The Middle East’s Greatest Untold Story

Published July 10, 2012 | By Iowadawg

Do check out this site soon:

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This month the United Nations marks World Refugee Day, a star-studded, multimedia campaign to raise awareness about the plight of refugees. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie have cut video spots that will be broadcast on television and spread on social media. Millions will participate in events spanning five continents, from concerts in London to a film festival in Beirut to a bike race in Ecuador. Yet mention of one group of refugees will be noticeably absent from any of these activities: the 850,000 Jews expelled from Arab countries during the past six decades. Their history remains one of the 20th century’s greatest untold stories.

At the end of World War II, 850,000 Jews lived in Arab countries. Just 8,500 remain today. Their departure was no accident. After Arab leaders failed to annihilate Israel militarily in 1948, they launched a war of terror, incitement, and expulsion to decimate their own ancient Jewish communities.

In Iraq Jewish businessman Shafiq Adas, then the country’s wealthiest citizen, was immediately arrested on trumped-up charges and publicly lynched. This was followed by bombings targeting Jewish institutions, arbitrary arrests of Jewish leaders, and massive government seizures of property. Within years virtually all of Iraq’s 2,500-year-old Jewish community had fled, emptying the country of many of its greatest artists, musicians, and businessmen.

Similar scenes played out across the region, from Egypt to Syria to Libya to Yemen. State-sanctioned pogroms descended on Jewish neighborhoods, killing innocents and destroying ancient synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. New, draconian laws prevented Jews from public worship, forced them to carry Jewish identity cards, and seized billions of dollars in their property and assets. The total area of land confiscated from Jews in Arab countries amounts to nearly 40,000 square miles — about five times the size of Israel’s entire land mass.

The vast majority of these Jewish refugees came to Israel, nearly doubling its population. Most entered the Land of Milk and Honey with no milk, no honey, and no money. They were embraced with full citizenship rights and ambitious programs for integration, rising to the highest levels of society.

The years have passed, but the injustice inflicted upon these Jewish refugees continues. Many around the world have remained silent and complicit as Arab governments have sought to erase all memory of their stories.

How This Landlubber’s Blog Became the Navy’s Ideas Machine

Raymond Pritcheet, left, talking with sailors at a conference. Photo courtesy Raymond Pritchett

In January the U.S. Navy announced a crash program to convert the USS Ponce, a 41-year-old amphibious transport, into a floating base for helicopters, minehunters and Navy SEALs in the Persian Gulf. Adm. John Harvey called the ship’s three-month conversion a “remarkable feat.”

Equally remarkable is whose idea it was, though not exclusively. For decades the Navy has occasionally used big, cheap, mostly empty vessels to stage troops, boats and copters in conflict zones. But in recent years these “motherships” have become a core Navy concept, thanks in part to steady cheerleading by a 36-year-old, New York-based civilian IT consultant and part-time blogger with no military experience or college degree.

Meet Raymond Pritchett, better known by his internet handle “Galrahn” — a bit of nerdy wordplay referencing the Star Trek Klingon commander Gowran. For five years, he has used his blog Information Dissemination to argue for ships like Ponce, among other naval initiatives. Pritchett even claims credit for naming Ponce‘s vessel category. “Many people tell me that the term ‘mothership’ was very infrequently used as part of the Navy lexicon until I began writing about the concept,” Pritchett tells Danger Room.

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This is a great video of teenagers who can’t vote begging for those of us who can vote to do the right thing in November to save America so it will be there for them when they are older:

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This article, part 1, is by Chuck Norris! Read it for sure now!

In 2007, when I began writing my New York Times best-seller “Black Belt Patriotism,” unemployment was less than 5 percent; the annual federal budget was about $2.9 trillion; the federal deficit was $161 billion; and the national debt was $9 trillion.

Today unemployment is stuck at 8.2 percent; the federal budget is $3.8 trillion; the national deficit is $1.3 trillion; and the national debt quickly is approaching a staggering $16 trillion.

And to add insult to injury, our vassalage to other countries deepens as they bankroll increasing amounts of U.S. debt, and more than 50 percent of our public debt is held by private investors in foreign lands.

Last week, the International Business Times reported: “China overtook Japan as the largest holder of U.S. national debt in 2009. As of December (the most recent data available), it held about 23.1 percent, or $1.15 trillion, of all foreign investment in U.S. privately held federal debt, according to a newly released report by the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. … Without monetary policy change, the CBO warned in its 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook on June 5, the U.S. federal debt could be twice the size of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2037.”

The national debt is not merely the result of excessive spending; it is also the result of revenues not being high enough to pay for government outlays. In other words, while the feds have spent trillions of dollars bailing out everyone from automotive businesses to zebra-loving environmental companies, they have done virtually nothing to build up Main Street business productivity. (Disturbingly, just a few days ago, Vice President Joe Biden again called for more government spending.)

Go HERE.

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Never understood why the paper industry does not move away from trees to make paper!

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Why Did Libya Vote Against the Muslim Brotherhood?

Obama vows to veto bill combining tax cuts for everybody

Board members fighting to stop Michelle Obama from using their school for campaign event

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This is your civil left at work! Don’t agree with them, they issue death threats (hey, only muslims do that!).

Brad Pitt’s mom receiving death threats after saying Obama supports the killing of unborn babies and gay marriage…

WND – Pitt, has been scared into silence by the hate-filled, vulgar and even violent reaction to her public assertion that Barack Obama is “a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.”

Pitt has even been the subject of death threats following her letter to the editor of Missouri’s Springfield News-Leader in which she asserted failure to vote for Republican presumptive presidential candidate Mitt Romney constituted a vote for Obama.

WND spoke briefly with Pitt and asked about the media assault against her for her comments as a private citizen supporting Romney. With inflections in her voice that conveyed fear and despair, she quietly and politely said she was not interested in talking to anyone in the media about the incident.

When she was told WND supported her right to speak her mind and is appalled by the threats against her life, Pitt expressed gratitude to WND for being one of the few news agencies doing so. Even her thank you, however, was said in a subdued manner laden with heaviness of heart.

Pitt had every reason to be frightened. Following her letter to the editor in her local newspaper, the mainstream media have painted her comments in a vilifying light.

The Hollywood Reporter published a story headlined, “Brad Pitt’s mother pens anti-gay, anti-Obama letter to local newspaper.” The New York Daily News went further, penning an article originally titled, “Brad Pitt’s mom unleashes anti-gay, anti-Obama fury in letter.”

She Knows Entertainment reported that Pitt actually “hates Obama, ‘gay’ people.”

These slants on the story, however, are mild compared to comments posted on Twitter.

Editors of the Twitter-scouring news site Twitchy exclaimed sarcastically, “Time for the left’s self-proclaimed arbiters of tolerance to teach her a lesson with their hateful, misogynist slurs and death wishes.”

Twitchy then spotlighted some of the tweets it found.

“Brad Pitt’s mom, die,” wrote Twitter-poster Sandy Kownacka.

A tweet from “I Bleed Gaga” echoed similar sentiments, saying, “Brad Pitt’s mom wrote an anti-gay pro-Romney editorial. Kill the b—-.”

Other comments included, “F— you, brad pitt’s mom, the gay community made your kid a star, you whacko,” and, “Brad Pitt’s mom is a dumb c—.”

Many of the comments told her to commit vulgar sexual acts with the commenter.

These statements stand contrary to Pitt’s own statements about his mother. In January, Pitt told the Hollywood Reporter that his mother was a very loving person.

“She’s very, very loving – very open, genuine, and it’s hilarious because she always gets painted in the tabloids as a she-devil,” the actor said. “There’s not an ounce of malice in her. She wants everyone to be happy.”

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The Iranian Masters Of Mayhem

July 10, 2012: In Kenya, police arrested two Iranians on June 20th and found them in possession of bomb making materials and with orders to make terror attacks on Israeli, American, British or Saudi Arabian targets. Over the last five years, Iran has been trying to develop trade with Kenya, and good relations in general. This has not resulted in much economic activity, but Iranian diplomatic personnel have been seen around more, trying to establish contacts among the Moslem minority in largely Christian Kenya. This has made Kenyan police alert to any suspicious behavior on the part of Iranians.

What happened in Kenya was not an isolated incident. Two years ago an Iranian weapons smuggling operation in Nigeria was revealed and caused much embarrassment. Nigerian police found 13 cargo containers full of weapons. The shipping documents listed the contents as building materials. Some detective work confirmed that the containers were shipped from Iran several months previously. Worse, at least two Nigerian Moslems were involved in the operation, as well as an Iranian diplomat. It was eventually discovered that the weapons were headed for Gambia, up the coast, where pro-Iranian rebels were waiting for the shipment. In response, Gambia (and neighboring Senegal) kicked out Iranian diplomats and the incidents alerted all other African governments to be careful with Iranian diplomats, or any Iranian citizens who show up for no good reason. Chances are that such Iranians are members of the Quds Force, and if they are, no good will come of it.

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NSA chief defends agency against domestic spying charges

The head of the National Security Agency on Monday denied reports that NSA’s new data center in Utah would collect and store data about Americans, including their e-mails and web-browsing habits.

The $2 billion data center in Bluffdale, Utah, will house massive supercomputers capable of storing and analyzing vast quantities of data when it comes online next year, but U.S. ArmyGen. Keith B. Alexander reiterated NSA’s insistence it does not unlawfully conduct surveillance of Americans.

“We don’t store data on U.S. citizens,” Gen. Alexander told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute. “That’s baloney. … That’s ludicrous.”

However, “I’m not going to come out and say what we are doing” at NSA, he added. “That would be ludicrous, too.”

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Marines back on board ship after taking Eniwetok Island, 1944.p>GALLERY.

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See, the liberals, obama, holder, pelosi, etal….they have read Hitler, they know Hitler, they want to follow him to the grave!

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U.S. lawmaker asks Tuvalu to stop reflagging Iran oil tankers

Vessels sail past Malta-flagged Iranian crude oil supertanker ”Delvar” (L) anchoring off Singapore March 1, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Tim Chong

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A prominent U.S. lawmaker has asked the small South Pacific island nation Tuvalu to stop reflagging Iranian oil tankers and warned its government of the risks of running afoul of U.S. sanctions.

The European Union banned Iranian oil imports as well as providing insurance for vessels carrying Iranian oil on July 1, and the United States has new economic sanctions that have curbed Iranian oil imports by most other major nations.

Reflagging ships masks their ownership, which could make it easier for Iran to obtain insurance and financing for the cargoes, as well as find buyers for the shipments without attracting attention from the United States and European Union.

Intelligence wars heat up in Lebanon amid regional instability

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS

As the security situation in Syria and Egypt deteriorates, Lebanon is rapidly emerging as a major intelligence hub in the wider geopolitical power-struggle currently unfolding in the Middle East. On Monday, Lebanon’s leading Arabic-language newspaper, An-Nahar, reported the discovery last month of a foreign espionage network allegedly operating in Lebanese capital Beirut. The paper said that the clandestine network was spying on behalf of “a major Western country”, and was unearthed by forces loyal to Hezbollah, the Shiite group that controls large parts of southern Lebanon. The network allegedly consisted of at least three men, all Lebanese citizens, who lived in close proximity to each other in Beirut’s southern suburbs —a traditional Hezbollah stronghold. The three men were not Hezbollah members, said An-Nahar, but one was stoutly religious and all had good relations with local Hezbollah cells operating in their respective neighborhoods. The alleged head of the spy ring was an unnamed Lebanese citizen who had lived in the Ukraine for several years, where he operated a human smuggling network transporting Arab men into Europe. However, he was eventually arrested by French authorities in Paris and spent two years in prison. According to An-Nahar, the man was able to secure a deal with his captors, under which he would be allowed to return to Lebanon in exchange for informing them about the activities of a senior Hezbollah official wanted by Interpol. His ultimate mission was allegedly to lure the Hezbollah official, with whom he was friends, to Europe, where he could be arrested. Hezbollah has refused to comment on the newspaper’s claims. But the militant Shiite group did confirm on Tuesday the reported explosions of three alleged Israeli spy devices found in Southern Lebanon.