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June 19, 2013

Peter Grier and Harry Bruinius: In the end, NSA might not need to snoop so secretly after all

Howard LaFranchi: Taliban peace talks hold glimmer of hope, but also unanswerable questions

Warren Richey: Supreme Court: For right to remain silent, a suspect must speak
Meredith Cohn: Leeches are making a comeback as medical helpers

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to pick the healthiest breakfast cereal

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: Spicy Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

June 17, 2013

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein: Black to the Future: American Apparel Gets Biblical

Patrik Jonsson: Minnesota Nazi: How did Nazi hunters miss Michael Karkoc?

Kate Irby, Ali Watkins, Trevor Graff and Kevin Thibodeaux: All the ways you're being watched
Don Lee: G-8 meeting will test NSA leaks' effect on U.S. influence

Patrik Jonsson: Fort Hood shooting: Judge nixes Nidal Hasan defense strategy. What now?

Stacey Burling: Why the stigma for migraine sufferers?

The Kosher Gourmet by Lisa Abraham: Does it work? 5 new kitchen gadgets put to the test

June 14, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget: Religious economics and being a ruler

John P. Martin: Hitler insider's missing diary found

Matt Pearce: NSA surveillance disclosure could affect court cases
Peter Tinti: US bounties changes strategy on (Wild, Wild) West African jihadis

Daniel Pendrick, M.D.: Memory loss? Old age may be the least of it

Lauren F. Friedman: But it's all natural! Should we have an instinctive preference for herbal remedies?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Streisand and Alicia Keys in Israel; "Girls" Stuff; Mel Brooks, Another TV special; Superman (who is Jewish) returns --- Israeli plays his mom

The Kosher Gourmet by Sharon K. Ghag : Bored with salad? Bling it up a bit (4 effortless recipes that will result in a 'WOW!')

June 12, 2013

Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect

Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: What's so special about Omega-3 supplements?
Morgan Housel: What newspapers were saying when you should have been buying

Pete Spotts: How cockroaches evolved so as to bypass 'roach motels'

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: Deep-dish cookie: Warm, gooey and a little over the top

June 10, 2013

Joseph A. Slobodzian: Faith healing and third degree murder: Thorny legal case
Lindsay Wise: Few options for online users to avoid spying, experts say

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: There are plenty of nutritional food bargains out there
Harvard Health Letters: Can bariatric surgery control diabetes?

Zach Murdock: Superglue helps doctors save infant's life

The Kosher Gourmet by Celebrated chef Mario Batali : As good as grilling gets: Rib eye with dry mushroom spice rub

June 7, 2013

Rabbi David Aaron: Beating jealousy

Caroline B. Glick: Wounded . . . and dangerous

Clifford D. May: Al Qaeda vs. Hezbollah
Harvard Health Letters: Fighting back against allergy season

Kimberly Lankford: Grandparents who use FSA to cover grandkid's braces and other must-know info

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom:J ewish Tony Nominees/Tony Awards; Jewish Teen Actor In Sci-Fi Flick; Jewish singer in "Voice" finals

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust

June 5, 2013

John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less

Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Mushrooms Have Medicinal As Well As Culinary Value
Morgan Housel: Why you never learn from your investment mistakes

Don Lee: In China, kindergarten rivalry takes deadly turn

The Kosher Gourmet by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan: 30-Minute Coq au Vin isn't a dream

June 3, 2013

Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself

Richard A. Serrano: Pvt. Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks trial also a test for government

Mark Trumbull: Have degree, driving cab: Nearly half of college grads are overqualified
Kim Lankford: What to do when long-term care insurance premiums rise

Deborah Netburn: Study: Adults' mouth bacteria may help babies

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Contestant on 'The Voice'; Will Smith's 'Jewish movie family'; Bravo Gives Long Island Jews the Jersey Shore Treatment; Magicians and More

The Kosher Gourmet by Bill Ward: How to be as refined as the wines at a wine tasting

May 29, 2013

Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die

Dennis Prager: The 'Muslims-Killed-by-the-West' Lie

David Clark Scott: Open war on teachers?
Morgan Housel: If you know only five things about investing, make it these

Sara Reardon: AGenome detectives change the donation game

Deborah Netburn: A one-way ticket to Mars? 78,000-plus and counting apply by video

The Kosher Gourmet by Bev Bennett: CHEDDAR AND CHERRY MUFFINS --- your mouth is already watering

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


Jewish World Review Oct. 20, 2006 / 28 Tishrei, 5767

A challenge from the suicide state

By Wesley Pruden


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There aren't many parallels between the war in Vietnam and the attempted suicide of Iraq, but the ghost of George Aiken hovers over Baghdad.


George Aiken, the late Republican senator from Vermont, is most famously remembered for his wry suggestion that the way to extract the United States from quagmire in Vietnam was to declare victory and get out.


His suggestion was borne of the frustration now bedeviling everyone in, around and about Iraq, the grim realization that not every problem has a neat and easy solution and a reminder that patience is not necessarily an American virtue.


Frustration is pushing everybody — the Americans, the Arabs and most of all the Iraqis — to consider a dramatic "course correction" over the next few months. Nobody wants to call it "the Aiken strategy," but the Sunnis and the Shi'ites could get on with their violent rituals of national suicide in the name of the religion of peace.


The inevitable "task force" investigating what to do with Iraq, led by James Baker, the former secretary of state, is leaking like an infant, and some of the suggestions are weirder than others: a partition of Iraq into three regions defined by ethnic or religious demographics, withdrawal of U.S. troops to be dispatched to nearby friendly places where they could — theoretically — be called back to deal with appropriate "emergencies." It's difficult to imagine an emergency dire enough to get them back once they're out, which is of course the point of the strategy.


The weirdest suggestion of all is that the U.S.-trained Iraqi army would overthrow the new government in Iraq put in place by the coalition of the willing, and replace Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with a strongman, perhaps someone like Saddam Hussein, only not yet a monster. He would restore "order" while the United States and Britain content themselves with viewing with alarm for a "decent" interval, after which Washington and London would recognize the new government.


Comparing Iraq to Vietnam betrays an ignorance of history. As brutal as the Communists were in Vietnam, there was an ideological purpose to their brutality. The war in Vietnam was a war for "the hearts and minds," as the cliché went, in pursuit of a Marxist order. In Iraq, the insurgents (to use a term they don't deserve) don't care about hearts and minds, about taking territory or establishing a new Jerusalem. They're interested not in hearts and minds, but body parts, to be strewn across the neighborhood in an endless festival of Sunni blood and Shi'ite gore.


"Iraq takes today's 'cult of the suicide bomber' a stage further," says Brendan O'Neill, a British pundit in Spiked, an Internet magazine. "We could say that Iraq is the world's first Suicide State, responding to war and occupation not by mobilizing the masses in opposition or organizing resistance armies, but rather by destroying itself, by committing suicide in front of the world's cameras."


Mercy and morality might not have constrained the North Vietnamese from blowing up 26 children taking sweets from an American soldier, or 38 women and children lining up for rations of kerosene, or blowing up 74 worshippers in a mosque, but the men of Hanoi knew that to do those things would make it difficult to persuade the masses to follow the Marxist path to national salvation.


Unlike in Vietnam, there's an absence of politics in Iraq, no concern for national salvation, no Ho Chi Minh to rally the countryside, no alternative government in waiting, no attempt to take and hold territory. It's killing to prove that only Sunni spilling of Shi'ite blood can appease Allah, that only Shi'ite dismembering of Sunni children can make Allah happy. The only purpose of the mayhem seems to be getting on television with guns blazing, bombs exploding, bodies flying.


Once upon a time the West could look at mayhem in the Muslim world with more bemusement than horror, but now we can't. The world has grown too small. This is the dilemma of George W. Bush, and it will be the dilemma of whoever follows him. The Democrats don't want to cut and run so much as to run and hide. But there are no hiding places left. Once out of Iraq, where is there to go?

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 Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

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