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Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 14, 2008 / 13 Menachem-Av 5768

The 3 A.M. Phone Call is real

By Mona Charen


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Hillary Clinton's best anti-Obama ad came to be known as the "3 a.m. phone call." It stoked voter worries that in the event of an international crisis, the first-term junior senator from Illinois might be out of his depth. On Aug. 8, the White House phone did ring, alerting President Bush that the Soviet Union, um, that is, Russia, had just sent columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers across the internationally recognized border of Georgia (formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia), a tiny, democratic, America-friendly, Western-leaning country in the Caucasus mountains.


It was a near perfect laboratory test — the sort that real life rarely provides until it's too late — for how the two nominees for president would respond to an international emergency. (It also tested the current president — more on that in a moment.) Sen. Obama flunked. His first response was to urge restraint upon "both sides" — that is upon the rapist and the rape victim.


A couple of days later, Obama strengthened his condemnation of the Russians (and withdrew his admonition to the Georgians), but then betrayed the soft, weak reflexes that characterize the leftist wing of the Democratic Party to which he belongs. The answer to this blatant and brutal violation of Georgian sovereignty was to — anyone? — alert the United Nations. "The United States, Europe and all other concerned countries must stand united in condemning this aggression, and seeking a peaceful resolution to this crisis," Obama said in a statement. "We should continue to push for a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling for an immediate end to the violence. This is a clear violation of the sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of Georgia — the U.N. must stand up for the sovereignty of its members, and peace in the world." Well, yes, and lions should lie down with lambs, but back in the real world, the United Nations has never been able to stop a conflict the parties did not wish to suspend. And since Russia holds a veto, no resolution from the Security Council would be possible. As Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it: "U.N. mediators can't even protect the dissident monks of Burma or the opposition in Zimbabwe, let alone a small country trying to fight off single-handed an invasion by the Russian army."


Sen. McCain's response was more muscular. He condemned Russia and urged her to "immediately and unconditionally cease ... military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory ... The consequences of Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave." McCain urged the U.N. Security Council to meet on the matter, but strengthened the point by adding that the "US should immediately work with the E.U. and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen," and, "We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation." Later, McCain also urged that the U.S. convene "an emergency meeting of the G-7 foreign ministers" and offered the view that Russia was seeking more than the independence of South Ossetia, but was instead looking to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mikheil Saakashvili. His use of the term G-7 was significant, since it presaged his later call to throw Russia out of the group that has become the G-8. Noting that Georgia is home to the only oil pipeline that feeds Caspian oil to the west outside of Russian territory or control, he warned, "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."


President Bush was slow off the mark. The image of him chatting up Vladimir Putin in Beijing while Russian tanks were crashing into Georgia (population 4.5 million) was not helpful. Perhaps President Bush has a slow fuse. It required a day or two for him to get his footing after Sept. 11. But now, finally, he has decided to send Condoleezza Rice to confer with Nicolas Sarkozy and then on to Tbilisi to show the flag. The humanitarian airlift, with its clear echoes of the Berlin airlift of 1948, is a bracing substantive and public relations move.


According to the Wall Street Journal, the Russians are permitting their Ossetian allies to burn villages, loot, and rob. The Russian soldiers are helping themselves as well. "The whole city is full of marauders," said one eyewitness who fled Gori. "Who in the world is going to help us?" wailed one distraught woman, who then answered her own question by sobbing, "Nobody cares."


Americans had already expressed misgivings about Barack Obama's preparedness for the harsh world we inhabit. This laboratory test can only increase that anxiety.

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