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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review March 6, 2007 / 16 Adar, 5767

Putin's back to the future

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It is becoming increasingly dangerous to be a critic of Vladimir Putin, the elected dictator of Russia. That is, as KGB thugs like Putin used to say during the Soviet era, "no accident, comrade."


The most recent authority on the subject of Putin's increasingly ominous beh avior at home and abroad to have met an unpleasant fate is Paul Joyal. He is an internationally renowned expert on the former Soviet Union who had the temerity last week to accuse the Russian government on the NBC TV program "Dateline" of murdering Alexander Litvinenko.


Litvinenko was himself a former Soviet intelligence agent who worked with and then turned against Putin. He had blamed the Putin regime for killing another Putin critic, the courageous Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, in Moscow last year. Litvinenko wound up dead in London from poisoning with an exotic, highly radioactive element called Polonium 210 widely believed to have come from Russia.


Of the Litvinenko murder, Joyal told "Dateline": "A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: 'If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you — in the most horrible way possible.'" His words appear to have been eerily prophetic.


On Thursday, two unidentified men attacked Joyal in the driveway of his home, in a way seemingly meant to send its own message: By shooting him once in the groin. Thanks to quick action by his wife, a nurse, he did not bleed to death on the spot and is recovering from his wound.


Joyal did not live in Moscow, or even some other foreign capital. His home is in Adelphi, Maryland, a quiet suburban community roughly 12 miles outside Washington, D.C.


The Kremlin's apparent willingness brazenly now to strike at its foes wherever they may be is all too reminiscent of past, ruthless measures taken by Russian and Soviet rulers to crush internal and external dissent. Unfortunately, it is but one piece of the reprise Vladimir Putin seems to have in mind for his country.


For example, as he systematically consolidates absolute power in Russia, Putin is increasingly putting the squeeze on his country's neighbors in what the Kremlin refers to as "the near abroad." Also in his cross-hairs are nations as far away as Western Europe. Notably, he is using threats of disruptions in Russian energy supplies and, in some cases, actual cut-offs for strategic ends.


In addition, Putin is feverishly arming America's actual or potential foes. Recent transactions have included: selling anti-aircraft weapons to Iran to defend its nuclear sites against U.S. or Israeli bombers; state-of-the-art missiles, planes, ships and other offensive hardware to China that are greatly enhancing its power-projection capabilities; and over 100,000 AK-47s to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, the weapon of choice for his anti-American program of subversion throughout the hemisphere.


Vladimir Putin has recently launched a particularly momentous strategic campaign. He seems determined to replay what was, arguably, the turning point in the Cold War — the juncture when Ronald Reagan's carefully articulated and faithfully implemented plan for destroying the Soviet Union began the inexorable roll-back of the "evil empire" that Putin served and loved.


The moment was 1983 when President Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and the leaders of the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Germany successfully resisted, and ultimately overcame, the most concerted public relations/political warfare effort ever mounted by the Soviets, their agents of influence and fellow-travelers in the West. Millions of people took to the streets to block the deployment of hundreds of long-range Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) ballistic and cruise missiles in western Europe, threatening to topple the five basing-country governments if their demands — and the Kremlin's — were not heeded.


This attempt by Putin's predecessors in the Kremlin (he was doing his bit well down the food-chain, working the problem as a KGB agent in East Germany) to intimidate, seduce or coerce the allies into giving up their necessary response to the USSR's deployment of hundreds of deadly SS-20 missiles proved to be the high-water mark for Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev later tried to save at least some face by negotiating an INF agreement with Mr. Reagan, even though it involved a total ban on such missiles — something the Soviets had previously, categorically rejected.


Now, Vladimir Putin seems to want once again to threaten America's allies to prevent them from defending themselves. This time, the pressure is being brought to bear on states that Mr. Reagan helped to escape from the Soviets' grip: Poland and the Czech Republic. They have expressed a willingness to position respectively interceptors and radars to protect Europe and the West against the emerging threat of missile attack from Iran and potentially other Mideast nations.


Even though such an allied missile defense system will be incapable of stopping a concerted Russian attack, Moscow is now vowing to abrogate the INF Treaty and attack the Poles and Czechs should they go ahead with this deployment. Popular opposition in Europe is once again being fomented. Mass demonstrations and other, more concerted Kremlin-backed actions seem likely if and when the missile defense sites' construction goes forward.


The question is: Will George Bush allow his administration to be thwarted by the political equivalent of Putin's murderous efforts to silence his critics. Or will he, like President Reagan before him, make "INF, the Sequel" have as happy an ending as the original? Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and served in the Reagan Defense Department during the NATO deployment of INF missiles.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. heads the Center for Security Policy. Comments by clicking here.

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