CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed had this to say:
â??For America to be regarded as an honest broker in the Middle East, we must disengage our policies in that region from the dictates of the pro-Israel lobby.”
Our friend from Jihadwatch Janet Levy had this to say of Ahmed:
He noted that public attitudes about the influence of the Israel lobby are changing. He cited a commentary in todayâ??s New Jersey Star-Ledger in which that newspaperâ??s national political correspondent stated: â??Bush must abandon his policy of unconditional support for Israel in favor of an even-handed one that might gain him credibility in the region as a more or less honest broker. And the best way to move Bush in that direction is by abandoning the unofficial taboo in this country on questioning Israel or our policy toward that country.â?Â
and this:
If youâ??re wondering why CAIR seems so active lately, it may have something to do with that $50 million they recently received from overseas radical Islamic groups: Media Campaign in US to Dispel Islamophobia.
HT LGF and Jihadwatch
Al Goreâ??s movie An Inconvenient Truth says human-emitted CO2 will boost the earthâ??s temperatures enough to melt the Arctic ice capâ??and suddenly raise sea levels by 20 feet.
Phooey.
So says author Dennis T. Aver, senior policy analyst for the U.S. State Department, who won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, due in October from Rowman & Littlefield.
In the movie, a whole Antarctic ice sheet shatters on Goreâ??s computer screen. In the real world, that isnâ??t happening. It is only the Antarctic Peninsulaâ??2 percent of the continentâ??s land area that sticks up toward the far-off equatorâ??that is warming. It recently earned headlines by calving an ice floe as big as Rhode Island, not an unusual event.
But the East Antarctic ice sheet is more than 2,000 times bigger than Rhode Island, and the ice is two miles thick! John Stone of the University of Washington, reporting in Science on January 3, 2003 says the West Antarctic ice sheet has been retreating so slowly for the past 10,000 years that it still has not fully accommodated the end of the last Ice Age, and apparently still has about 7,000 years of ice to meltâ??and the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting even more slowly than that.
Check out the entire article here.
Protein Wisdom’s Jeff Goldstein has a classic, side-splitting video up at Hot Air. Do yourself a favor and check it out!
The MSM story of the week with regard to the war on terror has been the “involuntary call-ups” of Marines. The point here is not that this isn’t a big deal, it most certainly is, especially to the 2500 heading back to the battlefield. Marines, soldiers and their familes are bearing an incredibly heavy burden to keep not just this country safe, but all of Western civilization itself.
The issue is the media spin. Here is the AP take, which is important because the AP is distributed to thousands of newspapers across the country.
Marines to issue involuntary call-ups
Corps faces shortage of volunteers for deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday it has been authorized to recall thousands of Marines to active duty, primarily because of a shortage of volunteers for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On cue, ABC News is asking the question, Is the Next Step a Draft?
If the return of the draft meme sounds familiar, that’s because it was used as a scare tactic in the final weeks of the 2004 election. John Kerry, speaking to the Des Moines Register,
“With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft.”
So what is the truth today on this call up of Marines? Anytime I have a question about a MSM story involving the military, I turn to the milbloggers. John Noonan of the excellent milblog Op-For says,
In a time where recruiting goals are consistently being met and exceeded, the mainstream media is trying to convince you that we’re on the doorstep -the back doorstep- of a Vietnam style draft. I am dying to understand this “involuntary” call-up phrase reporters keep using. Is this their way of rephrasing the word “orders?” There is no such thing as an “involuntary” call up. Military members already volunteered at the onset of their 4 year active duty + 4 year inactive ready reserve committment. Calling up reserves is not even in the same ballpark as widespread conscription, but that’s the spin papers like the Times is throwing at their readership.
An involuntary call up has existed in the past, it’s called the draft. The draft where you conscript citizens into military service without them having volunteered, hence the term involuntary.
Nor is there such thing as a backdoor draft. Reservists are recalled during wartime, plain and simple.
Our friend Matt from Blackfive is asking the right question, Media Still Doesn’t Understand Recruiting…or Do They?
A few claim it’s a “Back-door draft”, “Recruiting Shortfall”, etc. Yes, there is a problem with the size of our military. It’s not big enough to handle the war AND keep some semblance of a work-life balance (three tours is not a small strain on family or morale – it’s a HUGE strain). Maybe if the force size was increased, there would be a recruiting shortfall. But there isn’t one now.
Matt concludes his post by exposing a revolting piece of journalism by the Chicago Sun-Times, which is nothing short of a smear job against the United States Marine Corps.
You have to see it to believe it.
Thank God for milblogs is all I can say.
Know Thy Facts Not Thy Neighbor has this little tid bit.
James Howe author of “The Misfits” a book geared towards middle school aged children (12 and 13 years olds) when interviewed had this to say:
“I wanted him to be a kid who sees himself as cool, who sees nothing wrong with being attracted to the boy who sits next to him in art class as opposed to the girl on the other side of him.”
I could not agree more with Know Thy Facts Not Thy Neighbor who says:
Mr. Howe also introduces attraction, starting to date, and love in “The Misfits. Are these adult themes really appropriate for the schoolhouse curriculum? Have the “government run indoctrination camps (public schools)” ever advocated for and TAUGHT about attraction, dating and love to 12 year olds? Yes, the students talk about it amongst themselves in the halls but has it EVER been TAUGHT via books and stories? I mean, how much more agenda driven diversity lessons do our children need in order to graduate? Why is diversity and tolerance taught in the schools in the first place? Isn’t that up to the parents of the children?
Check out the 5-point plan the Democratic National Committee has developed to fight for homosexual marriage.
And people wonder why citizens can’t get out of Massachussetts fast enough?
Jamie Glazov of Frontpage Magazine (managing edito) who holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies has this article entitled “How the Soviets Gave the Mullahs the Bomb” in which he explains the Russian-Iranian connection. I have always thought that Russia was more of a threat to the US than most people believe.
After I had been face to face with a number of these, it dawned upon me that the step from being a glowing red communist to becoming a blood-thirsty Muslim fundamentalist is actually a distance equal to zero. Since then I have seen these two categories as the two sides of the same coin. Communism and Islamic fundamentalism have more in common than what meets the eye. They share the same fundamental hatred against individualism and against individuals who wish to be happy and just enjoy life.
HT Janet Levy of Jihad Watch
Judge Taylor Diggs is the Secretary and a trustee for CFSEM.
* The foundation made a “recent grant” of $45,000 over two years to the ACLU of Michigan.
* The Foundationâ??s trustees make all funding decisions at meetings held on a quarterly basis.
* Judge Taylor Diggs also ruled last week on the governmentâ??s warrantless wiretapping program.
* The case was brought before her court by the ACLU.
* Judge Taylor Diggs sided with the ACLU in the case.
She even looks like Ruth Bader. Why is the ACLU always trying to undermine the safety and security of our country?
Allahpundit has this.
HT Janet Levy of Jihadwatch