WHAT IS STORMBRINGER?

I've been on the road a LOT, at least 50% of the past two-and-a-half years, to all the garden spots: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Pakistan, El Salvador (OK that wasn't so bad), Israel (THAT was a fun trip!), Bangladesh, South Africa, South Sudan, Kenya, Mali and East Timor. Work has interfered with writing, which is my main thing - or at least, I wish I could make it my main thing. Time for a realignment of the aiming stakes. If you're a new visitor to Blog STORMBRINGER, this is what it's all about. If you have seen it before, consider this refresher training. Cheers, and thank you for your support! -S.L.

STORMBRINGER is a military blog, primarily dedicated to honoring heroes of the great US / UK / ANZAC / CANADA / ISRAEL Alliance in this conflict forced upon us by the Evildoers of Islamic Fundamentalism. Themes include reports on international security, great battles and notable events of military history, the greatness of Ancient Greece and Rome (and how the civilization of Ancient Rome still exists and prevails), the story of United States Army Special Forces (the Green Berets) and of course from time to time bits of my personal philosophy; inspired by Aristotle, Cicero, Atilla the Hun, John Locke, Benjamin Franklin, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill, Ayn Rand and Rush Limbaugh, to name a few.

An essential ingredient of my personal philosophy - a.k.a. The Philosophy of STORMBRINGERISM - is what Ayn Rand refers to as laizee-faire capitalism. The phrase laissez-faire (pronounced: lah-zay-fair) is French and literally means "let do", but it broadly implies "let it be", or "leave it alone." In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies.

Also from Ayn Rand, I embrace the concept of Human Exceptionalism; the belief that human beings have special status in nature based on their unique capacities. This belief is the grounding for some naturalistic concepts of human rights. Taking it a step further, Rush Limbaugh describes the philosophy of American Exceptionalism: the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other nations. This stems from our emergence from a revolution, and the uniquely American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. This observation is traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the United States as "exceptional."

STORMBRINGERISM is also about the Cult of the 1911 and the individuals right to self-defense - up to and including lethal force - is a justifiable defense in a court of law:

Pistol US M1911 .45ACP

But, you say, how does this include the Great Alliance; our worthy allies the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel?

Simple: the American experience would not have been if the foundations of Democracy had not been laid in Britain, and before that in Ancient Rome, and before that Ancient Greece. In that, the UK is the Mother Country - has been and always will be - and by default this makes Canada, Australia and New Zealand our brothers and sisters.

But . . . but . . . what about tiny (yet MIGHTY) Israel?

Israel is the oldest country, and at the same time the youngest. The ancient Egyptian Empire and civilization has come and gone . . .

Nobody speaks in hieroglyphics anymore.

. . . and the people who built the pyramids are not the same folks who live in Egypt today. Likewise Babylon . . .

Nobody speaks in cuneiform anymore.

. . . it is gone, ground into the dust, even less of it left than in Egypt. There is still a Syria, but the ancient Assyrian Empire is dead and gone and it's people flung far and wide across the globe in diaspora.

Of these ancient kingdoms and empires of the Old Testament, only Israel remains, the smallest - yet most powerful - of all the countries of the Middle East.

The oldest country in the Middle East is also the only modern democracy in the Middle East.

Modern Israel exists because of Britain and the United States - if it was up to the rest of Europe and the Middle East there wouldn't even be anybody left to occupy a State of Israel. The Islamists - al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Mullah-led theocracy of Iran - view Israel as a Western foothold in their territory, much like the Crusader Kingdoms a thousand years ago. They - the radicals who have hijacked Islam - consider it only a question of time until they drive the Israelis into the sea and get that land back.

As such, Israel is with us, or like the Israeli girls say:

"Don't worry America - ISRAEL IS BEHIND YOU ! ! !"

"VISIT ISRAEL BEFORE ISRAEL VISITS YOU."

Speaking of babes, when I first signed up, SOLDIER Magazine always had a bikini babe featured on the back cover. Along the way they started rationing the cheesecake until sometime toward the end of my first tour I picked up a copy of SOLDIER and flipped to the back page. Staring back at me was a sergeant; all cami'd up and in full battle rattle - talk about taking a hard dose of reality. Well every now and then some imagery may appear on STORMBRINGER that is a throwback to an earlier, simpler time when it was okay for a warrior to tape a pinup girl in his wall locker, or depict one on the nose of his mighty war machine:

People send me all kinds of stuff to post in STORMBRINGER and I appreciate all the support I get. Most of the material sent is political, Tea Party/Make America Great Again-themed stuff - which is great, although I usually tend to wave off politics because it's done elsewhere, and I don't have time enough to dedicate the energy & creative juices to do it right.


STORMBRINGER SENDS

ST. JAME's CHURCH APARTHEID WALL

From Jack Engelhard at the Washington Times: "London's St. James's Church in Piccadilly Builds 'Apartheid Wall' to Demonize Israel"

In a climate in which every Jewish communal or religious event, every Jewish school and institution in Britain has to be guarded against attack, and in which there is a direct correlation between the emotive lies told about Israel and attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions, for one of your churches to lend itself to such incitement is simply obscene.

The ‘wall’ is of course a stunt. But the damage it has done to the Church of England is immense. Because what it does is put the Church on the side of lies and hatred against truth and justice. It has put the Church of England on the side of evil.



The only purpose of Israel’s security barrier is to save life and prevent mass murder. The only purpose of the St James’s Church ‘Bethlehem Unwrapped’ stunt is to stir up hatred.

Read more HERE

This is one more good reason why I am no longer an Anglican, no longer a member of the Church of England . . .

STORMBRINGER SENDS

OBAMA RE-WRITES HISTORY ON BUSH AND JERUSALEM

A Soviet "nonperson" vanishes: commissar Nikolai Yezhov retouched after falling from favor and being executed in 1940.


The falsification of history via the doctoring of documents and photographs didn't begin in our modern computer era. In Stalinist Russia, it was commonplace for Soviet history to be rewritten with individuals who had somehow fallen afoul of Stalin removed from official photographs. In one noteworthy sequence, a photograph of Stalin with three revolutionary leaders is airbrushed and cropped and clipped until, one by one, those leaders disappear and only Stalin is left - conveying the message that Stalin carried the Russian Revolution by himself. Another photograph from the 1920s depicts a meeting of dozens of trade-union and Bolshevik leaders; by the late 1930s, all but a handful of them had been murdered at Stalin's orders.

For Joseph Stalin, photo retouching was a technique for controlling public perception and memory. People who vanished in real life - whether banished to the farthest reaches of the Soviet Union or eliminated by the secret police - vanished as well from photos, and even paintings. In many cases they were airbrushed out completely, in others their faces were clumsily blacked out with ink.

Now this creepy rewriting of history is being replicated by the current occupiers of our own Whitehouse; the Obama Administration; from Commentary magazine:

The Obama White House is gearing up for a Supreme Court case in which it will defend its refusal to list “Jerusalem, Israel” on the passports of Americans born in the Israeli capital. As part of its preparations the administration recently scrubbed all the captions on a White House photo gallery of Vice President Biden in the city, changing “Jerusalem, Israel” to “Jerusalem.” The optics of methodically erasing the word “Israel” from the White House webpage caused a predictable uproar.

The point of posting these two photos (above and below) is to show that, although the State Department refuses to say that Jerusalem is in Israel, even the White House website acknowledges this elementary truth. But not any more; within two hours of posting, the White House has apparently gone through its website, cleansing any reference to Jerusalem as being in Israel. Click on the photos to get a clear read on the respective captions.

They are attempting to literally "wipe Jerusalem, Israel off of the map" -S.L


. . . then, when the Washington Jewish Week’s Adam Kredo published an article claiming that the Bush administration had enforced an identical policy. Kredo cited a “search of the Bush White House’s archives” and photos of Laura Bush touring the Western Wall to conclude that the Bush White House webpage “never explicitly labeled [Jerusalem] as part of Israel.” . . . Obama’s defenders latched on to his article . . .

Elliot Abrams responded in a quote he gave to Jennifer Rubin, forcefully insisting that Kredo was “just wrong” and that the Bush White House “did not have a hard and fast rule that prohibited referring to Jerusalem” as part of Israel in documents and captions.

Basic Google searches are enough to show that Abrams is right and Obama’s defenders are flat wrong.

Sometimes Bush-era White House photos explicitly identified Jerusalem as being in Israel and sometimes they didn’t, just like sometimes they explicitly identified Tel Aviv as being in Israel and sometimes they didn’t. A naive “Jerusalem, Israel” Google search on the Bush White House archives is sufficient to turn up this 2002 photo of Vice President Cheney captioned as “a press briefing in Jerusalem, Israel.” It also turns up this photo labeled “Mrs. Laura Bush visits the Western Wall Tunnels… in Jerusalem, Israel.” That’s from the exact, precise, identical tour that Kredo linked to in order to “hammer home the point” that the Bush administration “never explicitly labeled [Jerusalem] as part of Israel.”

Getting beyond photo captions, Bush-era documents show that the previous White House was indeed able to correctly identify the city of Jerusalem as being inside the state of Israel. The record shows that the President even acknowledged that the Jerusalem consulate – the same one that won’t issue passports referencing “Jerusalem, Israel” – was located in Jerusalem, Israel. Bush’s statement nominating Jeffrey Feltman to be ambassador to Lebanon, for instance, explicitly described Feltman’s previous position as “Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, Israel.”


Read all the details of this incredible story HERE


It gets worse for Obama’s defenders, though, than merely being demonstrably wrong. It turns out that while they were insisting that the Bush administration consistently refused to reference “Jerusalem, Israel,” the Obama State Department was busy scrubbing documents in which Bush administration referenced “Jerusalem, Israel.” Straight down the memory hole. That’s kind of amazing when you pause and think about it, no?

The “Jerusalem, Israel” captions and statements from the Bush-era White House are digitally archived and frozen, and so beyond the administration’s reach. But Bush-era State Department reports are stored on the Obama State Department’s servers. Two old documents in particular – the State Department’s FY 2002 and FY 2003 Performance and Accountability Reports – come up quickly in searches. When they were originally written they both had appendices identifying the location of the Jerusalem consulate as “Jerusalem, Israel.” Some time in the last two weeks that location was changed to “Jerusalem.” Whoever made the changes even went back and scrubbed the old “hard copy” PDFs. You can do the compare and contrast yourself. Click on these links for scrubbed versions of FY 2002 HTML, FY 2003 HTML, FY 2002 PDF, FY 2003 PDF, and on these links for cached original versions of FY 2002 HTML, FY 2003 HTML, FY 2002 PDF, FY 2003 PDF.


- SEAN LINNANE SENDS


.

ENDING UK LAWFARE AGAINST ISRAELIS

by David Frum

Israeli politicians and soldiers have repeatedly been threatened with arrest in the United Kingdom in recent years because pro-Palestinian activists have exploited a law allowing foreign visitors to be detained for alleged human rights violations anywhere in the world. As I discuss in my column at The Week, a law which has strained Anglo-Israeli relations — and embarrassed successive British governments — finally seems likely to be amended.

Doron Almog is a true hero of democracy and human rights. In 1976, Almog parachuted onto the runway at Uganda’s Entebbe airport, marking the way for the Israeli commandos who rescued 256 hostages aboard a hijacked Air France jetliner. During the operation he led the assault on the airfield's control tower.





Almog officered the airlift that rescued 6,000 Falasha Jews from Ethiopia in the 1980s. As head of Israel’s southern command from 2000-2003, he defeated every attempt by terrorists to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza. Almog lost five members of his family to a suicide bomber in Haifa in 2003. After the death of his own mentally handicapped son, he founded a charity to provide services to the severely disabled in southern Israel.

In the fall of 2005, Almog visited the United Kingdom on a fundraising mission for his charity. On landing, he was informed that British police officers were waiting to arrest him. A pro-Palestinian British lawyer had sworn out a complaint against Almog for his anti-terrorist work on the southern front. Under British law, any foreign visitor to Britain can be accused of human rights violations by any private person in Britain, and brought before a British court to answer for actions anywhere on earth.

Almog remained on the plane and returned to Israel without disembarking. He was the first Israeli to be attacked in British court in this way, but not the last. In the years since 2005, pro-Palestinian activists have repeatedly attempted to use British law as a weapon against Israelis, most recently against former foreign minister Tzipi Livni in December, 2009.

Read the rest of Dave's column HERE


David Frum is editor of FrumForum




Today's Bird HERE

.

OF HEROES AND THE HONORABLE DEAD

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato

Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, Kanchanaburi - River Kwai - Thailand

Arlington National Cemetary, Virginia

The following is an incredible piece - brought to my attention by Theo - from the Jewish Chronicle on-line.


WE BELIEVE IN ISRAEL

Col Richard Kemp's speech to 'We Believe in Israel' Conference - London, 15 May

Lieutenant Paul Mervis was a platoon commander in the British Army’s 2nd Battalion The Rifles. His company serjeant major said of him: “In my twenty years in the Army, I have never met, nor am I likely to meet, a man who cared so much about his men. He fought the corner of every single one of them.”

Paul had a razor sharp intellect and devoured military books in his desire to gain ever greater knowledge of his chosen profession. According to his platoon serjeant: “He had our utmost respect as a platoon commander, but perhaps more so as a genuine friend.”

He had an infectious sense of humour, and was always messing about and joking like one of the lads – one of his soldiers said you could hear his laugh anywhere in the base in Afghanistan – usually at someone else’s expense!

He had time for everyone, and would go out of his way to help anyone he could. He made an enormous effort to get to know as many as possible of the 600 troops in his battalion. His men were always at the forefront of his mind, and although he was their commander, every man felt he could approach him and talk about absolutely everything. Although still a young man, Paul was like a father-figure to his soldiers.

On patrol near Sangin, central Helmand, on the morning of the 12th of June last year both of Paul’s legs were blown off by a Taliban bomb hidden in the roof of a school. His men worked desperately – desperately – to save his life, but he died soon afterwards.

With enormous personal courage, he had been leading his men from the front through an area known to be laced with explosives, putting himself in danger to protect the lives of his men, risking everything to safeguard the local people, including women and children, who had been so horrifically assaulted by the Taliban.

After his death, one of the soldiers under his command, Lance Corporal Joe Ellis, said: “The Merv-dog left us this morning, surrounded by his men. He will always be part of 10 Platoon – tough riflemen who were proud to be led by him.”

Lieutenant Paul Mervis was a Jewish soldier.

He grew up in London, and was educated at King’s College School Wimbledon. He spent a gap year in Israel, studying Hebrew. During his service in Afghanistan, His sister Hannah and brother Jack sent him a provisions parcel with matzah and dried chicken soup so that he could mark the Passover festival while on duty. Paul carried a 1936 issue Soldier’s Siddur which had previously belonged to Sergeant Dave Newman, a Jewish soldier who fought in the Battle of El Alamein in World War II.

It would have been equally possible for Paul to have opted to join the Israeli Defence Forces to realise his soldierly ambitions, as do so many young British Jewish men and women. In fact he did undergo training with the IDF during his gap year before joining the British Army.

But had he joined the IDF, instead of developing into a brave, dedicated military leader concerned for the welfare of his men and taking every conceivable step to protect the civilian population, would Paul Mervis have become a callous, brutal thug, haphazardly dropping white phosphorous into the houses of innocent civilians? Would Paul Mervis have deliberately and without qualms killed women and children? Would Paul Mervis have blown up schools, raked ambulances with machinegun fire?

No. No. No. Because that image of the Israeli Defence Forces is horribly false.

This malevolent portrayal of the Israeli Defence Forces is carefully and systematically planned, cultivated, developed, expanded and relentlessly driven forward. It is the key part of what amounts to nothing less than a pernicious and increasingly dangerous global conspiracy of propaganda aimed at the total delegitimization of the state of Israel. A conspiracy that has so far exceeded in its international scope, anything dreamt of even by that master of propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels himself, spreading the idea that Israel is so evil that it has no right even to exist, aiming for the point where that idea becomes an acceptable, mainstream argument in our societies.

It is no surprise of course that such a campaign has great popularity in the Arab and the wider Islamic world any more than Goebbels’s twisted propaganda machine succeeded in persuading so many Germans to his murderous cause. But what is truly shocking is the traction that this propaganda has gained in the west among student bodies, teachers, university authorities, academics, think tanks, human rights organizations, aid agencies, parliamentary bodies, and – perhaps most damaging of all, the mass media.

What is the evidence for this?

A favourite vehicle for the anti-Israel conspiracy is the United Nations Human Rights Council. While continuing to neglect the woefully abused rights of 350 million citizens of the Middle East, not to mention the rights of many more people the world over, the Council focuses its attention almost exclusively on Israel. The Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission into the 2009 Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Report, accused Israeli forces of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, deliberately killing, wounding and terrorising innocent civilians.

That report was endorsed on two occasions by the General Assembly of the United Nations. But only last month, Judge Richard Goldstone retracted the most serious allegations that he had made, saying that Israel did not in fact intentionally kill or wound innocent civilians. He wrote that if he had known at the time of his investigation what he knows now, the Goldstone Report would have been a very different document. Well, I, with my far more limited resources and access, could have told him a great deal of what is now apparently new to him.

In fact, I did tell him at the time of his report, in evidence I gave to the United Nations Human Rights Council in October 2009:

“During its operation in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

I based my opinion on 30 years of experience fighting terrorists and insurgents, of my detailed study of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, of my extensive knowledge and understanding of the Israeli Defence Forces, and of my knowledge of Hamas and its military strategy and tactics. The same strategies and tactics used by insurgents and violent jihadists in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other parts of the world.

Many people have contradicted my assertion about the IDF. But no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone. In fact my assertions about the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defence Forces to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself. A study that shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to-one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed. That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three-to-one. In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia.

In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.

This extremely low rate of civilian casualties flatly contradicts many of Goldstone’s original allegations, and the bleating insistence of various other human rights groups about Israel’s alleged crimes against humanity.

As with Operation Cast Lead, the tragedy of the Gaza flotilla incident almost exactly one year ago has been widely exploited as part of the conspiracy against Israel. The anti-Israeli activists on board the ship Mavi Marmara set out deliberately to provoke the Israeli boarding party into an attack that would cause bloodshed to be exploited in the world’s media. Which of course is exactly what happened.

The Turkish humanitarian group IHH were prominent among the organizers of the Flotilla, and had purchased the Mavi Marmara for that purpose. As well as being a genuine humanitarian aid group, the IHH is a radical Islamic organization: vehemently anti-Israeli and anti-American, with extensive connections to international jihadist groups including Al Qaida.

According to a French investigative magistrate specialising in terrorism, the IHH played an important role in an Al Qaida plan to carry out a mass-casualty attack at the Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium. So – not an entirely innocent humanitarian organization attacked without justification by vicious Israeli thugs, as presented in the world media, by governments and by the UN.

The Israeli handling of the Flotilla Incident was far from a model military operation. Indeed Israel’s Turkel Commission criticised a lack of preparedness by the commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara. But I have seen nothing to suggest that their actions amounted to a breach of international law. Many have stridently proclaimed that the Gaza blockade itself is illegal. But does the government of Israel not have the right – indeed the duty – to protect its citizens against the re-arming of Hamas and other jihadist groups in Gaza, which continue to attack the civilian population of Israel with rockets, and undoubtedly desire to expand their conflict in line with the proclaimed objective of destroying Israel as an entity?

The Royal Navy, the Irish Navy and the French Navy often boarded ships heading towards Ireland in the ’80s and searched them for munitions at a time when Gadaffi’s Libya was arming the IRA with weapons, missiles and explosives that killed hundreds of British soldiers and civilians. But unlike Israel’s blockade – which has an identical purpose – these boardings were never criticised or characterised illegal and still are not.

And I’ll bet that no-one will accuse NATO of acting unlawfully in its naval blockade of Libya which was put into place a few weeks ago. Again, an operation with an identical purpose to the Gaza maritime blockade – a blockade in which, with supreme irony Turkey – arch condemners of the Gaza blockade – is playing a role.

But why would they be criticised? These were not Israeli operations. To Israel, a completely different standard is unfairly and unrealistically applied by so many, even in the Western world, as a result of the international conspiracy of deligitimisation against Israel.

On her 63rd birthday I do not see an apocalyptic future for the State of Israel. Allah will not bring a new holocaust to the Jewish people at the hands of Islamic believers, according to the evil prophecy of Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, who are no doubt on the eve of gaining significant power in Egypt. Israel will not be “wiped off the map”. Her people will not be “driven into the sea” in accordance with the perverted vision of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad who disposes so many of his nation’s offensive resources with such brutality against the Israeli people.

But a central aim in the conspiracy of delegitimization against Israel is to give validity and justification to attacks on Israel by groups such as Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hizballah, allowing them to strike at Israel with impunity, and encouraging the view that any retaliatory or defensive measures by Israel are by definition disproportionate and should be criminalised. The more traction this objective is allowed to gain, the greater the instability between Israel and her neighbours; the less chance of any lasting peace; the more that blood will be shed on all sides in the region.

The most powerful weapons in this conspiracy are legal, diplomatic and media. Fundamentally we are talking about a war of words. Words that are given unprecedented potency by the internet, by the globalisation of the 21st Century. Words have consequences. Look at the Goldstone Report. I have no doubt that people have died because of the hatred stirred up as a result of the endorsement of false accusations by the Goldstone Report. People who need not have died. What is said and who says it is of course very important.

There is nothing the anti-Israeli conspirators find more appetising than the support for their agenda of Jewish voices. That is why they so relished Judge Goldstone’s specious role. It is the same basis on which the Nazis prized the British Lord Haw-Haw above any of their own broadcasters. And the late, unlamented Usama bin Laden seized so hungrily upon the supportive words of Noam Chomsky.

If this is a war of words, we must also use words to counter attack. I am not suggesting that anybody should give unqualified support for Israel, or that we should not dissent on any specifics of policy or approach – even in the widest sense. I am critical of many of Israel’s actions, as indeed I am critical of many of the actions of our own democratic government here in the UK and of many of our institutions. I recognise too that the IDF is far from perfect. They make mistakes. As do the British Army. Apart from anything else the friction of war ensures it. They certainly killed people in Gaza who should not have died. As did the British Army in Northern Ireland, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They have bad soldiers, who either through stupidity or malicious intent, disobey orders. As does the British Army. I know as well as anybody about that!

But the conspiracy that I have been discussing does not concern itself with such details as this, or with any individual policy of Israel. It seeks to undermine the right of Israel to exist as an entity. And it is this that we must stand up against, as we would stand up vigorously against any movement that seriously sought to undermine the existence of our own state. In this war of words, all that is necessary for this evil conspiracy of delegitimisation to triumph is for good men to say nothing.

I would like to conclude by adding to the theme of this conference. As a friend of Israel, of course I “believe in Israel”. As a life-long soldier I believe also in the brave, dedicated, and democratically-accountable soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces, who sacrifice so much for the defence of Israel and for our Western democratic values.

American Cemetery, Colleville - Omaha Beach - Normandy

.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, THE MAN

Benjamin Netanyahu is the first and only Israeli prime minister born in Israel after the State of Israel's founding in 1948.

"Bibi" (a nickname of his youth) was raised in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where he attended and graduated from the Cheltenham High School. To this day, he speaks English with an American accent. In 1967 after he graduated from high school, Netanyahu returned to Israel to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Netanyahu served as a combat soldier and a commander in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, taking part in many missions including a hostage rescue mission of the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 in May 1972; during the course of which he was wounded by friendly fire. Shortly thereafter he left the army with the rank of captain.


With the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Netanyahu returned to Israel, joining the IDF forces battling at the Suez Canal and in the Golan Heights. After the war Netanyahu returned to complete his studies in the United States.


Benjamin Netanyahu, Combat Veteran


After the war Netanyahu returned to the United States, studied and earned a B.S. degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, an M.S. degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1977, and studied political science at Harvard University.

Netanyahu served as the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations from 1984 to 1988, member of the Likud Party, and was Prime Minister from June 1996 to July 1999. In Ariel Sharon's governments Netanyahu was Foreign Minister (2002–2003) and Finance Minister (2003–August 2005), but he departed over disagreements regarding the Gaza Disengagement Plan. Following the February 2009 parliamentary election, Netanyahu became Prime Minister of a coalition government. He is the brother of Israeli Special Forces commander Yonatan Netanyahu, who died during a hostage rescue mission, and Iddo Netanyahu, an Israeli author and playwright.

Lt. Col Yonatan Netanyahu (13 March 1946 - 4 July 1976), Israeli Special Forces

"Yani" - the older brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin - was killed leading the raid to rescue hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda. A Harvard University graduate, he was wounded in the 1967 Six Day War and performed great acts of heroism in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As head of Israel's elite Sayaret Matkal unit, he was assigned the task of putting together the rescue of 103 Jewish hostages from a hijacked Air France plane being held by German and Arab terrorists at Entebbe Airport. Flying for 12 hours under enemy radar, the task force landed, rescued the hostages and were airborne in 90 minutes. During a fire-fight with Ugandan army regulars, Netanyahu was shot in the back by a sniper in the air traffic tower. After his death it was revealed that he was an agent for the Mossad as well.

Yani is buried in Mount Herzl Military Cemetary in Jerusalem.

.

THEY CAUGHT 'EM

FLASHBACK:
03/15 Palestinian Authority blames Fogel Family Killings on Thai Migrant Worker.

FASTFORWARD:
04/17 Killers of Fogel Family Caught:

Hakim Maazan Niad Awad and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad snuck into the Fogel home, saw children sleeping in their beds and stabbed them to death; the suspects are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.


Who are the terrorists to murdered the Fogel family?

From the Jerusalem Post

Two Palestinian youths from the village of Awarta were arrested in recent days for the brutal slaying of five members of the Fogel family in their Itamar home last month, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday following the lifting of a media ban on the investigation.

The suspects have been named as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar.

The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and re-enacted the murders, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.


There is a special place in Hell for pieces of manure like this pair - S.L.


Both men are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz on Sunday expressed his condolences once again to the Fogel family after the announcement of the arrests.

Katz told Army Radio, "To those Palestinians who said 'it can't be one of us' - well, it turned out to be one of you."

Read the rest of it HERE at the Jerusalem Post

.

WAR WITHOUT END - Part III

The War on Terror from the perspective of an Israeli soldier.


Continued from Yesterday and the Day Before.


From June 1967 on, the West, America and Israel, has only paid lip service to God. America fights in the name of “freedom”, which of course is a noble and true concept, but what is the source of that freedom? God. Our Creator. Israel fights for “peace”. What about the God of Peace? You’ll never hear those words from an Israeli leader.

If America does not fight in the name of the God of Goodness, of the God of Freedom, then the Jihadists will fight in the name of the God of Jihad. They will declare Jihad on you until you fall back in confusion and horror.

Fogel Family stabbed to death by Arab Terrorists in Itamar 11 March 2011

They will kill your women, your children, your men, soldiers and civilians, even your babies. It makes no difference to them.


You will be shocked by the scope of it and ask yourselves how and why. In the morning you will ask when is evening coming already, and in the evening you will yearn for the morning out of fear. (Leviticus) But they will keep doing it until we understand that we are the good in the world.

Patton understood that in World War II. That’s why we won and Nazism is dead.

General George S. Patton - Soldier / Spiritualist - the greatest American general since Stonewall Jackson.


But Nazism was spiritually weak. It fought not in the name of God, but in the name of Hitler. Once broken militarily, it fell easily. Not so Jihadism. Break it militarily, and it will keep going after you until you wake up spiritually. The Jihadists are weak militarily, but spiritually they are very, very tough.

To be clear, I am not saying that America has to militarily conquer the world in the name of God. I am saying that America, when she democratically chooses to act with force, should not do it in the name of Freedom, but in the name of the God of Freedom. I am also not saying the Israel has to destroy the Dome of the Rock in the name of the God of Israel. That would be insane. I believe in the God of Freedom, and anyone should be able to worship wherever they want, even if it’s on my Temple Mount. What I do believe, though, is that Jews and Christians should also be able to worship on the Temple Mount freely, which currently they cannot.

Anyway, what is happening in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya at this very moment is a war in a spiritual trap first set at the Temple Mount in 1967. America is fighting in a battlefield it does not comprehend, at least not yet. She cannot win with her current thinking. Neither can Israel.

The enemy is fighting in the name of God, and we, America and Israel, are not. This is a problem.


I love America. I was born there. I lived there for 24 years. It is the best country that has ever existed, and I thank her for everything she has done for me and for the Jewish People, who as everyone knows sometimes get very evil hosts.

But unfortunately, America is lacking spiritual inspiration. And whether Israel likes it or not, in the end we will have to be that inspiration. When the Jews return to the Temple Mount in the name of God Who is the source of all Freedom, the West will wake up. Yes, even Europe will wake up and save itself. The God of Freedom will win, terror will end, and America will take her place at the head of the world forever.

As we say in Hebrew, “Be’Ezrat Hashem” - בעזרת השם - With God’s help.

May God bless America and all the Armed Forces.


The author is a former Israeli soldier. Born and raised in America for 24 years, he moved to Israel in 2007. Here he shares his view of the War on Terror from the perspective of a religious Israeli soldier.


LISSEN UP Y'ALL DEPT.

For what it's worth, I personally share the beliefs expressed here. During the course of my military adventures I had the blessed good fortune to visit Jerusalem, twice; to walk in the footsteps of warriors, kings, prophets and the Messiah. When I went up to the Temple Mount, I made my prayers - in secret - on behalf of all True Believers; for it is my personal belief that there is no difference - spiritually - between the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. That is to say that we all have one God, we are all People of the Book, and as a Christian it is my belief that ultimately the Messiah will reveal himself to all of us - the staggered timetable is for a reason, apparently, and that reason will also be ultimately revealed . . . not for me to quiz the bus schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SEAN LINNANE SENDS

WAR WITHOUT END - Part II

the War on Terror from the perspective of an Israeli soldier.

Continued from Yesterday.

When Israel, representing the Jewish People, came back to the Temple Mount in June 1967, the Western World was electrified, the Islamic world dumbfounded, terrified, and confused. The Israelites returned to their ancestral homeland. Something monumental was happening. Western Reporters during the Six Day War could barely contain their emotions. Everyone was waiting for some kind of universal message to come flowing out of the Temple Mount like Isaiah or something.

This is the scene where 1,900 years earlier in the year 70, a crazed war-hardened suicidally determined Jewish People almost beat the entire Roman army defending the Second Temple. The Greeks at Thermopylae were a close second. Josephus speaks about how Titus had to bring in Legions all the way from England to finally crush the Jews, who even then kept on fighting after the Temple was destroyed.

And then, 1,900 years later in 1967, we got it back against our will. We didn’t even want it. Levi Eshkol, at the time the Israeli Prime Minister, was literally begging King Hussein of Jordan to stay out. He didn’t of course. So Israel had to take back Judea and Samaria, today sadly referred to as the “West Bank” to hide Jewish association with it. And then we came back to the Mount.

And everyone looked at us. What are they going to do? Their ancestors fought like rabid dogs there, they had a Temple, twice, that still is the very beating heart of what would later become Western civilization. “Do something!” the Western world screamed. They ached for some kind of Messianic message.

Of course, we had no idea what to tell them. Jews can’t stand all this responsibility. We don’t want to speak in the name of God. It makes us nauseous. We’re a stiff-necked people. The Temple Mount was too much for us, so we just gave it right back and did nothing. Now we think some wall that Herod, that evil king built, is holy. The Wailing Wall, we call it. Ha. What fools we are. Now the world sees us as occupiers in the “West Bank,” a land that isn’t ours. We showed everyone we didn’t want it, so why are we complaining?

When we left that Mount, the War on Terror began, in June 1967. Not September 2001. Why? Because the inspiration, the possibility for terrorism, began when they saw that the spiritual center and founder of Western civilization – the Jewish People – lacked spiritual direction, which we refused to provide the world when we had the opportunity. We were too scared to speak in the name of God. That’s when the other side realized the West is spiritually weak. That yes, maybe the West can destroy you militarily, but in the end, they’ll just retreat in confusion about why they fought you in the first place.

How do we turn this around?


To be continued . . .


The author is a former Israeli soldier. Born and raised in America for 24 years, he moved to Israel in 2007. Here he shares his view of the War on Terror from the perspective of a religious Israeli soldier.


.

WAR WITHOUT END - Part I

The War on Terror from the perspective of an Israeli soldier.


I’d like to thank STORMBRINGER for giving me the opportunity write down my thoughts. I was never a combat soldier, so I’m not writing from a combat perspective, but rather from a philosophical one.

The battlefield that America and Israel are on is a very dangerous one. The war we are fighting is identical. It might be surprising, but neither America nor Israel understands the enemy against which they are fighting. There is one reason for this. Both America and Israel do not know what they should be fighting for.

Sections of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2008. Photograph by Baz Ratner, Reuters

Western civilization as we know it was founded by two nations: America and Israel. America is the muscle behind the West. It is the best country that has ever existed on Earth. Israel is the brain of the West. Not the State of Israel, as it is quite new in its third version, but rather the People of Israel, which goes back three millennia. We gave the world the Bible, the Judeo-Christian values of ethical monotheism, hard work, and faith, which are what inspired the Founding Fathers to establish the great force of freedom that is America.

Whatever happens to America and Israel will determine what happens to the West. To calm you down, I have no doubt whatsoever that we will win in the end. What I fear is how much we will both have to lose before we do.

Whether the Jews or the State of Israel likes it or not, the world watches us for spiritual direction. The People of Israel don’t really like this fact, we don’t want the attention, and we don’t even acknowledge it as a People. When Israel conquered the Temple Mount in 1967 after destroying the entire Egyptian Air Force in minutes, conquered the entire Sinai Peninsula in a day, and then took Judea, Samaria, and the Golan, the war ended on the Temple Mount.

Israeli soldiers at the recapture of the Temple Mount in 1967.

A few days later, when the Jews left that Mount, the entire idea of terrorism and the war against the West was born. How is that?

Israeli soldiers raise the Israeli flag over the Western Wall June 7,1967 alongside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel on the day of its capture from Jordanian forces in the June 1967 Middle East War. Photo: Getty Images

To be continued . . .


The author is a former Israeli soldier. Born and raised in America for 24 years, he moved to Israel in 2007. Here he shares his view of the War on Terror from the perspective of a religious Israeli soldier.



.

THE ONGOING DRUMBEAT

This week's significant events:

HOMELAND SECURITY EXERCISE IN TREYNOR, IOWA

Treynor High School

School children were sent home with permission slips to participate in an exercise by the Pottawatamie County and Homeland Security with the Treynor, IA Community Schools to simulate a school shooting. The premise of the mock shooting suggested that a student, whose white, Conservative parents oppose illegal immigration, comes to school with a gun and shoots a Latino Student.

Treynor High School student made up as a roleplayer for the exercise.


This is nothing less than a thinly-disguised propaganda exercise for the Department of Homeland Security; part of the continual, deliberate campaign by Liberals to stigmatize, marginalize law-abiding citizenry - the ultimate goal being to constrain and restrict our God-given right to self-defense as inscribed in the 2d Amendment of the United States Constitution.

They cancelled this outrage after the Citizenry alerted on it; then used this opportunity to twist law-abiding citizen's concerns into "threats to their employees and buildings due to the planned 'active shooter' exercise."

Twist the truth and milk it for all it's worth - energize the mob, play upon their fears and anxieties - the doctrine of propaganda straight out of Saul Alinsky and Joseph Goebbels.



OPERATION ODDYSEY DAWN: UNITED STATES ALLIES ITSELF WITH AL QAEDA IN LIBYAN NON-WAR

Let's apply the basic beginning steps of analysis and planning:


WHO are we supporting? U.S. backed anti-government forces in Libya are being led by al-Qaeda fighters.

- Brilliant. Just brilliant.


WHAT's the plan? WHERE is this thing going?

Like many observers, I’m skeptical of how Operation Odyssey Dawn has been conceived, implemented, and explained. - James M. Lindsay, Council on Foreign Relations


WHEN do we get out? US OFFICIALS: LIBYAN OPERATIONS COULD LAST MONTHS.

I once got branded a racist for using the "tarbaby" cliche -
the term has nothing to do with race; it means violence that develops into sticky mess you can't get yourself out of.


WHY are we there?

President Barack Hussein Obama took a break from important carnival activities in Rio de Janiero to issue to following statement on 19 March 2011:

"Our consensus was strong and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act and to act with urgency."


So why are we there and not the Darfur, Ivory Coast, or maybe even Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba?


HOW LONG will the Gadster hang in there? Gaddafi vows "Long War"

When you have secured the area, make sure to inform the enemy. - Murphy's Law of Combat #27

Gaddafi is seen here in a recent photo with a member of his elite female-suicide-sex-commando-bodyguard.(Getty Images)



MEANWHILE Hamas makes good use of that $500 million in humanitarian aid the Obama Administration threw their way:

HAMAS ROCKET ATTACKS ON ISRAEL GO PRACTICALLY UNNOTICED.




.

TOO HORRIFIC FOR WORDS

The following email came across my Blackberry the other day:

Hi Sean,

You don’t know me. My name is Rafi and I found seanlinnane on milblogging . . .

. . . I’ve spent the last few days compiling a list of military blogs, keeping the best ones on the list and filtering through. It has been a very meaningful and educational few days . . .

. . . It was a privilege sifting through and learning about life surrounding the military from you. I was in the army, though not the US Army (I moved to Israel a while ago and they draft pretty much everybody). Right now some of my friends in the Israeli army here are hunting two terrorists who slit the throats of two parents and 3 of their children in their sleep last Friday night in a town called Itamar (March 11), among them a 4 year old and 3 month old baby, and I know what it is to fight the enemy who, in some cases, have resigned their right to live among men on Earth . . .

. . . Rafi


Udi and Ruthie Fogel, aged 36 and 35, and three of their children – Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, barely three months old - were brutally stabbed to death in their sleep by terrorists who broke into their home in the Israeli community of Itamar.

Three Fogel children survived the attack. Twelve-year-old Tamar, who discovered the carnage, and her two brothers, Roi, 8, and Yishai, 2, who were miraculously left unharmed.

According to news reports, the terrorists managed to vault over a security fence and enter the Fogel house through the living room window. They then slashed the throats of the four Fogels whom they found asleep, and stabbed Ruthie to death as she exited the bathroom. Miraculously, they did not notice Roi asleep on the couch or tiny Ishai in his bed. After their rampage, the murderers locked the front door and escaped.


Relatives of the Fogel family approved the release of these photos to show the world the savagery of Islamist terrorism. Only these ghastly images can show the world what and who the State of Israel has to deal with:

BIASED REPORTING?

Israel demands CNN apology over attack coverage.

Meanwhile, our increasingly irrelevant mainstream media presented tendentious coverage of Saturday's gruesome murder in Itamar; CNN reporters actually questioned whether this was a terrorist attack. Israel's Government Press Office 'dumbfounded, astonished'


This brutal, senseless attack took place last Friday night, in Israel. My people brought it to my attention and quite honestly I was stunned. The news of the earthquake, giant tsunamis and the emergency conditions at the reactors in Japan absorbed my energies - I'm not a full-time, professional journalist, not by a long shot - I meant to get to this, but again, I was in a state of shock over this kind of violence.

I am a retired soldier and a security professional; off-duty I carry a loaded weapon concealed, and I hope & pray I never have to use it. We need to review this kind of material from time to time to remind ourselves that the world is full of evil people who only wish to do us harm, and to remind ourselves why we carry weapons, and as a reminder to take our training seriously at the firearms range. - S.L.


.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

. . . we support Israel of course . . . and under the current occupiers of the Whitehouse, we support Hamas . . . it's a zero-sum gain . . . S.L.


ISRAELI NAVY INTERCEPTS SHIP CARRYING WEAPONS BOUND FOR HAMAS IN GAZA

Aron Heller AP
JERUSALEM — Israel's defence minister says the cargo ship intercepted by the navy appeared to be carrying game-changing, sophisticated weaponry that Gaza militants do not currently possess.

Ehud Barak told reporters in Tel Aviv that Israel suspects the arms included “the beginnings of an advanced system” that could affect Israel's ability to act along Gaza's coast.

He did not elaborate, saying more details would be released after the ship reaches Israel later Tuesday.

Israel intercepted the ship overnight Tuesday in international waters on the Mediterranean. Officials say it was carrying arms sent by Iran to Gaza militants.

Read the entire article HERE

GILAD SHALIT IN HAMAS CAPTIVITY FOR 1700 DAYS

Prime minister's office releases statement saying Netanyahu feels the pain of the Shalit family and that actions to return Gilad safe and sound are continuing.


The family of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit marked the 1,700th day of his captivity on Saturday along with hundreds of supporters in front of the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem.

Hundreds mark Gilad Shalit's 1,700th day in captivity with rally outside Netanyahu's house


Shalit was captured by Gaza-based militants in a cross-border raid in 2006.

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas over his return in exchange for the release of Hamas prisoners have thus far been fruitless.


Read more HERE

.

DEATH BY PHOSPHOROUS

I received this footage via an unconfirmed source; it was reportedly filmed by the Israeli Defense Forces in real time, depicting the lead vehicle of a Syrian tank column in the Golan Heights. I cannot confirm whether or not the footage below is an actual event, or footage from a testing facility. The terrain matches that of the Golan Heights, however, and there is no signage or distance markings as one would expect to see at an ordinance proving grounds.

The fully armored Syrian tank is hit by an Israeli laser-guided, steel-penetrating, phosphorous-filled "hand-held" rocket; a small, very portable and tightly controlled weapon system. My source states that each one is accounted for when they are checked out and back in. There must be no fewer than 2 soldiers present to verify the use, one must be a senior officer with a minimum of 10 years military service. (The weapon name and program is secret.)

My source states that this tank was headed for one of Israel's settlements. Reportedly, there were four more tanks approximately one mile to the rear of this tank, which turned around before getting to this area after learning what had happened to the lead tank.

You can hear the ammunition cooking off after the initial strike. Needless to say, it not possible for tank crew members to survive an event like this, which did not make the news. This is reportedly an everyday event for Israel's Armed Forces; they do not permit the "embedding" of news reporters with their armed forces like we Americans do. This weapon and its tactical use is for their survival, not for "news" entertainment.




.

IRANIAN SPY: IRAN PLANS TO NUKE EUROPEAN CAPITALS AND ISRAEL

Original post at: MyNewsLinx



.

NO SUCH THING AS A STUPID QUESTION

The Commanding Officer at the Russian Military Academy [the equivalent of a 4-star general in the U.S.] gave a lecture on Potential Problems and Military Strategy.

At the end of the lecture, he asked if there were any questions. An officer stood up and asked, “Will there be a third world war? And will Russia take part in it?”

The general answered both questions in the affirmative.

Another officer asked, “Who will be the enemy?”

The general replied, “All indications point to China.”

Everyone in the audience was shocked. A third officer remarked, “General, we are a nation of only 150 million, compared to the 1.5 billion Chinese Can we win at all, or even survive?”

The general answered, “Just think about this for a moment: In modern warfare, it is not the quantity of soldiers that matters, but the quality of an army’s capabilities. For example, in the Middle East we have had a few wars recently where 5 million Jews fought against 150 million Arabs, and Israel was always victorious.”

After a small pause, an officer from the back of the auditorium called out, “How many Jews do we have?”


The moral of this story?

VISIT ISRAEL BEFORE ISRAEL VISITS YOU

Tuesday Tart HERE



.

ONE FOR OUR SIDE

The IDF, working with the Israel Security Agency (ISA), assassinated a senior Al-Qaeda terrorist in Gaza on Wednesday. The terrorist was identified as 27-year-old Mohammed Jamal a-Nahmnam.

He was killed by a car bomb near the Hamas police station in Gaza City.




A-Nahmnam was involved in past terrorist attacks on Israel. He was plotting attacks against Israel and American targets in Sinai, Egypt, in coordination with Hamas.

Several small Gaza terrorist groups are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The oldest is the "Army of Islam," which took part in an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing in which IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, and in the kidnapping of British reporter Alan Johnston in 2007. The group also planned to target former British Prime Minister Tony Blair during his visit to Gaza in July 2008.

A-Nahmnam belonged to the Army of Islam, and was responsible for security.




A senior Hamas terrorist argued this week that Al-Qaeda - a Hamas rival - is no longer present in Gaza. Fathi Hamad told Al-Hayyat that Al-Qaeda "is not active . . . we've sealed off all the [security] gaps."


Sherut haBitachon haKlali (שירות הביטחון הכללי‎, "General Security Service"), officially known by the acronym Shabak (שב״כ‎, IPA, Arabic: شاباك‎), officially known in English as Israel Security Agency (ISA), and commonly known in English as the Shin Bet, is Israel's internal security service. Its motto is "Magen VeLo Yera'e" (מגן ולא יראה‎ - "Defender that shall not be seen" or "The Unseen Shield"). It is one of three principal organizations of the Israeli Intelligence Community, alongside Aman (the military intelligence of the IDF) and Mossad (responsible for overseas intelligence work).