[StBernard] Have Our Leaders Lost Their Minds?

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Tue Jul 22 22:46:28 EDT 2008


Have Our Leaders Lost Their Minds?
By Newt Gingrich

I have two grandchildren, ages 5 and 7. If you're a parent or grandparent
yourself, I challenge you not to think about a child you love when you read
what I'm about to tell you.

I challenge you not to share my disgust with the barbarians who use the
blood of innocents to further their political agendas.

And I challenge you not to share my contempt for the bureaucrats who think
they can appease them.

For the governments that think their actions don't have consequences.

For the politicians who think that something - anything - good can come from
allowing the killers of children to walk free.


Child Killers Sent to "Protest" the Camp David Accords


Smadar Haran, her husband Danny, and their two daughters, ages two and four,
were at home in their apartment in northern Israel on the night of April 22,
1979. They were asleep in their beds around midnight when they awoke to
gunfire and grenades exploding.

Terrorists, sent by terrorist leader Abu Abbas to protest the signing of the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty at Camp David the year before, were breaking
into their building.

Desperate to hide, Smadar carried her two-year-old into a crawl space above
their bedroom. So terrified was she that her baby girl would cry out and
alert the terrorists to their hiding place that Smadar held her hand tightly
over the girl's mouth. Too tightly. By the time they were rescued hours
later, the little girl was dead. Smadar had accidentally smothered her own
child.

But the horror doesn't end there.


Kuntar Smashed a Four-Year-Old Girl's Head Against a Rock Until She Was Dead


While Smadar and her child hid in the crawlspace, Danny and the
four-year-old ...

... ran out of the apartment for the safety of an underground shelter. They
didn't make it. The terrorists took Danny and the little girl down to the
beach where one of them, Samir Kuntar, shot Danny in front of the girl. His
goal, according to Smadar, was that the sight of her father being killed
"would be the last sight she would ever see."

Then Kuntar smashed the little girl's skull against a rock until she was
dead.

Last week, in a deal brokered by the Israeli government with the terrorist
group Hezbollah, Samir Kuntar, a cowardly child killer, walked out of an
Israeli prison.


Israel Didn't Cave to Terrorists in 1985 But It Did Last Week


The deal the Israeli government made with Hezbollah included the exchange of
the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah in return for five
live terrorists in Israeli prisons, including Kuntar.

And Kuntar was no ordinary terrorist prisoner. Abu Abbas was so impressed
with Kuntar's savage child-killing tactics that Abbas masterminded the
hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 - including the killing
and dumping into the ocean of the defenseless, elderly, wheelchair-bound
Leon Klinghoffer - to secure Kuntar's release.

Israel didn't cave into terrorists in 1985, but it did last week. And the
deal it struck with Hezbollah will have disastrous consequences for Israel
and the world.

The concession, writes
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284431:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick
"will cement Iran's control of Lebanon through Hizbullah. It also all but
guarantees that any future Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hizbullah will
be killed on the spot. Why care for hostages when you can murder them and
expect to receive the same payoff you would get if you kept them alive?"


Kuntar Receives a Hero's Welcome in Lebanon


Kuntar Receives a Hero's Welcome in Lebanon

But possibly even more disappointing than the Israeli government's
willingness to make deals with terrorists is the reception that greeted the
release of Samir Kuntar in parts of the Middle East last week.

Columnist Mona Charen reports
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284432:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> that Kuntar literally received a red
carpet reception in Beirut. Charen writes:

The government closed all offices and declared a national day of
celebration. Tens of thousands of Lebanese cheered, waved flags, threw
confetti, and set off fireworks as Hezbollah staged a rally to celebrate
their "victory" over Israel. Mahmoud Abbas, the "moderate" leader of the
Palestinian Authority, sent "blessings to Samir Kuntar's family." PA
spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rahman sent "warm blessings to Hezbollah . . . on the
return of the heroes of freedom . . . headed by the great Samir Kuntar."

This barbaric display enrages me and it should enrage all Americans.

Both the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanese government are recipients of
U.S. taxpayers' money through foreign assistance. Political leaders - and
the people they lead - who cheer the release of despicable child murderers
are unworthy recipients of our assistance.

Congress should insist that the Lebanese government and the Palestinian
Authority retract their support for Kuntar or it should cut off U.S.
assistance to them.


Appeasement Comes Home to America


As if the news from Israel weren't bad enough, the seemingly irresistible
urge among some foreign policy elites to appease our worst enemies came home
to America last week.

The State Department sent its third most senior official to sit in on
nuclear "negotiations" with Iran, even as Iran continues its relentless
pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

In the past, President Bush had a label for such a move. He called it
"appeasement." Last week, his own State Department succeeded in taking the
first steps in a futile attempt to appease a dictator who has called for the
destruction of Israel and defeat of the West. His stated goal? A world
without America.

And so I ask again: Have our leaders lost their minds?


"Hitler Tamed By Prison" - The Unexplainable Desire of Elites to Lie to
Themselves


As a historian, I look for clues for how to manage our present from how
we've managed our past.

One thing history shows is that some elites have a dangerous and
unexplainable desire to lie to themselves.

A case in point: In 1924, Adolph Hitler was released from a German prison
after serving time for conspiracy to overthrow the German government.

Nine years before he took power and led Germany on an irrevocable course
toward world war and a campaign of systematic genocide against Jews,
Gypsies, Catholics and others, the headline in the New York Times was:

"Hitler Tamed By Prison
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284433:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> "

Read closely. The article concludes on this deluded note: "[Hitler's]
behavior during imprisonment convinced the authorities that [he], like his
political organization, known as the Volkischer, was no longer to be feared.
It is believed he will return to private life and return to Austria, the
country of his birth."


When the Negotiations Don't Work, What Are We Prepared to Do?


As America looks ahead to the swearing in of a new president next January,
we need now, more than ever, leaders who ...

... resist the temptation to delude themselves about the nature of our
enemies.

As a young Senator with little foreign policy experience, Barack Obama faces
a unique challenge. As I write this, Senator Obama is traveling abroad
seeking to convince the American people that he has the leadership ability
to be commander in chief.

Senator Obama has also repeatedly assured us that he, too, will negotiate
with regimes like Iran. But the question we owe to ourselves is to ask
Senator Obama and our current State Department:

When negotiations don't work, what are you prepared to do?

Talking isn't a policy, it's a process. And talking to people who have vowed
your destruction is at best a futile and at worst a dangerous process.

Just ask the Israelis. After greeting Samir Kuntar with a hug and a kiss
when he returned to Lebanon last week, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah
declared, "The time of defeat is long gone. Today is the time of victory."


A Sad and Fond Farewell to Tony Snow


I've had some strong words today for Israeli and U.S. leaders. But I want to
end today on a loving note. I want to say a fond farewell to a magnificent
friend and colleague.

Last week, America lost a principled advocate and loving family man, Tony
Snow. My sympathies go out to the entire Snow family for the loss of this
generous and brave man. Despite Tony's passing, the Center for Heath
Transformation will continue the "Eliminating Cancer as a Cause of Death and
Suffering" project that Tony began.

In addition, the Center has started the "Tony Snow Family Trust" to help his
wife Jill pay for the education and expenses of their three children,
Kendall, Robbie and Kristi. For more information and to donate, please click
here
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284435:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> .

Your friend,
Newt Gingrich

P.S. -- All summer long we have heard certain politicians in Washington
argue against opening up new drilling offshore or in ANWR because, as they
claim, everyone knows drilling now won't have any impact on today's oil
prices. It turns out two economists recently conducted a study
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284436:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> to examine what the impact of opening
up ANWR would be on today's oil prices. Their conclusions speak for
themselves: "We find that oil that is expected to reach the market some
years hence has an immediate impact on oil prices," and that "if oil firms
were allowed to drill in ANWR and many of the other areas that are currently
off limits to oil production, it is possible that these areas together might
have a significant impact on world oil prices."

And when these two authors - both economics professors - submitted their
findings for publications to a prestigious energy journal, what was the
response from the rarified world of economists? It was rejection -- but not
for the reasons opponents of opening up new areas for oil and gas
exploration would like to believe. No, their study was rejected because
their conclusions were so obvious and so well-known - and have been for so
long in the field of economics -- that the two authors were not offering up
anything new that merited publication. Because The Energy Journal
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284437:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> wishes to publish only original work,
it rejected the request to publish the study because the two economists had
nothing new to say.

This is how the rejection letter reads in part: "Basically, your main result
(the present impact of an anticipated future supply change) is already known
to economists (although perhaps not to the Democratic Policy Committee)."
Read the full rejection letter here
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284436:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> .

This just shows how in the world that works, the facts and how markets work
are well-known and indisputable while in the world that fails (the one
certain liberal members of Congress seem to be living in), a denial of
common knowledge, a denial of reality, and a denial about how the world
works prevail. Opponents of expanded drilling would be wise to get in touch
with reality and Drill Here, Drill Now
<http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/ct/2284438:2611545822:m:1:4612231
3:F5A7D3AACDB2766D9BABFCC6C09810A0> so we can Pay Less."





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