Fascist-Sympathizing Anti-Semitic "Columnist"
Writing For London's Daily Mirror
Excerpt from
an article by columnist John Routledge, from The London Daily Mirror. Routledge appears to be one of those writers who strings short, unrelated quips together in an imitation of a real thought process. But, what he writes is worth knowing about because he is a columnist for a major newspaper in England. Here it is for what it's worth:
America is in the grip of an overwhelming dread of terrorism, cynically promoted by the Republicans, their neo-conservative hard men and their dupes in the media.
Never mind that 15 times as many people were shot, strangled, poisoned, stabbed and otherwise murdered by other Americans as died in the 2001 Twin Towers horror.
YASSER Arafat, the Palestinian president, appears to be at death's door. Not surprising, really. He's 75 and he has been under house arrest for the past two years. If he stepped outside his front door, an Israeli sniper would shoot him.
A lesser man would have given up the ghost long ago. Something must keep him going. That something is the great wrong done to his people, and his lifelong mission to put it right.
I salute the courage of Yasser Arafat and the dogged determination of his people. They will outlive the hatred of the Israelis and the criminal indifference of their Yankee paymasters.
First, Routledge, America is not in the grips of dread over terrorism. You Europeons are. That's why Europe runs away from conflicts. Clearly, Spain ran scared after the Madrid Massacre. America faces it's conflicts and confrontations head-on.
And, by the way, why is it that when it happens to Euros it's called a massacre, but when it happens to Americans it's called a "horror," or a "tragedy," or some such non-descript noun which removes the blame from where it lies; the fomenters of Islamofascism?
But I guess, according to you, America shouldn't be fighting back against people who plot chemical weapons attacks, and radiological weapons attacks against our people and your people.
Only a few thousand people were killed at Pearl Harbor in 1941, should Americans have refused to help the British in their war against Hitler back then? And if we hadn't helped, what language would you be writing in now, you twee little quaking quim?
As far as you far as your comments about Yasser Arafat go, well,
if you support a man whose
life's goal is to kill Jews and steal money from his people then you are a fascist, and an anti-Semite.
Congratulations to you, that's a great niche in life.
Saddam And His Madman Plans
Click
here and scroll down to picture to get confirmation of Saddam and his WMD plans. Thanks for Mudville and Little Green Footballs.
Bin Laden Admits We've Got Him On The Ropes
Media Edits That Part Out
Ok, so we've had the Dan Rather forged memos situation, the New York Times/CBS News joint effort to release the completely false story al-Qaqaa story, and now, via Little Green Footballs, I find that
the New York Post is reporting that the media edited the Bin Laden video so that it would not negatively effect Kerry:
Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape — of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday — bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.
On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military’s unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
A portion of the left-out footage includes a tirade aimed at President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, claiming the war in Iraq is purely over oil.
Charles at Little Green Footballs comments:
This is outrageous. After three years unseen, Osama bin Laden releases a video acknowledging the Bush administration’s record of success in Afghanistan, and in hunting down the Al Qaeda network, and showing his particular hatred for the man who brought this ruin upon him—but the media doesn’t think we should see it? Instead we get a whitewashed, edited version that seems to be equally critical of Bush and Kerry, and wire stories extolling Bin Laden’s confidence and health?
Release the full tape!
It will be interesting to see how these nuts behave if George Bush is re-elected.
Keep The Faith
From George Will, via
Instaputzi:
Reasonable people can question the feasibility of Bush's nation-building and democracy-spreading ambitions. But, having taken up that burden, America cannot prudently, or decently, put it down. The question is: Which candidate will most tenaciously and single-mindedly pursue victory? The answer is: Not John Kerry, who is multiple-minded about most matters.
Tuesday's winner will not start from scratch but from where we are now, standing with the women of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Back in Washington recently, Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line.
Which candidate can be trusted to keep faith with these people? Surely not the man whose party is increasingly influenced by its Michael Moore faction.
Halloween Costumes Of The Year
Two of my favorite bloggers, Michelle Malkin and Vanessa, come in on opposite sides of an issue. What to do? What to do?
I think I'll laugh.
I guess that means I agree with Vanessa, over at
If They Only.nu:
This must make me pretty evil, but I'll admit that sweet lil beaming face of "The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib" just about had me tipping over the chair in a depraved sort of mirth
2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes
Can you imagine how angry that Abu-Ghraib kid is going to be at his parents when he grows up, and goes off to college, and goes through his rebellious human-rights activist phase?
Heh heh. I see some therapist bills coming.
UPDATE: At the risk of having this turn into a two-way conversation, or a dialogue, or something so meat world and old-fashioned, I just have to note that Vanessa over at If They Only.nu
added comments about the criticism of the folds behind "The Littlest Prisoner" scandal:
They may have been dancing on the edge of the Cliffs of Propriety, but I don't personally think they made the leap. It's nothing Trey Parker and Matt Stone wouldn't have stooped to. Don't let me stop you from being offended though, if that's your bag.
I should note that if I had a child, I wouldn't be dressing it up as The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib because geez people, I'm not an insensitive brute, okay? I'd be a respectable parent and go for more traditional Halloween styles. Like an undead zombie with blood with bits of skull missing and a stump for an arm or something.
Heh heh.
Anti-War Movement Supports Theocrats And Fascists
Interesting
article from Oliver Kamm:
Nick Cohen's latest piece for The New Statesman has the Stop the War Coalition spot-on (link via Harry's Place):
"The British anti-war movement is falling apart, but for a reason that the most cynical observer of the left in the 20th century could never have imagined. The left, or at least that section of it which always manages to get the whip hand, has swerved to the right - to the far right, in fact - and is actively supporting theocrats and fascists: the oppressors of racial minorities, secularists, women, gays and trade unionists."
One point that I hope will be noted by anti-war campaigners with no time for the totalitarian and anti-Jew politics of the Socialist Workers' Party, for which the Stop the War Coalition is a front, concerns the moral evasions of the party increasingly favoured by The Guardian:
"If you think the sell-out is just a local problem confined to a few creeps on the far left who believe that anyone who kills Americans is a freedom fighter, consider the case of the Liberal Democrats. Charles Kennedy managed to get through his entire speech to the Liberal Democrat party conference without once mentioning the liberals and democrats in Iraq who face kidnap or murder for fighting for the rights that he takes for granted. I can't remember a single occasion when the Lib Dems have taken up the cause of Iraqi democracy. "
Isolationist realpolitik dolled up as multilateralism is a longstanding stance of British Liberalism. As the Liberal leader Herbert Samuel, than whom no more feckless appeaser could be found in the House of Commons, remarked in July 1934 (quoted in R.A.C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement): "The collective system must be really collective, and there is no reason why this country alone, or even with one or two sympathetic allies, should undertake obligations which really devolve upon humanity at large."
I don't know what humanity at large is, but I do know who the victims of Baathist tyranny were, for Coalition forces have been exhuming the bodies from the mass graves for the past 18 months. A professed liberal party with nothing to say to those who lived under - or more properly, survived the violence of - a fascist regime commits a betrayal even greater than marching alongside the totalitarians of the Stop the War Coalition.
Cohen concludes:
"No one who considers himself a democrat, liberal or socialist can continue to associate with the Stop the War Coalition."
Or indeed should ever have done so in the first place.
I love that line: "The collective system must be really collective." Is that what Kerry means by the Global Test.
Honestly, it sounds like something my friend the Proprietor, over at
TheIraqWarWasWrongWasWrongBlog, would say.
Hate America Crowd Comes Out In Support Of John Kerry
Gerard Baker of The London Times
enumerates the list of people who support Kerry for President:
"The hordes of the bien-pensant Left in the universities and the media, the sort of liberals who tolerate everything except those who disagree with them. Secularist elites who disdain religiosity except when it comes from Muslim fanatics. Europhile Brits who drip contempt for everything their country has ever done and long for its disappearance into a Greater Europe.
Absurd, isolationist conservatives in America and Britain who think the struggles for freedom are always someone else’s fight. Hollywood sybarites and narcissists, self-appointed arbiters of a nation’s morals.
"Soft-headed Europeans who think engagement and dialogue with mass murderers is the way to achieve lasting peace. French intellectuals for whom nothing has gone right in the world since 1789.
"The United Nations, which, if it had its multilateral way, would still be faithfully minding a world in which half the population lived under or in fear of Soviet aggression. Most of Belgium.
"Above all, of course, Middle Eastern militants. If your bitterest enemies are the sort of people who hack the heads off unarmed, innocent civilians, then I would say you are probably doing something right.
"This may sound petty. It is not. This constellation of individuals, parties and institutions has very little in common other than the fact that it has contrived to be wrong on just about every important issue of my adult lifetime."
I heard British historian Paul Johnson, on the Dennis Prager show, say the list of people who support Kerry around the world is made up, in part, of everyone who wants America to be weaker.
That's an interesting thought, isn't it? I agree that it is true. Do you?
One Day This Fish Gon' Jump Out Of This Here Tank
Matt Weber, a self-described "Christian college student from Kentuckey"
makes some good points about Reason:
Is circular reasoning ultimately unavoidable? I was thinking today about the existence of God, and the various reasons why people don't believe. Often, the reason is one of 'lack of proof' or somesuch. The problem is that I'm not really onboard with the idea that the existence of God can actually be proven, because of what role God actually plays in reality.
The Bible states that God is the center of it all. In the beginning, there was God. Then, God made a universe and put people in it. This whole universe and everything in it then are dependent on God. If not for God, they wouldn't be around. People are at something of a disadvantage here, since the universe is sort of our 'cage'. We can't leave it's constraints; it's all we know. So, living in a universe that is completely under the domain of God causes problems for us. In effect, we don't have any 'no God' universe over there that we can look to and contrast with our own. If God exists, then everything we know is declarative of that. If not, then everything is declarative of that. I mean, we're the proverbial fish unaware of the water that surrounds it, except not really because a fish can always jump out of the water or something. We can't leave the universe.
What I'm getting at with this is that any framework, any system that we can develop to use logic and draw conclusions about the universe is going to be useless for determining whether God exists, because those systems are as dependent upon Him as everything else. In other words, everything that we do or say bears witness to the truth of God's existence. If we use our system to conclude that God exists, we've just gone in a circle because God was necessary for the system.
But what else can we do? The only thing is to say that there really is no way to prove God's existence, or at least no way to do so without ultimately arguing in circles.
You can't prove the existence of love either, yet look at how much we believe in that. Human beings are convinced love exists. Listen to the radio. Go to the movies. We will gamble our entire fragile beings on another person. We will make money, give up money, move to another part of the world, apologize for things we didn't do, "learn to change", take all manner of self-denying action, just to be near the one we love.
Yet, many people will tell you love doesn't exist. Some logical people will tell you love is just a function of hormones and property right. But, whatever. (How's that for analysis?) If you don't believe in love or God, that's fine. But, if you are one of those who don't, you just gotta wonder what it is we're making all this noise about.
Osama Bin Laden Sues For Peace
Wretchard, at Belmont Club,
analyzes Osama Bin Laden's malfeasant manifesto:
It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.
If you want to see Osama's words yourself, there are a thousand sites that will feed them to on a paper plate. As far as I'm concerned, while Osama Bin Laden is capable of doing great evil, there is no reason whatsoever to really give his words much consideration.
I agree with Wretchard that Osama's is proposing a settlement of sorts. But, Osama Bin Laden is not a head of state. He is not even truly the leader of Islamofascism anymore. Islamofascism, with it's roots in the Wahabbist (Saudi) tradition of Islam is an ideology with millions of adherents. Some of these adherents of very militant. A leader helps them organize, but if you cut the head off, there are still other leaders, Zawahiri for example.
Ultimately, Osama Bin Laden rules no one and is ruled by no one. He is merely a fomenter, a motivational speaker of sorts.
As such, his asking for peace means nothing. In fact, as Wretchard phrases it, he's only really asking for a "timeout."
Roger Simon
points out that this is squarely within the tradition of Islam. Follow Roger's link on the word "hudna" if you want to understand more about the word:
A time out in Islamic parlance, as many of us know by now, is a hudna, which is not a peace settlement but more of a cease fire while they lick their wounds and re-arm for the fight to come.
Who Would Jesus Bomb?
Struggling With The Issue Of War From A Christian Perspective
The Anchoress
posted a very thoughtful and reasoned article wherein she wrestles with some of the issues involved in the Christian perpective on War. Here are some of her thoughts:
I have a very good friend, a writer and all-around good-guy who is studying for the diaconate in the Roman Catholic church, and he is struggling with his vote. He's a Democrat, but he doesn't much find anything in John Kerry that seems worth voting for. There are aspects of President Bush he admires, but other things which trouble him. The war makes him uneasy, particularly in terms of his Christianity. Is war compatible with Christianity, he wonders? Is this war? Is any war?
He spent some time with Trappist monks recently and came away more troubled about the issue of war, how it fits or does not fit within the life of a Christian. After all, he reasons, Jesus said, "Blessed are the Peacemakers..."
I think it's very good to wonder about these things, and I applaud his soul-searching - I think all people who worship God - no matter what their persuasion - should be thinking about these things.
I can't speak to all religious beliefs, and I claim no wisdom - I know only what I can glean from my own reason and whatever the Holy Spirit lays upon my conscience. But I think "Blessed are the Peacemakers" cannot be the whole story, and indeed, Christ said much more than that, but he didn't really address war with any specificity. I do believe though, that we can extrapolate those things we know about His teachings and come to one (or several) conclusions. As with everything, each person will embrace unto himself/herself that which speaks to the heart.
When I think of war - and all war is terrible, no matter how just - I think of the warrior - the soldier, the one doing the "warring", so let's start there. What did Jesus teach us about soldiers, and people in positions of authority? When a Centurion, a warrior who had been given authority over other warriors and servants, approached Jesus for a favor (the healing of a servant) Jesus did not spit at him, thrust him away or lecture him about how awful war is. He didn't do anything like that. There is nothing indicating that Jesus did not see the need for soldiers, and being a scripturally educated Jew, he'd know that "to everything there is a season...a time for war, a time for peace."
Jesus did not really talk to us about these "big questions". People will say, "Jesus never talked about abortion!" "Jesus never talked about homosexuality!" "Jesus never talked about...(insert your single-issue obsession here)..."What Jesus talked to us about was not the question of whether there should or should not be war, or abortion, or homosexuality, or for that matter slavery. He simply didn't address them; he approached the world, and humanity as it was. As we ARE. He didn't urge the release of slaves, or the end of war. He left that for us to deal with after giving us the basic outline.
He understood (and indeed taught) that there would always be the poor among us, there would always be the sick, there would always be the rich, there would always be the lawyers, the pharisees, the whores. There would always be war. It's not a perfect world. We have to live in it, in all its broken-ness, and strive to move forward from wherever we began. Let the slave serve the master with such honor and goodness that he is much-rewarded. Let the master see the value of the slave and be generous in his promotions.
"Blessed are the peacemakers..." In our relativistic world, who decides what a peacemaker is? In some instances, the peacemakers can very well be the soldiers. The UN has "soldiers" they call "peacekeepers". If "to everything there is a season..." it's possible that our warriors, and our war, are 'peacekeepering' trying to prevent something far, far worse - and far reaching - by attempting to contain terrorism in one place, and eliminate the terrorists.
Is it righteous to make war if you are liberating the oppressed, freeing those who had no voice, rounding up hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons, deposing tyrants? Is it righteous to make war if you are doing so in the hopes that your actions may prevent the slaughter of millions in a single city, on a single day?
If the answer is yes, then one could argue that our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our president, are therefore among the blessed as they work, from their perspective, for "righteousness." Obviously, one's individual perspective will shade ones response. A leftist may say, "war is never acceptable, therefore these people are NOT peacemakers; they are murderers." A rightist may say, "war is always to be a ready tool, and these people are saviors!"
Most, I suspect, fall somewhere in the middle. Most people understand that in World War II there were events like the bombings of Dresden and of London, and hideous loss of innocent lives on every side. But they also understand that when an enemy will stop at nothing, then something must be done, ugly as the task might be.
To my mind, a rightwing Christian who wants to bomb the world, bomb Mecca and "kill all the Muslims" isn't helpful. But a leftwing Christian who doesn't want to recognize the need to fight a resolved and ruthless enemy is not helpful, either. Balance. St. Benedict taught us to seek balance.
In the end, we don't know. As Anchoress says here, God leaves us to make decisions with the outline he has given. We make our decisions not knowing if we are right or wrong. we also don't ultimately know if following the right course of action is going to lead to our desired results. God sends rain upon the righteous and the wicked and bad things happen to good people all the time. So we have no assurance other than the promise of God's Grace and Mercy, and the workings of those take place in our hearts.
Reasonable Christians differ on these issues. That's why I attempt to avoid quoting scripture to justify any political opinions I express on this site.
I'm aware that most of the world thinks that the concept of Christian Reason is an oxymoron. I know that most people think that the Christian approach to war is simply "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
In fact, there does exist a group of Christians whose leaders can and will lay out an entire map of the Battle of Armageddon in the Final War. Thankfully, even these overly self-assured Christians do not (for the most part) believe they know the final day or hour, and would therefore not attempt to initiate the war themselves.
The Anchoress takes the reasonable approach and struggles with the issues. This is the true Judeo-Christian tradition. My understanding of the Jewish concept of "relationship with God" is that it is to struggle with Him, so that He will ultimately prevail. Jacob wrestled the angel and, when the match was finished, God gave him the name Israel, meaning "God prevails."
I have always thought that the man of true faith is the one who will openly come out and tell God, "I am mad at You and here's why." This man does not doubt God, he struggles with God. He takes God seriously. I believe God blesses such people.
I am not saying that being mad at God is the goal. I am, instead, saying that being honest with God is the way to a real relationship with him. I actually believe that being dishonest with God will lead one to doubt His existence.
But, I digress:
I want to thank The Anchoress for wrestling with these issues in a thoughtful manner. She sets a great example for me.
The Insane Lies Of John Kerry
The Anchoress has
questions about John Kerry's mental health:
I'm a former Democrat, and at one time I admired John Kerry, mostly because I believed what I read about him. I've looked at him now for over a year, and I have come to the conclusion that he is without core, without spine and without conscience. Moreover, I have some serious concerns about his mental health, given some of the whoppers he's told and his "magic hat".
For this reason, it has seemed very important to me to get a chance to view his release papers from the US NAVY. I want to see his fitness reports. I want to see what his superiors thought of him, and I am interested - very interested - in discovering exactly what the cause of his separation from the service was, and the status of his original discharge. These are not irrelevancies.
There is no way. NO WAY I would consider hiring a man who will not let me check his references ...
I find it interesting that The Anchoress is questioning John Kerry's sanity. Just two days ago I began to do the same thing.
I noted that John Kerry told Katie Couric, on the Today Show, that as President he could "guarantee" there would be no more terrorist attacks on America.
When Wesley Clark made the same guarantee months back it led me to believe that he was insane. Sane people tell lies which are self-serving, calculated and fit the contours of reality. Insane people lie as if there is no reality to check their lies against.
When John Kerry guarantees there will be no more terrorist attacks if he is President it flies in the face of reality. We all walk into malls, sporting events, and concerts, on an everyday basis, without being checked. It would not be hard to take out hundreds or even thousands or people. Everybody knows this. But John Kerry's brain apparently does not know that we know it. John Kerry does not seem to understand that there is a reality outside of what's going on in his own head. He doesn't seem to know that we all share in this reality on an everyday basis.
Earth to John Kerry; all this talking we do, everyday, about things and people and places? Well, guess what, those things, people, and places really exist. And we all know it, even if you don't.
I had never thought of John Kerry as insane until he entered this Clarkian territory. But now that we're on the subject, here are a few of John Kerry's insane lies:
I don't really know what to think of John Kerry. It's hard to believe that he is insane. But there really is very little rational explanation for such useless and stupid lying.
Oh well, he might be President in a few days. Four to eight years of that job will bring out the truth of any man. We've had an emotionally unstable President (Nixon) before. I believe the American system is strong enough, and rational enough to deal with such a problem if it were to arise. It's really too late now. So, I guess I won't worry about it.
UPDATE: I posted a portion of this article in the comments section on The Anchoress site. Anonymous added some great points to my comments:
I decided Kerry had something wrong with him when he refused to sign the standard form 180. I think there is something in his military records which brings up his mental stability. And when I read the story of the magic hat, I was very troubled, especially when he did the gun with his fingers and went "pow" (Pastorius note; that's also in the "magic hat" link). Plus he has no sense of humor which is scaring. And who brings a movie camera with them to Vietnam to do pretend exploits and give pretend interviews to the camera? He reminds me of a lonely boy who never fit in and has an overactive imagination. I worry that if he is president, he'll try to play pretend soldier and do something terrible.
Hey Conrad, You're Not a "Sir" In This Country
Sounds like
the help is getting a little restless over at Chicago Sun-Times:
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert dueled with Conrad Black, the ousted CEO of the paper's parent company, in a series of sharply worded letters published Wednesday in the newspaper's commentary section.
Ebert said he felt betrayed by reports that the Canadian newspaper mogul used Hollinger profits for personal expenses while the Sun-Times building sat in disrepair and union employees threatened to strike over wages and benefits. Black scoffed at what he called Ebert's "ingratitude," citing the critic's $500,000 salary.
The exchange began earlier this month when Ebert, co-host of "Ebert & Roeper and the Movies," wrote in an open letter to publisher John Cruickshank during contract negotiations that he would not cross a picket line if the paper's staffers went on strike. He complained about reports of "millions of dollars winging away to the (former chief operating officer David) Radler and Black billfolds while we worked in a building where even basic maintenance was ignored."
Black was ousted as CEO of Hollinger International Inc. amid an internal investigation that accused him, Radler and others of systematically looting the newspaper publishing company of more than $400 million — nearly all its profits from 1997 through 2003.
The report, prepared by a special committee of Hollinger's board, said Black had Hollinger pay for things like $8.9 million worth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorabilia while Black was writing a book about FDR. The company also financed nearly $25,000 for "summer drinks" and more than $42,000 for a birthday party for Black's wife, Barbara Amiel Black.
Black and Radler have denied doing anything improper. In his letter, which was also sent to the Chicago Tribune, Black reminded Ebert it was the "generous treatment from David Radler" that was responsible for his $500,000 salary and other compensation.
At the end of his letter, Black wrote that "your proletarian posturing on behalf of those threatening to strike the Sun-Times and your base ingratitude are very tiresome."
Ebert took the last shot.
"Since you have made my salary public, let me say that when I learned that Barbara received $300,000 a year from the paper for duties described as reading the paper and discussing it with you, I did not feel overpaid," he wrote.
Conrad Black is, apparently, not in touch with reality. Roger Ebert is a huge force in Film Criticism. I can't believe he languishes in Chicago only making a half a mil a year. It would seem that Conrad Black ought to have been grateful to Ebert, not the other way around.
Here's to Roger Ebert for his "proletarian posturing." It would be easy for a guy like him to just keep quiet and accept his (semi) fat check. I admire him for sticking up for those with whom he works.
And as for Barbara Amiel-Black, something tells me that there is a little more to those "reading and discussing" sessions with Sir Conrad than just reading and discussing. Another rich, old man who has to pay for it.
Uh, "reading and discussing" that is.
1.77 Metric Tons Of Uranium?
You Call That A Freakin' WMD?
From National Review:
Wait a minute — so there were WMDs in Iraq? The Kerry campaign, the media, assorted pundits, and others are making much of the disappearance of the 380 tons of explosives from the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad. According to the IAEA, the U.N. watchdog agency now apparently in the service of the Democratic National Committee, some of the explosives could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. Wow — nuclear-weapon components were in Iraq? Shouldn't the headline be, "Saddam Had 'Em?"
The opposition really needs to get its story straight. The president cannot be taken to task for inventing the Iraqi WMD threat, and simultaneously disparaged for not securing Saddam's dangerous WMD-related materials.
The cache at al Qaqaa was not the only WMD-related material in the news recently. Another IAEA report came out two weeks ago that did not get as much play. According to this account, dual-use equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons was taken from various locations inside Iraq. The Duelfer Report speculated this equipment could have been taken during the chaos of the invasion. The equipment was "professionally looted" by another account, and may have gone to Iran or Syria. Isn't it significant that equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons was there in the first place? Don't these constitute components of a WMD program?
As well, if CBS wants to recycle old news in an attempt to influence the election, how about this story: 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium and other nuclear material at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center (Saddam's main nuclear research and development center) was secured by the United States and flown out of the country last July. According to the Energy Department this material could have been used to make a radiological dispersion device (a.k.a. a dirty bomb) or "diverted to support a nuclear weapons program." The only thing we found in Iraq that was more hazardous than this haul was Saddam Hussein. The United States was able successfully to deny this dangerous material to terrorists, rogue states or anyone else. This good news story dropped like a stone when it came out. And unlike most of the hype of the last few days, this story has the benefit of being true.
The missing explosives from al Qaqaa also raise the possibility that other WMD-related materials met the same fate. The IAEA had seen the al Qaqaa material in January 2003, but by the time U.S. troops showed up on April 10, they had disappeared. The dual-use technologies mentioned in the other IAEA report also had been moved or looted. This suggests that still other WMDs and related technologies might have been given or taken away in the days leading up to the war, or shortly after the Coalition attacks began. It is widely believed, though not conclusively proved, that much of this went to Syria. The Iraq Survey Group interviewed Iraqi agents who claimed to have helped moved the WMD materials. This charge was repeated by David Kay when he left the ISG earlier this year. The Blix Report found 1,000 tons of chemical weapons missing from Iraq, and last May this column discussed a planned al Qaeda attack in Jordan involving 20 tons of chemicals. The attack was broken up, and the subsequent investigation showed strong links to Syria. Connect your own dots.
So between the al Qaqaa explosives, the dual-use equipment, the Tuwaitha nuclear material, the missing chemical weapons, and the Syrian connection, it sounds like the WMD rationale is much stronger than most critics give it credit for. One can only imagine what Saddam would have done given the chance to put them all together. These are just a few reasons why Operation Iraqi Freedom was the right war, in the right place, at the right time.
Bigoted Professor From Cal State Long Beach
This would be funny if didn't smell so funny. Via
FrontPageMag.com:
What could possibly sound more innocuous than a general education English 100 course? To me, it sounded like my semester at California State University Long Beach would be full of reading classical literature, struggling through another play by Shakespeare and then writing an essay on symbolism or some other literary term that English teachers love to use. However, I knew that this would not be the case the first night of class when Dr. Snider, the English 100 composition professor (a general education course required by the university for all students to take in order to graduate) at CSULB, handed out his course syllabus. I quickly thumbed through this syllabus, like a typical student does, trying to find out how many tests we would have, when essays were due, the basics. Instead, I found a document that seemed more suited for a political training course.
The first paragraph of the syllabus states that the professor’s goal for the course was to "promote tolerance and open-mindedness" through "the open discussion of controversial issues"- however the rest of the syllabus proves to be anything but. Instead of any attempt to be "open-minded" the syllabus was entirely stacked in favor of Dr. Snider’s leftist ideologies.
The last three class meetings have been spent watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and writing on the moral issues that Michael Moore rises in the film. This assignment consisted of each student writing a paragraph on a single moral issue in the film, and then listing all the evidence that Michael Moore uses to prove it.
The moral issue I chose to write my paragraph about was "the controversial decision made by President Bush to lead the United States into a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein."
I wrote my paragraph very tongue in cheek and purposely ridiculed the insufficient evidence that Michael Moore used in his film. However, when I received my paragraph back, I found it marked up in red ink by Dr. Snider with comments like, " You miss the point of the film", or that advisor "was Richard Clark… a terrorist expert!" I was blown away by these comments. I didn’t realize that I was being graded on the way I interpreted the film! From what I understood about our in class paragraphs, Dr. Snider was only supposed to grade grammar, spelling, and mechanics, of which I had no corrected errors. Funny though that I still received the lowest grade in the class on this assignment (after receiving all A’s on past assignments), while papers with numerous spelling errors and mechanical corrections but with an anti-Bush perspective received A’s.
Along with his list of "suggested topics" Dr. Snider also includes a list of topics that he forbids his students to write about because they are "topics on which there is, in my opinion, no other side apart from chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science" This list includes: Abortion, religion, same sex marriage, and prayer in public schools.
People on the left can be bigoted too, although they seem incapable of understanding that simple fact. If you do not allow people to express themselves on the topic of religion then you are a bigot.
Beyond that though, how is it that this Professor has a job? He's not doing his job, so he should not have a job. That's the way it is in the real world, you don't do your job, you get fired. Oh, but wait, I forgot,
Professors don't live in the real world.
Kill Christians In The Name Of Allah
From
JihadWatch:
BAGHDAD, IRAQ (ANS) -- The bombing of five more churches in Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday, October 16, has prompted an Assyrian Christian leader to ask for more protection for his people – before they leave in even larger numbers.
The Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., director of the Assyrian Christian Assistance Center in Baghdad, said, “We demand immediate action on this and call upon all freedom loving peoples worldwide to demand their governments immediately provide all assistance so these urgent needs can be implemented before it is too late and the indigenous people of Iraq the Assyrian Christians are forced to leave.
Five Christian Churches were bombed in the 4AM Sunday morning attack. They were: The Mar Yussef (St. Joseph), Mar Toma (St. Thomas) Mar Yacob (St. Jacob), Mar Gewargis (St. George) and Mar Roum (St. Roum) and each of the churches, which were attended by many Assyrian Christians, sustained damage.
According to a message sent to the ASSIST News Service (ANS) by Joseph, this second major attack this year, following a previous attack on seven Assyrian Churches in August, “is sending shockwaves throughout the Assyrian Christian Community worldwide.”
Assyrian Christian leaders have just completed a series of meetings with the State Department in Washington and Congressional leaders and two separate meetings with the Iraqi Government, World Bank and UN demanding the “Five R’s” for the Assyrian Christian Community in Iraq.
They include:-
Reconstruction of 292 destroyed Assyrian Christian Villages -
Resettlement of nearly 100,000 Assyrian Christians driven out of their land by Saddam Hussein -
Registration for voting purposes of the community -
A Regional Security system -
A Regional Administrative Region under article 53 of the Constitution
A spokesman said, “What has encouraged the community in the series of meetings has been support from all parties including the Iraqi Government, US Government and others for an Autonomous area as guaranteed in the Constitution for the Assyrian Christians.”
Jack Be Handey, Jack Be Quick
The blog
Scrutineer posts a Jack Handey "Deep Thought For The Day" everyday.
Samples:
Deep Thought for the day: It's takes a big man to cry, but it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man. - Jack Handey
Deep Thought for the day: If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose. - Jack Handey
Deep Thought for the day: I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. - Jack Handey
Jack Handey is the Will Rodgers of Generation X.
Too bad Generation X drowned in their own vomit; drowned but didn't quite die, instead they lay in a permanent catatonia in a "Rehab Center" somewhere in the Midwest.
Uh, Douglas Coupland notwithstanding.
Thank God for the
Millenials Rising.
America The Oh, So Beautiful
It's very important that everybody
click on this link and listen to this song (as long as your ears aren't too sensitive).
Thank you to Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Those guys clearly are geniuses of some sort, or another.
John Kerry: Reporting For Doody - Part 2
From
Rambling's Journal:
John Kerry had a brain fart of monumental proportions on NBC's Today Show this morning. Kerry told host Katie Couric that he guarantees no further terrorist attacks anywhere in the world if elected.
George Bush and Dick Cheney have said to you, it is not a matter of if we're gonna be attacked. It is a matter of when...do you know that the-- that the President just the other day in an interview with Hannity and Combs said-- do you know what he said? He said he doesn't know if America will ever be safe. Well, I do know that America will be safe. Under my leadership.
I don't think that even hardcore Kool-Aid-drinking leftists can comfortably subscribe to that kind of statement.
Couric had issues with it off the bat.
"But can you really...Senator make that guarantee -- that America will be safe under all circumstances?"
Wow, you know your credibility is in trouble when even Katie Couric calls you to task.
I remember when Wesley Clarke (was that the guy's name? Heh heh) came up with the same guarantee in his final desperate moments of flailing, before he went down for the third time. Back at that time, I had remarked to friends that I thought we must seriously consider whether Wesley Clarke might be insane.
"Why?" my friends asked incredulously.
My answer was because, in the world of Wesley Clarke's mind, reality did not matter at all. He seemed to think, like a child, that anything he said had the glow of reality. He also did not seem to acknowledge the reality of other people's perspectives. If Wesley Clarke said the sky was green with purple polka-dots then, as far as he was concerned, the whole known universe would agree with him.
Well, when I would explain this to my friends they would ask, "Well, then aren't Howard Dean and John Kerry crazy? What about Bill Clinton?"
I would say no. It just never seemed to me that they were crazy. Their lies were too utilitarian and too finely crafted. A finely crafted lie sits snugly on the contours of reality. In this way it disguises itself as a piece of the puzzle.
Besides, I've always acknowledged that it seems that all politicians lie to some extent or other. It seems patently absurd to call a person insane merely for lying.
But, when a person's lies take on monumental proportions, when they are seemingly random and unnecessary, when they hang suspended above us like a strange fever dream, then you've got to start to wonder.
John Kerry's debate performances were impeccably constructed symphonies of untruth. Everything he said had the ring of truth, even though it could not be substantiated. His assertions were craftily built upon the bizarre Fahrenheit 911 mythologia of Election Year 2004. I actually admired the sheer technique, the ability to memorize jagged fragments of truth, and to organize those fragments into a collage of untruth.
But, here in the final week of the campaign it could be that fatigue has set in. Maybe John Kerry is not getting any sleep. Maybe weeks and weeks of screaming crowds and fawning aids have driven Kerry's ego onto the borderlands of manic adolescence. Maybe in his hyper-tired state he believes the images which dance before his tired imagination. Maybe he is entering Wesley Clarke territory.
Let's just hope the hangover doesn't have any permanent effects in the case that he is elected President.
U.S. Anti-Semitism Law Angers Arab Press
From
BBC:
Many Arab newspapers have condemned the new US law authorising the State Department to monitor anti-Semitism worldwide and produce annual reports critical of those countries where it is seen to be prevalent.
President George W Bush announced a few days ago that he had signed into law the bill authorising the US to rate countries on the way they treat Jews.
Most commentators believe it panders to the Jewish lobby in the US and is aimed against Arabs and Muslims. However, one dissenting voice considers it a positive move in the battle against racism.
The London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi considers the law "basically racist legislation which is anti-Arab and Muslim under the guise of outlawing anti-Semitism".
Accusations of bias
"President Bush does not want to acknowledge that Arabs are also a Semitic people who have suffered a great deal from wars launched by him alongside his friend [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon."
Saudi Arabia's Al-Jazirah argues that the promulgation of the law "shows the extent to which the US is prepared to go to protect such an aggressive and renegade state" as Israel.
It accuses Washington of "abandoning the principles of international law and justice to put its weight behind such a pariah entity".
It's racist to keep track of one group of people calling for the death of another people?
Chirac Announces His Support For The Victory of Islamofascism
Really, isn't this a way of saying who he hopes wins the War On Terror? Via
No Pasaran/Agence French Presse:
A new report recommending English become a compulsory subject in all schools in France has stirred heated debate in the country, with teachers' unions and proponents of linguistic diversity clenching their jaws in opposition, Friday's Le Monde newspaper reported.
… Such a move would help French pupils catch up with their counterparts in other EU countries who enjoy a big lead in using what the commission's report called the language of "international communication".
… But some politicians who want to see English usage diminished until it is just one of several widely accepted languages — among which French, of course, would figure — have railed against the idea of making English being compulsory.
"English is the most-spoken language today, but that won't last," one deputy from the ruling UMP party, Jacques Myard, told Le Monde.
He predicted that Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish would all become increasingly important in the future. "If one has to make one language obligatory," Myard added, "let it be Arabic."
Thank God The Guardian Doesn't Represent The English People
In light of the post below about the Guardian calling for the assasination of President Bush, let's ponder this Adlai Stevenson quote:
"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
Hmm.
Guardian Calls For The Assasination Of President Bush
That respectable, internationally known, British newspaper The Guardian, is now calling for the assasination of the President of the United States. Via
Medienkritik:
"Throughout the debate, John Kerry, for his part, looks and sounds a bit like a haunted tree. But at least he's not a lying, sniggering, drink-driving, selfish, reckless, ignorant, dangerous, backward, drooling, twitching, blinking, mouse-faced little cheat. And besides, in a fight between a tree and a bush, I know who I'd favour.
On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"
I can't get over how enlightened, fair, and balanced this highly-respected newspaper is. It reminds of the time they wrote the obituary for Shiekh Yassin, the Nazi Islamofacist founder of Hamas, comparing him to Nelson Mandela.
News Flash from AP: Arabs Hate Americans and Jews
From Associated Press, via
Little Green Footballs:
Reporters from The Associated Press visited mosques around the world Friday to take the pulse of the faithful at a time of upheaval in Islam. They found believers who, for all their cultural and geographical diversity, share an anger over Iraq and the Palestinians and a feeling that their religion is under threat from the West.
“Muslims are getting united now,” said Mamdouh Habbal, a 61-year-lawyer attending prayers at Cairo’s majestic Al-Azhar mosque. “Unfortunately, they’re united in one thing: hatred toward America. Even an old man like me, it has hit me. And I’ve never known hatred my entire life.”
As the sun rose over mosque after mosque across the globe, the muezzins waited for their shadows to gather at their feet, then one by one climbed into minarets, picked up microphones or simply lifted their voices to issue their call: “God is great! I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. Come to prayers, come to salvation...”
I like how AP got kind of rhapsodic there in that last paragraph. It's kind of pretty writing, isn't it.
But, anyway, I stole the headline from Charles Johnson because it was so perfect. Really now? They hate us? Well, what should we do about it?
I guess we should stop prosecuting our war, the goal of which is to destroy the very terrorists that Islamic people the world over tell us do not represent the true Islam.
Canadian Islamic Congress President Says
All Adult Israeli's Are Valid Targets For Murder
From
JihadWatch.org:
The president of the Canadian Islamic Congress is under fire for saying all Israelis above the age of 18 are legitimate targets of attack.
Mohamed Elmasry made the comments Tuesday on the Michael Coren Live TV show and was criticized yesterday by the Canadian Jewish Congress.
When asked whether "anyone over the age of 18 in Israel is a valid target," Elmasry replied: "Anybody above 18 is part of the (Israeli) army."
The show's moderator followed with another question: "Anyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid target?"
"Yes, I would say," Elmasry responded.
That's a mainstream Muslim leader in Canada, ladies and gentlemen.
More Anti-Semitism From The Presbyterian Church
From
FrontPageMag.com:
A leader of the Presbyterian Church, USA (which, appropriately enough, abbreviates PC-USA) Ronald Stone is nobody's candidate for the annual brotherhood award of the National Council of Christians and Jews. At a meeting with representatives of Hezbollah in Lebanon last week, Elder Stone fawned on the terrorists while observing that people of the jihad persuasion are far more congenial than those horrible Hebrews.
"We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of good will toward the American people," the Presbyterian poobah simpered to his terrorist hosts. Hezbollah demonstrated its good will toward the American people in 1982, when it slaughtered 240 of our Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.
In the same meeting, Stone confessed, "As an elder of our church, I'd like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders."
One can see why the mainline-church honcho would be vexed with the Chosen People.
After all, Jews in Pakistan periodically shoot churchgoers. Jews in Sudan are waging genocidal warfare against Christian tribesmen. In Nigeria's northern provinces, there's a concerted effort to impose Jewish law on Christians.
In Saudi Arabia, Jews have banned Christian worship services, even in private homes. Jews in the Balkans are committing ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Christians, as well as demolishing their churches, monasteries and shrines. And all over the world, radical synagogues and Jewish day schools teach hatred of Christians and the religious imperative to wage holy war against them.
Oops, I forgot, it's Muslims who are the perps in all of these cases. Still, Stone finds Jews difficult and Muslims easy. To a liberal Protestant, the persecution of Christians in the Third World is irrelevant, compared with the opportunity to declare his solidarity with so-called victims of Western imperialism.
The PCUSA promptly disavowed Stone's comments, which, it maintained, "do not reflect the official position of the Presbyterian Church."
Stone's obscene groveling to Islamo-fascists may not be his church's "official position," but certainly reflects its mind-set.
Outside of the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, you'll find less love for Israel among the mainline churches than anywhere on earth. (Pastorius note: I don't think this is accurate. I think there is much more antipathy to Israel in Europe and the UN than in mainline Protestant churches, but the point is well taken.
In June 2001, Churches for Middle East Peace - composed of the usual suspects - declared, "Few things have done more to destroy the hope and pursuit of peace through negotiations than Israel's unrelenting settlement activity."
Those relentless Jewish settlements comprise roughly 2 percent of the land on the West Bank.
Strangely, 250,000 Jews living in the midst of 2 million Palestinians on the West Bank is an insurmountable obstacle to peace, in the opinion of Churches for Middle East Peace. But 1 million Arabs living among 5 million Jews in pre-1967 Israel present no problem whatsoever.
This is a deep, deep shame on the Christian Church. I am not a member of a mainline denomination. I am a member of a church that calls itself "non-Denominational" which, in my opinion, is merely a clever way to shirk having to take responsibility for all the idiocy spewed in Christ's Holy Name.
I admire my friend Jack, over at Jack of Clubs, for being a member of a denominational church and for doing the hard work of dealing with these issues on an everyday and personal basis. He and his fellow Parishioners are a great bunch, but then they started their church directly because of their disatisfaction with other churches. That's very noble, but it's a rough row to hoe. Perhaps, Jack doesn't agree with many of my views on Israel and the Jews, but I know him, and I know that you would never find this kind of vile anti-Semitic sputum dribbling from the corners of his mouth.
As I have mentioned on this blog before, several years back when my wife and I considered having children we thought carefully about the question of how to raise them religiously. My wife and I were both raised in Christian churches. However, I became disillusioned with the Church because of the wanton glee with which many Christians will happily dispatch whole epochs and continents full of people to hell because they hadn't heard the Gospel, and recited the "Sinner's Prayer" verbatim, as if it's some sort of magical incantation.
Excuse me for my tangent but,
This vaunting of the particular words of a prayer over the reality of God's Grace and people's individual response to it in the silence of their hearts is, to me, religious charlatanism and bigotry beyond my ability to comprehend. In addition, it is filled with superstition of a medieval sort, and exists as a kind of worship of magical forces, and is an assault on monotheism itself.
But, I digress.
The point was that my wife and I seriously considered converting to Judaism but, alas we realized that, as we would not stop believing in Jesus, we would be unwelcome in most synagogues. So, we made the effort to find a church we could live with.
I must say, I am pretty happy with my church. But I also must acknowledge the truth. My church is not very accountable, it is trendy, it lacks grounding in liturgy, but on the other hand, it lacks the requisite attention span required to maintain the historical bigotries of the Christian Church. When you get right down to it, people in my church for the most part don't even know what a Jew is. They forgot that lesson after they crammed for it in college. As far as race goes, everyone is accepted because it looks more like MTV that way.
See this is a comfortable way for me to live. Pathetic, huh?
But, it's better than turning over rocks in the mainline churches. Oh Lord, the stuff I have heard.
Ronald Reagan Speaks To John Kerry From The Grave
Thanks to Little Green Footballs for making me aware of this. Everybody needs to see
this short thirty second commercial. It is devastating.
News Flash: Worm Craps Beautiful Symphony
I sent this article from Yahoo/AP over to my friend Jack, at Jack of Clubs, and asked him to comment as well. I have a feeling he would have a little something to say about this. Anyway, here's
the article:
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
NEW YORK - In a blow to human vanity, researchers now say that people have about the same number of genes as a small flowering plant or a tiny worm. The new estimate is down sharply from just three years ago.
"We (humans) don't look very impressive in the competition," said Dr. Francis Collins, co-author of the new analysis by the international group that decoded the human genome.
The new estimate is 20,000 to 25,000 genes, a drop from the 30,000 to 40,000 the same group of scientists published in 2001.
By comparison, C. elegans, a worm that is a favorite research subject, has around 19,500 genes. Another lab favorite, a plant in the mustard family called Arabidopsis, has about 27,000.
But the complexity of the human body arises from more than just its genetic parts list, experts said.
"It's not just the number of genes that matters," said another co-author, Eric Lander of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. "It really is how nature uses these genes."
Scientists have long speculated about how many genes people have. Some have put it at 100,000 or more, and the genome project's initial figure fell in the low end of estimates when it was announced.
In a betting pool among scientists that ran from 2000 to 2003, the average guess before the consortium published its 2001 estimate was about 66,000 genes. Afterward, the average dropped to about 44,000.
Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, put his money on about 48,000 genes when the contest began. That's about twice the new estimate.
"Oh well," he said this week, "live and learn."
Check out the first line of the aritcle:
"In a blow to vanity?" What?
Here's the thing: I look around me and I see that people are having trouble distinguishing the relative good and evil of the US vs. Islamofascism, Bush vs. Hussein/Bin Laden, etc. Well, in this case, apparently, this writer, Malcolm Ritter (whose editor you would assume has at least a bit of his finger on the pulse of what his readers are thinking) seems to have trouble distinguishing between the relative aesthetic and utilitarian value of the human being vs. the worm.
Clearly, one has built cities, MRI units, Atomic Accelerators, written poems and symphonies, etc. while the other ...
functions as a plow, eating and crapping dirt all day long.
Therefore, if they both have a similar amount of genes, or even a similar gene structure, it only all the more points to the genius of the Creator. In addition shouldn't it also lend even more credence to the vanity this writer seems to think we humans have about our relative value compared to that of a worm?
Don't get me wrong, thank God for worms, but Jeez.
Here's another way to look at it. If you counted every note of Beethoven's Ninth Syphony and it came out to, say, 167,842 notes, and then you were somehow able to get a prodigious worm to crap 167,842 grains of dirt on a particular sheet of music staff paper, would the resultant music be anywhere near as interesting as Beethoven's?
That's what this stupid (and I do not use the word stupid lightly here) writer has done in this article. He has completely conflated the amount of genes with the complexity of the resultant design.
God created two beings, one man, and the other the worm. Clearly, God created man as a much more highly functioning entity than the worm. Now, please understand me, the worm is pretty good too. I don't want to insult the worm. It's just that the worm is, how shall I say it? ... oh, I don't know, Intelligence-Challenged, maybe? Is that ok? Please don't send me to sensitivity training.
But, yes, I think I can safely say, the worm is Intelligence -Challenged. The worm is also Creativity-Challenged, and Freedom-of-Choice challenge, Reason-challenged, and gosh darnit, the worm really doesn't seem to have a whole lot of anything going for him, does he?
Oh, maybe this sarcasm arises because my sense of vanity has been crossed. I am chastened by the thought.
No, what has been crossed here is Denial River. The writer is in a state of denial of reality.
Say, you had two young children, a boy (older) and a girl (younger), and you enter the room and the girl is lying on the ground, passed out. And the boy is sitting there with two open jars in front of him; one a big jar containing cookies, and the other, a little jar containing the medication, Valium.
You ask the boy, "Did you feed her the little white things in this jar?" pointing to the Valium jar.
"I didn't do anything. I don't know," he says, tentatively. "She was eating from one of the jars." I don't know if it was the big one or the little one."
If you have children you will know, that sometimes you can tell the answer by the way they lie to you when they you ask them a question.
Anyway, this writer is like the boy who says he can't remember which jar his sister ate from. He is absolutely refusing to acknowledge a very obvious distinction because he doesn't want to suffer the consequences.
This writer is hell-bent on denying the reality that man is a unique and superior creature in the hierarchy of creatures. Ultimately, I believe the writer and his editor and some of the scientists quoted here, do not want to acknowledge man's superiority because nothing points to the existence of God more than the fact that man exists. Like my buddy Bill Shakespeare said,
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"
We are "infinite in faculties." God created us that way. He created us in His own image. This does not mean we "look" like God. It means we are beings like him. What is God? He is a creative being. So are we. Creativity is the result of imagination, reason and will. We possess these qualities in spades compared to the worm. We are limited by time and space, but man has proven one thing throughout his existence. Whatever we can think of, we will eventually create.
But, the writer doesn't want to see this, fool that he is. I left part of the Shakespeare quote out, by the way. Here it is now:
"And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither."
Ay, there's the rub. When we refuse to acknowledge God the creator, we become sickened and disgusted with man, His creation. Only by seeing our fellow man through God's eyes can we have hope for him, find love for him, believe that he can do good. We need God in order to love our fellow man.
This lack of ability to distinguish the relative value of man vs. worm has very deep tentacles. It goes down to the core of being. It sounds like such a petty subject on the face of it. Really, who cares if some science writer for AP thinks that humans and worms are pretty much the same in the scheme of things. It doesn't have any bearing on my life, does it?
No, not today. But over time such foolishness, repeated over and over, erodes our sense of not just our relative worth compared to that of a worm, but also the relative worth of everything, right and wrong included.
Europa And Her Life Partner
Thanks to Medienkritik for making me aware of
this article by German author Heinrich Maetzke:
It will not be long before German socialists and pacifists start calling nuclear-armed Iranian mullahs their "partners in security" — the affectionate label they once stuck on Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev. For those who shiver at the prospect of having to live under the shadow of Iranian nukes Mr. Bush's White House is the only place to look to. (...)
For 20 years Saddam Hussein had done his utmost to acquire nuclear weapons. For 12 long years he had mocked the United Nations. When challenged to come clean in March 2003, he refused to. However, when it comes to global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, the burden of proof must lie with the suspect, not with the prosecutor. We now know that Saddam intended to pick up his nuclear threads where he had been forced to drop them, once sanctions were lifted and U.S. forces withdrawn. We also know that he had all the reason in the world to feel safe: He had the United Nations in his deep oil-for-food pockets, plus a couple of veto-yielding members of the Security Council, who had never liked the sanctions anyway.
If it had not been for one factor, Saddam's infamous gamble almost certainly would have paid off. This factor had a face and a name: President George Bush.
Sometimes You Just Gotta Love Your Enemies
Leader Of Canadian Mosque Jews Are Treacherous Monkeys and Pigs
"It's In The Qur'an"
You've got to love you enemies when they tell the truth.
From the Canadian MyTelus.com, via
Little Green Footballs:
VANCOUVER (CP) - The leader of a Vancouver mosque attended regularly by a local man reported killed in Chechnya has preached the virtues of jihad and called Jews “the brothers of monkeys and swine.”
In a lecture posted on the mosque’s website, Sheik Younus Kathrada tells an audience all real Muslims want to be martyred.
“It is inconceivable that a true believer will not desire martyrdom,” Kathrada says. “When we hear of our fellow Muslims in Palestine and what they’re going through to try and defend that great land for us, the Muslims, that individual should wish that he was there.”
In a recording of another lecture obtained by The Canadian Press, Kathrada lashes out at Israelis for killing Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin (go here - fourth article down the page) to read my summation of the Nazi life of Shiekh Yassin) late last March.
“We know what happened over the last week and how the brothers of the monkeys and the swine assassinated and murdered one of the heroes of Islam, the Salah al-Din of this day and age, Ahmed Yassin.”
Kathrada tells his audience the Qur’an and its accompanying writings view Jews as treacherous people with whom Muslims will engage in an apocalyptic battle.
“The prophet ... said the final hour will not be established until such time as the Muslims will battle and will fight against the Jews,” Kathrada says.
“Then what will happen? Listen to the good news after that. The prophet ... says that the stone and the tree will say ‘oh Muslim, oh slave of Allah, that verily behind me is a Jew. Then come and kill him.’”
Kathrada, who works out of the Dar al-Madinah Islamic Society mosque in east Vancouver, said Thursday he could not remember when he gave these talks.
“If it’s on there and my name is on it then I must have. I don’t recall the date,” he said. Kathrada refused to explain the meaning behind the tirade against Jews. “I guess if you heard the lecture then it should be clear to you,” he said.
But he defended his characterization of Jews as treacherous monkeys and pigs. “I guess no rougher than what is used against us,” Kathrada said. “It’s in our Qur’an.”
He's not lying. It is in the Qur'an (81, 5). Click
here.
That Vaclav Havel Is Awful Pushy and Rude, Isn't He?
Vaclav Havel from
the International Herald Tribune, via No Pasaran:
"The problem is that we don't think very much about Europe's identity," said Havel. "We worry about the bureaucratic rules, about endless regulations and economic issues. But we debate very little about the issue of identity, about the spiritual heritage of Europe and the relationship with the rest of the world." He paused. "I, for one, do not share the emotional anti-Americanism that is very current these days in Europe. That does not mean I cannot be critical of some aspects of American policy."
"Historically, Europeans played a role as an exporter of ideas, as a conqueror and as exploiter. I think in these days Europe could serve as an inspiration for other parts of the world in order to counter the dangers of globalization."
"You see in places where Americans helped the most, it is there where the most frequent expressions of anti-Americanism have occurred. There exists something like the phenomenon of the hatred by the saved towards the savior. We can see this very well in Europe, where twice in its recent history, the U.S. had to come in and save Europe, and again, in a nonmilitary way, during the cold war. Maybe this anti-Americanism in Europe is a part of this hatred of the saved towards its savior."
Iran Will Soon See The Bombs Coming
From the
Los Angeles Times:
By Laura King Times Staff Writer
JERUSALEM — Increasingly concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Israel is weighing its options and has not ruled out a military strike to prevent the Islamic Republic from gaining the capability to build atomic weapons, according to policymakers, military officials, analysts and diplomats.
Israel would much prefer a diplomatic agreement to shut down Iran's uranium enrichment program, but if it concluded that Tehran was approaching a "point of no return," it would not be deterred by the difficulty of a military operation, the prospect of retaliation or the international reaction, officials and analysts said.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and his top aides have been asserting for months that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a clear threat to Israel's existence. They have repeatedly threatened, in elliptical but unmistakable terms, to use force if diplomacy and the threat of sanctions fail.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper last month that "all options" were being weighed to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. The army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, declared: "We will not rely on others."
We should all be happy to know that George Bush said the same thing in an interview with Bill O'Reilly just a couple of weeks ago:
O'REILLY: Iran said yesterday: Hey, we're going to develop this nuclear stuff, we don't care what you think. You ready to use military force against Iran if they continue to defy the world on nuclear?
BUSH: My hope is that we can solve this diplomatically.
O'REILLY: But if you can't?
BUSH: Well, let me try to solve it diplomatically, first. All options are on the table, of course, in any situation. But diplomacy is the first option.
O'REILLY: Would you allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon?
BUSH: We are working our hearts out so that they don't develop a nuclear weapon, and the best way to do so is to continue to keep international pressure on them.
O'REILLY: Is it conceivable that you would allow them to develop a nuclear weapon?
BUSH: No, we've made it clear, our position is that they won't have a nuclear weapon.
O'REILLY: Period.
BUSH: Yes.
British Lap Dogs Of Idiocy Lap Up The Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories
The BBC ran a documentary the other day called "The Power Of Nightmares." Clive Davis, of National Review wrote
this article:
'The Power of Nightmares would have us believe that the international terrorist threat is a myth concocted by governments and orchestrated by a cabal of devious neoconservatives. Since the public has lost faith in ideology, politicians must now use fear in order to maintain their hold over the masses. Al Qaeda is a figment of our imagination; there are no sleeper cells, and talk of lethal dirty bombs is all so much radioactive hot air.If that seems bizarre enough, the series also sets out to claim that the Islamists and the neocons are, in reality, soul mates. As Curtis explained in a magazine interview this week: "My original intention was to look at the neo-cons and then the radical Islamists. I was astonished to discover that they have the same philosophical roots. They both believe that the problem with modern society is that individuals question anything; by doing that they [those individuals] have already torn down God, that eventually they will tear down everything else and therefore they will have to be opposed."
Melanie Phillips
says:
You obviously can't overestmate the creative imagination of a pukka conspiracy theorist. It's not enough wilfully to invent a conspiacy by sinister neo-cons, aka Jews, in Washington to subvert American foreign policy. It's not enough wilfully to lie that they invented an Islamist threat that never existed. Now it is alleged that the Jewish conspiracy (which we are told does exist) and the Islamic conspiracy (which we are told does not) are basically brothers in struggle! They are both identical sets of crazed fundamentalists!
And more Clive Davis:
'This symbiotic relationship with Islamism will no doubt come as a surprise to the good folks at the American Enterprise Institute. It is a sign of how fevered political debate has become in Britain's media-land that such lurid, Michael Moore-ish notions are given a prime-time slot on the channel that once gave us Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation...The opening episode amounts to a ludicrously one-sided account of the rise of the neocons which manages to impute all manner of sinister motives to a tight-knit circle devoted to the teachings of Leo Strauss. In Curtis's world, it is Strauss, not Osama bin Laden, who is the real evil genius.'
As Melanie Phillips notes:
The eminent historian Richard Pipes, who by this account is stitched up by dishonest editing, says of allegations that are made that they are 'so preposterous that I would be at a loss to answer them: they are similar to those made by the Holocaust deniers. They sort of leave you speechless.'
But the British are lapping it all up and believing it. Wicked stuff.
The Difference Between the Free World and The World of Islamic Tyrannies
From
Associated Press:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The highest ranking soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was sentenced to eight years in prison for abusing inmates at Abu Ghraib during a court martial Thursday in Baghdad.
Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, 38, of Buckingham, Va., was also given a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge. The sentencing came a day after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight counts of abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees.
Robert Spencer at JihadWatch comments:
The difference between the free world and the Islamic world is not that one side never does anything wrong. It is that in the West those who transgress ethical and legal bounds are punished; in the Islamic world they are celebrated as heroes.
Thank God For Men Like This
Read
this.
The Red Sox Win The Pennant!
The Red Sox Win The Pennant!
The Red Sox Win The Pennant!
What Does It Mean To The War On Islamofascism
In Light Of Don DeLillo's Underworld
When I was a kid, the Red Sox were my favorite team. I grew out of that a long time ago, but just for old times sake, I was rooting (secretly) for the Red Sox to win this year.
However, as I sat watching the Red Sox thoroughly humiliate the Yankees last night, a sense of forboding started to come over me. The Yankees had, of course, won the first three games of the Playoff Series, and then it was as if their soul just left their corporate body. For God's sake, they lost this series by
losing four games in a row.
Something no team has ever done.
I was reminded of the
Don DeLillo novel, Underworld, which begins with the incredible opening prose aria, wherein J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason watch as The Giants beat the Dodgers (courtesy Bobby Thompsons Home Run, "the shot heard round the world").
For DeLillo, the Home Run, and the cries of the announcer ("The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant! The Giants Win The Pennant!), and the fact that the ball intself seemed to have disappeared into the underworld (carried away by a young African-American kid who snuck into the game in the novel), heralded the beginning of the Cold War.
These thoughts began to swirl in my head as I sat there rooting for David Ortiz, Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. Is this win the beginning of the breaking of
the "Curse of the Bambino?" Is this win by the team from Massachusettes somehow a dark omen signaling a win for the Senator from Massachusettes?
Is not the Red Sox beating the Yankees one of the signs of the Apocalypse?
Let's get real. I'm glad the Red Sox won. And, if John Kerry wins I hope America wins too. Sports-induced superstition is stupid, yes. But, we must remember that politically-induced paranoia is stupid too. If John Kerry is elected President he might not set to the work of destroying terrorist organizations, but neither will he destroy America.
Everything will work out, eventually.
Evil can't win. Take some comfort in
Milton's Paradise Lost. When Satan and his legions are cast from heaven, they land in a place of darkness and immediately set to arguing which is the best way to overthrow God. They rave and rage until their wrath is largely turned on each other. We see this throughout history. Russia turned on Germany in WWII. Pol Pot turned on his own people, and thus destroyed much of the intellectual momentum of the Communist side in the Cold War. And, if you think about it, this current War against Islamofascism began when the Wahabbist Osama Bin Laden turned on the very source of his Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia.
The demons will fall to fighting with each other. It is sure as the sun coming up. If Kerry is elected, he may or may not choose to hasten their destruction. We can't tell by his pronouncements on the campaign trail. But, if he decides to pull back and hand the momentum back to the Islamofascists, it will be ok. It will only be a delay in their inevitable destruction.
Hat Tip to my friend, Mr. Cohiba, for contributing his Apocalypse-related thoughts to this.
What Is It? Etiquette?
From
"If They Only nu" blog:
As a barista in an independantly owned restaurant, I am the first person seen on entering the establishment. It is often in these first moments that we see the very fabric of society, and by this I mean communication, begin to unravel. First of all, the act of acknowledgement seems to pose a great difficulty to some. Responding in turn to a greeting is often completely eliminated. Observe the following, an all too common scenario.
Barista: "Hello! How are you today?"
Customer (peering into wallet instead of making eye contact): "Latté."
Did you catch the moment where that short exchange went awry? The customer's response, "Latté", in addition to being a totally irrelevant answer to an inquiry of well-being, is also dreadfully impolite. A more mannerly reply might have been: "Fine, thank you. May I have a latté to go, please?" (Note the presence of "thank you" and "please," which are found to be very useful in conveying respect to another party. Also note the use of "may" as opposed to "can," which is just proper grammar.)
Let's set another scene, shall we?
Enter: Family; parents with two teenaged children
Barista (brightly): "Hello there! How goes your day?"
Family is unresponsive, none take eyes off menu above barista's head.
Barista (still smiling, somewhat less brightly): "Perhaps you need time to view the menu?"
Family: "..."
Barista (Considers stabbing self in eye to see if action might induce response. Thinks better of it, because probably wouldn't make a difference and then would have to go through whole day with inkpen in eye, and since has nose ring, already gets enough odd looks from people): "Okay, well, wonderful! I'll be with you momentarily then!"
It should be obvious to any casual observer what has gone wrong in this situation. Twice did the barista attempt to initiate dialogue with the family, and twice was she thwarted by a total lack of regard. In this instance there is not even much required of the family.
A simple gesture, such as brief eye contact with a nod of the head, would have been sufficient, if a bit curt. But between four people, not one offered the slightest response to either query. This is unseemly behavior for anyone brought up in civilized society, and should be avoided.
We all deserve to be treated with decency and compassion. I do not think it too much to ask that patrons comply with basic principles of proper etiquette and conduct themselves thusly.
Anything less is highly undignified and indecorous, and you would all do well to take these things to heart.
If Barista's at upscale coffee joints are being treated like this, imagine how the people who work at McDonald's are getting treated.
The good person treats those who serve him just as well as those whom he himself must serve.
One-Third Of American Muslims Are
Stuck In A Permanent Adolescent Inferiority Complex
From the
Washington Times, via Jihad Watch:
More than one-third of American Muslims believe that the U.S. war on terrorism is really a war on Islam, according to survey information released yesterday by researchers at Georgetown University.
Thirty-eight percent of American Muslims polled said they believe the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the tensions with Iran and Syria, reflect a foreign policy that is targeting Islamic countries and Muslims themselves.
Those Muslims who take the War On Terror personally reveal something very negative about themselves. Can you imagine, the Germans in the U.S. during WWII taking the War against the Nazi's personally?
I don't know that this means that they actually sympathize with terrorist organizations and those who harbor them. But, if that's not what it means, then it means that they need to grow up. They are like teenagers who take every suggestion as a personal attack.
Waahh.
Think about it, Muslim community. If the terrorists are, as you say, not doing the work of Islam, then, if we destroy the Terrorists and their infrastructure, your religion will cease to be wrongly associated with terrorism. Isn't that a good thing?
How is that a War against Islam?
Agence French Presse: Slummin' With The Shaved Head Crowd
Charles, at
Little Green Footballs, notes that
Agence French Presse is slumming with the Northern American White Aryan Resistance wackos:
As violence continues to rage and Bush’s once-vaunted “roadmap” for peace flounders amid a sea of mutual Israeli-Palestinian recriminations, the candidates have refused to address the matter beyond platitudes, analysts say.
Charles notes:
Sympathy for terrorists shows through once again, as the failure of the “road map” is blamed equally on Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. The truth is that Israel’s actions to fulfill their obligations under the first step of the road map were met by the Palestinians with nothing but murder and terrorism. The Palestinians’ first obligation was to take action against the terror gangs; they tried to deceive the world by whitewashing some Hamas graffiti.
Agence French Presse waxes anti-Semitic:
Indeed, in the days since the first debate, the candidates have marched in lockstep supporting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and denouncing what they say is Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s failed leadership.
Charles comments:
“Marched in lockstep supporting Sharon?” Wow. This is identical to the sort of language and rhetoric you’ll find at hard-core antisemitic sites. Good work, AFP.
Charles ability to sum up with a few sharp, sarcastic words is beginning to rival his idol: Zappa
Camille Paglia: Typical Bimbo
Reason Online had a feature today called "Who Gets Your Vote," wherein they asked all manner of celebrities and politicos who they intend to vote for. Camille Paglia inadvertantly revealed herself to be a typical bimbo:
Camille Paglia
Paglia is a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
2004 vote: John Kerry. In the hope that he will restore our alliances and reduce rabid anti-Americanism in this era of terrorism when international good will and cooperation are crucial.
2000 vote: Ralph Nader. Because I detest the arrogant, corrupt superstructure of the Democratic Party, with which I remain stubbornly registered.
Most embarrassing vote: Bill Clinton the second time around. Because he did not honorably resign when the Lewinsky scandal broke and instead tied up the country and paralyzed the government for two years, leading directly to our blindsiding by 9/11.
So far, so good, right? But wait, there's more:
Favorite president: John F. Kennedy. Not that he accomplished much. But he was the first candidate I campaigned for as an adolescent, and I still admire his articulateness and vigor. The Kennedys gave the White House sophistication and style.
Jack, with his swanky stride and sly smile, and Jaquelyn, oh my gosh, those hats. They are so, so elegant.
Camille Paglia does the E! Entertainment Television version of Political Discussion. Maybe Camille Paglia can do the Red Carpet at the Oscar's with Joan Rivers this coming year.
I love Camille Paglia. I actually keep Sexual Personae by my bedstand (I know, I know, I'm wierd. What can I say?) a good deal of the time. But sheesh, what a stupid thing to say.
"Foreign Policy For $200 Billion, Alex"
"Ok, The answer is We're Gonna Bomb Your Iranian Butts Back Into The Stone Age, No Matter What Those Prissy French Guys Think"
Uh, What are "Things a President can't say?"
Congratulations Pastorius, you have won Celebrity Jeopardy Home Edition.
From
FrontPageMag.com:
Forget the rest of the conservative commentariat. The American Spectator's website alone, including the letters column, has been full of advice for President Bush on what he should say -- or should have said -- in the first two debates with Senator John Kerry. Truly, you can understand why. Like most Bush partisans, I watch with a certain grim determination, knowing our guy's right, that John Kerry will say absolutely anything, and that the lies and half-truths will pile up high and demand a good swift kick, and knowing, too, that President Bush probably won't deliver that ultimate kick to the Kerry pile of you-know-what.
But consider President Bush's situation -- the situation of any President in wartime, faced with an ad-lib partisan debate. There are far more things he can't say than those he can, because the President actually is in the game of world politics. What he says could fracture alliances, end relationships, start wars. And some of his best ripostes are barred to him because of that.
In two debates, for example, Senator Kerry has insisted that he would eliminate the "nuclear bunker buster bomb program" from the United States' arsenal. Unfair, don't you know. Asking those other countries like Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear arms programs, and then we go ahead developing new H-bombs. Hardly sporting, what? Not diplomatic.
Everybody in the world -- take that literally -- knows why the United States is developing those bombs. But can the President say something like, "You want to eliminate nuclear bunker buster bombs, Senator? What are we going to do about rogue nuclear powers when sanctions don't work? I haven't noticed they're too responsive to talk."
Even implying that threat in a public forum could cause an act of war.
Similarly, when Senator Kerry insists that the United States is ignoring the threat of Iran, or that the United States is "distracted" in Iraq when the "real threat" is in Iran, could the President say this?
"What makes you think we're not doing anything about Iran? We already have special forces teams deployed all over Iran working with the democratic opposition to the mullahs. And we're already at war with Iran. It's a proxy war, going on right now in Iraq."
Nope. Can't say that.
Neither can President Bush make the obvious response to Senator Kerry's repeated accusation that the United States has "turned its back on its traditional alliances" and "failed to bring aboard our traditional allies" in the war on terror.
"What countries are you talking about there, Senator? France, maybe? Did you know that France was bribed by Saddam Hussein through the Oil for Food program, to the tune of X billion dollars? And that France sold weapons to Saddam right through our war in 2003?
"Not when the United States still depends on French cooperation for fighting terrorism in North Africa.
When Senator Kerry slams the Bush administration for a "too few troops on the ground" and "failing to win the peace," the President cannot say something like this:
"Senator Kerry, the Fourth Infantry Division was missing from our forces at the time the war started -- and ended. Those are the forces that would have settled conflicts in Northern Iraq, where most of the trouble is now. Why was that division missing, Senator? Because those allies you keep talking about held up Turkey's membership in the EU unless the Turks denied us passage through Turkey for that division. Those are your 'global test' buddies, Senator."
Can't say it, that is, without alienating Turkey and inflaming already difficult relationships with "old Europe.
"Now, either John Kerry knows that he's saying things President Bush can't respond to, or he doesn't. In the first case, he's a corrupt liar; he's lying to the American people about what he can do and President Bush can't. He's had intelligence briefings. He knows where things stand. In the second case, he's plain stupid.
I don't think he's stupid.
Democracy Is Democracy
And $200 Billion Down The Toilet Is ...
Well, You Know
Just yesterday (in my post "Another Democrat For Bush") I was making the point that the Iraq War is the largest Foreign Aid project in history. Well, today
George Bush announced that he's willing to allow our Foreign Aid project to fail.
Bush was asked during an interview with the The Associated Press how he would react if Iraqis someday freely voted into power an Islamic fundamentalist government. Bush replied,
"I will be disappointed, but democracy is democracy."
Maybe he does deserve to be voted out of office. I must admit, Democracy is Democracy is a great catch phrase for the Postgumpian generation. I thought they would never be able to beat the ever-catchy and intellectually barren aphorism,
"Stupid is as stupid does."
But dad-gum it, they've done it, haven't they?
I know that many people will say, "We've been telling you all this time, George Bush is stupid, so it's apt that you call his phrase, 'Postgumpian.'" But, those people would be missing the point.
The point of Forrest Gump is that we are all (all of us) Gump. Every one of us, who just goes along with the times. All of us, who let history shape our lives, instead of the other way around. People misunderstood Forrest Gump. They believed it to be a feel-good story of the heart that thumps in the chest of America. No, Forrest Gump was a cynical, vile, inhumane exercise in determistic philosophy. Every vignette in the movie screams, "We don't have a choice. We are determined by the forces of history."
Do we want to choose to be Gump?
Remember, just a few months ago, George Bush was going around giving speeches saying he believes that God put a desire for Freedom in the heart of every man.
You know, that principle is the principle upon which America was founded:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And it was the principle upon which we fought the Civil War and both World Wars, and even, we believed, the Korean War, and Viet Nam. We haven't always lived up to that idea, but almost everything good that has come out of America has come as a result of our belief that Freedom is a God given right.
God forgive us, if we decide to abandon our principle's and the Iraqi people's inalienable rights.
Anti-Semitism In A British Medical Journal? What the ...?
From
Melanie Phillips:
If you naively imagined that the British Medical Journal was a journal for articles about medicine, well think again. Its editor appears to consider it a suitable forum for a hate-filled libel of Israel. The article, by one Derek Summerfield, a lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, might certainly qualify as a medical curiosity, I suppose, in the field of obsessive-libellous derangement syndrome. Here's a sample:
'Israeli military reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza—a system of military checkpoints splitting towns and villages into ghettos, curfews, closures, raids, mass demolition and destruction of houses (more than 60 000), and land expropriations—has made ordinary life impossible for everyone, and is driving Palestinian society and its institutions towards destitution. Moreover, Israel has been constructing a grotesque barrier that, when completed, will total over 400 miles—four times longer than the Berlin Wall. Extending up to 15 miles into Palestinian territory, the real purpose of the wall is permanently to lock more than 50 illegal Israeli settlements into Israel proper. This is expansive, aggressive colonisation...' etc etc.
Every statement he makes is twisted, wrong and totally unbalanced. When he finally makes a point about health, it is to present the Palestinians' situation as parlous with no attempt at objectivity whatever. Yes, the health situation of Palestinians under occupation is often very difficult. Yes, they suffer privations from the checkpoints.
But for heaven's sake -- they are only in that situation because they are a community which is perpetrating mass murder attacks on innocent Israelis. That, not the malevolent motive he imputes, is the purpose of the security barrier. Why does this lecturer in psychiatry ignore totally the terrorism murder and misery inflicted by the Palestinians on the Jews of Israel? Why does this doctor not even acknowledge Jewish suffering? Why does he not refer to the abuse of ambulances by Palestinian gunmen who use them to transport terrorists? Why does he ignore the fact that Palestinians -- even terrorists who have killed Jews -- are treated in Israeli hospitals? Why does he not report the telling fact that before the intifada started, the Palestinians enjoyed the lowest infant mortality rate of any Arab country? Why does this educated member of a caring profession hate Israel with such a pathological intensity? And what on earth is this venomous, politically bent diatribe doing in the British Medical Journal? How is science served by such lamentable claptrap?
The comments by BMJ readers are worth reading too. Many are outraged, thank goodness. Too many, though, support him. Once again, a stone has been lifted in Britain to reveal a foul slime beneath.
It is debatable whether there is an expansionist intention in the construction of the wall. However, it is not debatable that the Palestinians would not be in this situation if they had not supported the Second Intifada. And it is also not debatable that Israel, at President Clinton's Camp David Peace Talks in 2000, offered Yasser Arafat and the PLO 97% of the land they wanted and they responded by walking away from the negotiation table without even counter offering.
Another Democrat For Bush
From the
London Times:
Sarah Baxter is a life-long Labour voter in Britain and a registered Democrat in the United States. So how come she wants George W Bush to remain president?
It was the kind of glittering occasion at which John Kerry and his wife would feel at home. There were millionaires in tuxedos with their Botoxed and bejewelled wives, graceful daughters with flawless skin in evening gowns, members of the Kennedy and Hearst dynasties and, because this is New York high society, there were artists surrounded by their patrons and benefactors.
They had come to celebrate the National Arts Awards, but it was also the night of the final debate between Kerry and George W Bush. A special room was set aside for the dinner guests to watch the ding-dong on a big screen while eating petits fours and quaffing champagne.
Andres Serrano, the artist responsible for Piss Christ, one of the iconic images of the late 1980s culture wars, was rooting for Kerry. Wedged between two beautiful women, he enthused: “The debate’s going well. Kerry’s winning over the audience here.”
Indeed. There were laughs and applause for Kerry, groans for Bush. Jeff Koons, the celebrated pop artist, was standing by the bar. “There’s got to be a change for the future of the country,” he told me soberly.
Then Koons became unexpectedly open-minded. “This administration” — he couldn’t bring himself to say Bush — “has supported the arts. In this particular area, they have been generous.” But never mind such parochialism. “For the good of the country, it’s time for a change,” he repeated his mantra.
So here I am in deep Kerry territory, surrounded by designer Democrats who are far wealthier than me, harbouring a secret and deeply untrendy thought.
Darn them all, despite being a registered Democrat — and in my London days a staunch Labour supporter — I am going to vote for George Dubya.
When the metrosexual chap standing next to me confides that urban sophisticates prefer Kerry because “you have to have a low IQ to appreciate Bush”, I know I am making the right decision.
“The guy is an idiot,” he continued snobbishly. “I don’t know what the rest of the country is thinking.”
Perhaps I can enlighten him. I will be one of the millions voting for Bush because I trust the president’s judgment on the war on terror more than Kerry’s. In this election, I am a single-issue voter. It is that simple. Even in the New York metropolis, there are more of us out there than he imagines.
I have registered as a Democrat because I want to put the party on notice. Should it lose the election — an open question at present — I want it to look at the numbers of Bush-supporting Democrats and draw the appropriate lesson about its unconvincing foreign policy. Perhaps then I will be able to support the party in 2008.
My vote for Bush involves a fair amount of gritting of teeth. I am not a Republican and do not care much for the company he keeps. Back in Britain I have voted Labour since I was 18, sticking by the party through its wilderness years when it veered towards the extreme left.
I was political editor of the left-wing New Statesman magazine in the early 1990s when two bright MPs, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, embarked on their quest to make Labour electable. They succeeded so brilliantly that Labour dominates the political landscape. If I could vote for Blair in the American elections, I would. Unfortunately his name is not on the ballot.
Thanks to my mother, a lifelong Democrat from the swing state of Ohio, I have dual citizenship. I live in New York now and will be casting my vote in America for the first time. My decision is based on a straightforward proposition: I do not want the global jihadists and women-hating fundamentalists to be celebrating Bush’s defeat. They do not deserve to win, even if Bush deserves to lose, a position I am not quite willing to concede.
I'm a registered Democrat and I'm voting for Bush. I don't think I have ever previously voted for a Republican for high office.
The most perplexing thing about the Democrat's hatred for Bush is that he is the liberal President they claim to want. Bush approved Fifteen Billion dollars to combat AIDS in Africa. He signed into law a Prescription Drug bill that half of his party loathed. He introduced the bill calling for the increased tax credits for middle class and lower-middle families, and made sure it was pushed through Congress quickly.
But, most amazing of all, in light of the Democrats hatred of Bush, is that he is the first President, since Roosevelt, to take the liberal step of moving beyond Realpolitik in Foreign Policy. The U.S. is not installing America-friendly dictators in Afghanistan of Iraq. Instead, we are encouraging them to write their own Constitutions, and elect their own leaders. And we are funding the reconstruction of their country. That's the biggest foreign aid investment of all time.
What do the Democrats want?
Maybe, like Susan Baxter above, they are single-issue voters. And maybe their single issue is the dislike of American power.
A Frenchman Protests and Apologizes For His Country's Anti-Semitism
From
Eursoc:
It isn't only the Arab world which delights in anti-Jewish propaganda.
Last Thursday and Friday - Oct. 7 and 8, 2004 - the Franco-German channel Arte, mostly paid for by the taxpayer, broadcast a very bad French-Egyptian movie by Yousri Nasrallah called "Les portes du soleil". The fact that it was very bad was actually a blessing, for the main purpose of the movie was to show the founders of the state of Israel as moral equivalent to the Nazis.
The movie begins with a scene in a Palestinian school in 1943 where a teacher tells children about "our country, Palestine" and the "Jewish colonisation" going on. 1-9-4-3. Was nothing else happening at that time in Jewish history ? Apparently not, according to Arte.
It goes on: the 1948 war, when Israel barely survived a coordinated attack on the day of her birth by Arab states openly calling for genocide, is described slightly differently. Jews in green-grey uniforms come with tanks and commit mass murders of innocent women and children, burn the villages, pile the clothes of the dead according to size in order to send them to Israel. The Palestinian hero tattoos the date of the slaughter on his own wrist.
Of course the 1948 Jews had neither tanks nor real uniforms - they almost didn't have two rifles of the similar kind, for God's sake ! Arabs were brutalised, some were expelled in militarily important areas just as Jews were expelled from their homes in Arab countries - but indiscriminate slaughter by Tsahal? When, where? And what kind of person could dream up the Nazi analogies, apparent from the color of the uniform, the clothes piled on and the tattoo on the wrist? My God, which side actually had tattooed wrists in this war?
This is nauseating. This is unbelievable. But this is where we are.
And it goes on. In a kibbutz, a Palestinian woman is reduced to slavery and forced to work under the threat of a gun. A kibbutz - one of these idealistic socialist communities which wanted to change the world and bring eternal peace - is turned into a concentration camp by the sick mind of the director. This man has found actors to play this, two democratic governments to help finance it, and a television executive, Mr Jerome Clement - may his name live in infamy forever - to broadcast it in spite of many warnings that this movie would endanger the physical safety of French Jews.
After watching the whole abomination, I wrote to Mr Clement to tell him that, had Hitler won the war, we French would have enjoyed exactly the kind of television that he had provided us. He will not answer.
Since no one with authority will apparently do it, and because only a Frenchman can, I have this to add.
I apologise to the Jewish people. I feel hurt in my flesh by the despicable Jerome Clement, by the French ministries of Culture and of Foreign Affairs who made me pay for this cloaca of a movie, and for the general apathy that surrounded this scandal. I am deeply sorry about the behaviour of my country, France - my only country, which I have always loved dearly and cannot support today.
I believe that truth and justice will prevail. Their enemies are many, powerful, sophisticated. But the friends of truth and justice have found comfort and solace, for many centuries, in an old story of wretched slaves who managed to come out of Egypt against all odds - against many, powerful, sophisticated enemies. In today's troubled times, I recall this old story and I know who I'll support.
-Armand Laferrère
Me too.
What Do Hiroshima, Dresden, and Atlanta Have In Common?
From
Roger Simon:
Among the many eye rolling questions of this election season, the one that may make my eyes roll most is... are we safer? Well, unless you believe in a parallel universe, the only honest answer is... who knows? But the more important point is that the question is specious because it is not a serious one, nor is it seriously asked. Its only objective is to embarrass its recipient, not to find the truth, because the truth in this case is unknowable. True safety from terror will take decades. Most of us know that, but many of us don't want to face it. Yet only by facing safety's extraordinary difficulty is there any help of achieving it.
That is why I find the people who ask that question dangerous or at the least highly disturbing. They are either deceiving others or deceiving themselves or both. Some of them are impatient that the situation hasn't been resolved in eighteen months, that there have been numerous ups and downs. Well, I have news for them - the situation wasn't resolved in eighteen months and it is most likely not going to be resolved in eighteen years either. If they think the ups and downs we have seen in the last eighteen months are troublesome, that misjudgments were made, wait until they see some real ones. We are dealing with a mindset that blew up a railroad station in Madrid a few months ago and referred in their statements to the Reconquista of 1492. Eighteen months? Eighteen years? How about six centuries?
Good point, Roger. Now, I have my own two cents to throw in. How about this question:
Was America safer after they decided to declare war on Germany and Japan in 1941?
The answer is you are never safer during a war. You are safer after you have beaten your enemy, and then you beat them some more, until they beg you to stop.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Is The German Menace Shaking Itself Awake?
Thanks to
David's Medienkritik for enlightening us about the goings-on in Germany where Holocaust Denier's gathered under the auspices of the Frankfurt Book Fair, with the Guest of Honor" being the Denier's themselves:
The Frankfurt Book Fair ended on Sunday night.
Volker Neumann, the Fair's President, was enthusiastic about the presentation of books from several Arabic countries:
The presence of the Guest of Honour “Arab World” at this year’s Book Fair was viewed on all sides as having been a huge success. With hundreds of readings, discussions, exhibitions and concerts, the Guest of Honour had succeeded in providing a wide-ranging glimpse of the heterogeneous cultures of the 19 countries that took part. “This has achieved an important beginning for comprehensive inter-cultural dialogue,” said Neumann.
The list of prestigious Arab guests was topped by Mr. Mohammad Salmawy, who calls the holocaust a lie, fabricated by the Jews themselves. Thomas von der Osten-Sacken has some interesting thoughts on Salmawy's presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the virtual non-reaction of the German media:
Would the German Chancellor Schroeder show himself in public with a Holocaust-Denier like David Irving? Would he seek a dialogue with him?
Last Tuesday has proven that he has at least not that great fear of contact with these kind of people.
After Chancellor Schoeder held a speech at the opening event of this year Book Fair in Frankfurt, the notorious Mohammad Salmawy delivered a greeting message of Nobelprice Winner Nagib Machfus, who was not able to visit the Book Fair.
Since years it is well known, that Mohammed Salmawy, editor of the French magazine Al Ahram Hebdo, publicly denies the Holocaust and praises Suicide Bombers in Israel. Al Ahram Hebdo is property of the Egyptian government.
He wrote in that magazine: “There are no findings to indicate the existence of mass graves, because the size of the ovens makes it impossible for many Jews to have been killed there. According to the lists presented by the Soviets to the Germans, no more than 70,000 Jews were registered as having been at Auschwitz." (emphasis added)...
In an interview with the BBC Salmawy also said, “that the Israeli Mossad was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, despite the evidence claiming otherwise.” ...
This is all made the more frightening in light of
this post from Little Green Footballs, and this quote from
The Australian News commenting on the atmosphere of current day Germany:
The new mood in the British-German relationship stems from two facts. The first is a British recognition that the partnership is still mired in World War II. The second element is that Germans feel they should no longer be judged against the yardstick of Hitler’s crimes.
It seems to me that Germany would not have the stomach to reenact the Holocaust. They are like an alcoholic who has had a very bad experience with binge drinking and has sworn off the booze, only to console themselves with anti-depressants. The thought of going back to the bottle makes them sick.
However, I really do wonder if Germany, or much of Europe, would mind much if the Arab World would really let loose and tie one on, by destroying Israel. Now, that's a party the Germans might just be gearing up for. Remember my October 13th post, "Americans and Jews Out Of Europe Now."
Keep these things in mind as events unfold over the next several months. Hint: It will start with Iran.
I Got Your Leftist Ideas Hangin' Right Here *
Winds Of Change reader,
Gonzalo, makes some frightening claims. Gonzalo works at a "prominent California University (Berkeley? Stanford?). He says his colleagues are preparing to get violent if Bush ekes out of victory:
I have been too embarrassed for too long to admit my feelings to anybody. Is it reasonable to vote for one person but secretly wish for the other to win? I live in California and work within a prominent university.
I would never describe myself as conservative, but neither am I the rabid elitist anti-American deconstructionist intent on driving this country into a nihilistic frenzy of self-hatred as many of my colleagues on campus are. (his colleagues believe that) Republicans are no longer fellow citizens with a different perspective, but rather evil in our midst that must be "struggled" against.
I am afraid of them (his colleagues), because their cosmology has gone beyond paranoia into pure psychosis; if polls show Bush ahead, then the pollsters are fundamentalist Christian corporate puppet right-wingers. If Michael Moore gets protested, he is being "censored" by a John Ashcroft honing his Gestapo skills.
Talk of violent "resistance" is common on campus when the possibility of a Republican victory is raised. I know for a fact that after 2000 they will never simply accept the democratic process in this country and wait 4 years for another chance; rather, they will do all they can to de-legitimize the entire American process itself. And as philosophers have understood for a long time, the power of any institution can only remain in power as long as it remains quasi-mystical in the minds of its subjects. That is, as soon as the democratic process is questioned, it no longer works. We used to tolerate being governed by those we don't agree with because of the legitimacy conferred upon them by democratic elections. The fact that we are appealing to the UN, the organization with Libya and the Sudan on its human rights committee and Syria on its security council, to monitor OUR elections, in the country where modern democracy was born, terrifies me. Once our process has been besmirched, why should we be content to remain within the system? The hate-filled ideologues at my university gain self-satisfaction by thinking of themselves as "dissidents," and I know several who intend to bring anarchy if the election doesn't go the way they want.
Which brings me to my point. In a way, I don't much care who wins (I think they both suck), but I think I prefer a Kerry victory. But what's most important to me is that the winner wins BY A SIGNIFICANT MARGIN. If Bush wins by a small margin (and especially if he loses the popular vote), the people I know will become violent and will never accept the results, and elite liberals will give the violence legitimacy. If Kerry wins by a small margin, on the other hand, Republicans will groan and bitch but they won't levy "revolution." I live in California where a Kerry win is a given. My single vote will not change the outcome. But I can add to Bush's popular vote and the legitimacy of his election overall with my vote, in my little way deflating the grievances of the anti-Bush demagogues. Therefore, I will vote for Bush while hoping for Kerry to win. So is it ever reasonable to vote for one and wish victory on the other? I think so.
I think it is worth taking Gonzalo's warning under advisement.
While I do to some extent believe Gonzalo's warning to legitimate, I don't believe there is much of a threat of mass physical violence emanating from the halls of academia. Call me naive, but
1) I don't believe the competing ideologies of the left can create, organize, or sustain violence on a mass scale.
2) I don't believe that academia possesses the actual surge of masculine energy required to carry out an organized war.
And, finally,
3)
I don't believe they have a large plurality with the strength of conviction required to get anything done. (Of course, the academic left has been a seminal influence in the creation, organization and sustaining of violence in countries where they did have a base with strength of conviction.)
To put it bluntly, I think the academic left is a whole population of children at play. They are not real people participating in a real world. Their ideas boil down to "how can we mug the power structure so we can get something for nothing" and thus do not contain any real weight. There is no there there. They are purely anti-structural. All they can really do is say "no," in the manner of children playing in a room who are suddenly interrupted by a parent telling them it is time to do their homework.
What the academic left does best is create chaos. They do this very well. They have now educated several generations of people, who have moved into positions of power in business, media and law who's agenda is generally how to verbally riot and collect booty. Their angry words and pretty "let's share everything - we're entitled" values continue to appeal to new generations of young people who feel hopeless and afraid of the prospect of having to become responsible.
The academic left is winning the slow war against responsibility and accountability by introducing ever-increasing chaos into the systems of the West. They will continue to file motions and write articles and stage P.R. events. They will continue to use clueless Hollywood stars to give themselves an aura of hipness. They will continue to, like Moloch, feed on the children whose lives they destroy by starving them of reality. That's what they can do. That's what the left is good at.
But, actually organizing a real resistance? Hah.
* By the way, I will stop writing this sort of propaganda when the Academics, Entertainers, and Euro's stop calling George Bush, or any other powerful Republican names such as Hitler, Fascist, and anti-Christ. While what I am saying in this essay and, usually most blatantly, in the titles of my postings does usually lack nuance, I simply don't owe much in the way of subtelty to people who lack all sense of proportion, and would equate anyone they do not agree with the worst homicidal maniacs of the 20th century. I recognize that there are problems with America, and the American Right, (I am a registered Democrat) but I will not stand idly by and watch as immature people, without the ability to differentiate right from wrong, tear down the strongholds of Freedom and Democracy in our world.
George Soros Says Iraq War Wrong
The great German blog,
Medienkritik, engaged George Soros in an email discussion with some very revealing results. First here's what Medienkritik wrote to Soros:
Mr. Soros,
You state: "All my experience has taught me that you can't introduce democracy by military means." I respectfully disagree. Just look at Germany and Japan today, two of the most prosperous democracies in the world. Had the Allies not militarily removed the Fascist governments of those nations in the Second World War, they would have never developed into democracies.
As someone who spent the last 5 years in Germany I am convinced that it was right for the United States to act and remove Saddam Hussein from power.
There was more, but in the interest of brevity, I will move on to Soros' answer:
Mr. Soros' Response:
The analogy with Post-war Germany and Japan is a false one. We didn't attack them in order to introduce democracy. They attacked us and were soundly defeated. We then treated them generously [The Marshall Plan] - not the way we treated Germany after the First World War - and they responded positively. They became true democracies and faithful allies of the United States. It took President Bush's policies to upset the Germans. As you know, German Chancellor Schroder managed to stay in power by taking an anti-American platform. This goes to show how much damage Bush has done to America's standing in the world.
I'm all in favor of removing tyrants like Saddam but the way we went about it has made it more, rather than less difficult, to do it in the future, because we acted unilaterally and arbitrarily.
The revealing thing about Mr. Soros' email is how remarkably similar it is to the very
sofisticated thoughts offered in a
recent post by my friend IraqWarWrong, over at The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog:
One of the biggest problems with The Iraq War is that we initiated and fought the war without our allies on our side. None of our allies were in the least bit willing to form a friendly association, a helpful association, act as an associate who provides assistance. Now sure, there were a few countries (non allies of us) on are side (Australia POland Ect. - dimestore countries relly) while our ALLIES (REAL allies) were on the sidelines or even rooting against us. This includes many countries, everything nation from France to Germany and everywhere in between, some of are BEST (most staunchest) allies (with us thick and thin), which did not participate ...
So let's go through this and lay out the logic of the argument strategy as you will can use it in practice. (Bare with me but I like to start from elemtnary concepts and work my way up).First of all, We set out to fight a war (The Iraq War). Now think about that. It's a WAR people! You need allies. Everyone knows that (except Bush).
Now let's look at are allies. France. Germany. Belgium. Byelorussia. If we're going to fight a war, we NEED them. (They're our allies). That's how wars work. But the reality is. Our allies (those ones above, and some more, like Venezuela ect.) were against the war.
Their populations were TOTALLY opposed to it a war happening. They were like "attack Iraq? NO WAY!" This is what The World was saying to us. (France etc.)
But what did Bush do? He fought the war ANYWAY.
And the horrible part of it is. By doing so we have TOTALLY scared away are allies! (Germany ect.) They're totally aligned against us now and NOT going to help!
Think about that: our allies (devoted/loyal), are AGAINST us and NOT helping! Thanks Bush.So here's the kicker.
Now what will happen next time we (WRONGLY) set out to fight a (wrong) Iraq War (or similar)? We will look around for our allies (Belgium ect.) and they won't be there. I can't even being to imagine what that will be like!
And that's what Bush fighting the war without are allies has caused. It has caused are allies to be less inclined to preticipate in (wrong) wars we want to fight. (Unlike before)Is there any way out of this mess?
Interesting. George Soros and IraqWarWrong share the exact same opinion and they seemed to have used the same eligant logic to arrive at their shared conclusion. Interesting.
Come to think of it, I've never seen George Soros and IraqWarWrong in the same room at the same time. I wonder if ... No, that couldn't be.
Why The Left Has Lost The Ability To Make Simple Distinctions
FrontPageMag.com posted
a fine article this morning by Stephen Vincent:
Amidst white wine and canapés at a Manhattan art opening recently, I fell into conversation about Iraq with a middle-aged couple named the Gordons, who expressed the typical anti-war sentiments one encounters nowadays in such posh surroundings. Having spent some time over there, however, I was distressed to hear these well-to-do collectors declare that the U.S. should “leave the country immediately;” Iraqis were “better off under Saddam;” the insurgents were “revolutionaries” and “freedom fighters.” When I argued that this so-called “resistance” comprised fascist terrorists who sought to destroy Iraq’s chances for liberty, they huffed that the U.S. was no better. “Isn’t America’s attempt to impose its way of life on Iraq also fascistic?” demanded Mrs. Gordon—as if popular sovereignty and constitutional rights were equivalent to suicide car bombs and videotaped beheadings.
I thought of this interchange a week later when I visited Copp’s Hill Cemetery in Boston. Walking between the 17th- and 18th-century tombstones, I discovered the grave for Daniel Malcolm, a 44-year-old merchant whose marker describes him as a “true son of Liberty, a Friend to the Publick, an Enemy to oppression.” Later, wandering at twilight through Old Burial Hill in nearby Marblehead, I came across an 1848 obelisk dedicated to Captain James Mugford and the crew of the schooner Franklin, who, on May 17, 1776, captured the British transport Hope. (Mugford, killed two days later, is buried near the monument.) The following day, I stood at dawn on Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts—the place where the colonial insurrection began—gazing up at Daniel Chester French’s magisterial 1875 sculpture of a colonial Minuteman, plow in one hand, long-bore rifle in the other.
How far we’ve advanced over the years, I thought, as an early fall wind blew over the Concord River. In past eras, people displayed their love of liberty on tombstones and constructed monuments to their ancestors’ patriotism. Today, sophisticated urbanites profess an inability to differentiate between American actions in Iraq and those of nihilistic thugs.
Even worse, we have a mainstream media that elides the malignancy of radical Islam. Reuters, for example, refuses to use the term “terrorist” to describe a monster like Zarqawi. Last September, the New York Times ran a 1,750-word piece on the school massacre in Russia, never mentioning that the assailants were Islamic. In August, the Financial Times profiled Moqtada al-Sadr, omitting the cleric’s devotion to the totalitarian doctrines of shari’a. Worst of all is the recent bestseller Imperial Hubris, which purports to present a hardnosed look at Osama bin Laden—while ignoring his dedication to Wahabbism, Islam’s most intolerant sect. Instead, the book lauds the terror master as “pious, charismatic, gentle, generous, talented, and personally courageous”—and compares him to Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln.
To assert, “Bush is a fascist” (a comment I hear regularly in the art world) (Editor's note: So do I) earns one the approval of fellow “progressives,” while allowing a sense of moral superiority over the despised Republicans. Moreover, it’s risk free—not even John Ashcroft would arrest someone for expressing that sentiment. But that’s small beer compared to the real upside of pretending that America is as bad as the Islamofascists: it justifies burrowing deeper into the irresponsible inertia of the Leftist cocoon.
For example, in Iraq, I heard many activists (usually Canadian) claim the U.S. “occupation” was as bad, or worse, than Saddam’s regime. When I mentioned the tyrant’s manifold atrocities, these bien pensants dismissed my comments. At first, this reaction stunned me, since evidence of his evil was everywhere. Only later did I grasp a basic reason behind this willful blindness: to declare that America equals Saddam also implies the opposite: Saddam equals America. And since only a lunatic, or Noam Chomsky, believes the U.S. is completely evil, this false moral equivalency serves to render Saddam less fearsome. The less demonic the dictator, the more immoral America’s invasion of his country. The more immoral the invasion, the less one feels compelled to take a stand against the real evil than Islamofascists like Saddam and bin Laden represent.
To broaden the perspective, if the Gordons—and millions like them—seriously entertain the thought that Islamic jihadists have targeted them for death, they might feel terror, anxiety, maybe even anger—emotions which might oblige them to do something—choose sides, commit to a course of action, perhaps even risk supporting the war against terrorists.
Violence Will Increase During The Holy Month of Ramadan?
From
Reuter's:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is supposed to be a time of spiritual joy, but the most that Iraqis can pray for this time is that it brings a moment of peace.
Relentless suicide bombings, shootings and kidnappings have left Iraqis fearful that the holy month, which starts on Friday, will be bloody.
National Security Adviser Kassem Daoud warned Iraqis in an eve of Ramadan news conference of a possible increase in terrorist activity, and said the government was taking extra precautions.
Muslim families usually flock to mosques during Ramadan, especially at night.But Iraqis know that moving about at night is risky -- kidnappers and suicide bombers are getting bolder, and police and U.S. troops are nervous.
This is because the Islamofascists who are battling against the establishment of Democracy in Iraq believe that violence is holy. That's why they pray and shout "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) while they are beheading people.
Saddam's Nazi Roots
From
FrontPageMag.com:
A twenty-first euphemism is now coming into vogue: “the Iraqi resistance.” Michael Moore has become a cheerleader for the “resistance.” He states on his website, “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the Revolution, the Minutemen...” (michaelmoore.com, April 14, 2004).
Actually, those that are trying to re-establish the secular Baath dictatorship, or its Islamist equivalent, are pure evil. They are nihilists. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush referred to Saddam’s Baath dictatorship as Fascist and Nazi. He was not far off the mark as Saddam’s behavior certainly qualifies. Saddam’s aggression against Iraq’s neighbors has cost over one million lives. Saddam filled trenches with the bodies of hundreds-of-thousands of innocent men, women and children.
Fruit does not fall far from the tree. The origins of Saddam’s dictatorship date back to World War II. On 3 April 1941 Rashid Ali overthrew the Iraqi government, which was friendly with the British and Allied cause. As the result of the 1932 treaty establishing Iraq’s independence, the British maintained bases at Basra and Habbaniya (not far from Falluja). The latter base was attacked by units of the Iraqi army and laid under siege. The situation was serious, “By 13 May [1941] new decrypts revealed that German aircraft with Iraqi markings had arrived in Syria, the next day they began bombing the British forces which were entering Iraq...” (John Keegan, The Second World War).
This was consistent with “Hitler’s Directive No. 30. Middle East” dated 23 May 1941: “The Arab Freedom Movement is, in the Middle East, our natural ally against England... I have decided to push the development of operations in...support of Iraq...it may later be possible to wreck finally the English position between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.” (Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance) Meanwhile, “In Syria a committee was formed to mobilize support for the Rashid Ali regime. This was the nucleus of what later became the Ba’th Party, rival branches of which came to govern both Syria and Iraq.” (Bernard Lewis, The Middle East)
It is not surprising that both the secular Fascists of Syria (Editor's note: also Baathists) and the medieval theocrats of Iran and Al Qaeda should unite in attacking those that would bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Nihilists united in hate recognize their common ambitions and enemies. Their purpose is to destroy what chance there is for democracy in Iraq, after which they will fight it out for power. A classic example of nihilists uniting to destroy freedom is the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag on 23 March 1933. This act made Hitler dictator of Germany by a vote of 444 to 84. On the surface it seems peculiar that Communists delegates would vote for such a measure along with the Nazis. But only on the surface, the Nazis and Communists were just two different gangs with a common enemy, the first democracy Germany ever had, the Weimar Republic.
Nihilism is an accurate term for Communists, Nazis, Baath Party Fascists and Islamist terrorists. According to Webster’s: “Nihilism, The doctrine which denies any objective ground of moral principles; called also ethical nihilism...The doctrine that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake...In loose usage, revolutionary propaganda; terrorism.” Or as Faust defined the nihilist credo, “All that exists, deserves to perish.”
Then there are the nihilist enablers who should know better. There are: Michael Moore, quoted above; Markos Zuniga, at his “Daily Kos” website, who wrote “screw them” in reference to the Americans murdered in Falluja, characterizing the victims as “mercenaries;” Kofi Annan who pursues the U.N’s anti-Western vendetta while sub-Sahara Africa burns; International Answer referring to the terrorist killer Ahmed Yassin as “a political leader;” International Solidarity Movement, who in solidarity with terrorists, sends human shields into Gaza to protect the terrorists’ communication tunnels; Nicholas “Million Mogadishus” De Genova of Columbia ranted, “The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.” De Genova defines “peace” as “a world where the U.S. would have no place.”
The American Left, and their ally the lamestream media, refuse to identify evil as evil. They compare President Bush, who has vanquished two loathsome dictatorships of both the secular Fascist and Islamist type, with Hitler. Simultaneously, psychopathic baby killers in Iraq, Israel and Russia are referred to as “the resistance” or “insurgents” or “fighters” or “militants.” This is the Left’s declaration of moral bankruptcy, their leap into the abyss of nihilism.
The links between the Nazi's and the Baathists are not as explicit as those between the Nazi's and the PLO/PA. Arafat's mentor (some say his Uncle, the Grand Mufti al-Husseini) worked somewhat intimately with Hitler during World War II, going so far as to request that Hitler begin enacting the "Final Solution" against the Jews in Palestine, as well as those in Europe.
Celebrate The Holidays With A Heartwarming Movie
About A Racist Bombmaker And The Dog Who Loved Him
Great
post from Eursoc:
A traditional Christmas gripe in Britain is that broadcasters use the festive season for repeat showings of ancient movies like The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz. Viewers in the Arab world this Ramadan can have no such complaint, as each year their state broadcasters unveil lavish productions.
Last year the Arab world thrilled to a series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A propaganda tract which has been dismissed as anti-semitic fiction of the most hateful kind by all but the the most crazed conspiracy theorist. France even considered banning one Arab-language distributor of the film following claims it depicted the infamous 'blood libel.'
This year, there's an even bigger treat in store, as a Palestinian-Syrian broadcaster prepares to show a series based on the life of a Hamas bomb-maker.
Yehya Ayyash, known by his disciples as "The Engineer," was thought to be behind the suicide murder of 100 Israelis between 1994-1996. The Jerusalem Post reports that since his death (he was taken out by a booby-trapped mobile phone) Ayyash has become a legend to Palestinian terror groups and their supporters.
Ayyash's wife claims that she was not consulted about the film. However, her worries appear to be limited to a concern that the film-makers might depict her without a head covering hijab.
The producers reassure her that the bomber and his life will be handled "honourably." Writer Salah Al-Bardawil says that the theme of the drama will be "Rejection of the occupation and Zionist and American hegemony, the importance of resistance and the need to avenge the blood of the (Palestinian) victims."
He says that the film was important, "because it supports the forces fighting against Israeli and American oppression and aggression in Palestine, Iraq and the Arab and Muslim region."
Al-Bardawil adds that he hopes the film inspires other "young and ambitious" people in the Arab world.
How's that for a heartwarming festive message?
Disclaimer: Just as there are many liberal media elites who do not knowingly attempt to use falsified documents to interfere with a Presidential Election, there are also many good Muslims who would not be entertained by a holiday movie based on a racist tract.
Liberal Cartoonist Portrays Condoleeza Rice As A Black Mammy
With Jokes Right Out Of Amos And Andy
Go to
Rambling's Journal to see this incredibly racist cartoon brought to us by the good people of the "Liberal Media"*:
Ok. So, now you've seen it. Well, of course, many people wrote letters and emails of complaint and in fact, were able to motivate Mr. Danziger to remove the cartoon from his website. Yippee! Another racist moved to change his ways. Big victory for the 21st century.
But, no. The 1930's strikes back. Here is the form letter Mr. Danziger (doesn't that name sound familiar?) sends out in reply to the complaints he receives:
Thanks for your letter.
In fact the idea for the cartoon was suggested to me by a friend who is African-American. It wasn't racist. Nor am I. I have been doing this for nearly thirty years, and any review of my work will prove that no racism attaches. Further, I am a decorated Vietnam veteran who voted for Nixon once, GHW Bush twice and even for Bob Dole. So keep your labels.
Nothing racist about it at all. Just the standard lies told by a political operative, out of her depth, who happens to be African- American. Whenever this administration is in trouble they send out Condi Rice because the press, which is mostly white and male, gives her a far easier treatment than they would a white male.
Well, jeez I'm glad to hear he has no "racist attaches."
My friends, the man is implying that Condoleeza Rice is an Uncle Tom-type figure. And how, exactly, is Ms. Rice "out of her depth?" She is one of the most principled and forceful people I've seen in American politics in recent years.
Oh, did I forget to mention that I, also, do not have any "racist attaches." Just wanted to make sure you knew that.
* Just as there are many good Muslims who do not blow up children, there are also many good liberal media elites who are not racists.
Americans And Jews Out Of Europe, Now!
What can we make of this insanity? (
article by playwrite Carol Gould, from FrontPageMag.com):
I was traveling on a London bus when a well-dressed woman boarded with her equally-respectable son in his school uniform. Ahead of her was an elderly American woman, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to bang into you.’ This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman ...
‘I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the world.’ Mrs A(merican) fought back: ‘I personally am NOT destroying the world.’ This only provoked Lady E(ngland) more, and as the bus driver and passengers laughed, she screamed into the American’s face ‘I wish every one of you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again...’
That's just the warmup. Check this story out:
Just before leaving for the United States nineteen days ago, I went to my favorite tape duplicating shop to have copies made for the actors who had appeared in the video of my new play in London. I handed the master tape to the proprietor, whom I have known for some ten years. He seemed unusually agitated and flushed. He looked at the material and snarled, ‘Is this another one of your Jewish-Holocaust things?’
I was speechless.
He scowled and continued, ‘You know, Carol, I want to get something off my chest that I’ve been dying to say to you for years. Number one, just don’t say Israel to me. Number two, you people should look at yourselves in the mirror and wonder why every so often there is a Holocaust or massacre or pogrom. You bring it on yourselves. Just look at the way you are and then figure out why the rest of the world wants to flatten you. Number three, America throwing money at Israel has to stop, and hopefully all hell will break loose. Israel is not a country. I just hear the word and I turn peuce.’
By this time his anger was so visceral that I wanted to head for the door, but I had to take a stand. ‘Let me tell you,’ I said, ‘If the USA or Israel came under threat I know many Americans who would die for either country,’ to which he replied, ‘ Israel is not a country. The Jews have no right to a country. What makes you people think you have a right to a country? ‘ Me: ‘There are over a hundred Christian countries and fifty-five Muslim countries.’ He:’ The Jews have no right to a country.’ Me:’ What, a strip of land the size of Wales?!’ He (grinding his teeth and close to hitting me) ‘ Just say Israel and I can’t be depended upon for the consequences of my actions, Carol.’
His litany of offences committed by the Jews, Americans and Israel continued for another twenty minutes or so and I came away realizing that a man who had always greeted me with genteel, cheery sweet nothings was actually a rabid Jew-hater.
So, what does this all mean in the scheme of things? I have lived in Europe for all of my adult life and from the day I arrived as a youngster have been aware of an oft-blatant anti-Semitism and resentment of Americans amongst colleagues, teachers, social circle and neighbors. What is significant about this rage is that it emanates not from the great unwashed but from the educated and intellectual classes.
We all know about the academic boycotts of Israeli scholars. We all know about poor Philip Lader, former US Ambassador to the Court of St James who was reduced to tears on BBC ‘Question Time’ on 15 September 2001 as the moderator, Davis Dimbleby, sat and dispassionately watched a crazed studio audience stomping its feet and shouting anti-American epithets two days after the Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
What I find so frightening is that I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in London, Bournemouth or Edinburgh without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks. The day after 9/11 I was obliged to keep a consultant’s appointment and the minicab driver informed me that the ‘yellow Americans’ on the four hijacked planes were typical of the way ‘the Yanks do battle’ -- they chicken out and let the Brits do the dirty work. I was in such a state of shock from the events of 9/11 that I could not find an answer, and he continued with a further lecture about the cowardice and stupidity of Americans and their pilots when they are threatened, and added the assertion that had Brits been on those planes, not one would have come down.
Getting back, however, to the ’Independent’ and ’Guardian’ reading classes, my hunch is that the daily dose of relentless America-bashing in the European media,
combined with the abundance of criticism of Israel has created an atmosphere of anger and hostility that for the first time in my lifetime makes me fearful for my safety in my beloved adopted country, Great Britain.
I try to avoid anecdotal stories on this site. The reason I post these particular excerpts is because they are consistent with my own experience. I've noted before that I have a relative in Europe who called me on 9/11 and explained to me why America reaped what we sowed. As time has gone on, I have been treated to more lectures about how the Israeli's were committing mass-genocide in Jenin. When the Human Rights Watch report came out confirming that less than 50 Palestinians were killed (predominantly "combatants"), there was no admission of a mistake, no questioning of why the European media would report a non-existent genocide, and worst of all, no apology to me personally. By the way, that was despite the fact that I "guaranteed" that there was not a genocide, and asked if there would be an apology if my "guarantee" turned out to be true.
On July 4th of this year I received a hour-long lecture about the evils of George Bush and America.
Most recently, I've been lectured about how the only feasible solution to the middle-East problem is a "one-state solution." When I noted that the Palestinian's would have an instant majority and that that would leave the Jews at the mercy of a people who call for their death on a continual basis, there was smirking. I was horrified. I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say much.
The next day, I called back and asked why the smirking? There was merely a bit of nervous laughter - no explanation - as a precursor to a lecture on how I'm the one who isn't fair because the Israeli's abuse the Palestinians in multiple sinister ways.
I put this together with what I read, and post about here, in the European press and conclude that these anecdotal stories are not rare instances. Clearly, the Europeans don't all hate us. As I've noted before, when I visited Europe a couple of years ago, my family and I were treated very well. I saw anti-Americanism around me, but it did not cause individual people to treat
me badly.
I don't really know what to make of Carol Gould's article. It is frightening. But, I find it hard to believe we could be hated that much.
How could they believe we are evil?
Saddam Hussein - Half Pregnant
Thanks to my friend
Jack, over at Jack of Clubs, for making me aware of this comment on recent WMD developments in Iraq, from a blog named
A Physicist's Perspective:
I saw an interesting combination of news stories just now. The AP is reporting "Bush, Cheney concede Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction," while at the same time, USA Today is reporting that equipment which could be used to make components of nuclear weapons may have been looted from Iraq. The AP story says this: Vice President Dick Cheney brushed aside the central findings of chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer – that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but he had no means of making any either – while Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq. The USA Today story says: Among the missing equipment: "flow forming" machines for shaping metal tubes such as missile bodies or uranium centrifuge drums; milling and metal-turning machines; electron-beam welders useful for making centrifuges; and precision measuring devices.
Though no evidence has emerged that looted nuclear manufacturing equipment has been sold on the black market, the Bush administration said Tuesday that it is concerned about the possibility.
I wonder -- if it's really as clear cut as the AP story says (Saddam had no means of making nuclear weapons since 1991), why should we be concerned that the Bush administration may have let this equipment be stolen? Or maybe the Bush administration is at fault for letting people loot equipment that Saddam couldn't have used for nuclear weapons, but they could. How's that again?
The AP story does include this Cheney quote, somewhat buried: "As soon as the sanctions were lifted, he had every intention of going back" to his weapons program, Cheney said.
I've avoided the WMD issue for a long time on this blog. One time, probably four months back, I read a report that a quantity (I believe it was 27 pounds) of yellowcake had been found in a scrap yard in Norway. I expected that it would become big news. I waited, but several weeks later I found that no one had brought it up again. I concluded for myself that it must have been a rumor. Ever since then, I decided I would not blog about WMD's in Iraq. I have found it sufficient to note that even France and Germany, who opposed the Iraq War, believed that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. The only person who seemed convinced that Saddam was clean was the prophet (that's sarcasm) Scott Ritter.
Anyway, "Physicist's Perspective" brings up a good point here. How is it that two opposite stories are being reported in the media at the same time? Note that both stories seem to imply the usual idiocy/sinister motives on the part of the Bush Administration. So, there you have the motive of the media. But, what about the reality of the evidence? I mean, read this from the USA Today article:
As a direct result of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq without sufficient forces to secure and protect its nuclear research and storage facilities from rampant looting, enough radioactive material to build scores of dirty bombs now is missing and may be on its way to the international black market.
It didn't have to turn out this way. In the weeks before the invasion, the U.S. military repeatedly warned the White House that its war plans did not include sufficient ground forces, air and naval operations and logistical support to guarantee a successful mission. Those warnings were discounted — even mocked — by administration officials who professed to know more about war fighting than the war fighters themselves.
It wasn't until seven of Iraq's main nuclear facilities were extensively looted that the true magnitude of the administration's strategic blunder came into focus.
The White House knew all along, for example, that enormous quantities of dangerous nuclear materials were at the Tuwaitha nuclear storage facility near Baghdad, sealed and accounted for by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.
It would seem that Saddam Hussein was half-pregnant. It also appears that the main-stream media has, like an oh-so-chivalrous boyfriend, arranged for a quickie abortion for the saddled Saddam.
At the same time, the main-stream media seems to be trying to arrange an out-patient castration procedure for the Bush Administration.
First Rule Of Evangelizing - Stop Telling People About God
Thanks to
FirstChurchCambridge.org, for sharing this story from Phillip Yancey's book
Reaching For The Invisible God
...a German named Reiner, who returned to Germany after graduation and went to work at a camp for people with disabilities. Using his college Bible class notes, it seems that Reiner started giving stirring lectures on the victorious Christian life: "Regardless of the wheelchair you are sitting in, you already have a victory! God lives in you, and you have a full life!" All this he announced energetically to a roomful of paraplegics, cerebral palsy patients, and mentally-challenged people.
Yancey notes that Reiner had never before addressed a group of people with poor motor control – heads drooped to knees without warning, and hands didn't stay put where they belonged. He found this disconcerting. What he didn't know was that the campers found listening to him equally disconcerting. Some of them complained to the camp director that they couldn't make any sense out of what he was saying. "Well, go tell him!" she replied.
One woman finally got the courage to do it. "It's like you're talking about the sun in a room without windows," she told him. "We can't understand anything you say. You talk about solutions, about overcoming, about victory in our circumstances. That has nothing to do with us, it means nothing for our lives."
Reiner was crushed. He was also angry. The message seemed clear enough to him: it was biblical, it was pure St Paul, it was why he was a Christian, why he loved the Lord. He thought about telling them that there was a lot lacking in their faith, and that they needed to grow deeper so that they could triumph over adversity. Instead, by some grace he spent the night praying.
In the morning he went in and told them, "I don't know what to say. I'm confused. If I can't preach victory, I don't know what to preach. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do." Then he just stood there in front of the class, hung his head and was silent for a long time.
After a while, the woman who had confronted him spoke up from the back of the room. "OK. Now we understand you," she said. "Now we're ready to listen."
Evangelical Christians have focused for so many years on telling people what they think they need to know about God. The first lesson Jesus taught, of course, was to be humble. That he who would be first, must be last. That to be a leader in the Kingdom Of God on Earth, you must be a servant; someone who will give water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothing and shelter to the cold and tired.
I believe Jesus was being both literal and figurative. He was saying, give my sheep what they need.
In order to know what people need, we need first to listen.
And, I believe we need to listen for another reason as well. We need to hear what it is that people have to give. We need to discover what kind of person they are and can be, what unique qualities they bring to the table that we share together. Because it is only by giving that a person will truly come to find their home in God, and truly be healed.
You Couldn'ta Undone The Hudna, Could Ya?
John Quincy Adams for President 2004. Thanks to Little Green Footballs for making me aware of
this quote from the big JQA himself, via FrontPageMag:
The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective.
The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. Of Mahometan good faith, we have had memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur ref had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them.
Within a year the Dey demands, under penalty of the renewal of the war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to the treaty as it had been concluded.
Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of religion.” [p. 274-275]
Here's an
article from HonestReporting.com, circa 2003, which gives more information on the tradition of "truce," or
Hudna, in Islam:
HonestReporting.com June 30, 2003
As U.S. Secretary of State Powell winds up his Mideast trip, Palestinian leaders appear on the verge of announcing a hudna.
The Associated Press declared that "the success of peacemaking may well hang on a legal concept dating to the birth of Islam: a hudna, or a truce of a fixed duration."
The New York Times added Monday that a hudna would constitute "a major breakthrough... out of 33 months of violence."
Would a hudna with Hamas really mark "the success of peacemaking," a "major breakthrough" toward a nonviolent future?
The answer lies in the historical meaning of the Muslim expression, Hamas' track record, and the terms of the road map itself.
Hudna has a distinct meaning to Islamic fundamentalists, well-versed in their history: The prophet Mohammad struck a legendary, ten-year hudna with the Quraysh tribe that controlled Mecca in the seventh century. Over the following two years, Mohammad rearmed and took advantage of a minor Quraysh infraction to break the hudna and launch the full conquest of Mecca, the holiest city in Islam.
When Yassir Arafat infamously invoked Mohammad's hudna in 1994 to describe his own Oslo commitments "on the road to Jerusalem," the implication was clear. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes explained, Arafat was asserting to his Islamic brethren that he will, "when his circumstances change for the better, take advantage of some technicality to tear up existing accords and launch a military assault on Israel." Indeed, this is precisely what occurred in Sept. 2000 when Arafat & Co. launched a terror assault upon Israeli citizens.
And France proposes to bring the Islamists to the negotiating table.
At the core of the Chirac/Schroeder geopolitical outlook is not the thankful belief that America is the world's only superpower, but the regretful notion that it is an out-of-control "hyperpower" (as former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine memorably put it). The United States and its influence, in this view, must be balanced — "balanced," being a euphemism for opposed.
This helps explain Barnier's remarks last week, when he said that France will attend a proposed conference on the future of Iraq only if the complete withdrawal of foreign troops is a formal topic for discussion and the negotiations include "all political forces" in Iraq, "including those who have chosen the path of armed resistance."
Kerry may want to bring the French to the table, but guess who's coming to dinner with them: terrorists and rebels now attacking U.S. soldiers and slaughtering Iraqi citizens.
Man, if Kerry wins it will be interesting to see him sit down and nuance with the French and the Hudna-loving Islamofascists.
Presidential Election as Special Olympics
Like Roger Simon, I read about this a few days ago and refrained from blogging on it. My reason for hesitating wasn't that I was too busy, however. Instead, I was too
stunned:
An internal memo written by ABCNEWS Political Director Mark Halperin admonishes ABC staff:
During coverage of Democrat Kerry and Republican Bush not to "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable."
The controversial internal memo obtained by DRUDGE, captures Halperin stating how "Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win."
But Halperin claims that Bush is hoping to "win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions."
"The current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done," Halperin writes.
Halperin's claim that ABCNEWS will not "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable" set off sparks in St. Louis where media players gathered to cover the second presidential debate.
Halperin states the responsibilities of the ABCNEWS staff have "become quite grave." In August, Halperin declared online: "This is now John Kerry's contest to lose."
x x x x x Halperin Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004
It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite graveI do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.
The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.
Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.
There you have it. They have now put it in writing; In the interest of fairness they are going to institute a policy of unfairness.
It's special preferences for Kerry. Kerry is going to go down in history as the first "special" Presidential candidate. A politician who needed a "hand up," maybe even a handout.
Necessary disclaimer: Let me be clear, I understand that there are people who are less fortunate. I am happy that we institute policies in this country to give people who are wheelchair-bound the ability to get around town, for the blind to cross the street, for the developmentally disabled to have some degree of autonomy and sense of purpose.
Here we see that the media is turning the 2004 Presidential Election into the Special Olympics for John Kerry.
I'm sure we would all agree that when it comes to electing our leaders, it's probably a good idea to do so in the good old-fashioned Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest style.
Am I being mean, here? I don't know, maybe I need to go to sensitivity training. What would they tell me;
"Kerry is not "Special." He's just Ideologically-challenged.
9/11 and Anti-Americanism:
A Cataloguing Of The Progression Of Europe's Moral Disease
There's a new blog/blogwriter, John Rosenthal and his impressive Transatlantic Intelligencer.
His post,
"The Legend Of The Squandered Sympathy" , is a must-read. I suspect it will be all over the internet within the next two days.
It's a long(er) article, probably about three pages, and it's too good to excerpt. Sorry. No, well, here's a very brief excerpt:
In the major media (after 9/11) ... the expressions of hatred and contempt for America quickly came to eclipse those of sympathy. An especially conspicuous case in point is provided by the influential French daily Le Monde.This is ironic, since the legend of the squandered sympathy draws much of its inspiration and seeming plausibility from the headline of the front-page editorial that ran in Le Monde the day after the attacks: “We Are All Americans”.
An article that appeared in the New York Times one year later made allusion to this seemingly well-intended, if rather bizarre, affirmation, only then to note that “the same writer” who coined it, Jean-Marie Colombani, had in the meanwhile ascertained that the solidarity it was supposed to express had been largely dissipated. It even seemed to Mr. Colombani that just a year on “we have all become anti-American” (New York Times, September 12, 2002).
Sean Penn Invites "Cross Dressers" to Iraq
So They Can See For Themselves That
Islamofascism Is Preferable to Democracy and Freedom
Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the directors of the popularTV show South Park. They also directed the new feature film Team America. Sean Penn is angry with them. From
Drudge Report:
To Trey Parker and Matt Stone,
I remember a cordial hello when you guys were beginning to be famous guys around Hollywood at some party. I remember several times getting a few giggles out of your humor. I remember not being bothered as you traded on my name among others to appear witty, above it all, and likeable to your crowd.
I never mind being of service, in satire and silliness. I do mind when anybody who doesn't have a child, doesn't have a child at war, or isn't or won't be in harm's way themselves, is encouraging that there's "no shame in not voting" "if you don't know what you're talking about" (Mr. Stone) without mentioning the shame of not knowing what your talking about, and encouraging people to know.
You guys are talented young guys but alas, primarily young guys. It's all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world. The vote matters to them.
No one's ignorance, indcluding a couple of hip cross-dressers, is an excuse.
All best, and a sincere fuck you,
Sean Penn
P.S. Take this as a personal invitation from me to you (you can ask Dennis Miller along for the ride as well) to escort you on a trip, which I took last Christmas. We'll fly to Amman, Jordan and I'll ride with you in a (?) 12 hours through the Sunni Triangle into Fallujah and Baghdad and I'll show you around. When we return, make all the fun you want.
I don't have any idea if Trey Parker and Matt Stone are actually "cross dressers." God love them if they are. The guys are funny, their show is funny, and this is a free country.
Which, of course, is what we are attempting to build in Iraq.
I'm very happy that Sean wrote this letter. His lack of subtelty betrays the truth of what all anti-war protesters really think about Iraq; that Iraqi's should still be stoning gay people. In fact, in the case of Trey and Matt, Penn, by inviting them along, actually seems to endorse such a solution
Senn Penn, and the other anti-War people like him, believe that we should not have done anything to stop such fascism. Therefore, it follows that they believe Iraq should still be stoning gays, and adulterous women, and worst of all, victims of rape.
Penn and his ilk believe the Iraqi's did not deserve a better system than the one they have had.
At the bottom of it all, the reason people like Sean Penn don't think the Iraqi's deserve better is because they don't believe the Iraqi's are capable of anything better.
That is Racism.
Sean Penn, you are a Racist.
A Terrorist Attack At My Kids School?
Following just a few hours after I wrote the post below,
look what's in the news today:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military in Iraq has discovered two computer disks containing photographs, layouts and other material pertaining to American schools in six states, U.S. government officials said.
The FBI is examining the materials, but a Department of Homeland Security official said the intelligence community determined there was no threat.
The military retrieved the disks in Iraq within the last couple of months, and they were turned over to the FBI, one official said Thursday.
"There is no threat associated with this," another government official said.
The schools are in Fort Myers, Florida; Salem, Oregon; Jones County, Georgia; New Jersey; Michigan; and California.
The Department of Homeland Security official said the material was associated with a person in Iraq, and it could not be established that this person had any ties to terrorism. He did have a connection to civic groups doing planning for schools in Iraq, the official said.
Officials said that they are taking the matter seriously though there has been no specific threat related to the recovered material.
The U.S. schools were notified in the last few weeks so they would be aware and could take any action they deemed necessary.
"State and local law enforcement personnel have informed us of the need to increase our school security during this election season," said Jones County School Superintendent William Mathews Jr. in a letter sent last month to parents of students in the Middle Georgia community.
"It is important to know that no threat of any type has been directed or is suspected against any Jones County school."
The FBI sent an advisory to terrorism task forces across the nation to inform them about the material, a Department of Homeland Security official said. No public notification or other action associated with a heightened state of alert was taken, the official said, because it did not seem necessary to "elevate it to that level based on the assessment of the intelligence community."
U.S. officials said they don't know how to explain why such material would be found on computer disks in Iraq. They said the information recovered is publicly available through the Internet or other means.
The Department of Homeland Security official said the information included a Department of Education guide on how to plan for a crisis in schools. A senior government official said there is no indication anyone was on the ground casing the schools.
One official said the retrieved information is "all of relatively recent vintage."
Authorities said this information is not related to a bulletin that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued Wednesday to schools and law enforcement about school safety in the wake of the Beslan, Russia, massacre.
A senior official said analysts are going over the information and are examining all possible scenarios. As the official put it, schools have been mentioned as possible terror targets in previous intercepted conversations between alleged operatives and in interrogations of detainees, but nothing has emerged recently.
"There is no analysis by the intelligence community that the Iraqi information or Beslan information or any other information indicates there is any plot to attack a school in the United States," said Brian Roehrkasse, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman.
Nope, couldn't happen. You heard what those guys said. "There's no threat."
That's what I meant when I said yesterday that this must have been what it was like for the Jews in the ghettos during the late 30's. Yeah, that Hitler guy is bad and he says he wants us gone, but it just couldn't really happen.
How is it that the US military could find a guy in a country, that we're at war with, who has a computer disc with the layouts of schools, and decide that it's not a threat? How does the FBI, and the Dept. of Homeland Security, decide that's not a threat?
So, they have not been able to link him to terrorism.
Have they been able to link him to any employment in the United States that might have required that he have such information?
And even if so, have they been able to get an answer out of him as to why he would bring such information to Iraq even if he had had, at one time, a legitimate reason to have it in his possession?
Thanks to Little Green Footballs.
A Chemical Weapons Terrorist Attack - Personal Experience
This morning when I took my kid to school she ran off towards the playground and climbed up onto the slide. I stood back and watched from a distance. My eyes scanned across the green expanse of the school yard and what did I see? A man walking around with a sprayer, attatched to a clear, hard, plastic backpack filled with what I assumed to be poison.
Nobody was watching him. Nobody noticed him at all, as far as I could see.
I thought to myself, "He's probably just the bug spray guy, but what if ... Shouldn't the bug spray guy come and spray when there are
not children running around, all over the playground?"
Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?
I followed the guy as he walked off the playground and off campus, and nobody watched him. Keep in mind, this is a man with a sprayer, and a hard plastic backpack that looks like it's filled with poison, and nobody is watching him.
Anyway, I followed him out to his car. No, it's a truck, thank god. A commercial, business truck, with a phone number on the side.
I called the number.
"Pest Control."
"Yeah, what did you say your name is?"
"Pest Control."
"Do you do work for schools in this area?"
"Yes."
"Ok, thank you."
And I hung up, happy.
Isn't that what a good citizen, and parent, should do?
But, I came home and still felt like I must be paranoid. I turned on my computer and I found
this. And still, I felt I was being paranoid.
I'm guessing that's how the Jews must have felt in Germany as the walls closed in around them.
That's the problem with looking into the face of great evil; it's almost impossible to believe they would do what they say they will do. Hitler said he would rid the planet of Jews and homosexuals, but no one believed him.
The Islamofascists say they want to destroy the infidels, but we don't believe them. They've shown us how they will do it. They will stage grand scale terrorist attacks whose purpose is to frighten the entire population. They will kill as many people as they can, with whatever means are at their disposal. They will kill children en masse.
But, I still don't believe they will come to my kids school and really do it. I don't believe this for two reasons. First, because I just don't believe that, of all the schools in the US, my kid would be unlucky enough to attend the one school the Islamofascists attack. That's reasonable. But my second reason is, I just can't imagine the horror. I've seen what happened in Beslan, but that happened on the other side of the world. I saw what happened in New York, but that was three years ago.
I just don't believe it will happen. Nope, won't happen.
UN Job Application
Thanks to Israelly Cool for
this.
The Mythical Mobile Biological Weapons Lab Has Been Found
Collin Powell made a lot of noise, along with other figures in the Bush Administration, about Mobile Biological Weapons Labs. Is it possible that the mythical beast has finally been dredged up from the bottom of Loch Ness? Go
here (World Net Daily) for photos:
A trailer found by the U.S. in Northern Iraq last year likely was used by Saddam Hussein's regime as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, and not to fill hydrogen balloons as some in Britain and the U.S. have charged, a view supported by exclusive photos obtained by WorldNetDaily that for the first time offer inside views of the trailer components.
Kurdish forces seized the trailer in April 2003 at a checkpoint near Mosul in northern Iraq. At the time, the unit was hailed as the closest U.S. forces may have come to finding a "smoking gun" in their search for weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq.
But initial swab tests of the mobile unit, which seemed to have been washed thoroughly with a strong decontaminating substance, yielded no traces of biological or chemical agents, leading many critics to conclude the trailer could have been used for legitimate medical purposes.
Some in British and American intelligence groups charged the trailers were used for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery and weather balloons.
However, photos obtained by WorldNetDaily from a U.S. Army source in Iraq offer a rare glimpse inside the trailer, which indicates the most likely use for the mobile unit was the production of biological agents and not hydrogen.
The internal components provide the kind of mobile biological weapons laboratory described to the United Nations' Security Council by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell before the conflict began, and match in design and configuration the mobile weapons labs U.S. intelligence learned about several years ago from an Iraqi scientist.
The photos, more than 30 of which were of the inside trailer components, were verified by several military sources and were independently reviewed by intelligence sources familiar with pre-Gulf War Iraqi weapons programs.
The images show a large fermenter, several cylinders to supply clean air for production, canisters to "feed" biological agents, industrial heating machines and a system to capture and compress exhaust gas to eliminate traces of residue – a function not normally used for legitimate biological processes and certainly not for hydrogen production, analysts told WorldNetDaily.
A large stainless steel brewing canister can be seen toward the front of the laboratory, and would be used in the initial stages of agent production, analysts said.
Large pistons are connected to a compressor atop a storage tank that would hold the growing product and maintain a certain pressure on the system required to grow the bio agent at an advanced rate.
The agent would then be pumped into a large canister connected to several tanks that provide "food" from which the agent would "feed," and which apply large amounts of fluid and temperature regulation for the contents of the holding canister. This feature is rarely set up in such a manner in ordinary labs, analysts told WorldNetDaily.
The photos also reveal an industrial heating pump the width of almost the entire trailer. The size of the heating and cooling system was of particular interest to analysts, who said such systems would be used to superheat or supercool strong agents in a pressurized system.
Several of the laboratory components have serial numbers that were traced to German companies, where some of the parts were manufactured. One device, a generator coming from one of the pumps, was made by General Electric.
The trailer itself has a metal plaque that says it was manufactured in 2001 by Iraq's Al-Naser Al-Adheem – a munitions company controlled by Saddam Hussein – and inspected in 2002.
A large collection and compression pipe is visible at the anterior section, which is not commonly used in regular laboratories and would find little use in the production of hydrogen. The system is designed to capture and compress exhaust gas to eliminate any telltale signature of which kinds of agents were produced, analysts told WorldNetDaily.
When the trailer was found last April it was immediately swabbed for traces of biological weapons agents. Military analysts were particularly hopeful about a large holding canister connected to piping that drains the agent and which was at a height that may have left residual agent at the bottom of the canister.
But they found the entire mobile unit had been thoroughly cleansed and decontaminated with a strong caustic agent that rid the trailer of traces of whatever material had been produced.
Official spokesmen for the Department of Defense in the U.S. and Iraq could not comment before press time.
Vice Admiral Jake Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has said an informant had told the U.S. military similar mobile facilities had previously been used to make three illicit agents, believed to be anthrax, botulism and staphylococcus.
Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone said, "What we have here is what ... the Secretary of State talked about, along with other things, in his presentation to the United Nations."
A U.S. Army Intel officer in Iraq said he was convinced the trailer was used to make biological weapons: "There are too many indications this was used for biological weapons. The tubing, the heating system, the exhaust system are specific to the kind of military-grade production we saw before the first Gulf War. Also, when you're conducting legitimate laboratory work, you want to do it in the most stable environment possible. Why would scientists work from a trailer?"
It looks like a Mobile Biological Weapons Lab to my untrained eye. I mean, if me and the missus were drivin down to freeway, nuancin' about old times, and I saw one of them things pullin' up along side me, I'd say, "Well dad gurnit, look at that, will ya? That there's one of them Mobeel Bilogical Wepons Labs, ain't it?"
But seriously, I have a hard time understanding why such an elaborate facility would be needed to fill weather balloons.
However, two things are very hard to understand about this story:
1) Isn't it hard to believe, in our current era of forensics, that anyone could scrub a facility of this size with a "caustic agent" and leave it completely free of any trace of evidence?
2) If this is a Mobile Biological Weapons Lab, why has the Bush Administration not come forward with the photos and information themselves? Are they that gun shy?
If so, that's very sad.
The United Nations Declares War On Israel
Israel Retaliates
First, Israel accused the U.N. of
aiding and abetting terrorism in the Palestinian territories.
Then,
the U.N. admitted it.
Now,
Israel has arrested 13 U.N. relief workers.
Islamofascists Following In The Bootsteps Of Their Heroes
Thanks to Little Green Footballs for making me aware of
this, from the Jerusalem Post:
A Jewish identity in today’s Iraq ranks either just after or just before US soldiers as a high-value target for Iraqi resistance groups or foreign Islamic ones - depending on which one you ask. Either way, it’s not a good identity to carry around and, to the chagrin of Iraq’s last 17 Jews, it’s written on their ID cards.
Last March, four bodyguards of the US-based Blackwater Security Consulting Company were attacked while driving through Fallujah, a hotbed town filled with foreign Arab and local insurgents. Gruesome video footage showed that the bodies of two of the men were mutilated, dragged through the streets, then hung from the town’s bridge and burned while crowds cheered.
Rumors filtered back to Baghdad that the security guards had dual citizenship: American and Israeli. One source with contacts in the rebellious province says that this was partially true. Israeli passports were found on two of the security professionals, he says, those whose bodies were mutilated and hung. The Israelis, he said, had their appendages cut off and their bodies cut up while they were still alive. Then fuel was poured over them and they were lit ablaze.
Whether the two men were Israeli or not, the underlying belief held by the average Iraqi is clear - there is no place for Jews or Israelis in Iraq.
Gee, maybe they're not anti-Semites. Maybe they're just against Zionism. Oh wait, that's exactly what they say in the next paragraph. Really, I'm getting too good at this job.
From the Eighties on, the remaining Jews received Saddam Hussein’s protection, probably as a way to court the United States for support in its war with Iran. The regime is not racist - it does not hate Jews - it only hates Zionists, it told the world.
The remaining Jews attended weekly religious services at the Meir Tweig synagogue, the last one open in the country, and celebrated their holy days together. In 2003, just before the war, the last 34 Jewish Iraqis held their Pessah Seder together.
But now they can’t. The synagogue, built in 1942 in the Beitaween neighborhood of central Baghdad, is closed. A tough young Muslim guard stands behind the three-meter-high solid steel door and keeps strangers away. He only allows the Iraqi Jews to enter, but they don’t dare anymore.
The hatred Saddam encouraged for the “Zionists” now runs rampant in Iraqi streets. In a view commonly held by Iraqis, one spokesman for the populist Shi’ite Muslim cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr, claims that the US-led war on Iraq was instigated by the Jewish lobby.
“The Jews,” says Sheikh Hassan Al-Zurghan, “are trying to destroy the rest of the Muslims and they are employing the Christians to do it.”
The Zionist Lobby, the Jews and Israel are interchangeably referred to by Iraqis when explaining why America made war on their country. September 11th? That was a Zionist plot, say Iraqis. Otherwise why were there no Jews in the Twin Towers on the day they fell, they ask.
Yes, I'm getting too good at my job. I always know what those crazy Islamofascists are going to say. You know how I know? I just think to myself; What would the European Media say?
Associated Press Is "Playing" With Gasoline
From
MSNBC and AP:
Israeli missile kills 2 Palestinian teens in Gaza
Drone spotted boys playing game emulating militants
That's the headline. Now, look at the description:
JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip — An Israeli missile strike on Thursday killed two Palestinian teenagers who were playing with a tube and a gasoline-filled bottle in a game imitating militants firing rockets at Israel, relatives said.
The deaths brought to 84 the number of Palestinians killed since Israel began its offensive into northern Gaza on Sept. 29 after a rocket attack killed two Israeli children, according to a count by The Associated Press. More than half those killed were militants. Sixteen of the civilians were age 16 and under.
Ok, so were the teenagers "playing" or were they "militants?
And, ask yourself the question, if there had been 84 violent deaths in your neighborhood in the past 9 days would you be out playing a "game" that involved setting off a bomb?
AP doesn't know these "boys" were "playing". They couldn't know. So, why do they report it? In a headline yet? What exactly motivates AP to report in this manner? What do you think it is?
Spotted by a droneOn Thursday morning, an unmanned Israeli aircraft spotted two suspicious figures on the edge of the Jebaliya refugee camp as they set up a rocket launcher, the army said. The drone spotted a flash, the figures ran away, then returned to the launcher and were struck by the missile, the army said.
I'm glad Israel has such technology at their disposal.
America's Extended Occupation Of Germany
Thanks to Medienkritik for posting
this letter from a U.S. soldier stationed in Germany:
I am not as well-versed in forward stationing in Germany as retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters is, as I have been here just over one year. However, I have observed firsthand the disdain many German nationals have for Americans (much of it self-inflicted with our “mightier than thou” attitude).
I am a very proud American, but ultraconservative in my dress and do not stick out in a crowd. However, as soon as I open my mouth I become a target for Germans to blow off steam about what they see as America’s extended occupation of Germany. Their favorite lines are: “If you don’t like it here in Germany, then go home” and: “Don’t think we are your subjects.”
I can't wait until our troops are out of there.
I only worry when I think of what happened to Europe the last time America wasn't babysitting ther Germans.
There's Something Frightening and Mysterious Going On Over At
The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog
I say there is something frightening going on because all of the sudden the Proprietor, Mr. IraqWarWrong himself, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. His denizens have had to make due without a post for
over four days now.
In his stead, they have decided to have a little blogger mutiny. They have taken over his weblog by posting endless comments in
the "Comments" section of his most recent post.
Now, here's the Mysterious part;
Some guy has stolen my nom de plume and is posting all sorts of ridiculous junk in my name. This kind of makes me angry. I don't want that guy to sully the reputation of CUANAS.
So, I just want to set the record straight here and now; I am not, repeat,
am not Jaco Pastorius. Jaco Pastorius was the great jazz bass player of Weather Report fame. I only use his name here because I like the sound of it.
Pastorius. Doesn't that sound pretty?
The guy over at The Iraq War Was Wrong Blog seems to really believe he is Jaco. That is, of course, absurd, because
Jaco Pastorius is dead.
The Western Political Left Now Supports Theocratic Fascism Over Democracy
Christopher Hitchens was a self-awoved "Trotskyite" and prominent proponent of Leftist ideas for 30 years. Then came 9/11. From
FrontPageMag.com:
"I don't have a political allegiance now, and I doubt I ever will have again. I can no longer describe myself as a socialist. I miss it like a lost limb. But I don't regret anything. I'm still fighting for Kissinger to be brought to justice. The socialist movement enabled universal suffrage, the imposition of limits upon exploitation, and the independence of colonial and subject populations. Its achievements were real, and I'm glad I was part of it. Where it succeeded, one can be proud of it. Where it failed - as in the attempt to stop the First World War and later to arrest the growth of fascism - one can honourably regret its failure."
He realised he was not a socialist any longer around three years ago. "Often young people ask me for political advice, and when you are talking to the young, you mustn't bullshit. It's one thing when you are sitting with old comrades to talk about reviving the left, but you can't say that to somebody who is just starting out. And what could I say to these people? I had to ask myself - is there an international socialist movement worth the name? No. No, there is not. Okay - will it revive? No, it won't. Okay then - but is there at least a critique of capitalism that has a potential for replacing it? Not that I can identify."
"If the answer to all these questions is no, then I have no right to go around calling myself a socialist. It's more like an affectation." But Hitch - there are still hundreds of causes on the left, even if the ?socialist' tag is outdated. You used to write about acid rain, the crimes of the IMF and World Bank, the death penalty... It's hard to imagine you writing about them now. He explains that he is still vehemently against the death penalty and "I haven't forgotten the 152 people George Bush executed in Texas." But the other issues? He seems to wave them aside as "anti-globalisation" causes - a movement he views with contempt.
He explains that he believes the moment the Left's bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. "The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women's rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists."
He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali's books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. "It's explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings."
Al Qaeda Emerged Out Germany's Nazi Movement
FrontPageMag.com published this article, by former Federal Prosecutor John Loftus, about the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood (father organization to Al Qaeda) and the Nazi's:
What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al-Qaeda.
Here's how the story began. In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al-Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi intelligence.
The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt.
When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.
The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man -- The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis.
The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the “Handjar” Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa -- grand dreams.
There's more. Go read the rest.
John Kerry's Treasonous Manifesto
Download it here. Read it and decide for youself:
Since its publication in 1971, John Kerry’s book The New Soldier has acquired almost legendary status. Rumors abound of political operatives scrambling to locate and suppress stray copies during Kerry’s House campaign in 1972. Copies now sell on eBay for hundreds of dollars.
John F. Kerry has made his Vietnam service the cornerstone of his campaign for President. But he has said virtually nothing about what he did when he came home.
His activities and statements at the time painted our veterans with an undeserved bloody brush. Many believe, and statements by the North Vietnamese confirm, that the activities of John Kerry, Jane Fonda and others actually prolonged the war, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of our soldiers, and thousands of Vietnamese.
Before you decide how to vote in the forthcoming election, we urge everyone to consider all the information available. We strongly believe the contents of this book are of great importance in the forthcoming Presidential election and deserve to be widely distributed. We created this website at http://freekerrybook.org where anyone can read, print, forward or save a copy of the book to a PC absolutely free. No registration or sign-on is required, and no ads appear on the site.
Thanks to Little Green Footballs.
Israel Buying Bunker Busters From U.S. So They Can Bomb Iran
Israel? Bomb Iran's nuclear facilities? I think
this is a great idea. And John Kerry's Foreign Policy Advisor, Richard Holbrooke agrees.
Read
Roger Simon's post on the subject.
I've been predicting this for quite a while. And here's another prediction that I've been making for awhile; After Israel bombs Iran, it will become very clear that we have, for the last three years, been fighting the early stages of
World War IV.
Another prediction, while I'm at it: The world will roundly condemn Israel for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. And that will include the Kerry camp (and Richard Holbrooke), if Kerry is elected. If Bush is elected, the United States will be the only country in the world, other than Micronesia, who will not condemn Israel.
What's Your Favorite Position?
Dennis Prager
makes the same point as my friend (post below - The Complex Gigolo):
This column, which could be titled, "Whatever your position on Iraq, John Kerry is your man," is dedicated to Sean, a listener who called my radio show the day after the presidential debate. He enabled me to understand why most people believe John Kerry won the debate.
Sean explained that he was an opponent of the war in Iraq and only now could he finally vote for John Kerry. I asked him what Kerry said that confirmed that the Democratic candidate was his man.
Sean: "I believe he has a plan." (Kerry said he has a plan some 12 times.)
Prager: "A plan to do what?"
Sean: "A plan to withdraw our troops."
And then I understood. No matter what position you hold about American foreign policy and the war in Iraq, John Kerry holds your position.
Sen. Kerry accomplished this so subtly that recognition of it had eluded me.
Voters who want America to leave Iraq and voters who want to stay there and win -- both heard Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.
Voters who want America to act alone in the world when the world disagrees with us and voters who want America to proceed only when we have the international backing and an alliance with others -- both heard Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.
Voters who believe the war was a colossal mistake and voters who believe that our soldiers in Iraq are fighting for a noble cause -- both heard John Kerry say exactly what they wanted to hear.
Even voters who share Michael Moore's conspiratorial theories about the war and the Bush presidency heard what they wanted (in Kerry's reference to Haliburton).
Regarding the war and foreign policy, there is no segment of America that John Kerry did not appeal to.
Here are direct quotes from John Kerry in the debate.
On staying in Iraq:
"I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."
"Yes, we have to be steadfast and resolved, and I am. And I will succeed for those troops, now that we're there. We have to succeed. We can't leave a failed Iraq."
On leaving Iraq:
"And our goal in my administration would be to get all of the troops out of there ..."
"I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right. That's what I learned in Vietnam."
What was it that John Kerry "learned in Vietnam?" To leave a war he regarded as a mistake.
On America acting alone:
"I'll never give a veto to any country over our security."
On America acting only with world support or within an alliance:
"But if and when you do it (act alone), Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test ..."
I am reminded of the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
The Complex Gigolo
A friend of mine sent me an email wherein he attempts to figure out Kerry's position (positions?) on Iraq:
KERRY "...if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do
it in a way that passes the test, that passes the
global test where your countrymen, your people
understand fully why you're doing what you're doing
and you can prove to the world that you did it for
legitimate reasons"
Friend: Uhhh, ooookaaayy, we think for ourselves as
a nation, and do what is right for almost
300 million Americans, 'UNLESS' the rest of the
world doesn't give us a 'PASS'?
KERRY on the cost of war in Iraq: "$200 billion that
could have been used for health care, for schools, for
construction, for prescription drugs for seniors, and
it's in Iraq."
Friend: OK, sounds good, you won't let so much money go
to Iraq. I guess that sounds good, healthcare,
education, p-scrip. drugs for seniors. Stop sending
money to Iraq, got it! Things are going to be great
here! It's clearing up.
KERRY: "I've met kids in Ohio, parents in Wisconsin
places, Iowa, where they're going out on the Internet
to get the state-of-the-art body gear to send to their
kids. Some of them got them for a birthday present.
I think that's wrong. Humvees -- 10,000 out of 12,000
Humvees that are over there aren't armored. And you go
visit some of those kids in the hospitals today who
were maimed because they don't have the armament."
TODD---Mr. Kerry, did we spend too much on Iraq, or
not enough? I'm confused. Maybe this next quote will
finally clear it up.
Kerry: "Well, you know, when I talked about the $87 billion,
I made a mistake in how I talk about the war."
Friend: Well, when you say "...when I talked about the
$87 billion,..." you conveniently left out the words
'that I voted against'! So, just so I'm clear, we
should NOT have spent $200 billion in Iraq, but spent
it here in the US, we SHOULD give the troops
state-of-the-art body armor and armored humvees, but
YOU voted AGAINST allowing another $87 billion, a
43.5% increase in funds, to be allocated to funding
such things? Yikes, I'm getting more confused.
I can't figure you out. You are obviously too 'complex' for me
I will follow you,
if you show me how to marry well, and argue both sides
of a point, and win.
Yeah, really, Kerry is good at two things; complexity, and being a gigolo.
The Complex Gigolo: It sounds like a bad French movie.
Great Moments In The History Of Socialist Thought
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the spiritual father of anarchism and architect of the phrase "property is theft", remarked famously that,
"The Jew is the enemy of mankind. It is necessary to send this race back to Asia, or exterminate it...By fire or fusion, or by expulsion, the Jew must disappear..."
All The Doors Are Closing In John Kerry's Face
John Kerry had three great foreign policy ideas on which he was running.
1) He would give Iran nuclear fuel so he could verify whether they would be using it to generate nuclear power to make up for their oil shortage.
2) He would ask Germany to help out in Iraq so he could bring our troops home sooner.
3) He would ask the same of France.
Well let's see how that's working out for him:
1) Iran on Sunday rebuffed a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry who has suggested supplying the Islamic state with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability.
2) German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2... "I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president," Gert Weisskirchen, member of parliament and foreign policy expert for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said in an interview.
3) A French official said Saturday that even if Sen. John Kerry defeats President Bush in November's election, his country won't provide troops to help the U.S. in Iraq - the same policy France has under President Bush. "If Kerry is elected, we wouldn't send troops either," the unnamed official told the New York Daily News. "We don't need any more targets in Iraq."
The warning that even a President Kerry will have to "go it alone in Iraq" as far as France is concerned flies in the face of a key part of the candidate's Iraq strategy. The top Democrat has been boasting for months that if he wins the White House, he'll persuade America's old European allies like France to pitch in and send troops to Iraq.
And it gets
even worse for Kerry:
Why this reluctance? Two main reasons.
First, domestic politics: Both Schroeder and Chirac have promised their voters repeatedly that they won’t get involved in Iraq. Sen. Kerry may see no problem with sudden reversals of opinion, but the French and German leaders know they’d pay dearly at the polls if they sent so much as a handful of traffic cops into Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Second, and more important: Their fundamental difference lies not with the Bush administration, but with U.S. foreign policy broadly understood.
At the core of the Chirac/Schroeder geopolitical outlook is not the thankful belief that America is the world’s only superpower, but the regretful notion that it is an out-of-control “hyperpower” (as former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine memorably put it). The United States and its influence, in this view, must be balanced — “balanced,” being a euphemism for opposed.
This helps explain (French Foreign Minister) Barnier’s remarks last week, when he said that France will attend a proposed conference on the future of Iraq only if the complete withdrawal of foreign troops is a formal topic for discussion and the negotiations include “all political forces” in Iraq, “including those who have chosen the path of armed resistance.”
Kerry may want to bring the French to the table, but guess who’s coming to dinner with them: terrorists and rebels now attacking U.S. soldiers and slaughtering Iraqi citizens.
Well, there's always the
"Global Test".
Middle Easterners Against Islamofascists
Walid Phares says a MidEast American Revolution is coming. Thanks to JihadWatch.org for making me aware of this, from
FrontPageMag.com:
With the smoke covering the ashes of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a hillside in Pennsylvania, the temperature was rising over the “Mideast Question.” Are all peoples from that region enemies? Do we have friends among them? More pressing questions haunted the public: "What about Mideastern people living among us?" The issue became critical to most Americans as cells were dismantled, and terrorists were arrested, both inside the country and overseas. Are Jihadists infiltrating our Mideastern and Arab communities?
Unfortunately, not only have the Wahabbi lobbies been supportive of the ideologies of the perpetrators against America, but several Middle Eastern groups have acted against this nation. Dramatically, large segments of Americans started to lose trust in those originating east and south of the Mediterranean.
Mideast Americans needed to be freed from the chains of mistrust. They needed to be represented by new faces. The American public needed to hear a different message than the decades of anti-Americanism and pro-Jihadist sentiment prevalent among the aging Establishment -- which is mostly supported by totalitarians overseas.
Now, finally, after three years of hard work since the tragedy of 9/11, another face of Mideastern Americans is surging to the forefront. Slowly but surely, American groups from Mideastern descent, in disagreement with the established political elites of the 1980s and the 1990s, came to the surface.
Today in the United States, thousands of Americans of Middle East descent are joining forces to answer the anxious questions of their neighbors: "Yes we are fully Americans and we feel this is our country which we love and want to defend against Terrorists," said the organizers of a historic conference to take place in Washington DC on Friday October 1, 2004. "It is time for our communities to break the silence imposed by the oil backed elite," said Tom Harb, a member of the American Lebanese Coalition, a group that co-sponsored the event. John Michael, a medical doctor from Chicago revealed that, "tens of thousands of Assyrians and Chaldeans have sided since day one with the U.S. when it decided to liberate our mother country – Iraq – from the bloody Saddam."
More than 30 organizations, from all ethnic and religious backgrounds, have been meeting and planning for what will become a "beginning for a new era in Mideast-American history" as qualified by Dr Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim activist heading the American Muslim Forum for Democracy. "The mass graves in Iraq shook off the basis of our consciousness" said Zainab al Suwajj, the courageous Arab female leading the Islamic American Congress.
Walking hand in hand with Muslim moderates, Coptic groups are raising the issue of persecution of Christians in Egypt at the hands of fundamentalists. Michael Meunir, President of US Copts said "it will be interesting to see that this new wave of Americans from Mideast descent will show the world and the fanatics that Muslims would stand by Christians when persecuted and the other way around." Moyammed Yahia from Darfur's exiled community agrees: "We saw Christians coming to our help, when we Black Muslims were massacred by the Janjaweed.”
This talk wasn't politically correct a few years ago. Now it is out in the open. Soon, it will have a national umbrella. The "Middle Eastern American Convention for Freedom and Democracy" will hold its sessions on this first Friday of the Fall of 2004. According to the press release issued by these organizations, "Americans of Middle Eastern descent will gather in Washington, D.C., to show their support for the efforts to defeat terrorism and radicalism and to create a free and peaceful Middle East."
Hallelujah!
Al Qaeda Member Says Al Qaeda Members Are Stupid
Praise be to Allah for making me aware of
this, from the Arab News:
JEDDAH, 3 October 2004 — About 95 percent of Al-Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom are ignorant and most of them do not observe basic Islamic teachings, according to new confessions by Abdul Rahman Al-Rashoud and Khaled Al-Farraj, former members of the terror network.
Speaking to Channel 1 of Saudi Television on Friday, they said the Al-Qaeda cell made use of stolen Saudi IDs to rent cars and houses to carry out terrorist operations.
Al-Rashoud said he was waiting for the right time to withdraw from the cell but each time its leaders threatened him with exposure.
(Exposure of what? - asks Pastorius)
Al-Farraj remembered the moment when they killed his father. “I cannot imagine my father lying in a pool of blood in my house,” he said.
“Before someone enters the group, he thinks that it is pure. From my observations, I have seen that they are committing actions that should not come from a group claiming jihad,” Al-Rashoud said.
“I can tell you that 95 percent of the cell’s members are ignorant,” Al-Farraj said. “They are even more ignorant than the uneducated,” he added.
Ahmad Al-Dakheel, who is head of the Shariah committee in the Makkah cell, is guilty of such behavior.
“Dakheel said that all policemen in uniforms are infidels and asked the members to gun them down. If imams at mosques condemn explosions and terrorist activities, then they were also branded as infidels,” Al-Farraj said.
Who Shall We Kill?
The Jihadi Infanticidal Freaks Carefully Consider a Philosophical Question
Amir Taheri, from the Opinion Journal:
Who are we allowed to seize as hostage? Who are we allowed to kill?
For the past few weeks these questions have prompted much debate throughout the Muslim world. The emerging answer to both questions is: Anyone you like!
Triggered by the atrocity at a school in Beslan, in southern Russia, last month, the debate has been further fueled by kidnappings and "exhibition killings" in Iraq. Non-Muslims may find it strange that such practices are debated rather than condemned as despicable crimes. But the fact is that the seizure of hostages and "exhibition killing" go back to the early stages of Islamic history.
In the Arabia of the seventh century, where Islam was born, seizing hostages was practiced by rival tribes, and "exhibition killing" was a weapon of psychological war. The Prophet codified those practices, ending freelance kidnappings and head-chopping. One principle of the new code was that Muslims could not be held hostage by Muslims. Nor could Muslims be subjected to "exhibition killing." Such methods were to be used solely against non-Muslims, and then only in the context of armed conflict.
Seized in combat, a non-Muslim would be treated as a war prisoner, and could win freedom by converting to Islam. He could also be ransomed or exchanged against a Muslim prisoner of war. Non-Muslim women and children captured in war would become the property of their Muslim captors. Female captives could be taken as concubines or given as gifts to Muslims. The children, brought up as Muslims, would enjoy Islamic rights.
Centuries later, the initial code was elaborated by Imam Jaafar Sadeq, a descendant of the Prophet. He made two key rulings. Whoever entered Islam was instantly granted "full guarantee for his blood." And non-Muslims, as long as they paid their poll tax, or jiziyah, to the Islamic authority would be protected.
Recalling this background is important because what we witness in the Muslim world today is disregard of religious tradition in favor of political considerations.
A survey of Muslim views over the past weeks shows overwhelming, though not unanimous, condemnation of the Beslan massacre. But in all cases the reasons given for the condemnation are political rather than religious. Muslim commentators assert that Russia, having supported "the Palestinian cause," did not deserve such treatment.
Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Sunni Muslim scholar based in Qatar, was among the first to condemn the Beslan massacre. At the same time, however, he insists that a similar attack on Israeli schools would be justified because Israeli schoolchildren, if not killed, could grow up to become soldiers. (Sheik Qaradawi also justifies the killing of unborn Israelis because, if born, they could become soldiers.)
That view is shared by Ayatollah Imami Kashani, a cleric working for the Iranian government. He claims that, regardless of what it has done against the people of Chechnya, Russia must not be attacked because it has supported "the greater cause" of Palestine. In other words Chechen Muslims are less worthy of consideration than Palestinian ones. That view is shared by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a grouping of 57 Muslim countries. Its secretary-general, Abdelouahed Belkeziz, has issued a strong condemnation of Beslan. But he has not said a word about dozens of other terrorists attacks carried out by Islamists across the globe.
Implicit in all this is that killing innocent people in the lands of the "infidel" is justified for as long as the victims are not citizens of states sympathetic to "the Arab cause," whatever it happens to be at any given time. That position was highlighted in the Arab reaction to the kidnapping of two French journalists by Islamists in Iraq last month. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa led the call for their release with these words: "France is a friend of the Arabs; we cannot treat friends this way."
The assumption that only Americans and Israelis are targeted has proved false as Islamists have murdered hundreds of peoples from all faiths, including Islam, in a dozen countries in the past three years. Today, it is enough for anyone to designate himself as an Islamic "mujahid," fighting for Palestine and opposing the "occupation" in Iraq, to get carte blanche from millions of Muslims, including many in authority, for kidnapping and "exhibition killing."
That no one, Muslim or "infidel," is safe was made clearer by a statement from Abu Anas al-Shami, the self-styled "mufti" of al Qaeda, who was reportedly killed in Iraq in an American air attack last month. "There are times when mujahedeen cannot waste time finding out who is who in the battlefield," he wrote. "There are times when we have to assume that whoever is not on our side is the enemy."
Al-Shami's position echoes a fatwa of the late Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic in Iran. Ayatollah Khalkhali wrote: "Among those we seize hostage or kill, some may be innocent. In that case, Allah will take them to his paradise. We do our job, He does His."
United Nations Executive Confirms - UN Employs Terrorists
Thanks to Little Green Footballs for making me aware of this,
from the Jerusalem Post:
The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) confirmed in a television interview that his group employs Hamas members in Gaza.
"I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime," UNRWA head Peter Hansen told Canada's CBC television Sunday.
Hamas has been declared a terror organization by the US and Canada, as well as the European Union.
"Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another," he said.
In the interview, Hansen added that "whatever their political persuasion is" members of his staff are required to "behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality."
According to the interview, Canada donates $10 million to UNWRA a year.
This admission by Peter Hansen comes the very same week
Hamas members were caught on video loading a kassam rocket into a United Nations vehicle.
Does France Really Consider Iraqi Insurgents Their "Best Allies"?
This from
Amir Taheri:
... the recent bizarre phrase from French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. The head of the Figaro press group went to see him about the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq; Raffarin assured him they would soon be freed, reportedly saying, "The Iraqi insurgents are our best allies." In plain language, this means that, in the struggle in Iraq, Raffarin does not see France on the side of its NATO allies — the U.S., Britain, Italy and Denmark among others — but on the side of the "insurgents." '
Surely, he misspoke.
Eursoc tries to give him the benefit of the doubt, but has trouble coming up with a better explanation:
Wonder what Raffarin means by this. The Iraqi insurgents, who yesterday added 36 children to the list of the thousands of Iraqis they have killed, are now allies of the French government? It is surprising to hear it put in such terms by such a prominent leader, but it is not new or unusual for anti-war groups to cheer on the "resistance:" John Pilger did it, various Stop the War activists have done it, it should come as no great surprise that a leader of the most anti-war nation of them all did so too.
Or perhaps Raffarin meant that the insurgents are helping France locate the kidnapped journalists? It's conceivable that many Iraqis who are fighting Allied troops are opposed to the jihadi tactic of kidnapping foreigners but some reports say that much of the "resistance" is led by foreign fighters.
Hard to say. Any readers out there with a better explanation?
I really don't know what to think, but I am reminded of
this, from the liberal American columnist Thomas Friedman:
It's time Americans came to terms with something: France is not just an annoying ally. It is not just a jealous rival. France is becoming America's enemy.
If you add up how France behaved in the run-up to the Iraq war (making it impossible for the Security Council to put a real ultimatum to Saddam Hussein that might have avoided a war), and if you look at how France behaved during the war (when its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, refused to answer the question of whether he wanted Saddam or America to win in Iraq), and if you watch how France is behaving today (demanding some kind of loopy symbolic transfer of Iraqi sovereignty to some kind of hastily thrown together Iraqi provisional government, with the rest of Iraq's transition to democracy to be overseen more by a divided United Nations than by America), then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq.
France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened United States will pave the way for France to assume its "rightful" place as America's equal, if not superior, in shaping world affairs.
Would John Kerry Have Used Preemptive Force Against Hitler?
Really think about it. It's not a totally absurd question. After all, Europe was split down the middle on the issue.
Thanks to Medienkritik (Media Critic on my blogroll) for
this great piece putting one of John Kerry's debate points into perspective:
"The terrorism czar, who has worked for every president since Ronald Reagan, said, Invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor. That's what we have here." ---John Kerry, from the first presidential debate.
Recently the Kerry campaign has accused the Bush administration of taking its “eye off the ball” on Al-Qaeda by going into Iraq instead of focusing on Afghanistan. Mr. Kerry also stated during the first presidential debate that invading Iraq after 9/11 would have been like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor. This naturally invites us to ask the question: How so Mr. Kerry?
Kerry's 'Mexico 1941 - Iraq 2003' Comparison an Insult to Mexico and Mexicans Everywhere
After all, Mexico in 1941 was not a nation ruled by a tyrant responsible for the mass murder, torture, imprisonment and suppression of hundreds of thousands of his own people. Mexico was not a nation dotted by mass graves. Mexico had not launched invasions of two neighboring countries and fired missiles at numerous others in its recent past. Mexico in 1941 had never possessed or used weapons of mass destruction nor did it have the plans or infrastructure to develop them. The Mexican government did not support the families of terrorist suicide bombers with $25,000 payments nor did it serve as a haven for terrorists. The government of Mexico had not violated a string of 17 international resolutions on arms control for more than a decade. The government of Mexico had not fired upon US aircraft enforcing no fly zones.
No. That was not Mexico in 1941. What other nation of that period then, murdered, tortured, suppressed and imprisoned the innocent? What other nation was ruled by a militant, National-Socialist tyrant? What other nation grabbed land and invaded her neighbors? What other nation sought to build long-range missiles and an atomic bomb? What other nation had repeatedly violated arms agreements while the world looked on? It wasn’t Mexico: It was Germany.
So when America was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941 at Pearl harbor, was President Roosevelt “taking his eye off the ball” by committing so many of the nation’s resources and troops to the fight against Germany and her Axis allies in North Africa and Europe, thousands of miles away from Japan? After all, Japanese, not German planes dropped the bombs and torpedoes that killed over 2,000 Americans on that fateful morning in Hawaii. Roosevelt’s decision meant that it would take far longer to defeat the Japanese, those actually directly responsible for the attacks on the United States.
Would Mr. Kerry have accused Roosevelt of pursuing the “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” in the presidential campaign of 1944?
The Defining Photograph Of The Presidential Election 2004
Go to Little Green Footballs for the
photo.
The Letter of Truth: I Hope You Can Handle It
Stop the presses! Britney Spears has composed
the most amazing letter she has ever written in her whole life, ever,:
Britney Spears (news) has penned "the most amazing letter [she] has ever written."
This, according to the author herself, who tells Britain's OK! she has drafted a missive explaining the state of her union, marital and otherwise.
"It's called 'The Letter of Truth: I Hope You Can Handle It,' " Spears says in OK!
As of late Thursday, the "letter of truth" had not been posted on Spears' official Website, BritneySpears.com.
The site, however, promised that the pop star turned wordsmith was "putting the finishing touches" on the communique.
Oh, and one other thing, the site said: If you'd like to read "exclusive content," such as Spears' "letter of truth," Spears would like it if you'd commit to her fan club.
Commitment runs about $24.98 these days. Major credit cards accepted.
A call to Spears' publicist was not returned Thursday.
There were no details on the revelations to be featured in Spears' letter. But there was little doubt, to the entertainer at least, of its import.
"It was a life-changing letter for me, and I just want my fans to read it," Spears says in OK! "It really states where I am in my life right now. It is making closure with a lot of things and I think this is my ultimate truth."
It sounds as if Spears' dancing beau, Kevin Federline, has been suitably supportive of the singer arriving at her ultimate truth. Federline tells OK! that Spears worked on the letter "every day for the last week and a half."
Chimes in Spears: "I feel like I am at Harvard!"
I don't blame Britney for being concerned about whether we can handle "The Letter Of Truth." And, in fact, it's probably a good idea that she's charging for access because that will help to weed out most of the weaker people who might otherwise wilt in the blinding light of the Truth, when it is finally revealed.
I wonder what it will be. I wonder if it will be a Truth which can be spoken. Or will it, by necessity, take an elusive poetic form? And although she makes the qualification that the Letter Of Truth is her Truth, is it possible that it will contain Truth which will have implications for all of us? Will the Truth seep out from the initiated to the public at large? Will the initiated have to go to a special school, or seminar so that they can learn to deal with the Truth, and impart it to the rest of us?
We live in interesting times.
Speaking Of Sarcasm
I have nothing to add to
this sarcasm, from
Iowahawk:
Classic TV Scripts: ‘Johnny Nuance’
Although it ran a scant 13 episodes, the western series ‘Johnny Nuance’ still prompts fond memories among baby boomers who followed the exciting weekly adventures of the treaty-slinging frontier diplomat. Featuring former matinee idol Lash LaDouche in the title role, the series debuted on CBS on March 4, 1958 as a mid-season replacement for the low rated ‘Walter Cronkite Presents Hackleigh Rich Tobacco Flavor Playhouse.” After its brief run, it was replaced by the SciFi classic ‘Enigma Sector.’
Lash LaDouche went on to star in several other short-lived CBS series, including the 1964 sitcom ‘I Married a Hag,’ the 1968 variety show ‘Flip Out,’ and the gritty 1975 police drama ‘Torino Squad.’ He retired from acting in 1978 to found the LaDouche Winery in St. Helena, California, but is still frequently recognized by fans -- an experience he relishes.
"I am proud of my work on Johnny Nuance," says LaDouche. "The scripts might have been awful, but we taught youngsters that you didn't have to be violent, or foolhardy, or particularly courageous to be a hero."
******************EPISODE SEVEN: SHOWDOWN AT SILVERANGO CANYON
THEME (sung by Eddie Fontaine and the Frontiersmenaires)
Johnny Nuance! Johnny Nuance!
From the shores of Martha’s Vineyard he rode his horse out West,
With a treaty in his holster and a medal on his chest,
Bringing law and justice to a wild and violent land,
Talking was his creed and sanctions were his brand!
Johnny Nuance! Johnny Nuance! (Hyahhh!)
Outlaws feared his blazing pen!
There's
more.
Jack Wacks Back
Thanks to my friend
Jack, over at
Jack Of Clubs, for making me aware of this ridiculous example of the lack of depth to which the Islamofascists take their anti-Semitism:
An international couscous festival billed as a bridge-building event among "cooks for peace" degenerated into recriminations when Palestinian chefs accused their Israeli counterparts of using chicanery to obtain a prestigious prize."
The Israelis stole my land and my country, now they are even stealing our recipes," Palestinian delegate Mohammed Kebal complained to reporters. "The hand of Mossad is at work here. We will never take part in the contest again."
[...]
Mr. Najeeb, a chef at Jerusalem's famed American Colony Hotel, said it was "an insult" to the Arab origins of couscous to declare an Israeli dish the most original.
Jack commented:
Sorry, Mohammed. He was going to make some of those special purim pastries but I guess they were just out of Arab children's blood at the grocery store.
So much for "bridge-building", eh?Sorry for the sarcasm, but a sober discussion of Anti-Semitism just doesn't seem to do justice to this sort of vileness.
Actually, Jack, I have to say thanks for the sarcasm. Every time I post on this subject (anti-Semitism) I ask myself why I must be so sarcastic.
I truly do wake up every morning and go to bed every night thinking, "What's wrong with me? Why am I so angry?" I feel guilty about representing a Christian organization (CUANAS) with such sarcasm. I doubt that I am doing the right thing. But, for the life of me, and the Guy who died to save my life, I can not figure out another honest way to respond to the events of our current world. In my more ridiculous, yet forgiving, dreams, I hear the voice of Yeshua (Jesus) calling out,
"Blessed are the sarcastic, for they will see the pristine clarity of the Kingdom of Heaven."
This probably sounds crazy, but just chalk it up to the relentless emotional devastation I feel from dealing with this issue on a daily basis.
Poor me.
I think I'll go read
The Iraq War Is Wrong Blog. That always cheers me up.
UPDATE: My wife says that "emotional devastation" is overstating it, by quite a lot. She says that I am minimizing the suffering of people who are actually victimized by anti-Semitism. She says that I'm making it all about me, that I'm being a "drama queen".
God, I hate it when my wife is right.
So, what words should I use? Ok, I experience "frustration". How's that? Is that good enough for you, Mrs. "Let's just perfectly reduce my husband back down to size with a few precisely targeted words."
Oh no, now she says, "There you go again."
Eurofetishists
Mark Steyn, from the
Telegraph:
Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian is demanding a ballot for November 2 on the grounds that, "if everyone in the world will be affected by this presidential election, shouldn't everyone in the world have a vote in it?"
You might want to try that argument closer to home, dearie - say, in Brussels, where plans are already well advanced to ignore any "no" votes on the constitution and where the "democratic deficit" is, as the computer types like to say, not a bug but a feature.
But, according to Freedland, in demanding the same rights as New Hampshire and Arkansas, "the human race would be making a declaration of dependence - acknowledging that Washington's decisions affect us more than those taken in our own capitals."
Yes, but that was your conscious choice - a choice not to keep up, technologically, militarily, economically, because you preferred 35-hour weeks, two months of vacation, cradle-to-grave welfare, etc.
And even today you Eurofetishists still trumpet all that as the core of European identity. And, if the core of European identity turns out to have made you impotent, you ought to treat the disease rather than demand free Viagra from Washington.
Freedland calls his request for a global anti-Bush vote a "modest proposal" - echoing his fellow Jonathan, Swift. But another passage from Swift seems more pertinent here. The European arithmetic doesn't add up: it leads to high taxes, high unemployment, high crime, disastrously low birth rates.
Yet the Eurofanatics insist that, au contraire, it's the way of the future. As Gulliver observed of the Liliputians: "They bury their Dead with their Heads directly downwards, because they hold an Opinion that in eleven thousand Moons they are all to rise again, in which Period the Earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their Resurrection, be found ready standing on their Feet."
That's modern Europe, with its head in the sand but convinced that it's the only one holding the map the right way up.
Mark Steyn is just so mean.
I'll Vote For Malbec
I spent too much time reading Roger Simon this morning. Not that I don't agree with him on the issues of the debate, not that I don't find him to be informed, but I have to say I believe his analysis to be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Why, because the debate only means as much as the audience can understand of it.
Kerry conncected the dots on the level at which the audience understands the War on Terror. Bush did well playing to his constituents, but this was Kerry's first real opportunity on the national stage, and he did well. He articulated his opinions (his b.s.) in a way that would make sense to the general public given what they know. The general public would not have a reason to understand how Iraq is connected to the War on Terror, especially given the fact that we have found no WMD's.
Whatever though, you can debate the issues, but you're debating with yourself.
The most important thing to come out of Roger Simon's analysis is this:
Time to pour a good Central California Malbec and settle in.
I'm glad to hear that someone, other than me, is in on the wonders of the Malbec grape.
John Kerry's Jewish Roots
Thanks to Roger Simon for making me aware of this:
Even the best friends of Senator John Forbes Kerry, a practicing Catholic from Massachusetts (the state which contains America’s largest Irish Catholic population), thought of him as an American Irish Catholic through and through.The discovery of Kerry’s European Jewish roots has surprised many people, including the senator himself. Benedikt Kohn (Great-Grandfather)Benedikt Kohn, the great-grandfather of Senator John Kerry, was born about 1824 in southern Moravia. Benedikt was successful as a master brewer of beer.
In 1868, after the death of his first wife, he moved to Bennisch (today called Horni Benesov) and married Mathilde Frankel Kohn. Benedikt and Mathilde Kohn were two of the only 27 Jews living in Bennisch, which is listed as having a total population of 4,200, in 1880. Soon after Benedikt died in 1876, Mathilde moved to Vienna with her children Ida (7), Friedrich "Fritz" (3) and Otto (newborn). Fritz Kohn/Fred Kerry (Grandfather)Fritz and Otto excelled in their studies in Vienna.
However, like other Jews, they suffered greatly from the anti-Semitism that prevailed in Europe at this time. As a result, both Kohn brothers abandoned their Jewish heritage and converted to Roman Catholicism. In addition, in 1897, Otto decided to shed the Jewish-sounding name of Kohn. He chose a new name by dropping a pencil on a map. The pencil landed on Ireland's County Kerry. In 1901, Fritz followed his brother’s example and officially changed his name to Frederick Kerry. Fred, who worked as an accountant at his uncle's shoe factory, married Ida Loewe, a Jewish musician from Budapest.
Ida was a descendant of Sinai Loew, a brother of Rabbi Judah Loew, the famous Kabbalist, philosopher and Talmudist known as the "Maharal of Prague" who some say invented the character of the Golem. Two of Ida's siblings, Otto Loewe and Jenni Loewe, were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Fred, Ida and their first son Erich were all baptized as Catholics. And in 1905, the young family immigrated to America. After entering through Ellis Island, the family first lived in Chicago and then settled in Boston. Fred and Ida had two more children in America, Mildred (1910) and Richard (1915).
Fred and Ida and their three children lived in Brookline, where Fred became a prominent man in the shoe business and regularly attended Sunday Catholic church services. Fred did not tell and no one would have guessed that the family had Jewish roots. In 1921, Fred Kerry, at age 48, entered a Boston hotel and shot himself in the head. Some say the suicide was due to financial stress or depression. Perhaps the transition from Czech Jew to American Catholic was too great and unsupported a spiritual, psychological and social change.
Richard Kerry (Father)Richard was six years old when his father committed suicide. It has been said that he dealt with the tragedy by ignoring it. Richard attended Phillips Academy, Yale University and Harvard Law School.
After serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Kerry worked in the U.S. Department of State and later the Foreign Service. He married Rosemary Forbes, the beneficiary of the Forbes family trusts. The Forbes family amassed a huge fortune in China trade.Richard and Rosemary had four children: Margery (1941), John (1943), Diana (1947) and Cameron (1950). John, a Massachusetts Senator, is the 2004 Democratic Nominee for President. Cameron, who married a Jewish woman and converted to Judaism in 1983, is a prominent Boston lawyer.
In 1997 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright learned three of her four grandparents were Jewish. Then Wesley Clark announced that his father was Jewish. And now a researcher has discovered that John Kerry is really John Kohn.
So what if John Kerry has Jewish roots? If the discovery had been made in Europe in the 1940’s, Kerry would have been sent to a Nazi concentration camp. If the discovery had been made in America in the 1950’s, Kerry’s political career would have been negatively affected. Today, however, the discovery of Kerry’s Jewish roots seems inconsequential and unlikely to affect the 2004 presidential race.
The story of Kerry’s Jewish past is of interest because it reflects the story of many European Jews who shed their Jewish heritage en route to America at the turn of the century. The story makes one wonder how many Americans today have Jewish roots of which they are unaware.
I believe the fact that one would have been sent to their death in Nazi Germany would have to have a strong effect on a person who discovers their Jewish roots later in life. As Samuel Johnson said, "The Gallows doth powerfully concentrate the mind."
For non-Jews, the Holocaust happened to other people. As a goy (non-Jew) I must admit that it took a lot before I ever had any visceral feeling about the devastation Jews experienced as a result of the Holocaust. All of us goyim are disgusted by the Holocaust, the same way we are disgusted by the carnage of a major train accident, or other disaster. But, speaking for myself while imagining that many feel like the same as I do, it's hard to take the Holocaust personally the way Jews do.
The thing is, I have had experiences that many do not have. I went to "Christmas" dinner at my Jewish girlfriends house when I was about 20 years old and saw that one side of the family was significantly underrepresented. "Why? Do they live back East. No, most of them died in the Holocaust."
Or, take the story of another girlfriends family. "Why does your Dad insist he's Mexican, when he has a German name and a German accent? Because his family is Jewish, and they fled to Mexico during the Holocaust. He liked Mexico better, so he considers himself Mexican"
If you are sensitive, which I sometimes am, you put two and two together. You hear these stories, and you see the dread and horror still etched on the faces of these family members (thirty, forty, fifty years later) and you start to take it personally as well.
The thing is, I lived with these people for a number of years, as if they were my family. I don't think most non-Jews have that experience.
Anyway, back to the point. What is the point? So what if John Kerry is Jewish? Yeah, so what, huh? Yeah, so what, Yasser. So what, Osama.
I don't think John Kerry would be a good President, but I do think it would be hard for him to deal with the anti-Semitic monsters of the Islamofascist world and not take it personally.
