Should parents be prosecuted for their kids being habitually truant?

If my memory serves me correctly, back in the 1960s there was an ordinance or other legal requirement that parents send their children to school, the only problem back them was that it was only enforced in the white areas of Memphis.

The reality is that the only way to turn the Memphis public school population around is to have all the known tools needed to get the job done in the toolbox. We can fund the schools to the maximum, keep the schools open 12 months a year, reduce classroom teacher ratios to 10:1, and even put qualified teachers in every classroom – but if the parents don’t care, and the kids don’t show up, then it all for nothing.

Parents should be prosecuted, using the same logic that allows the police to prosecute a negligent parent that would leave their child in a car in the summer. Wouldn’t a parent be arrested if a child was found to be malnourished from neglect? A child that isn’t in school and learning a peer level is malnourished intellectually, and that parent is guilty of neglect.

How else are we to motivate the parents of the children at risk other than punitive action? I find it hard to believe that any parents of school age children would have any problem with such a public policy, and I would suspect that anyone against it probably wants the status quo to remain for a reason: They don’t want to get up in the morning, fix lunch for their kid, take him to school, help them with their homework – in other words, act like a parent should act.

What about Uptown Memphis?

In reference to the 11/25/09 CA article entitled “Fight awaits CCC on beer, panhandling”, I find the debate lacking a comprehensive perspective from our newly elected Memphis political leadership. Any honest debate has to discuss the inescapable issues of the homeless and the mentally ill from a political perspective. Policing is a short-term answer; public policy is a long-term attempt to deal with the issue.

I love downtown, and I appreciate the function that the Center City Commission serves in promoting the development of downtown, but who is lobbying on the behalf of my immediate neighborhood – East Memphis? In recent years, it seems that every corner on Poplar between White Station and Kirby are occupied by panhandlers or the mentally ill. It’s not a fluke that they don’t occupy the street corners in on Poplar throughout Germantown. Panhandling is not tolerated in Germantown or any other outlying suburb. I know it’s not politically correct to say it, but it does not reflect well on Memphis to have panhandlers on every corner of what is …for lack of a better description … Memphis’s “uptown” – Poplar between 240 and Kirby.

With that said, the city of Memphis has scattered the panhandlers all over Memphis with HUD Section 8 housing subsidies and the net effect is that there are no social services (mental health, job counseling, etc.) readily available to them. They are on the streets with no means to avail themselves of the services that are currently available. This is COMMUNITY issue first, a housing problem second, a health issue third.

Obama’s 10 month foreign policy journey

President Obama came into the office 10 months ago with virtually zero foreign policy experience, but with an expectation that he could staff his administration with smart people who specialized in the field. In a moment of supreme over-confidence, he announced in a Cairo speech that he was going to “re-engage the Muslim world in a way that would respect their “culture”, while at the same time “ work to solve the Israeli/Arab conflict” once and for all. This was his stated foreign policy priority during his first term. While it’s only been 10 months, let’s take an inventory of his accomplishments so far:

1) He set a September 30th deadline for Iran to end their nuclear efforts “or else” the US would use harsh measures. We are in November and Iran is still thumbing their nose at the world and Obama still making empty threats. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, trying to assure Israeli’s fears, said “if Iran bombed Israel the US would retaliate” – which only served to make Israelis less secure with her inference that the US would allow Iran to have the bomb and that containment was now the goal.

2) Obama, true to his campaign promise, has pulled most US troops out of harm’s way in Iraq, and the predicted massacre of the Iraqi forces began immediately. This didn’t help US credibility in the eyes of many of our dwindling allies in the Middle East.

3) During the campaign President Obama described Afghanistan as “the good war” because that is where Al Quada is based. Eight weeks ago, our military commander in the field asked for 40,000 more troops, and Obama is still trying to decide whether to add more troops - despite the fact that this month our troops are dying there at a record pace. President Obama’s “alternative strategy” is to reduce the US forces in Afghanistan and bribe the Taliban into working with the weak Afghanistan army. Analysts on the other side of this argument suggest that the money will end up financing the Taliban war against US forces in Afghanistan because there is no evidence that you can bribe someone who is fighting for a religious ideology. Plus, what happens when you stop paying them, or someone pays them more?

4) President Obama demanded that the Israeli government stop ALL expansion of existing Israeli cities around Jerusalem that are in the disputed territories, even though previous negotiations between previous US governments, as well as with Palestinian negotiators have always allowed for natural growth in these areas. This reversal of US policy not only served to alienate and create a sense of betrayal among the Israeli public towards the US and Obama, but also served to cause the Palestinians to backtrack on previous concessions and harden their positions regarding any further negotiations. Quite predictably, the Israelis have hardened their positions in retaliation for what they see as both an American and Palestinian conspiracy to change the terms of the negotiations. Recent Israeli polls indicate that 80% of Israelis don’t trust President Obama.

5) In March, 2009 the Obama administration suggested to Russia that the US would pull its missile-defense plan in Europe in exchange for Russia more aggressively joining an international effort to stop Iran’s nuclear program and isolate Iran. In September 2009, Obama went ahead and scraped the missile plan and go nothing in return from Russia on Iran, which was interpreted by the international community as a complete US capitulation to Russian demands.

The net result of 10 months of US backtracking, backstabbing and withdrawals is that Muslim extremists all over the Middle East are emboldened and motivated like they have never been since Ayatollah Khomeini took over in Iran in 1979. All of a sudden they are now focusing on taking on the government of nuclear armed Afghanistan
I will be the first to say that the former Bush administration made some pretty big mistakes, but at the rate Obama’s “foreign policy experts” are “recalibrating US foreign policy” around the world, they are looking more like rank amateurs who have no concept of the consequences of their meddling in foreign policy.

200 tons of Iranian arms seized:Where is the moral outrage?

The Israeli seizer of a cargo ship 100 miles off the coast of Israel, loaded with HUNDREDS of TONS of Iranian arms bound for Israel’s enemies – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon - has predictably produced a lack of global outrage that will only serve to further discredit those who profess to own the moral high ground in judging Israel’s defensive wars on her borders.

Among the cargo aboard the seized ship were over 3,000 Katyusha rockets, which were used to kill over 1200 Israelis citizens during the most recent Israeli/Lebanon war. The containers on the ship were tracked from the moment they left Iran until they were seized by the Israelis, and the containers were clearly marked as originating from the “Iranian Shipping Lines Group”. Iranian fingerprints are not new to the armed conflicts surrounding Israel’s borders, and this is not the first time that and Iranian arms shipment has been intercepted.

My hope is that the Israeli government, led by PM Netanyahu, will put an end to the Iranian ruse of “plausible deniability” - allowing Iranian surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah to conduct Iran’s dirty business on Israel’s borders, while claiming they have nothing to do with it.

Israel has a score to settle with the extremist Iranian regime and their revolutionary guards that is not just about their ambitions to produce nuclear weapons. It is about the past 30 years of Iranian instigated terrorism on Israel’s borders. It must be noted that the recent riots and pitched battles led by the innocent Iranian people in the streets of Iran have shown that they don’t support the Ahmadinejad government and that they are victims too. The question is whether the self-appointed global leadership of the moral high ground (and President Obama) are going to align with Israel against Iran - and capitalize on the huge opportunity presented by this seized ship, or will they continue to disregard this vagrant violation of international law?

The Fastest Way to Stop a War is to Lose it

Opponents of the Iraq war are either predicting we will lose, or are advocating that we depart prematurely - which will make defeat a fact. Many of them use the analogy of the US withdrawal from Viet Nam or Reagan's withdrawal from Beirut as the basis for their argument.

But there is an equal argument that the US pullout from Beirut was the first of many strategic military mistakes made by the US that has contributed to the horrible situation in the Mideast today. The US pullout from Lebanon emboldened Iran and their Lebanese surrogate, Hezbollah. Since then, Iran has become the epicenter of state sponsored Islamic extremism in the Middle East, and Hezbollah has transformed from a minor terrorist group into a large scale army whose existence is devoted to provoking instability in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Gaza, as well as in Iraq.

The critics of the Iraq war cry "pull out", as if there are zero consequences. When we pulled out of Viet Nam in 1975, it led to horrors that engulfed the region. The Khmer Rouge killed 1-2 million fellow Cambodians in a genocidal rampage. In Viet Nam, up to a million died in re-education camps and millions fled, mostly by boat. The defeat of the US in Viet Nam emboldened Brezhnev and the Soviets went on a geo-political offensive in the third world for over 10 years. While I am glad we left Viet Nam, there were consequences that we didn't anticipate. I say this as a former anti-Viet Nam war activist.

The pretenses that led the US war in Iraq, whether you think they were morally right or wrong - are totally irrelevant to the discussion of "what do we do now". There is no doubt that Iraq is a mess, but the reality is that the coalition forces are making slow progress that, even today, far exceeds the doomsday pre-war predictions. Do we want our troops out of harms way in Iraq? Of course. Do we want to leave open the possibility that millions could die as a result of a premature withdrawal? No. Do we want to see the US further vilified in the global community for letting Iraq and her neighbors convulse in a spasm of violence that may last decades? No. Do we want to embolden the global jihadist Muslim extremists? No. Do we want to send the wrong signal to our allies that we aren't to be trusted? No.

Rather than opposition to the war in Iraq based on partisan opportunism, maybe the discussion of ending the war in Iraq should center on pressing our military leaders to develop more potent techniques and strategies in order to win the war. Winning a war has always taken longer than losing.

The Silver Lining to the Hamas coup in Gaza

The violent coup in Gaza by the Islamic extremist terrorist group Hamas this past week is a tragic turn of events for the Palestinians and for the prospects for peace in the region. There are, however, useful lessons that the West can learn from this tragedy.

First and foremost, Western pressure to impose democracy doesn't necessarily work the way we expect: The Palestinian people overwhelmingly voted for Hamas, a group whose goal is the total destruction of Israel. We also have learned this lesson in Iraq.

Secondly, giving legitimacy to puppet "heads of state" doesn't work: Facts on the ground should trump our desire for peace. The West wasted substantial diplomatic currency and valuable time by giving former Palestinian PM Abbas undeserved international legitimacy - when he was obviously powerless and not endorsed by the Palestinian people.

Lastly, diplomacy has its limitations: Papering over a conflict with a worthless peace agreement is more damaging than doing nothing.

The Israeli government has clearly stated that it is not pleased with the consolidation of the Gaza strip under Hamas. This takes the likelihood of peaceful two state solution as envisioned by the quartet off the map, and forces all the parties to examine how this deterioration happened (even after the Israelis pulled out of Gaza 3 years ago) – and where the parties go from here.

Of course, the prime suspects in this deterioration are Egypt and Iran. In an effort to give Islamic extremists a place to vent their violent tendencies outside of Egyptian territory, Egypt allowed the large scale smuggling of Islamic fighters from across the Arab world, and allowed the smuggling of massive quantities of arms into Gaza. Iran, on the other hand, trained the fighters and supplied the explosives that were being smuggled into Gaza.

The silver lining to this event is that the pretenses that have allowed this deterioration to develop are gone. Now the conflict may actually reach a climatic end where it is allowed to "burn itself out' - and the possibility of peace could once again emerge.

Resurrect the idea of expelling the Palestinians

As distasteful as the idea of "expelling" a people from one area, and re-settling them in another may be – especially in the current climate of political correctness, the need for Mideast peace and the lack of viable options necessitates legitimizing this idea, if only for the sake of discussion.

No one bats an eye when the press or Iraqi politicians mention moving Sunnis to one district, Shiites to another. The world gave a Nobel peace prize to those who moved Cypriots and Greeks to different sides of Cyprus in order to achieve what negotiations couldn't.

At the end of the day, all the wasted breath on who did what to whom is just an endless cycle of regurgitated propaganda. Israel is a full fledged country, just as legitimate as Australia or the United States. No one is demanding that America give the USA back to the Indians, and I don't see the Australians beating themselves up because they crowded out the Aborigines. At his stage of the world, facts on the ground trump Arab/Muslim sensitivities that can never be satisfied.

If the world's political leaders want the Mideast conflict settled, then they should look for better solutions than what they have put forward to date. A good place to start is for "Palestinian expulsion" to be accepted in the marketplace of ideas. At the very least, just legitimizing the conversation might make the Palestinians realize that the world – and Israel – has a limited amount of patience, and that they will pay a price for their folly. Enough of this catering to the Palestinian's love affair with victimhood.

As for where these expelled Palestinians are to go? That is likely to be a far easier solution than settling the current conflict. It's an Arab problem with an Arab solution. There is no shortage of arable vacant land in the Arab world, and there is no shortage of Arab/Muslim petro-dollars to make the transition easier.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". (Sir Edmund Burke)

In the USA during the 1850s, not all Americans were slave owners, but all slave owners were Americans. The American civil war was the model for good people to come together and act, in order to prevent evil from prevailing. Over 1 million white Northern young men put on the uniform of the Federal government and marched past the Mason Dixon line in order to put an end to slavery in the United States. Over 390,000 Federal troops died and over 275,000 were wounded in action. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, and the North did what it had to do.

During the civil rights era (1955-1968), a wide assortment of Americans - Northerners, Southerners, black and white, Jewish and Christian – conducted boycotts, organized sit-ins, mass marches and freedom rides in order to make sure that all Americans shared equally in the freedoms guaranteed under the US constitution. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, and the American public rose to the challenge.

Not all Germans were Nazis, but all Nazis were Germans. When WW2 was over, Nazi soldiers claimed they were only following orders. German civilians claimed they were innocent victims of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. The reality, of course, is that German civilians did not sufficiently raise their voice in opposition to the Nazi party BEFORE Hitler came to power, didn't march into the streets in opposition to the Nazi party DURING its formulative years, and couldn't do anything about it once Germany had morphed into a full fledged Nazi state. The German people bore total responsibility for the catastrophe that their government perpetrated on the world. All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, and the Germans did nothing.

Islamic scholars have said that the modern day phenomenon of Islamic extremism can be traced back to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Arab terrorism is not necessarily the same as Muslim extremist terrorism, and the distinction is important if one wants to understand how such a violent form of Islam could develop. Arab nationalists have long viewed the very existence of Israel as an insult to the Arab world, and for decades the Muslim/Arab capitals of the Mideast have sanctioned "acts of terrorism" against Israel as legitimate expressions of "resistance". Now, the homegrown "resistance fighters" whom the Arab world groomed in conflicts ranging from Afghanistan to Chechnya to Israel over the last past 50 years have – for lack of legitimate alternatives in their home countries – adopted a Jihadist version of Islam to justify continuing the mayhem. The world, unfortunately, turned a blind eye to terrorism as long as it was aimed only at Israel. THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE "GOOD TERRORISM". Aided by western technology and endless amounts of oil money, Islamic extremism has reached a tipping point and gone global – and is now aiming it's sights on fellow Muslims as well - which proves the point that if you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of Muslims are regular people like you and me, and want nothing to do with Islamic extremists or Jihadists. Unfortunately, most of the terrorism around the globe is being committed in the name of Islam. Many people see the rise of Islamic extremism in the same light as the rise of Nazi fascism in 1938, and we have a moral responsibility to speak out and awaken the public. In this day and age of "political correctness", our message is sometimes intentionally mis-construed as promoting "Islamiphobia" by Islamists who are determined to control the public debate. In Europe, Islamic apologists have risen in righteous indignation – and sometimes in spasms of widespread violence - over ANY criticism of Muslim extremists, despite the bloody body of evidence strewn across the globe (Bali, London, New York, Moscow, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Dafur, Turkey, Thailand etc.).

Many Islamic apologists prefer to express their revulsion with Islamic extremism by claiming that their "peaceful religion" is being hijacked by a small minority. My response to them is that if Islam has been hijacked, then moderate Muslims have a moral responsibility to end the hijacking and reclaim their faith. The US war against Islamic extremism is not winnable in the classical sense. There are no clear fields of battle, no capitals to conquer, and no leaders to surrender. Our military can keep Islamic extremist "on their heels" for as long as our country gives them support - but an American public that is "unaware" of the magnitude of this threat runs the risk of losing its resolve. Extremists aren't attacking us for territory, or material wealth. They are attacking our way of life. One only has to look at Britain or France to see what complacence and appeasement will produce in response to Muslim extremism. They are threatening the very core of the Western Judeo-Christian values upon which America was founded – democracy, freedom and the rule of law. If we underestimate this threat, if we don't understand this threat, then we run the risk of letting this menace strengthen beyond our capacity to contain it.

If there is any legitimate criticism of the way we are currently waging the war on Islamic extremism today - and there is much to criticize, it is the fact that the average American citizen isn't "engaged" in this war on ANY level. During WW2, everyone on the home front was "chipping in" and doing their part for "the cause". That's why we are here today. The Memphis Branch of HonestReporting wants to educate and mobilize the Mid-South community to support our government, to support our troops, support our allies, and give individuals a tangible way to be a part of the struggle to defeat this enemy. There are sign up sheets in the back of the room if you would like to join our organization.

If it's true that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing", then we want to make sure evil fails.

Thank you very much.

Muslim claims that the USA media and police are biased against Muslims/Arabs

It is deceitful of Muslim commentators to claim that the media should have called the Virginia Tech shooter (32 dead) a “terrorist” instead of a “mass murderer, insinuating a media/law enforcement bias against Muslims. The dictionary calls terrorism an “act of violence with the intent of intimidation, and is often part of a larger terror campaign meant to advance a religious or political point of view”.

July 4th, 2002: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian, opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport while standing in line at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines killing two and wounding four others before an airline security officer shot him dead. Federal, law enforcement and city officials said it appeared the shooting was an isolated incident, with nothing to suggest otherwise. “There is no indication of any terrorism connection in this matter”, said FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin.

May 23rd, 2002: A Pensacola, Florida, man opened fire at a ticket counter at the main airport in New Orleans, killing one person and wounding another. Authorities said Patrick Gott, a Muslim man, told them he opened fire because people had made fun of his turban at a restaurant... Officials said the shooting did not appear to be related to terrorism and that Gott acted alone.

These are two examples of Muslims committing similar acts of violence. I would contend that the 7/4/02 incident – the Egyptian who attacked the Israeli Air Line ticket counter -was a terrorist act because of the Israeli victims, as well as testimony that came forward regarding his radicalized Muslim religious disposition. In the 5/23/02 incident, the victims were completely random, the perpetrator’s background indicated mental problems, and therefore there was no ulterior motive other than insane rage over some comments about his turban.

Contrary to Muslim commentators asserting media/law enforcement bias, I would contend that the Federal government has clearly gone out of its way to be politically correct in these incidents – opting to call them both “random acts of violence” - despite the glaring distinction between the two.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/04/la.airport.shooting/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/23/national/main509955.shtml

IRAN making a mockery of the United Nations…again…and again…and again

On April 9, 2007 there was a United Nations "believe-it-or-not" moment that was fit for the comic books. At the same time that Iran's President Ahmadinejad declared his country was now capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment AND had kidnapped and imprisoned a dozen British sailors, the U.N. re-elected Iran as a vice chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission. The very U.N. body charged with promoting nuclear nonproliferation installed in a senior position the state that the Security Council recently declared violated its nonproliferation resolutions.

In Iran, Ahmadinejad gloated at the Natanz nuclear facility: "With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale" (in violation of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty- NPT). At the same time, the Iranian vice chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, Seyed Mohammad Ali Robatjazi, railed against "noncompliance with the NPT by the United States" and "the Zionist lobby."

It took the U.N. a mere five days to consider Iran "rehabilitated" after the British kidnap victims made it home alive. Just the night before on April 8, Faye Turney, the only female victim, revealed her Iranian abductors stripped her to her underwear, caged her in a tiny, freezing cell, and subjected her to mental torture such as leading her to believe that her death was imminent.

This is not simply a very bad joke. The U.N. is considered by many as the go-to address for international progress in the world today. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, declared at a hearing on U.N. reform in February that "the U.N. provides vital support to core U.S. foreign-policy initiatives" including on Iran and the way forward is to "ratchet up" our level of diplomacy there."

Looks like the only "ratcheting up" is the hostility aimed squarely at the USA and Israel. Congressman Lantos and his close friend, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have long been drinking from the same well. The "reformed" Human Rights Council was Annan's creation. Lantos is the leading advocate of the United States joining the Human Rights Council - where presumably we could jump up and down while exercising one vote out of 47. Annan, of his own volition, went to Tehran last September and urged the world not to isolate Iran immediately after the Iranian president had ignored a Security Council deadline to suspend its nuclear activities. Lantos confessed to the House Committee at the end of February that he has been begging for a visa to go to Iran for the past ten years and "will be among the first ones to do so once this visa is granted."

Lantos was pleased with his recent trip, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to Syria. Obviously, the U.N. shares his view that one of the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism ought to be a welcome player on the world stage. Following the election on Monday, April 9th, of Iran as vice chairman, the U.N. Disarmament Commission elected Syria as its rapporteur to investigate the issue of nuclear nonproliferation non-compliance and report back to the commission.

The line between U.N. diplomacy and farce has been crossed. As long as the UN is held hostage to the rantings of third world dictatorships and banana republics who use the UN as an anti-US platform, we should chart our own course - with our true allies - by strengthening and expanding NATO.

Take-it-or-leave-it “peace process.”

It is disappointing that the end result of the Arab summit of 2007, which ended Thursday, March 29, was the collapse of the so-called “moderate Arab front” on which the USA administration and the Israeli government had banked on so heavily. The line emerging from the conference was strongly anti-American and anti-Israel, and ended the isolation of the two Middle East governments backing anti-US fighting elements in Iraq – Syria and Iran.

“Moderate” Saudi ruler King Abdullah publicly buried the hatchet with Syrian president Bashar Assad and announced to general acclaim that the next Arab League summit would be held in Damascus. Syria’s misdeeds with regard to Lebanon, Iran's capture of 15 British sailors, and the anarchy in the Palestinian Gaza strip were totally glossed over.

The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, demanded that Israel accept the resurrected Saudi “peace plan” as it is, or risk war. No room was left for an active Israeli role, in the take-it-or-leave-it “peace process.”

I don't see how President Bush, after the Saudi's public declaration of solidarity with Iran, Syria, the anti-American insurgents in Iraq, Hezbollah, AND the Palestinian Hamas government, can continue the charade that there is a significant "moderate camp" in the Arab/Muslim world with which the USA can negotiate a Mideast peace agreement. It appears that at this point in time, the Muslim world has chosen to dictate their terms and conditions – which are basically for the USA and Israel to surrender. I'm curious to see if our State Department tries to slap some lipstick on this ugly Arab declaration, and attempts to sell it to us as "progress".

Why Palestinian infighting in Gaza could be good for the prospect of Mideast peace

There are many points of view regarding the current events unfolding in the "unoccupied" Palestinian controlled Gaza strip. The most prevalent point of view from Western "outsiders" is that it's good that Palestinians are killing Palestinians, the logic being that both Fatah and Hamas are both terrorist groups, that this internal conflict is the result of a tribal power grab, and that Palestinian society is incapable of creating a liberal democracy based on the rule of law. A dead Palestinian terrorist is one less terrorist, no matter who puts him 6 feet under.

Another point of view is that the current infighting, if allowed to play itself out, could end up with Hamas winning and consolidating Palestinian forces against Israel. This view also assumes that with a Hamas victory, the extremist Islamic views inherent to Hamas could usher in Islamic Shaira law, which would inflame the situation with Israel, Egypt, and the moderate Palestinians in Gaza. If, on the other hand, Fatah wins the battle with Hamas, it could be that Palestinian President Abbas will continue the same ambiguous diplomacy of duplicity that his predecessor, Yasar Arafat perfected. This course of action is basically do nothing diplomatically or politically, while continuing to support Palestinians terrorism against Israel using proxy Palestinian forces that the PA will claim are renegade and out of their control.

The optimistic point of view, which frankly doesn't have much solid ground on which to stand, is that the growing conflict between Fatah and Hamas is the beginning of a Palestinians civil war, in which Fatah represents that force of moderninity and the secular rule of law, while Hamas represents the dark forces of Islamic extremism and Arab nationalism. Israel went through a similar situation in its history, fortunately the rule of law prevailed, and the central government consolidated the various armed Jewish gangs into what became the IDF. Israelis didn't need UN recognition for what they had accomplished, as establishing a single source of power and instituting the rule of law was the real birth of the Jewish state. Hopefully, the internal fighting between Palestinian factions will result in the birth of a society that is on the path to make a peace agreement that it is willing to keep intact.

Another disappointing year from the UN and the Press

The United Nations and the mainstream media have exhibited a hypocritical, self-righteous sense of moral superiority that is only matched in its contempt…by a public that is willing to allow the UN and the media to define the issues of the day. Enough is enough.

Arab militias are rampaging across Africa, slaughtering hundreds of thousands and making million homeless, and the UN human rights commission can only muster a condemnation of Israel (for defending itself). The global press, on the other hand, not only doesn't accentuate the fact that the horror in Dafur is a religious war waged by Muslim extremists, but prefers to sell ads to "savedafur.org" rather than put this modern day holocaust on the front page until the public understands the consequences of "doing nothing".

Now the Palestinians in Gaza are fighting among themselves, using massive quantities of weaponry that have poured into Gaza (illegally) since Israel's withdrawal 18 months ago. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, 31 Palestinian children have been killed in the past 11 months because of internal "security chaos" which includes clan violence as well as inter-factional fighting. Children are in the line of fire, and not a word of condemnation from the UN - which only finds the nerve to raise its voice when it sees an opportunity to condemn Israel for defensive actions against Palestinian terrorists.

The UN and the global press appears satisfied to consider Palestinian on Palestinian anarchy an minor internal Palestinian matter not worthy of discussion, because they don't want to connect the dots: A two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is unattainable under the present circumstances. A reasonable person could not realistically expect the Palestinian people to make peace with ANYONE – much less Israel, when you factor in the unrelenting incitement to violence that has defined Palestinian society for decades. If the psychological detachment to acts of violence caused by cradle to grave incitement within Palestinian society is to be reversed, it will unquestionably take decades. Talk of a two state solution under these circumstances is totally unrealistic.

My three wishes for the New Year? That the UN/press take a hard stand on Islamic extremists in Africa, that the UN/press scrap the two state solution by declaring Jordan the Palestinian state (and moving the Arabs in the West bank and Gaza to Jordan), and the USA decides that – if the war is worth winning – that the best military plan in Iraq is to devote enough resources to go ahead and "win the war" and then "end the war".

Time to change the "Rules of War".

The 11/28/06 speech in Memphis by Israel's Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern US, Ambassador Reda Mansour, was interesting in the sense that he was young, articulate, intelligent and entertaining - as are many of Israel's ambassadors. The core of Ambassador Mansour's presentation was to explain the difficulties that the Israeli army had in fighting the war with Hezbollah over the summer of 2006. The main explanation was the asymmetrical battle plan Israel implemented against an enemy that was trained at a higher level than expected, was better armed than expected, didn't wear uniforms, launched missiles from populated civilian areas, and then rushed to blend in with the local civilian population. Hindsight is 20/20, and I am sure everyone appreciated his candid explanation, however his commentary that a basic tenet of the Israeli military doctrine, as well as the nation itself – is that it holds itself to the highest "moral standards" in the way it conducts war, left a question unanswered; How can Israel, or the USA in Iraq for that matter - develop a successful tactical military strategy to fight this hybrid guerilla/army model when our tacticians are handcuffed by chains of "moral superiority" against an enemy who has no morals? How can we successfully win a war playing by the rules of the Geneva Conventions while our enemy exploits those very conventions to their tactical advantage?

I would suggest that as the first of many changes to military doctrine is that in light of the new tactics being used by Islamic extremists, the very definition of a civilian in a war zone be redefined. In the vast majority of cases (and especially in the recent war in Lebanon) the Lebanese civilians in the South were forewarned and had an option to depart. To suggest that they couldn't leave because Hezbollah blocked their exit should reflect negatively on Hezbollah, not on casualties that may result from an ensuing Israeli air strike. If civilians in a war zone refuse to vacate, then they should be considered enemy sympathizers/combatants. The "new rules of war" must clearly articulate the local government's responsibility in evacuating the young, crippled and elderly from a war zone.

A recent incident in the Palestinian Gaza strip clearly illustrates the absurdity of the abuse of the term "civilian", when armed terrorists were chased into a Mosque by the Israeli Defense Forces, and hundreds of Arab women and children surrounded them as human shields - knowing from past experience that the Israeli army would not harm them. Eventually, the terrorists donned head to toe burkas and fled the scene by blending into the departing crowd. This Rambo/Gandhi war tactic is only exceeded in it's absurdity by the fact that a government can allow war to be waged from it's territory, yet refuses to take responsibility for the safety of it's citizens in the path of war - and then claim their citizens are violated when caught in the crossfire.

Had the West been handcuffed with the chains of "moral superiority" during WW2, we would never have defeated the Nazis. The Allies bombed Dresden into a pile of rubble no higher than 2 feet tall. Not a building in Berlin escaped the wrath of our bombers and field artillery. There were, without a doubt, thousands of German victims of the Allied push to defeat the Nazis, but it was understood that their lives were not more important than our soldiers on the ground, and that the greater good of humanity had a priority over the plight of the individual in the path of war. We need to come to terms with the fact that the lives of our soldiers are more important than our enemies, and that the reason for waging war is worth what it takes to win.

Will surrendering Israel bring peace to the Mideast?

The "Spotlight: Islam analysis" supplied by the AP (CA Page A6 11/21/06) entitled "Regimes wary of Shiite power", brings into question whether the author (whomever it was) has made any effort to familiarize themselves with Mideast history before coming up with the faulted belief that peace in Iraq begins with Israeli peace (surrender?) with the Palestinians.

As the AP sees it, the enemies of Israel, the US, Britain and the entire Free World will suddenly become reliable friends of the West if only Israel is left at the tender mercy of the Arabs/Muslims – and in return, peace will reign over the Sunni/Shiite sectarian violence that is a result of the US invasion of Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth. To the contrary, the absence of Israel would actually exacerbate tensions in the Mideast by encouraging Arab military adventurism that is currently held in check by Israel's overwhelming conventional military superiority.

Shiite Islam evolved into a religious formulation with the martyrdom of Husayn in 680. At this point, the division between the Shiite and what came to be known as the Sunni was set, and thousands of years of bloody conflict between the two feuding factions of Islam ensued – during the original biblical state of Israel, well before the modern state of Israel, and well before the US invasion of Iraq. Muslims may agree that they hate Jews/Israelis, but there is more than enough evidence that they hate each other even more.

Surrendering Israel to pacify Iran and Syria may allow the US and Britain to surrender Iraq with their heads held high, but it will do nothing to stop the Muslim sectarian violence. The only tangible outcome is that the global Jihadists will view the retreat as their greatest victory, and it will only serve to encourage them to continue assaulting the ever retreating boundaries of the democratic, non-Muslim West.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand lies

Israel and the United States have been routinely criticized in the Muslim world - and the greater global press for the deaths attributed to the wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of the criticism is a product of a robust Muslim led PR strategy that depends on misused slogans like "dis-proportional force, apartheid, occupation, holocaust"etc., that have been repeated so often that the terms have become an accepted part of the narrative of this complicated long-term conflict. On a separate track, the Muslim PR campaign also heavily depends on the press to repeatedly display pictures of the dead and wounded in order to gain sympathy. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture taken out of context – or even diabolically staged - is worth a thousand lies.

The absurdity of this highly successful Muslim PR campaign is that Muslims commit atrocities against fellow Muslims and the press doesn't seem to even want to connect the dots to add context. According to the United Nations Population Fund, the worldwide total of just Muslim honor killing victims may be as high as 5, 000 women a year. Try putting that into context against a war where Israel is defending its civilian population – and many of the 1670 Lebanese dead were Hezbollah fighters or civilians that Hezbollah put in the line of fire.

In Iraq alone, tens of thousands are being killed in a frenzy of Muslim on Muslim sectarian violence, and those who criticize Israel (especially the far left) for defending itself find themselves deaf, dumb and blind. Evidently It's OK for Muslims to slaughter other Muslims for the smallest of perceived grievances (honor killings, religion), but g-d forbid if a Jew kills a Muslim in self-defense.

Death during war is bad, but it's even worse when the war stops and the violence that is defining Muslim societies continues to grow unabated. The global press should be ashamed at the abusive way in which it contributes to the mis-information campaign of the Muslim extremists, and in turn helps to re-inforce anti-Semitism in certain parts of the world that has reached levels reminiscent of the Nazi era.

Lessons from the Israeli/Hezbollah war (Summer 2006).

There are a number of lessons that one should note regarding the Israeli/Hezbollah war. First of all, the notion among many that the American pro-Israel lobby has too much influence over US foreign policy should be put to bed permanently. While Israel didn't need much prodding by the US to go after Hezbollah, it is without a doubt that the US was the calling the shots. Israel had been prodded by US pressure over the last 6 years to not attack Hezbollah for its egregious violations of UN resolution 1559. Only when the US saw unleashing Israel on Hezbollah as a way to bloody the nose of Hezbollah (and in turn their Iranian benefactor), did the US government give Israel the green light. Even more disturbing was the pressure that US diplomats put on Israel to accept a ceasefire at the very moment that they were on the verge of a clear victory (same thing happened in 1967 and 1973).

The other lesson? That Iran and Syria have nothing to fear from their overt state sponsorship of terrorism. The "plausible deniability" defense that they depend on when using proxy terrorist forces is their "winning strategy" that they will surely use again and again (and that the West is only too willing to ignore).

Now that the USA has knelt down at the foot of Iran and Syria, they will surely teach us other "lessons" in the not-too-distant future.

The UN: Irredeemably Irrelevant and insignificant?

The current conflict between the Lebanon based Hezbollah terrorist group and the State of Israel is a by-product of a corrupt United Nations. The UN has failed over the past 6 years to demand that the Lebanese government fulfill it's obligations under UN resolution 1559, which called for the Lebanese army to deploy its forces in Southern Lebanon. The UN Unifil forces in Southern Lebanon- numbering 6,000 at its height and only 2,000 today - have clearly observed Hezbollah's illegal buildup of arms and construction of hardened border defenses, some within yards of the UN compounds. The Unifil forces in Lebanon also watched helplessly while Hezbollah terrorists crossed into Israel in order to instigate cross border skirmishes that ended up culminating in the current conflict.

On Wednesday, August 26th, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, which is in direct violation of the Charter of the United Nations, specifically (but not limited to) article 4/1: " Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations." The UN's response to Iran's open threats of a fellow member of the UN, as well as Iran's complicity in the Hezbollah/Israel conflict is to ignore Iran and focus on Israel's use of force to defend itself. It's one thing to have a border dispute or even a military altercation with a fellow UN member. It's altogether another story when a member of the UN calls for the annihilation of another member state.

Those who espouse extremist Islamic fascism make no bones about their jihadist goal of creating a global Islamic Caliphate to rule the world, much like Hitler's dreams of a purely Aryan world with Germany at the helm. These Islamic threats, however, are falling on deaf ears, despite the mountains of evidence literally strewn across New York, Bali, Madrid, Moscow, Beirut, Tel Aviv, London - and dozens of other places where Islamic fascists have committed terrorist atrocities. The only explanation being that it is human nature to ignore threats as long as one isn't directly affected, then to appease when affected - but unwilling to defend one's rights, and eventually capitulate when one finds that appeasement is not sufficient.

The UN has a constructive role to play on the world stage, but in its present form, it is not only worthless, it is dangerous and/or deadly to those who hold stock in its ability to protect those who view UN resolutions as vehicles to promote stability and change in areas of conflict. What can the UN do to put it on the road to legitimacy? First of all, the Security Council (and possibly the General Assembly) should give Iran a short deadline to rescind its death threat against Israel, or be expelled as a member of the UN. Secondly, it should demand, under the threat of UN force, that Iran not only stop supplying weapons to Hezbollah, but should also immediately suspend Iranian nuclear activities with verifiable audits of compliance. If the UN refuses to take a stand at such a critical time in its short life, then one can only presume that the UN will continue to be an institution drowning in it's own irrelevance and insignificance.

Thoughts on "getting old"

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and
a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You u could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the
brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them."

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health h: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9 Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Should Israel respond to Hezbollah attacks proportionately?

There is little debate among the international community that Israel has a sovereign right to defend its citizens and border from aggression that emanates from Lebanese soil via the Hezbollah terrorist group. The only argument against the Israeli response that seems to find any traction is the argument of proportionality – that Israel is fighting back too hard, and in the process is destroying the Lebanese infrastructure, and killing too many innocent Lebanese civilians.

Paramount in this discussion is the fact that Israel only wants peace with its Arab neighbors, and regrets having to cause harm to a country that is the playground for the devious military mis-adventures of Iran and Syria. The Hezbollah paymasters sit comfortably in Damascus and Tehran while they watch a fight they instigated take place on Lebanese soil. Maybe the world community should consider aiming its criticism at the source of the conflict, Iran and Syria. No country, especially a tiny country like Israel, would tolerate hundreds of suicide bombings and thousands of deadly missiles raining down on its citizens, much less have its troops killed and/or kidnapped. A harsh response is to be expected. Would it make the global community happier - if more Israelis died in order to make the deaths more proportional? How cynical.

More importantly, the Israelis have always anticipated a heavy Hezbollah bombardment of the Northern border areas, and have prepared bunkers and early warning systems to protect their citizens. If Lebanon is going to "allow" a terrorist militia to fire rockets into Israel, then they should invest in protecting their citizens from Israel's logical response. Their failure to do so is a main reason for the Lebanese civilians' death toll.

With that said, the deliberate destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure by the Israeli military serves two purposes: First of all, destroying bridges, electrical grids and airports has strategic military value. It prevents their enemy from fleeing and/or re-arming. Secondly, it sends a message to the Lebanese, the Syrians, Iranians and everyone else who considers themselves the "enemy" of Israel that the price of terrorist /military adventures against Israel is "priceless".

The death toll of Lebanese civilians is regrettable, but their lives are not worth more than an Israeli life, and the Lebanese people have allowed Hezbollah to become part of their government and wage war on Israel from their soil. Hezbollah's strategy of using civilians as human shields, and storing weapons caches in civilian homes is clearly the reason why there are more civilian casualties than the usual civilian "collateral damage".

The world calls for Israeli proportionality? There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, and only 12 million Jews. It would not come as a surprise to anyone that at least 10% of the Muslim world (or 150 million Muslims) would love to martyr themselves if it meant that Israel would be destroyed. In the case for proportionality, it would only take 6 million Muslims to wipe out the 6 million Israelis…and the Muslim volunteers would line-up faster than you can say "72 virgins".

Those calling for proportionality are discounting the value that Israelis put on life vs. the twisted psychology behind Muslim extremists who decapitate and mutilate fellow Muslims with so much enthusiasm that it is hard to believe the atrocities that they are committing, much less what atrocities they would commit if they ever had a chance to rampage through Tel Aviv.

Some Muslims are fighting for what they believe is a right to their homeland, other Muslims are fighting to realize the pan-Arab dream of a Mideast that is 100% Muslim, others are fighting just because they hate and want to kill Israelis/Jews. To the Israelis it doesn't matter why the Arabs/Muslim want to kill them. As an Israeli father told me the other day, "they shoot a few missiles at us, we shoot a lot of missiles at them, they kill a few of us, and we kill a lot of them. We are fighting for our existence".

The entire Israeli/Hezbollah war that is dominating the global press is a result of the failure of the United Nations to enforce UN resolution 1559, in which the government of Lebanon agreed to remove Hezbollah from the border. For the past 6 years, the UN's UNIFIL force of 6,000 was reduced to 2,000 – and they sat and watched while Hezbollah not only re-armed, but hardened their defenses on the border. It is ludicrous to expect Israel to even entertain the whims of the EU or UN when it comes to exerting its sovereign rights to protect its citizens. The result of an Israeli proportional response is that it would be death by a thousand cuts. The Muslim world would easily (gladly) absorb 100,000 dead soldiers over a 2 year period, if it meant Israel would lose 100,000 too. The idea that Israel should fight a war for survival "proportionately" is absolutely ridiculous. The concept of proportionality allows the aggressor to dictate their opponent's response. That is a recipe for an endless cycle of violence. Wars are fought - and like a fire, they will burn out when one side wins.