"Cry 'Fetch!' and let slip the dogs of war" Julius Caesar, Act III, Sc. i

While condemned as "disproportionate," Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza are the only appropriate response to daily terror. As the U.N. Charter says, when they shoot at you, you can shoot back.
The Palestinians, the late Israeli leader Abba Eban once said, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew to its international border with Gaza and gave peace a chance.
On taking power in Gaza, Hamas decided that rather than build a viable infrastructure with foreign assistance, feed and educate its people and pick up the trash, it would rather turn Gaza into a launching pad for Kasam rockets targeted on Israeli civilians.
After three years of ceaseless rocket and mortar barrages, Israel has decided to exercise its right to self-defense in what the likes of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon call a "disproportionate response." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "For us to be asked to have (another) cease-fire with Hamas is like asking (America) to have a cease-fire with al-Qaida."
Their response is an Israeli version of shock and awe. After a year of gathering intelligence, Israel launched a devastating series of surgical strikes targeting Hamas base and training camps, headquarters and underground Kasam rocket launchers placed in bunkers and silos. The time had passed for trying to send Hamas a message by bombing empty buildings in the middle of the night.
Considering that Hamas has adopted Hezbollah's standard practice of locating command and control centers, and communications, arsenals and training facilities, documented civilian casualties are minimal while some 300 terrorist deaths have been reported.
Israel is still suffering from its failure to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 as promised. That war began with cross-border incursions by both Hezbollah and Hamas in which Israeli soldiers were seized. There too Tel Aviv was accused of a "disproportionate response" by a U.N. that had silently watched Hezbollah turn Lebanon into an armed camp.
Hamas undoubtedly felt emboldened. Hezbollah has translated its victory into political power in Beirut, obtaining a veto in the Cabinet and preparing for further inroads in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Even now, the U.N. and its "peacekeepers" permit Iran's puppet to rearm far beyond its prewar levels.
Hezbollah is an Iranian creation. Hamas is not. But we can't ignore the Iranian connection.
Much of Hamas' imported weaponry, and the expertise with which it now produces the rockets it uses to bombard Israeli border towns and villages, comes from Iran. Dozens of its top commanders have received training in Iran.
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas political activist and editor based in Ramallah in the West Bank, recently told the Washington Times that the current turmoil in Lebanon is part of an inexorable process that began in Gaza when Hamas wrested control and will spread across the Middle East:
"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement, now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon.
"It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan, and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Khader said in the interview. "We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."
Israel is determined to avoid a repetition of its Lebanese failure in Gaza. Such surgical strikes, however, may not be enough to end the threat. As we found out in Iraq, it may require boots on the ground going house to house and room to room.
Perhaps this time Israel will not lose its resolve in the face of international pressure, and finish the job.

Memo To Obama: Cut Taxes For All

President-elect Obama is letting his outline for economic recovery dribble out into the media ever so slowly. But from what we've seen, the plan seems less like stimulus and more like redistribution.
The linchpin of Obama's strategy is a tax cut for the "95%" of taxpayers who earn less than $250,000 a year. In itself, cutting taxes on the middle class isn't a bad idea. It just won't do what Obama thinks it will.
The Washington Post quotes senior Obama adviser David Axelrod as saying, "Look, we feel it's important that middle-class people get some relief now." Obama seems to believe that by lowering levies on only those in the middle ranges of the tax spectrum, he can "create or save" 3 million jobs and give the economy a boost.
Not likely.
For that, Obama would have to focus on the very unpopular but very necessary job of lowering the burden on those taxpayers who create jobs and spur economic output — the nation's entrepreneurs. And guess what? Most of them are in the top 5% of earners — those whom Obama would cut out of any tax reduction. This is foolish class warfare with no real underlying economic rationale.
If Obama is serious about getting the economy going again, he could do a number of things — and right away, not years from now, as with the $675 billion to $775 billion he plans to spend on infrastructure and imaginary "green jobs." These steps would include:
• Cutting corporate tax rates. U.S. businesses pay a top rate of 35% on income. That rises to 40% when you add in state taxes. In Europe, the average corporate tax in 2007 was 24.2%, according to the international consultancy KPMG.
Is it any wonder some of our most successful corporations move offshore? Cutting corporate taxes even to 25% would improve investment returns — and lead to more jobs and output.
• Slashing capital gains tax rates. This is a no-brainer. Every time cap-gains tax rates have been cut, a bull market has ensued not too long after and the economy has boomed. Today the cap-gains rate on long-term investments is 15%. Obama has suggested it should rise to 20%, a 33% increase. He's also suggested he might zero-out the rate for small firms and startups.
The latter would be better than nothing, but broad cuts in cap-gains rates would be best of all. They would lead to a surge in capital formation, business incorporations and millions of new jobs. A recent report from Ernst & Young found that U.S. cap-gains rates are already higher than in more than half of the world's top-performing economies. Raising them would only make us less competitive.
• Not raising taxes on the rich. This would be hard to do, given Obama's rhetoric on the stump. But those with incomes over $250,000 a year are the most likely to save and invest. And already they pay nearly 48% of all taxes, while 44 million middle- and lower-income households pay no taxes at all.
Obama has rightly called small businesses "the engines of our job creation." Well, 65% of those with incomes above $250,000 are small-business owners. According to Heritage Foundation data analyst Guinevere Nell, Obama's plans would give just 16% of small businesses a tax break. If Obama wants to help business create millions of jobs, putting a target on the backs of entrepreneurs won't help.
While he's at it, Obama should repeal the alternative minimum tax (AMT), the "millionaire's tax" that increasingly hits people not at the top incomes, but in the middle.
For the record, higher taxes on the rich is often a popular idea with newly elected presidents. Herbert Hoover liked it so much he jacked top income-tax rates from 25% in 1930 to over 60% four years later. Remember how that worked out?
• Ending the death tax. No pun intended, but this is a deadweight tax that raises little income but costs a lot. As it stands, the tax will expire in 2011 and then return in 2012 to its highest levels. This is morally indefensible and economically absurd.
The estate tax generates very little in revenues. And according to Heritage economist William Beach, it costs 170,000 to 250,000 new jobs each year. It's a loser.
Helping entrepreneurs may not be popular with many of Obama's key supporters and advisers. But they're the ones who can really stimulate the economy. If Obama wants to be more than a one-term president, he should keep them front and center in any recovery plan he unveils.

"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience."
--Theophilus Parsons the Essex Result, 1778

Reality For Radicals

During the campaign, Democrats pledged radical change. But recession has forced them to rein in their agenda, from soaking the rich to nationalizing health care. How the worm turns.
In debate after debate, Dear Leader Chairman MaObama assured voters he'd pay for his national health care plan by taxing the rich. But now that appears unreasonable even to the fawning reporters who cover him.
"How are you actually planning to fund your health care program?" asked one earlier this month. "It has been estimated that it could cost up to $65 billion, and you had planned originally to fund it through getting rid of the tax cuts to the wealthy. But in the current economic situation, maybe that's not so reasonable?"
MaObama stammered before answering, "I have not made yet a determination in terms of how we're going to deal with the rollback of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." He allowed that he may need "additional dollars to pay for some investments."
In other words, he's hard-pressed for revenues to fund his ambitious spending programs. Redistribution's no fun in a recession.
His health care plan, which was supposed to at least cover all children, has been reduced to a medical cost-savings program that includes modernizing doctors' antiquated medical records systems. Somehow "health IT," as MaObama calls his savings program, wasn't the health care reform Moveon.org had in mind.
"We can't simply insure everybody under the current program without bankrupting the government or bankrupting business or states," MaObama said, "So our starting point is savings."
The president-elect is also having to rethink his anti-industry energy policies. With crude under $40 a barrel, he won't pursue a windfall-profit tax on oil companies, which he'd hoped would fund new green initiatives and other domestic programs.
And a planned assault on the coal industry is also on the back burner. It would likely mean higher utility bills and more pain for depressed regions that depend on coal mining.
The cooling climate is also giving MaObama fits. With snow falling from New Orleans to Las Vegas and Malibu, Calif., efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions now seem forced.
What's more, we have it on good authority that MaObama's promised support for a card-check system for unions trying to organize a new workplace is also a nonstarter. That, too, had been a priority.
MaObama owes unions, big-time, but he's also rethinking his plan to add labor, as well as environmental, protections to NAFTA. The Democrat-controlled Congress is also backing off pro-union, anti-trade measures for fear of delaying the economic recovery.
"Card check, tax increases, major moves to the left are off the table," a Republican leader on the Hill told us.
Just months ago, Democrats were toying with the idea of taxing 401(k)s. Now that's dead in the water. So is the Global Poverty Act, a bill Dear Leader co-sponsored in the Senate.
One by one, MaObama is backing off campaign promises as his radical agenda runs into the buzz saw of reality. That doesn't mean he's changing his agenda, but he admits "we're going to have to prioritize" as conditions change.

Call it the education of Barack Hussein Obama.

AS FORREST WOULD SAY "SOMETIMES THERE JUST ISN'T ENOUGH ROCKS"

IT IS A GOOD THING THAT DEAR LEADER'S MIDDLE NAME IS HUSSEIN

Palestinian apologists leaving out crucial details in BS excuses for Hamas

The Palestinian apologists are out in force making excuses for Hamas. The most popular little nugget being used to excuse the rocketing of the civilian population has been a line from a Haaretz editorial referring to an incident six months ago in which the IDF destroyed a smugglers tunnel. Everyone from CAIR, to Huffington Post blogger Greg Mitchell have been using the incident as proof that Israel has in fact been the aggressor:
Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire.Problem with this is that both Zvi and Mitchell provide no context, and simply refer to the “blowing up of a tunnel”. The fact is that the tunnel was used to smuggle arms and cash into Gaza, and the IDF was shutting down a criminal enterprise. Ceasefire, does not mean that you turn a blind eye to those who are blatantly breaking the law. If this action was so “unilateral” why was Egypt destroying these tunnels just 4 months ago as well? This from Haaretz:
Five Palestinians were killed and 18 wounded in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border after Egyptian troops blew up the entrance, an Egyptian security official and Gaza hospital doctors said Saturday. "The destruction of the entrance deprived those inside the tunnel of oxygen," said the Egyptian official, who is stationed at the border and spoke on customary condition of anonymity. Gaza hospital officials said the five died from lack of oxygen.…Israel says Gazas Hamas rulers use the tunnel to bring in weapons and cash, and has urged Egypt to do more to stop the smuggling. In recent months, Egypt has begun cracking down on the smugglers. In the past week alone, Egypt has destroyed 14 tunnels, the Egyptian official said. Since the beginning of the year, 27 Palestinians have been killed in tunnels, including the five killed late Friday. Hmm…wonder why Hamas didn’t start lobbing rockets into Egypt.

By Rizzuto

AND IN A BREAKING STORY

TEHRAN, Iran (Dec. 29) – A group of influential conservative Iranian clerics launched an online registration drive on Monday seeking volunteers to fight against Israel in response to its air assault on the Gaza Strip.
About 3,550 people registered Monday with the Combatant Clergy Society's Web site. The weeklong online campaign gives volunteers three options on ways they can fight Israel: military, financial and propaganda.
The group, which has considerable political and economic power in Iran, did not provide further details on the program including how it would contact the volunteers or implement the program.
The conservative clerics decided to sign up volunteers after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious decree on Sunday that said anyone killed while defending Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against Israeli attacks would be considered a martyr.
Khamenei's religious decree was not considered a government decision and did not oblige the government to launch attacks against Israel.
But Iran considers Israel its archenemy, and its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Iran also is Hamas' main backer, though Tehran denies sending weapons to the Islamic militant group that took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
Israel's airstrikes on the Gaza Strip have sparked outrage in Iran and throughout the rest of the Muslim world. About 300 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded since the air assault began Saturday. Israel says it launched its campaign in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.
Also Monday, the Iranian Red Crescent sent a ship carrying 2,000 tons of food to Palestinians living in Gaza to be delivered via Egypt. An Iranian military plane also landed at Cairo International Airport carrying 24 tons of food and medicine destined for Gaza.
The head of Iran's Red Crescent, Masoud Khatami, said three more ships were waiting to be loaded with humanitarian aid, and Iranian hospitals were ready to receive injured Gazans, according to the official Iran news agency, IRNA

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, AP