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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

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 Dec. 28, 2007 / 19 Teves 5768

Gordon England's War

By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In darkened theaters around the country this week, millions of Americans have been getting a civics lesson. In a somewhat romanticized and selective rendering of "Charlie Wilson's War," they are seeing how a colorful Congressman managed to work behind closed doors to fund a project - arming Afghans fighting Soviet invaders - with momentous consequences, both intended and unintended.


Today, decisions that may be equally momentous are again being made behind closed doors in official Washington. Many of these are being driven by a single man, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, with a zeal worthy of Charlie Wilson at his prime, if little of his panache.


The Pentagon's Number 2 has traditionally run "the Building," managing its vast bureaucracy and effectively being the ultimate allocator of funds among its competing programs and responsibilities. England currently has the unenviable task of playing such a role at a time when defense funding is substantially larger in real terms than it has been over much of the past few decades yet - thanks to extensive, and expensive, world-wide combat and combat-support operations around the world - woefully inadequate to meet the military's recapitalization requirements.


Matters have been made worse by the fact that neither this nor previous administrations have invested the huge sums required fully to modernize the Army and Marine Corps' armored forces, the Navy's fleets and all three services' air arms. To varying degrees, recapitalization programs have been pursued, but most have been delayed, dramatically reduced in size and, in some cases, simply canceled outright.


The result has been to leave the armed forces fighting today's wars with yesterday's weapons. While many have been improved and their useful lives extended with more contemporary technology, our troops are handicapped - and exposed unnecessarily to peril - because they are operating outdated and even obsolescing equipment.


To some extent, this travesty is being obscured by the nature of today's wars. Counterinsurgency operations place a premium on different weaponry and tactics than would conflicts with what are now euphemistically called "peer" or "near-peer" competitors. In this instance, however, it is not the generals who are guilty of being blinded by thoughts of "fighting the last war."


In fact, most in uniform appreciate that countries like Russia and China are demonstrating a determination to field militaries comparable to and capable of inflicting great harm on the best of our armed forces. Worse, they are both proliferating advanced weapon systems designed for that purpose to others who wish us ill, from the mullahs in Iran to Kim Jong-Il's North Korea to Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.


The best way to contend with these and other emerging threats is to dissuade such adversaries from believing that conflict with the United States could ever redound to their benefit. Toward that end, this country should field wherever possible decisively superior military equipment. A case in point is the Air Force's F-22 Raptor.


This plane is quite simply the best fighter aircraft in the world. Thanks to a combination of "stealthy" characteristics that make it very difficult to detect and target, the ability to operate for sustained periods at supersonic speeds and its extraordinary agility, the Raptor seems likely to secure for years to come something Americans have taken for granted in every conflict since World War II: air superiority essential to victory on the ground. In operational testing and deployments to date, the "Fifth Generation" F-22 has demonstrated the ability to defeat the best adversary aircraft and most sophisticated air defenses of the kind Russia has just agreed to sell Iran.


Yet, in Gordon England's Pentagon, the Raptor is an endangered species. Where Charlie Wilson labored in secret to secure funds to provide more and better arms to the Afghans, the "DepSecDef" is adamantly insisting in the closed-door budget deliberations over which he presides that production of the world's best fighter be terminated next year.


Fortunately, many of Charlie Wilson's successors on Capitol Hill have begun to engage on the question of whether to keep open the production line for the F-22. A bipartisan group involving some 200 members of the House and Senate representing nearly every political stripe wrote England's boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, last month urging that the Raptor line be kept open.


The necessity for such a course of action is all the clearer in the wake of an ominous discovery concerning the U.S. inventory of existing front-line air-superiority aircraft: Every one of the nation's 440 F-15Ds have been grounded in recent weeks after one of these twenty-five year-old planes broke up in flight and the subsequent discovery of potentially lethal cracks in at least eight more.


It seems obvious that the momentous decision of whether to terminate the F-22 at just 180 aircraft - one that could prove fateful in deterring a future conflict with increasingly hostile and aggressive adversaries - should be made not by a lame-duck presidency, but a newly mandated one. As a practical matter, this will require Gordon England to stop waging war against the F-22, allowing more than $500 million now earmarked for termination costs to be applied instead to long-lead procurement of one more block of twenty Raptors and permitting the Air Force to budget the substantially larger sums required in Fiscal Year 2010 fully to fund them.


Ultimately, the decision as to whether America will be able to deter future conflicts, and to wage them successfully if deterrence fails, will depend on a comprehensive recapitalization of every one of the armed services. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are calling for a sustained allocation of more resources - specifically, at least 4% of Gross Domestic Product. Now is the time to determine whether the candidates to be our next Commander-in-Chief will pledge to do so.


Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many 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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