CUANAS: 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005

Friday, September 30, 2005

Bush Corners the Mullahs

From Jerome Corsi at World Net Daily:

Iran now faces going before the Security Council if the mullahs persist to enrich uranium. In August, Iran defied the EU-3 by breaking off negotiations and resuming uranium processing at Isfahan. The Iranians are now threatening to start enriching uranium at their centrifuge processing plant at Natanz, claiming that under the NPT they have the "right" to pursue the "full fuel cycle," just so they stop one or two steps short of actually making a nuclear weapon. Reports coming out of Iran suggest that technical problems are holding up the Iranians. Evidently, the uranium hexafluoride gas coming out of Isfahan is of such poor quality that processing it in the centrifuges at Natanz would actually damage the centrifuges.

Right after the 2004 Inauguration, President Bush and Secretary of State Rice met in Europe with the EU-3 and agreed to support the then-ongoing negotiations with Iran on one condition. That condition was that if the negotiations broke down, then the EU-3 would vote in the IAEA to take Iran before the Security Council. The EU-3 kept their part of the agreement. What Iran had not counted on was the condition President Bush had set with the EU-3 – namely, that Iran must agree to stop permanently all uranium processing for negotiations to resume, or for resumed negotiations to end successfully. With this condition set, the strategy to corner the mullahs was put in place.

Inch by inch, the president intends to take away all the Iranians' wiggle room. If Iran wants nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the president is prepared to agree, provided that 1) Iran accepts the needed nuclear fuel from others, and 2) that Iran makes all aspects of their nuclear program fully transparent to aggressive international inspection. The Iranians have made it clear they will never accept these conditions. But if the Iranians are telling the truth in that peaceful use of nuclear energy is all they want, then the offer to provide the nuclear fuel should be good enough. If the Iranians refuse, suspicions rise that they are lying, intending to engage in subterfuge so they can continue their clandestine weapons program.

The Iranians respond by asserting a "right" to process uranium as a matter of national pride. But they give themselves away when they act cornered, threatening to cancel deals to sell India oil because India voted with the U.S. at the IAEA.

So, President Bush's gambit is likely to work. But what happens next? Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council, are unlikely to vote for greater sanctions against a non-compliant Iran. Maybe Bush wants to expose both Iran and the United Nations. Is the Security Council truly anti-American? Would the Security Council support a rogue terror-supporting state like Iran, with no clear assurance that Iran isn't pursuing nuclear weapons? Maybe this is the full gambit – to corner both Iran and the Security Council.

The Bush administration fought hard to get John Bolton in place. If the goal is to corner both the Iran and the Security Council, John Bolton is the right guy.

Let's hope so.

Mammon
Faith-Based Initiatives In the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

From Joseph Farah:

Thanks to the urging of Republican officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to transfer taxpayer money to churches and other religious organizations as reimbursement for providing shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

That was the "good news" from Washington this week.

The American Civil Liberties Union wasn't happy about it – and neither am I. We differ only on our reasons.

The ACLU, of course, believes the allocation of federal tax dollars to religious groups for any reason is a violation of the First Amendment prohibition against establishing a state church.

But the idea that the First Amendment forbids the government from promoting religion in the broadest terms is just plain bogus. It wasn't true for 200 years of American history. This is a recent invention of extremists who would share little in the way of civic values and republican philosophy with Thomas Jefferson – the man who coined the term "separation of church and state."

Jefferson didn't believe in anything remotely resembling our modern notions of "separation of church and state." His concerns, and the concerns of the other founders, were all based on how government might harm churches, not vice versa.

And it is this concern of mine – not any phony First Amendment issues – that leads me to oppose this latest government attempt to seduce the church.

We don't need it. Like practically everything else government touches, it's going to do more harm than good. It will result in profligate waste and inefficiency. And though there is no First Amendment problem with the idea, there very definitely is a constitutional problem.

The charity programs to be funded have nothing to do with the enumerated powers of the federal government. In other words, they are none of Washington's business. They are rightly the domain of the churches and private charities, not the U.S. government.

This represents the government's latest bid to usurp the authority and mission of the churches. It's the church's job to feed the hungry, cloth the naked and nurse the sick – not the U.S. government's.

Government has already far exceeded its constitutional authority and largely hijacked this vital role from the church. That's neither to the church's credit, nor the government's.

I'm glad to see Farah coming out against this. I have another problem with churches being given money for services by the government. That is, such an arrangement will make churches beholden to the government, which will inevitably lead to churches changing their services to fit the dictates off the government. While the government doesn't do a lot of things well, one of the things it does do well is attatch strings to the money it hands out. The church would wind up hanging in a tangle of red tape, some of which would go against the foundational beliefs of Christianity.

In short, the Church will become a fee-for-service organization. As the Bride of Christ, were not supposed to be getting paid for our Love.

Intelligent Design Theory
If Only I Could Remember My Name

Roger Simon makes a good point when he says Intelligent Design theory is a threat to our economy (well, except for the bloviating):

Go ahead and believe the "intelligent design" theory if you want to - I think it's claptrap and an insult to theists - but please keep it out of the science classroom. Our social studies and humanities classes are already polluted by enough asinine nonsense from the fuddy-duddy left. We don't need to have science turned into Bible class (covert or otherwise) from the other side.

I don't blame the biology teachers in Dover, PA for keeping this pseudo-science out of their classrooms. They've got plenty to do getting their high school students prepared for the serious (and worsening) competition of the global economy. (You can bet their peers in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai aren't wasting a helluva lot of time on "intelligent design.")

To be clear. I have no objection to crèches at the mall, the Ten Commandments in court rooms, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc., etc. Although I support separation of church and state, I'm happy to respect everyone's beliefs and I'm not particularly scared of this country turning into a theocracy. But the science classroom is for science. Students in Dover, Pennsylvania and other rural areas are just as entitled to a real education as those in Los Angeles and New York. In fact the country needs them to have it, especially in science and math. And in the case of public education, it is not in our interest to waste precious taxpayer dollars teaching mythology in biology.

Like, I said, I think Roger Simon has a good point, but I say he's bloviating because of the use of the words like "claptrap" and "asinine." He has pronounced Intelligent Design to be claptrap, and yet he hasn't made a single argument against it. In fact, I doubt he could, because I doubt he has read the work of any Intelligent Design theorists.

But, here's the thing; I have. And honestly, I don't think Intelligent Design has risen to the level of a theory yet. The basic idea is that Universe is too complex and, well, "intelligent," to have occurred randomly. What's more, this idea is backed up by science, in the sense that science has yet to explain how the Universe could have evolved to this level of complexity in the 15 billion years that it has, apparently, existed.

Most arguments about both evolution and Intelligent Design consist almost entirely of bloviating. I have had many unfortunate discussions with my fellow Christians over the years on the subject of evolution. Often,their primary argument, seems to consist of the sentence, "We didn't come from monkeys. It says in the Bible that God created man in His Image."

Yes, yes, I know it does. But, could not God have used evolution as one of the mechanisms by which He created us?

Now, here's the thing that most people misunderstand about Intelligent Design theory. It does not say that evolution hasn't occurred. Nor does it say that evolution might not very well be the primary mechanism by which life has developed. It simply says that Natural Selection, alone, can not account for the amount of change which has occurred in the given lifetime of the Universe.

When Roger Simon says that Intelligent Design theory is an "insult to Theists," he demonstrates that he has never read any real Intelligent Design theorists, because, while most ID theorists are Christians, or Jews, it is not a Christian or Jewish theory. It is simply a theory which says that there must have been an "intelligent" creator.

Now, here's my problem with Intelligent Design. In all I have read of it, I have yet to come across more to the theory than the idea that there must be intelligence behind the complexity. Ok, that seems reasonable. In fact, I think it is even an important thought. However, in and of itself, it is not science. It is simply the beginning of science.

Why do I say that? Well, what Intelligent Design theory does (as far as I have gotten with it) is it

1) runs through the evidence for Natural Selection having created the universe by itself,

2) pronounces that it could not have,

3) says that there must be intelligence behind the complexity.

To it's credit, ID Theory does give specifics about why there must be intelligence. The specifics have to do with things such as the fact that DNA code is comparable to computer code. That there are mechanisms in cellular structure which function in ways which are almost exactly analogous to machines such as rotors, etc. So, the idea is, if life is made up of exactly the same structures that we create when we create machines and computers, then there must be intelligence behind life.

Of course, the whole thing simply could go the other way. In other words, we create things this way because it makes sense to us, because of how we ourselves are structured. In other words, we create machines and computers because, as is always true with artists, our subject matter is ourselves.

I, actually, largely agree with Roger Simon that Intelligent Design theory can, and probably will, be harmful to American Education. Why? Well, because I think many teachers will simply use it as a Trojan Horse in which to deliver Creationism. In other words, they will use ID as a way to teach that the Universe was literally created in seven days, or 168 hours.

That is highly unlikely, to say the least. If that was so then why are we receiving light on planet Earth which originally set out from it's star billions of years ago. Is God tricking us?

No, I doubt that. (I'm being sarcastic here, just in case it isn't obvious.)

But listen, while I do think that Intelligent Design Theory could very likely be a danger to American Education, in the long run, I think the questions it asks are very important ones.

Here's a new way to think about Intelligent Design. If all Intelligent Design says is, there must be intelligence behind the design of the Universe, then what if that "Intelligence" were simply, say, a scientist in a lab? What if we are simply an experiement in a Petri dish somewhere? Or, what if we are the creation of a machine? Could it not be possible that sometime in the past some other intelligence had formed, created machines, which then created us?

It sounds like Science Fiction? Yes, well, our world itself is beginning to sound like science fiction, if you haven't noticed. We are just entering a century which will dazzle our minds with bioengineering, nanotechnology, computer chips processing at the speed of light, quantuum computing, life-like robotics, etc. When you take such things into account the notion that we, ourselves, may have been created by a "scientist" somewhere is not so insane.

Now, here's another thing. What if that "scientist" who created us left clues in our code on how to contact him? What if he included his name and email address? What if we could finally learn our own names? The names he gave us. In other words, what if we could learn what it is we were created for?

I say, this is not an impossible notion, and for this reason, I think the pursuit of Intelligent Design Theory may be among the most noble quests on which the human race has ever embarked. As long as we don't set out on the journey thinking that we know exactly where we will wind up, we should do as well as we always have done, which means we will probably find some very interesting answers, and create some stuff we never anticipated along the way.

After all, that's how science is done.

Britain Says Israel's Offensive Is "Appropriate"

From the Jerusalem Post, via Little Green Footballs:

Israel's response to the recent Kassam rocket attacks on Sderot has been measured and appropriate, Kim Howells, Britain's Minister of State for the Middle East, told The Jerusalem Post, disregarding Palestinian appeals for the world to rein in the IDF.

Howells, on a three-day visit to the region, hinted in an interview Wednesday night that financial aid to the Palestinian Authority might be withheld if the PA did not seriously begin tackling the terrorism in its midst.

"The Palestinians are receiving more aid per capita than any other people on the face of the earth, and we want to see some proper response," Howells said, hinting at a decrease of economic aid if the Palestinians don't fight terror.

"I thought the retaliation this week was proportionate," said Howells about the IDF operations. "The [Palestinian] attack was a very serious one, it could have killed a lot of people. It's a miracle really there weren't more casualties."

"I think there is no excuse now," he added. "Gaza is now in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, and there are no Israeli troops there. One hopes that where tough decisions have to be made, Abu Mazen [PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas] and the PA will make them."

At the same time, Howells said, the world would carefully watch how "selective" the IDF's retaliation would be. "I don't think that any nation on earth relishes the prospect of world opinion if it retaliates by shelling indiscriminately. But it seems to me that the Israelis have targeted with great care those it believes responsible for firing those rockets."

If this care continues, Howells said, "the world will understand [Israelis] are trying to defend their citizens, which after all is the primary responsibility of any government."

(Rubbing my eyes. Blinking. Trying to refocus. Rubbing my eyes again. Taking a drink of water. Trying to read again. Getting up and going to the bathroom. Coming back and trying to read again.)

No, it really does say that. Britain has really emerged from the REM stage and appears to be almost fully awake.

Of course, it's appropiate for a state to kill those who are responsible for attacking them. Sheesh, that's been my point all along here at CUANAS. If the governments of the world all stop picking on Israel and the Jews like this, I'll have lost my raison d' etre.

Hallelujah. I would love to stop writing this blog.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Dictatorship As Piracy of the State

There's an important discussion going on over at the Belmont Club. It began with a post by Wretchard regarding the fact that Belgium has issued an arrest warrant for the former dictator of Chad, Hissene Habre. Mr. Habre is, being accused of torture and various Crimes Against Humanity.

The discussion revolves around the legitimacy of one state trying the leader of another state for Crimes Against Humanity. Check this out:

desert rat said...

Senegal arrests Hissène Habré and deports him to Belgium.
We have arrested folk in transit to Canada and deported them by rendition to their "Home" counties.
We have siezed "Criminal Terrorist" suspects in Italy and delivered them to Eygpt, if my memory serves.
International Law requires the Force of Arms to enforce it. Who the Police are, of course, makes all the difference.
To US

wretchard said...

First of all, I'd like to observe there is nothing in principle which prevents any other country from claiming the same Universal Jurisdiction as Belgium. It follows that those countries can also issue warrants of arrest for people according to their lights, including members of Human Rights Watch and members of the Belgian judiciary. I'm not saying that such warrants are in the slightest justified, but I cannot see the objection in principle.

Desert Rat makes the very valid point that to a certain extent, nations do this already via treaty. Yet Human Rights Watch seems to regard this as unprecedented. One could say, OK: Belgium doesn't have the power to enforce their orders, so why worry? But is their right to issue the arrest order conceded?

desert rat said...

Mohammadan "Judges" issue Death Warrants, with bounties. The Iranian Death Warrant is still outstanding for Salman Rushdie, I think.

Iran never requested his extradition, the Brits won't deport accused criminals in Capitial Punishment cases.

Aristides said...

Dumb, actually. While this most recent indictment is aimed at a truly despicable character, in reality it is nothing more than a chum line for the anti-American laywer-sharks, who will eventually follow it to its inevitable conclusion. Lawyers who prosecute Crimes Against Humanity are paid out of the coffers of NGO's, who in turn receive their money predominantly from Leftist activists. Since these activists want nothing more than to see America embarrassed and her officials incarcerated, NGO's will market their legal product towards activist propensities by paying teams of lawyers to do just that.

Which will, much like the brew-ha-ha over Rumsfeld, alienate the good graces of America and American diplomacy, which for a has-been power like Belgium is just plain dumb. If it weren't so potentially disrupting, it would be laughable.

TigerHawk said...

The Belgian law is absurd. Fundamental justice requires that people "choose," at least in a theoretical sense, the laws under which they will be subject. Personal jurisdiction over a prospective defendant, therefore, is dependant upon "contacts" with the jurisdiction seeking to enforce its laws. If Habre has committed crimes against Belgium or Belgians, then he may be subject to its jurisdiction. Otherwise, he should not be.

The United States has not helped itself in this regard, by the way. It has long tried to extend its laws and its personal jurisdiction against businesses and individuals with scant contacts. But American inconsistency in this matter does not make the Belgian law any less unjust.

Aristides said...

Yes, any country can claim universal jurisdiction, but in the past crimes that merited such jurisdiction, piracy for instance, were well-defined and the norms well-established by consensus, or at least by great powers.

Unilaterally declaring universal jurisdiction has happened, but only by global powers like Britain in the 19th Century. Belgium doing it for an ill-defined "crimes against humanity" is, since it is a third rate power, quite unprecedented.

wretchard said...

Aristedes,

You are right in every practical sense. But in terms of perception, the Left has framed the debate yet again.

Personally I think we should arrest and prosecute all scumbag dictators and issue a warrant of arrest for Fidel Castro as well. Now that the Cold War is over, why not go after these guys? But we won't. The issue will be politicized and the "bad" dictators (i.e. the ones who knew Ronald Reagan) will have warrants outstanding and the "good" ones will get admiring visits from world statesmen.

Aristides said...

That is a very interesting thought, Wretchard, about arresting all dictators. Upon reading it, it struck me that a plausible end-state of Bush's goal--ending tyranny in our world--could be a push by America to label tyranny a crime against humanity and thereby enforcing this law via universal jurisdiction. Dictatorship as piracy, but of nations, not ships, and once again the English-speakers step to the plate.

It is not yet time, but if China's dictatorship should fall and democracy rise in its place...

Just a thought.

And, a rather brilliant thought at that. Go read the rest of the disussion.

"Tataglia Is A Pimp"

From the Moscow News via Roger Simon:

Moscow "has stepped up military-technological cooperation with Tehran," the business daily said, citing an unidentified source.

It said top officials within Russia's military-industrial complex decided to concentrate on arms sales to Tehran for two reasons.

"Firstly, as many weapons as possible must be sold to Iran before an international embargo against this country comes into force."

Secondly, should the United States decide to go to war in Iran, Russia wants Iran to be well-armed to ensure that U.S. forces become at least as bogged down there as they already are in Iraq, the daily said.

"In either case, such a policy carries a high risk of creating a major international scandal, at the very least," the newspaper commented.

Desperation, greed and stupidity have ruled Russia since the tsars. Why should it change now?

Both Russia and China are playing the same game with Iran. In fact, Russia and China are using Iran as an unaccountable weapon against the United States, in the very same way Iran uses Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, and various other Jihadi groups as an unaccountable weapon against us. This war is being fought in layers. The real powers of the world can not afford to go up against each other directly, so they use smaller countries to attack us indirectly.

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs calls Iran "the Tataglias" and the China/Russia Axis "Barzini." The reference is to The Godfather. Barzini, the mastermind, used the Tatglia family to get to the Don. Yes, it was Barzini all along, and yes, it has been China and Russia all along.

It's a very dangerous game they play. They had better hope that none of their little Jihadis goes to far one day, or they will find a barrage of nuclear-tipped ICBM's jammed up their asses.

We live in interesting times, and most of us seem not even to know it.

Flight Attendants Outraged Over Jodie Foster Film

From Reuters:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Labor unions representing most of the nation's 90,000 flight attendants have urged their members to boycott a new Jodie Foster film that portrays a flight attendant and a U.S. air marshal as terrorists.

They said that casting cabin crew members as villains in the movie "Flightplan" was irresponsible in light of heightened security concerns since the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which suicide hijackers used airliners as guided missiles.

The Walt Disney Co. film, which was the No. 1 release at the North American box office last weekend, stars Foster as an airline passenger who awakens from an in-flight nap to find her young daughter missing. It turns out that one of the flight attendants aboard is involved in a terrorist plot hatched by the plane's air marshal.

A union statement issued on Tuesday also complained that other flight attendants in the film are shown as being "rude, unhelpful and uncaring."

"This depiction of flight attendants is an outrage," said Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) International President Patricia Friend. "Flight attendants continue to be the first line of defense on an aircraft and put their lives on the line day after day for the safety of passengers."

An AFA spokeswoman in Washington said the unions worry that moviegoers will take away impressions that will make it more difficult for flight attendants to "earn the trust and respect of passengers."

"It's just so irresponsible," the spokeswoman, Corey Caldwell, told Reuters on Wednesday.

She said the portrayal of airline cabin crew members as evil-doers adds further insult to long-standing Hollywood stereotypes that have depicted flight attendants as sexualized bubble heads or as harsh, humorless disciplinarians.

A Disney spokesman said that in making "Flightplan," which grossed nearly $25 million last weekend, "there was absolutely no intention on the part of the studio or filmmakers to create anything but a great action thriller."

Pastorius Note: No Mr. Disney Spokeshole, there was intention on the part of the Disney corporation to AVOID AT ALL COSTS any realistic discussion of terrorism. There was an implicit intent to further Dhimmify Americans.

I say everyone should boycott this movie. In fact, I haven't seen a Hollywood movie in a year, other than childrens movies. If I could avoid those without making my poor kids have to be part of my adult wrath at Hollywood, believe me, I would.

Think about the unspoken reality of this Flight Attendant Union Press Release. Flight Attendants are in the air all the time. They and their fellow flight attendants know each other and talk with each other on a fairly constant basis. Considering all the rumors, and in some cases, direct testimonies about Muslim-looking men conducting dry runs, these Flight Attendants know the truth of what is going on. They know that this War on Terror is being fought right under their noses. And, they are being portrayed as the dangerous bad guys?

God, what an insult that must be to them.

Be extra nice to the Flight Attendant next time you fly.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Bush Declares Saudi Arabia Fit For Financial Aid?

What the ...?:

"I hereby certify that Saudi Arabia is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the proposed assistance will help facilitate that effort," Bush said.

Under a 2005 spending bill, direct U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia is forbidden unless the president certifies that Riyadh is cooperating with efforts to combat international terrorism and that the money will help that campaign.

Why does Saudi Arabia need financial aid? The people who make up the government are the richest people in the world. Sure, many of their people are poor, but that's because the government does nothing for them. So, why should we help?

And besides, as Jihad Watch notes, Saudi Arabia is not REALLY helping in the War on Terror:

Saudi Arabia has “seen the face of the devil, and they don’t want it.” So says Prince Saud, the Saudi Foreign Minister. The Saudis have seen the light since 9/11, he says, and they want no part of religious extremism; the Kingdom is no longer a haven for terrorists.

While the Prince’s words were soothing, it is much more likely that he and other members of the House of Saud have seen the face not of the devil, but of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Act and the general incitement to terrorism in America through jihadist literature and speech are scheduled to begin October 25, and the Saudis are scrambling to appear as if they have decisively rejected the jihad terrorism that they so energetically backed for so many years.

But have they? Not exactly. “Oh Allah, liberate our Al-Aqsa Mosque from the defilement of the occupying and brutal Zionists….Oh Allah, punish the occupying Zionists and their supporters from among the corrupt infidels.” According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis preached that in a sermon in Mecca on July 15 – of 2005, not 2001. He also railed against American pop culture, which he termed “the terrible deluge of all manner of vice, which is considered a form of moral terrorism against the values, ideals, and virtues of the Islamic nation.” His sermon was carried on Saudi Arabia’s Channel 1.

Nor did Saudi TV, which is strictly controlled by the government, limit itself to prayers for punishment of the Israelis and Americans. On August 29 Saudi Iqra TV aired a program calling on Saudis to donate money to support the Palestinian jihad. “As the Prophet Muhammad said, Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam,” the program’s organizer reminded viewers. “A person who cannot wage Jihad with his soul is required to wage Jihad with his money, with his tongue, with his thought, and with any means at his disposal. There is no doubt that our brothers in Palestine desperately need financial support, which goes directly to this cause, and helps them to carry out this mission.”

On the same show, Sheikh Abdallah Basfar, secretary-general of the Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission (a Saudi government agency) added: “All the funds sent via known charities and organizations reach your Muslim brothers, Allah be praised. Undoubtedly, this aid is obligatory and not just recommended. This is the duty of every Muslim, based on the scholars’ religious ruling that supporting our brothers in Palestine is obligatory. Therefore, material support is a duty.” Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who introduced the latest Saudi Arabia Accountability Act into the Senate, noted in support of the Act of 2003 that the Saudis “are reported to have contributed as much as $4 billion to Hamas over the course of the latest intifada.” Could some of that money have gone to finance Hamas’ suicide attacks against innocent civilians in buses and restaurants? Is it still going to finance Hamas’ terrorist activities? Nor is the Palestinian jihad the only ones the Saudis support. NBC’s Lisa Myers reported last summer: “An NBC News analysis of hundreds of foreign fighters who died in Iraq over the last two years reveals that a majority came from the same country as most of the 9/11 hijackers — Saudi Arabia. Among the suicide bombers was Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a one-time medical student and son of a Saudi diplomat. In December 2004, he climbed into a truck in Mosul and blew himself up. On an Internet video, another Saudi says goodbye to his mother, then drives an ambulance full of explosives into a building.” What motivated these people to go to Iraq? Unmistakably, it was the jihad ideology that, now over four years after 9/11, continues to be taught all over Saudi Arabia — while political correctness and fear prevent the State Department from identifying it as any problem, actual or potential.

There are, however, Saudi leaders who have come out against jihad in Iraq. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, has denounced it. Did he condemn attacks against American troops there and remind Saudis of their country’s alliance with the United States? Not exactly. He came out against “attempts by suspicious parties to trigger sectarian tension between the people of Iraq,” saying that such attempts only served “the aims of the enemies conspiring against Muslims.” In other words, he was only condemning Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s recent declaration of war against Shi’ite Muslims. In an oblique condemnation of U.S. forces in Iraq, he also criticized those who committed “bloodshed and murder of innocents by planes and bombs.”

What has the U.S. done in response to all this? Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Casey found that two Saudi officials who have been named as defendants in 9/11 lawsuits, Interior Minister Prince Naif and Prince Salman, Governor of Riyadh, were not liable. And last Wednesday, Associated Press reported that President Bush decided “to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington’s closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.”

America’s closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism? Really? What kind of ally — particularly a tightly-controlled society like Saudi Arabia — allows a steady stream of its citizens to travel to a neighboring country to wage war against forces with which it is supposed to be allied? What kind of ally broadcasts exhortations to wage this war over its government-controlled television stations?

It’s time for Congress to pass and President Bush to sign the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act. After all, he himself said it best after 9/11: you’re either with the terrorists or with us. He should signal to the Saudis that they can no longer have it both ways.

WTC Hate-America Museum Idea Is Nixed

I will admit it. Some news is just too depressing/maddening for me to even deal with. The planned "International Freedom Center" at the site of the World Trade Center was one of those stories which so totally got me down that you won't find a single reference to it on CUANAS.

Until today, because the whole stupid idea got shit-canned by the most excellent Governor Pataki:

(New York -AP, Sept. 28, 2005) - Gov. George Pataki on Wednesday ousted a proposed freedom museum from its site at ground zero, declaring that the International Freedom Center has generated “too much opposition, too much controversy” to remain.

The decision follows months of acrimony over the Freedom Center, with furious families and politicians saying that the museum would dishonor the memory of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center.

“We must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,” Pataki said in a statement.

All I can say is: YES!!!

And really, eff all of you who came up with that hate-America idea. I wish you would all just move to France, for God's sake.

Heart of Darkness

From Little Green Footballs:

Heart of Darkness
BY FOUAD AJAMI

The remarkable thing about the terror in Iraq is the silence with which it is greeted in other Arab lands. Grant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his due: He has been skilled at exposing the pitilessness on the loose in that fabled Arab street and the moral emptiness of so much of official Arab life. The extremist is never just a man of the fringe: He always works at the outer edges of mainstream life, playing out the hidden yearnings and defects of the dominant culture. Zarqawi is a bigot and a killer, but he did not descend from the sky. He emerged out of the Arab world's sins of omission and commission; in the way he rails against the Shiites (and the Kurds) he expresses that fatal Arab inability to take in "the other." A terrible condition afflicts the Arabs, and Zarqawi puts it on lethal display: an addiction to failure, and a desire to see this American project in Iraq come to a bloody end.

Zarqawi's war, it has to be conceded, is not his alone; he kills and maims, he labels the Shiites rafida (rejecters of Islam), he charges them with treason as "collaborators of the occupiers and the crusaders," but he can be forgiven the sense that he is a holy warrior on behalf of a wider Arab world that has averted its gaze from his crimes, that has given him its silent approval. He and the band of killers arrayed around him must know the meaning of this great Arab silence.

There is a cliché that distinguishes between cultures of shame and cultures of guilt, and by that crude distinction, it has always been said that the Arab world is a "shame culture." But in truth there is precious little shame in Arab life about the role of the Arabs in the great struggle for and within Iraq. What is one to make of the Damascus-based Union of Arab Writers that has refused to grant membership in its ranks to Iraqi authors? The pretext that Iraqi writers can't be "accredited" because their country is under American occupation is as good an illustration as it gets of the sordid condition of Arab culture. For more than three decades, Iraq's life was sheer and limitless terror, and the Union of Arab Writers never uttered a word. Through these terrible decades, Iraqis suffered alone, and still their poetry and literature adorn Arabic letters. They need no acknowledgment of their pain, or of their genius, from a literary union based in a city in the grip of a deadening autocracy.

A culture of shame would surely see into the shame of an Arab official class with no tradition of accountability granting itself the right to hack away at Iraq's constitution, dismissing it as the handiwork of the American regency. Unreason, an indifference to the most basic of facts, and a spirit of belligerence have settled upon the Arab world. Those who, in Arab lands beyond Iraq, have taken to describing the Iraqi constitution as an "American-Iranian constitution," give voice to a debilitating incoherence. At the heart of this incoherence lies an adamant determination to deny the Shiites of Iraq a claim to their rightful place in their country's political order.

(Mr. Ajami teaches International Relations at Johns Hopkins University.)

It goes on from there. Go read it.

Living in America Without English

From WebIndia123.com, via Drudge Report:

In ethnically diverse Los Angeles, many immigrants find that learning Korean, Spanish or Mandarin is more important than English.

Manuel Aliga, a Peruvian immigrant, has spent years studying Korean. He runs a store that sells soccer supplies in Koreatown.

At the beginning, English was very important -- and it still is, if I need to go to a government office or court or get a license, Aliaga told the Los Angeles Daily News.

Aliaga began learning Korean because he worked in Korean owned groceries and wanted to talk to his employers and customers. Now, he needs to communicate with his own customers, suppliers and other business owners in the neighborhood.

But he has also become an admirer of Korean ways and now spends his spare time studying Korean history.

Martin Paik, a Seoul native who emigrated to Los Angeles by way of Argentina, does not speak English. He writes a column on conversational Spanish for the Korea Times.

In California, Spanish is more important than English, Paik. "I haven't found any inconvenience because I don't speak English.

Get a load of that last sentence. The fact of the matter is, American culture is based on English. All the primary documents of America Government (the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc., Supreme Court findings) are written in English. The libraries of our major universities are made up of books which are overwhelmingly written in English. The language of the stock exchange, and the various centers of financial power is English.

So, no matter how one feels about multiculturalism, it is clear that anyone who does not learn English is LOCKED OUT of these important institutions of power. If we allow areas to grow within our cities where foreign cultures grow as cultures within a culture, where they become little windowless mondads within our culture, impermeable membranes floating through culture but adding nothing to it and taking nothing from it, then we are setting up the conditions for future conflict.

If we don't do something about this problem, this non-English-speaking immigrant culture will continue to grow, and become more powerful within it's own sphere. It's economy will be largely separate. It will develope it's own institutions, beginning with churches and insurance cooperatives, and gangs/police. Eventually it will grow to the status of a nation within our nation. At that point we would be faced with the spectre of having to attempt to swallow an entire culture whole. As that is impossible, war would break out.

The answer in my opinion is to put a long, but temporary halt to immigration. This would give us the time and resources to begin to deal with the situation in front of us. We could develop systems and tools to reach out to the existent immigrant communities and help them to assimilate, help them become Americans. This would be the compassionate and wise thing to do.

The fact of the matter is, if we do not protect American culture, then America will eventually cease to exist. American culture is indeed a fluid and ever-changing culture. It is a melting pot. But, it is contained within a pot. It has a formal structure. If American culture loses strength over time, then immigrant culture would be likely to govern in the manner of the countries from which they came. Does that sound like a good prospect for the world?

If America ceases to exist, then there will be no America to immigrate to.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

A Sin Of Omission

Perhaps the most important post in the blogosphere today is Zombie's "Anatomy of a Photograph", which analyzes how the mainstream media lies to us, even through the documentary medium of photography. Please cut and paste the link:

http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_september_24_2005/anatomy_of_a_photograph/

Israel Unleashes Missile Strike Against Gaza

Good for Israel. That's what they should do. When one state attacks another state, as the Palestinians have done to Israel, then the state which is attack is within their rights, and their responsibility to their own citizens to subdue their enemy. So, that's what Israel should do. Strike, strike, and strike again, until the Palestinians will fight no more. Of course, AP doesn't see it that way:

JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft pressed ahead with its offensive against Palestinian militants, unleashing a barrage of missiles against targets throughout Gaza City early Wednesday, knocking out power and plunging the city into darkness. No injuries were immediately reported.

Missiles landed in at least three locations, including the impoverished Tufah neighborhood and the Bureij refugee camp, just south of the city. One airstrike hit a two-story building used by the ruling Fatah party. The offices provide tutoring lessons to school children, and cash and food assistance to families in Tufah.

Pastorius note: Who cares what kind of front they put up for cover. This is Palestinian propaganda. You can be sure that that building is also housing terrorists and their operations. On with AP's story:

Tensions in the region were further inflamed when Hamas militants released a video of a bound and blindfolded Israeli businessman who they had kidnapped and later killed — an attack that appeared to signal a new tactic in the militants' fight against Israel.

Pastorius note: Remember, just yesterday, Hamas had called a cease fire? And already they are back targeting Israel with rocket attacks. Why should Israel trust a word they say. They have done this time and time and time again. Back to AP's, uh, story,

Renewed fighting with the Palestinians in Gaza over the past week has compounded Sharon's political problems. Hamas militants launched dozens of homemade Qassam rockets at southern Israel over the weekend, prompting a major Israeli offensive, marked by airstrikes in Gaza and arrest raids in the West Bank.

Pastorius note: This is absolute bullshit (pardon my sloppy French), Sharon just today was reaffirmed by the Israeli Parliament. How is it that AP can say that his problems are compounded? It seems to me he has shored up his hold on power.

The leader of another Palestinian militant group, Islamic Jihad, said it will halt rocket attacks against Israel but reserved the right to retaliate for Israeli attacks.

Pastorius note: Make that the NEW leader of Islamic Jihad. Israel just killed their previous leader two days ago. So, keep on attacking buddy. You'll be dead soon, as well.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Wandering In the Wildnerness
With The Guardian

Thanks to Atlas Shrugs, for making me aware of this, from the Guadian:

Compassion is putting yourself in the other person's shoes and feeling sympathy. It does not require affection. One might feel compassion for Hitler, Stalin or Saddam on learning about their appalling childhoods (like most famous dictators, they lost a parent before the age of 14), or even for George Bush (who had a beastly time), but still hate them for what they did.

The Guardian has clearly lost their moral compass. It's going to be a long forty years.

Why Socialism Is Anti-Humanity

From Munkhammer.org, via Fjordman:

The Evil Socialism. Some admit that socialism is wrong and that it produces a destructive society, yet claim that is has good intentions and beautiful values. They say that socialists at least want to fight poverty and want better opportunities for the worst off. I would say that is at best misleading but mostly all wrong.

Socialism is not mainly about helping the poor and disabled or create progress. It is first and foremost about fighting wealth and in partucular stopping individuals from being successful. They hate when one person stands out, when one is more skilled, when one is rewarded for talent. And it is mainly for that hate that they fight for equality; not to give the poor a chance but to oppress genius and success.

Nobody should think she or he is better than anyone else is the motto. And if someone proves to be, that has to be neglected or fought. That is why they want the high taxes and massive regulation. That is why they preach equality and social values - to fight the remarkable and successful. If social matters and equality are the most important things, then surely great achievements are no good.

Since ideas, thinking and success are great human features, socialism is an ideology based on anti-humanity. That explains why it creates destructive societies. And that is. in turn, why it is not at all based on good values but evil ones.

Iran And The War on Terror

In an indispensible article, from National Review, Michael Ledeen warns that we had better do something Iran very soon:

While most media attention has been devoted to the "diplomatic" United Nations visit of Iran’s brand new terrorist president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nezhad, the fascinating turmoil within Iran, both inside the mullahcracy and between the mullahs and the Iranian people, has gone largely unreported. There are three basic reasons for this silence:

First, because no Western government — sadly including the Bush administration — has any intention of taking serious action against Iran, even though everyone knows that Iran is directly responsible for killing thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans, Brits, and other Coalition soldiers and civilians.

Second, as a corollary to the first cause, because the whole question of Iran, which should be the central issue in the war against terrorism, has been reduced to a fatuous debate over the country’s nuclear program, and the attendant phony negotiations between the EU 3 (Britain, Germany, and France) and the mullahs. It was obvious from the outset that no good could come from these talks, because Iran will not abandon its nuclear program and neither the Europeans nor the Bush administration are prepared to do anything serious about it. The sham nuclear negotiations were in large part a way of avoiding what should be the central issue: Iran’s central role in the terror war against the West;

Finally, Western reporters in Iran are rightly afraid to report things that are damaging to the regime. They know that they can be expelled, or, as in the case of a Canadian female journalist who dared to look into the dark labrynths of contemporary Iran, brutally killed.

To take the nuclear "question" first: Anyone who believes that Iran is not on a crash program to build atomic bombs need only listen to the Iranian leaders speaking to their own people. On September 15, for example, there was a meeting at the defense ministry in Tehran, involving the defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, and the heads of the Basij and Revolutionary Guards — the bloodiest arms of the regime. Right after the meeting, a young journalist reported on the official Jam-eh-Jam TV that Mohammad-Najjar had said that it is Iran’s "absolute right to have access to nuclear arms and that we must stand up to any pressure from the international community."

Immediately following the televised report about "nuclear arms," the broadcast network was disconnected. Shortly afterwards, Minister Mohammad-Najjar appeared on a radio broadcast for an interview about the meeting and attempted to whitewash his original remarks by stating the official disinformation that Iran "has the right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program for economic and energy purposes."

The regime has been threatening to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty if the EU appeasers dared to send the nuclear question to the U.N. Security Council, and, with a frequency and intensity that warrants our attention, threatening to attack the United States. Indeed — obviously believing everything they read in the New York Times or watched on our madstream television — the mullahs celebrated both the damage done by Katrina and the alleged ineptitude of the Bush administration’s response. With an America so weak and divided, the mullahs intoned, Iran could wreak devastation on every state.

The mullahs are altogether capable of deciding that events are now running strongly in their favor, and that they should strike directly at the United States. They look at us, and they see a deeply divided nation, a president who talked a lot about bringing democratic revolution to Iran and then did nothing to support it, a military that is clearly fighting in Iraq alone, and counting the days until we can say "it’s up to the Iraqis now," and — again based on what they see in our popular press — a country that has no stomach for a prolonged campaign against the remaining terror masters in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Osama bin Laden came to similar conclusions, and ordered the events of 9/11. Why should the Iranians — who have been major supporters of the terror network ever since the 1979 revolution — not do the same?

It may well be that the mullahs are torn between wild fear of America, and a fanatical conviction that they can finally destroy the great Satan. If, as I fear, they are either very close to, or actually possess atomic bombs, it might help explain their manic moments, and enable them to tell themselves that America would not dare attack a nuclear power.

Our main enemy, the single greatest engine in support of the terror war against us, whether Sunni or Shiite, jihadi, or secular, Arab or British or Italian or Spaniard, is Iran. There is no escape from this fact. The only questions are how long it will take us to face it, how effective we will be when we finally decide to act, and how terrible the price will be for our long delay.

How To Disappear Completely
Tate Museum London Removes Artwork
For Fear of Offending Muslims

From Associated Press:

LONDON - The Tate Britain museum has removed a work made up of sacred texts, from Christianity, Judaism and Islam - torn and mounted on glass - to avoid offending religious sensibilities following the July transit bombings in London, the museum said Sunday.

The museum said it was particularly concerned that John Latham's piece "God Is Great" could upset Muslims. It pulled the work from an exhibition of Latham's art despite his objection.

"Having sought wide-ranging advice, Tate feels that to exhibit the work in London in the current sensitive climate, post July 7, would not be appropriate," the museum said in a statement.

Three of the four men suspected of carrying out the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 victims and the bombers, were young Pakistani Britons. All were Muslim, and much political debate in Britain has since focused on homegrown Islamic extremism.

"God Is Great" consists of a large sheet of glass and copies of the Quran, the Bible and Judaism's Talmud that have been cut apart, with the pieces mounted on either side of the glass to make it appear that they are embedded in it.

The museum put up a notice in the exhibition explaining the decision, including Latham's objection to it.

Latham, 84, who made his name as a member of London's 1960s artistic avant garde, said the piece, which he made 10 years ago, was not anti-Muslim.

"Tate Britain have shown cowardice over this," he told The Observer newspaper. "I think it's a daft thing to do because, if they want to help the militants, this is the way to do it."

Once in a while we are treated to an act of cowardice so outlandish that it seems almost brave to brave to have committed such an act in full view of the public. Tate Museums masterful display of dhimmitude is one such act.

If all of Western Civilization, or even just a significant portion of our citizenship, were to behave this way, we will disappear completely.

This decision by Tate Museum London rivals the killing of Theo Van Gogh, and the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie, as an assault on art and free expression.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Another Huge Defeat For The Left

They just keep racking them up, one after another. Today, the ex-Communists were ousted in the Polish election (From AP):

WARSAW, Poland - Exit polls showed Polish voters ousted the nation's scandal-prone government of ex-communists in parliamentary elections Sunday, giving a broad majority to two center-right parties that have promised tax cuts and clean government.

Prime Minister Marek Belka's defeated government had said it would withdraw Poland's troops from Iraq by Dec. 31, though it might keep some officers there as advisers. The challengers said they might be open to keeping them there longer if a "new contract" can be negotiated with the United States.

Projections based on exit polls by state television showed the socially conservative Law and Justice Party with 27.8 percent and the free-market Civic Platform with 24.1 percent. The governing Democratic Left Alliance, which has been plagued by Europe's highest unemployment rate and scandals, lagged behind with 11.2 percent.

The Astute Blogger notes:

Another BIG defeat for the Left! And this came in despite of the fact that the Left was anti-Iraq War. I guess the Poles - like the Aussies and the Brits and the Germans and the Japanese - aren't as anti-American and anti-Iraq War or as pro-Big Giovernment as the Leftists who dominate the worldwide MSM would like the public to believe.

BTW: of the major allies of Bush, ONLY Spain elected a socialist against the Iraq War and that ONLY came after the Spaniards cowered in fear and caved into al Qaeda as a direct result of the Atocha boimbings. As the poet once said: "The SHAME in Spain falls mostly on the INSANE" - (the Loony Left that is!).

Gaza Attacks Israel Attacks Gaza Attacks Israel Attacks Gaza ...

Israel kills the head of Islamic Jihad in Gaza:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel pressed forward with a broad offensive against Islamic militants on Sunday, killing an Islamic Jihad commander in a pinpoint airstrike in the Gaza Strip and rounding up more than 200 wanted Palestinians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to use "all means" against the militants.

The offensive, coming just two weeks after Israel withdrew from Gaza, followed a wave of militant rocket attacks against Israeli towns over the weekend. Israel has promised to continue with its airstrikes, arrests and a possible ground invasion until the rocket fire ceases.

"There shall be no restrictions on the use of all means to hit the terrorists and the terror organizations, their equipment and their hideouts," Sharon told his Cabinet Sunday.

Late Sunday, a top Hamas leader in Gaza said his group would halt the rocket fire.

Yeah, I'll bet.

You know they'll only halt rocket fire for a few days, and then they'll be right back at it. Israel need to consider any attack by the Palestinians in Gaza as an attack by one state on another. And, they need to retaliate accordingly.

As Roger Simon said the other day:

Look at it this way - if a major social group in Mexico was sitting in Tijuana lobbing missiles at San Diego and the Mexican government did nothing about it, would the United States have the right to respond?

The Peace Train To The End of Iran

Is the United States shoring up it's allies for it's war against Iran?

India toes US line, dumps Iran

In an overt and transparent shift in alignment and emphasis, the Congress-led UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday signed up with the United States on a touchstone issue, asking Iran to be flexible and make concessions to avoid a confrontation with Washington on the nuclear issue.

India’s blunt message, which is also aimed at allaying U.S concerns over New Delhi’s long-standing ties with Teheran, was conveyed by Prime Minister Singh to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad when the latter telephoned him on Friday. In fact, the UPA government went to unusual lengths to disclose the gist of the conversation between the two leaders in a brief press release sent to select media.

The government statement read: "The Prime Minister received a phone call from President Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the Iranian request. The (Iranian) President raised the issue about Iran's nuclear programme in the IAEA. Prime Minister advised him that Iran should consider taking a flexible position so as to avoid a confrontation. The Prime Minister repeated the necessity for Iran to make concessions to this end. India supports the resolution of all issues through discussion and consensus in the IAEA."

Seldom, if ever, has the government been so direct and candid in conveying a foreign policy shift through an episode some American policy analysts saw as a test case for India-U.S ties.

I guess so.

Iran is making their own plans:

One of the difficulties the US is facing in an eventual military confrontation with Iran is that its forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are vulnerable to counterattacks from the Iranians:

Iran prepares war plans, to strike bases incase of US mobilization

Iran has identified seven US bases in the region to attack in case there is the smallest sign of American mobilisation to its borders, and the military assets have been broadly identified to be in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, and Djibouti.

Official sources said Iran has also threatened US warships and specific military assets in the Persian Gulf in case it moved for a naval blockade, and these decisions were taken by the Iranian national security council after president Mohammad Ahmadinejad’s combative speech in the UN General Assembly, where he said that in the face of U.S. provocation, “we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue”.

Intelligence filtering out from the highest levels of the Iranian leadership suggests that it considers the present US threat more credible than any rhetoric in the past, and Iran is trying to forge a national consensus to face any military challenge from America.

The Iranian leadership is absolutely confident of prevailing over any US attack alone, and it assesses that the American military is “very tired” and cannot run a big military campaign against Iran for long, although independent analysts said the country was making a virtue of a necessity, because none of its neighbours was likely to support it against the United States.

It looks like it is becoming clear that, while the world will oppose us diplomatically, they will not lift a finger to help Iran. The truth is, the rest of the world do not want the Mullahs in power either. They oppose us because standing against the United States on "moral" groungs is the tried and true method for cowards to triangulating power.

God, I'm feeling a song comin on:

You know, I’ve been happy lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun

Oh I’ve been smiling lately,
dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be,
some day it’s going to come

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again

Now I’ve been smiling lately,
thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be,
something good has begun

(Come on! Sing it with me everybody)

Oh peace train sounding louder
Glide on the peace train
Come on now peace train

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Bubbles For Peace

Belarussian girls blow bubbles in Minsk, Belarus September 21, 2005. Several dozen young people gathered in Belarus' capital to mark the International Day of Peace. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko Wed Sep 21, 1:55 PM ET

No Jews Allowed In Jordan

Andrew Bostom reports on laws in Jordan restricting Jews from obtaining citizenship, or from even entering the country (From Dhimmi Watch):

Only a non-Jew is entitled to Jordanian citizenship, as per Section 3(3) of the Jordanian Nationality Law, No. 6 of 1954 (Official Gazette, No. 1171 of February 16, 1954, p. 105). The subsection is numbered (2) in an amendment that appeared in the Official Gazette, No. 1675 of April 1, 1963, p. 270. No further amendment is known...since King Hussein declared his "abandonment" of the West Bank on August 7, 1988, nor since the 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Further anti-Jewish discrimination appears in order No. 1282 of July 1, 1957 (attributed to the Jordan Official Gazette, No. 1282 by the Collection of Laws and Regulations [in Arabic], issued by the Jordanian Bar, Amman, Vol.1, 1957, p. 186). It exempts Syrian nationals from showing their passports on entering or leaving Jordan. They may use any identifying document, provided that 'they are not Jews'.

This comes a day after it was revealed that a recent poll shows that 100% of Jordanian citizens say that hate Jews. No wonder they have such laws.

The modern Muslim world resembles Nazi Germany in many ways. I'm glad they haven't begun rounding Jews up and killing them, but on the other hand, quite a few Arab countries have contributed directly to the Palestinian Intifada against Israel. So, they do try to kill Jews.

Maybe it's more accurate to say they just aren't as good at it. But, of course, if they had nuclear weapons it wouldn't be that difficult. This is why we can not allow Iran to get nukes.

Bomb Belt Barbie

The other day No Pasaran noted that there is a Muslim Barbie doll which comes complete with a prayer rug, in a post where they also made the prescient joke that about the bomb belt being sold separately.

Well, today Supernatural Blog brings us the news that Bomb Belt Barbie is already here just waiting to blow off the shelves.

Just pull the cord and she ... well, uh she doesn't talk, exactly. Do you think Barbie will get 72 Kens when she gets to paradise to live out her wildest fantasies? If so, she'll never blow, I guess.

What's that? Oh no, you thought I ...? No, I meant she'll never blow herself up, because Ken is such a ...

Oh well, nevermind.

Hitler: On War With America

"I understand only too well that a world-wide distance separates Roosevelt's ideas and my ideas. Roosevelt comes from a rich family and belongs to the class whose path is smoothed in the democracies. I was the only child of a small, poor family and had to fight my way by work and industry. When the Great War came Roosevelt occupied a position where he got to know only its pleasant consequences, enjoyed by those who do business while others bleed ...

As for the German nation, it needs charity neither from Mr. Roosevelt nor from Mr. Churchill ... It wants only its rights! It will secure for itself this right to live even if thousands of Churchills and Roosevelts conspire against it."

--- Hitler,
December 11, 1941

"I don't see much future for the American. It's a decayed country. And they have their racial problem, and the problem of social inequalities ... My feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance ... Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaized, and the other half Nefrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together - a country where everything is built on the dollar."

--- Hitler
January 1942

Reading the above rhetoric one is struck by it's similarity to the vitriol hurled at America these days by the likes of Bin Laden, and the Left.

Bin Laden has also called the United States a decadent and Judaized nation. Bin Laden also claims he attacks America in order to secure the rights of Muslims. However, like Hitler - whose idea of his rights was to have the Third Reich stretch across Europe - Bin Laden's idea of Muslim rights is for the Caliphate to stretch all the way to Andalusia (Spain).

And, it almost goes without saying that the rest of Hitler's critique of America sounds almost exactly like that of the Left. American democracy is a sham which makes it easy for rich people like Roosevelt to enter the halls of power. We have racial problems and inequalities. Everything is built on the dollar.

These criticisms have been ringing around the world as long as America has been here. They are the rantings of disatistfied people who lust for power rather than liberty. And let's be clear, when these "freedom fighters" claims to want "equality," they do not seek equality of opportunity, but instead call for equality of result. In other words, they want to create the results which is not in anyway different from a desire to control the entirety of the state.

Our enemy is the same menace wearing a different face. It is the pride of man, wanting to take away the choice of another to satisfy his lust for power, and ultimately destruction.

Groundhog Day At The UN

Haven't we been reading this same freaking headline, and story, for over a year now? (From Reuters):

UN condemns Iran amid nuclear bomb fears

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog passed a resolution on Saturday requiring that Iran be reported to the Security Council for failing to convince the international community that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board approved the resolution despite threats by Iran to begin enriching uranium and curtail IAEA inspections.

The resolution was drafted by Britain, France and Germany and backed by the United States, but it was watered down by the EU trio who had wanted Iran to be referred to the Council now.

With 22 votes for, one against and 12 abstentions, the outcome also highlighted the split between Western nations and others such as Russia, China and South Africa, which disagree with the EU three and Washington on how to deal with Iran.

Iran denies it is seeking atomic bombs and says its nuclear program is only for generating electricity. But it concealed its atomic fuel program from the IAEA for 18 years.

The resolution requires that Tehran be reported to the Security Council at an unspecified date, meaning Iran would probably not be referred until the IAEA board meets in November at the earliest, diplomats say.

Oop, there goes Grandma Europa, about to slip in a pile of dog crap again. I better help her across the street.

And wait, who is that distinguished looking African, with his hand out, taking money while those children are being raped? Why, isn't it? It is, it's Kofi Annan. Why don't I go suggest to him that there might be a better way he could serve the world?

And what is that racket? That endless prattle? Why it's all the Socialitst (read Communists) of the world, united in their hatred of the United States and Israel. Maybe I could teach them that Kumbaya doesn't mean "hate the Jews."

Yes, if only international politics were as nice as a Hollywood movie.

Friday, September 23, 2005

On Military Victory and Political Compromise

The Isreali concession of giving Gaza to the Palestinians is certainly a step towards full statehood for Palestine. The preponderance of world opinion seems to hope that once the Palestinians achieve statehood that political compromise and peace can be reached. Once they are a nation state they will have what they claim they want. They will have land, they will have independence. They will be accepted as a soveriegn nation. Then perhaps they will be allowed to succeed or fall on their own terms. Obtaining Gaza is one step in this direction.

Once Palestinians are given a state of their own, will they turn inward and seek to build a productive and viable society or will they continue to look outward and seek the destruction of Isreal? Unfortunately I fear I know the answer.

Careful observors of Palestinian rhetoric, commitments, and actions over the years know that statehood will not be a conclusion of the political or violent conflict, but a beginning of a new stage of agression against Isreal. Isreal knows this as well, but they must do something to alter the status quo. Isreal has decided to let the Palestinians have their land in Gaza and then seek to seal the border and wait for the inevitable Palestinian renewal of attacks. Will the continually aggressive posture by the Palestinians, no matter what concessions Isreal makes, even after limited statehood, cause world opinion to turn against Palestine? I wouldn't count on it...but we can hope for the best. Unfortunately, it is likely just a matter of time before Isreal will be called upon to defend its very existence yet again, and at that point, Isreal will likely defeat any agression by any state of Palestine (likely with an unduly high cost to its very professional military).

If or when Isreal does defeat the duly organized state of Palestine will the Palestinians then be willing to accept political compromise? Will the world then accept Isreal's right to impose a "just peace" upon the state of Palestine? Or will the larger world finally step in and support efforts to outlaw and eliminate, by force, the radical ideologies and organizations of Hamas? Who knows how a potential war between two nation states would play out. No one knows if such a conflict would alter the preponderance of world opinion regarding this longstanding conflict. Unfortunately History only gives us a limited glimpse of the potential results. However, one lesson of history is that...

Often there can be no political compromise without decisive military victory.

Unfortunately human nature is fallen and fixed. Often, human, aggression will not end until some nations are brought to a place of humilty and utter dispair. Some people, some nations, will simply not accept compromise until their very survival as a people is in doubt. This crucial breaking of national will unfortunately only comes after large scale devastation, destruction, and massive loss of civilian and military lives. But in this fallen world too often such is the only path to a just peace.

German Fascists would not accept political compromise, or a just peace, until their country was devastated by fire bombings, war, civilian deaths, and ultimately occupation. Japanese imperialism would not yeild until put under the threat of total nuclear annihilation. Southern slaveholding secessionists in America would not accept a just peace until Atlanta lay in ashes and their people were left destitute and in fear for their lives.

Perhaps the unique geo-ethnic-religious dimensions of the Isreali-Palestinian conflict make it deeper and more complex than the above examples and thus not a good model for comparison. Perhaps the defeat of a duly formed Palestinian state will not provide the path to a just peace. Perhaps world opinion will never accept an Isreali-Palestinian war as a battle of equals, thus Isreal will never be vindicated through such a confrontation. How deep does the world's well of ambivilance and hatred of Isreal run? We may never know.

Furthermore, one might argue that Isreal has already achieved military victory on several occasions, but such victories have not achieved any lasting peace with the Palestinians. This is true, but through such decisive defensive strength they have achieved limited detente with the other nation states they did engage, such as Egypt and Jordan. Conversely, Palestinians have never had their national will embodied in the form of a nation state that is recognized by the international community. As a result any conflicts with Isreal have been seen as drastically asymmetrical. The morally reprehensable attacks on Isreali civilians have never been seen by the world as acts of war by a nation state, but merely desparate lunges by a desparate people. By hiding in the shadows of Palestine's nebulous political existance, Hamas and others have been able to refine and spread their the cancerous ideology without accountability. They have never been required to live up to accepted standards of international behavior and their culture of death has been allowed to spread unabated. The World's condescending paternalism that does not expect better of Palestinians is simultaneously demeaning to Palestinians, enables Palestinian terror and is destructive to Isreal's ability to defend itself. In the end, Hamas and the like have never had occassion to be faced directly "mano y mano" and thus ultimately to be brought fully to their knees. Isreal has never had a nation-state of Palestine to confront and subdue...for better or worse, now at least in Gaza, the Palestenians are forming something of the sort.

Do not misunderstand me. I wish and ache for peace in that region. I hope and pray that some semblance of order can be imposed in the new Palestinian territories and that reasonable leadership will somehow rise amongst the Palestinian people. I know there are good decent moderate Palestinians. But I also know decent Palestinians are weak, powerless, and in fear of the ruthless violence and dark hatred of those with power like Hamas. Somehow those hateful ideologies must be cut out of Palestinian culture like a cancer, but that is not easily done. I do not wish a war between Isreal and Palestine, I do not wish to see more bloodshed. I wish Hamas and the like would lay down their arms and abandon their desire to drive the "Jews" into the sea. But while I hope for the best, I also realize that we must ultimately learn at the feet of History, and through most of human history such deep seeded conflicts are only resolved when one nation is ultimately subdued and humbled by the sword. I wish things worked differently, I wish human nature were not so corruptable, but alas it is...

Will a true, military victory by one nation state over another finally open the door for a political solution? It has before, but as we all know this conflict is like no other and speculation about any future solutions is likely to be errant and firm conclusions elusive. But in the end we must seek to understand our world and we must hope that progress will be made, hopefully without more bloodshed and misery...unfortunately while History is our teacher, she is brutally honest, and she can often be a very stern schoolmaster...

Poll Says 100% of Jordanians Hate Jews

From The Washington Times, via Jihad Watch:

According to a July poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on global attitudes toward religious groups, 100 percent of Jordanian respondents said they either had a "very unfavorable" or "somewhat unfavorable" view of Jews.

You might remember, a couple months back a similar poll was conducted in Lebanon which revealed the exact same thing. Anti-Semitism is monolithic in the Muslim world. Why? Because the Koran teaches it.

The Progress of Democracy In China Is Pragmatic

From the Asia Times, via Fjordman:

HONG KONG - Over the past 16 years, the Chinese leadership has tried its best to dodge democratic reform while looking for alternative measures to stamp out rampant corruption and increase government efficiency. However, it seems to have recently come to the conclusion that there is just no way other than democratic reform.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has indicated that China will institute a program of democratic reforms, and Premier Wen Jiabao has given more detail, pledging to introduce direct elections at the township level "within a couple of years".

Hu and Wen chose to make their announcements during international events shorthly before Hu's trip last week to the United Nations summit meeting in New York. This could be a sign that both are eager to project a reformist image to the international community as part of efforts to defuse the theory of a "China threat" from what is still officially a communist government.

"China will press for democratic progress, unswervingly reestablish democracy, including direct elections," the premier, who favors mild reform, told a news conference prior to the 8th EU-China summit on September 5.

"If we Chinese people can manage a village, I believe they can manage a town in several years. This system [of direct voting] will be realized step by step."

Visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who sat next to Wen, was reportedly "shocked" when he heard the premier's remarks. Blair shouldn't be surprised. What Wen is talking about is only a mild democratic reform package.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

My Midlife Crisis

You've gotta be empty to accept God, but one thing I've learned recently is, if you don't empty yourself, the world will do it for you.

You wake up one day and you find the only thing worth living for is to give something to someone who is in need. All else is so empty, it is a pain unto death.

Agnus Dei

Lamb of God, Who Takes Away the Sins of the World
Have Mercy On Us

Aleluia
Aleluia
For the Lord God Almighty Reigns

Holy, Holy, Holy
Are you Lord God Almighty
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
You are Holy

Why Iraq?
Whither Saudi Arabia and Iran?

To everything there is a season, so I guess this tis the season of Belmont Club:

After Operation Enduring Freedom drove the Taliban from Afghanistan some analysts asked why America chose Iraq, and not Saudi Arabia or Syria, for a regime takedown. For example, Jeffrey Sachs wrote in August, 2003:

Within hours of the attack, the White House apparently understood that senior Saudi intelligence officials were probably involved and that 15 out of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. They were no doubt stunned to realise that parts of the vast Saudi royal family were not only corrupt, but also deeply intertwined with anti-American terror and extremist fundamentalism. ... a substitute had to be found for the US military bases in Saudi Arabia. Like Saudi oil, the bases too were now under threat, especially because the US presence in the Saudi kingdom was known to be the principal irritant for al-Qaeda. ... the Bush White House needed to issue a powerful threat to the Saudi leadership: one more false step and you're finished. Attacking the next-door neighbour was no doubt judged to be quite persuasive.

But perhaps the strategic rationale for choosing Iraq versus Saudi Arabia consisted in that Iraq lay along a major fault line in the Muslim world, not simply with respect to religion, but in the case of the Kurds, ethnicity as well. It was the one place where America was guaranteed to find local allies whichever way it turned; it was the last place where the population could easily put aside their differences to oppose the United States. And if the objective were to set the region on its ears, here was the pillar in temple of Dagon around which everything could be sent crashing down.

Palestinian Postage Stamp
In Tribute To Jacques Chirac

Hamas To Convert Synagogue Into Weapons Museum

From the New York Sun:

WASHINGTON - Emboldened by Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank, Hamas yesterday announced its plan to turn a synagogue in Netzarim into a museum that would display weapons employed by the terrorist group's members against Israeli civilians.

Charles at Little Green Footballs comments:

Where the hell is the world’s outrage about this? Newsweek prints a false rumor that a Koran was dunked in a toilet, and the entire planet goes nuts. Hamas announces that they’re going to turn a Jewish house of worship into a memorial to mass murder ... and the silence is absolutely deafening.

Yes, where? This is one more thing the world ought to be outraged about, and yet they continue to blame the Jews for the Middle East conflict.

Hamas are literally Nazis.

Click here if that seems like an extreme comment. Because it is not in the least extreme.

(Sigh. Deep breath.)

Heh

Heh.

What The Hell Is Up With Germany?

Germany had an election the other day and no one seems to have won. Jim Rose explains:

The German parliament is called the Bundestag. It currently has 617+ seats (this often flucuates for reasons that will be covered later), thus a political party or a coalition of parties need to have a little more than 300 seats in order to rule.

The Chancellor is chosen by a majority vote of the Bundestag, much the way our House of Representatives elects a Speaker, thus if one party doesn't win more than 300 seats, political deals become vital. So, here's what happened in this weekend's election:

Christian Democrats (Merkel): 225 seats
Socialist Democrats (Schroeder): 222 seats
Free Democrats (Free-Market Capitalists): 61
Green Party (Environmental Wackos): 55 seats
Left Party (Commies and extreme nutjobs): 54 seats

So as you can see, no one party got over 300 seats, so a coalition must be formed.

The Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats get along and would gladly form one, but that's only 286. The Socialist Democrats and the Greens like each other, but together they only make 277, and all four parties agree on one thing: they'd rather die than work in a coalition with the Left Party.

Ah, ok. So, aren't you glad you live in a country that has a two-party system? One of the benefits of the two-party system is that compromises have to be worked out BEFORE the elections. The party which would want to rule has to state who they are BEFORE they are elected.

Isn't that a keen idea?

Over there in Germany, they elect a party, and then after-the-fact, the Party defines itself through a series of negotiated compromises with people you may or may not agree with. The ruling party has no autonomy. And, in a multi-party system, the ruling party rarely has a mandate, which of course, many times leads to gridlock

The problem with multi-Party Parliamentary systems is that too many wackos get into positions of power. For instance, in one district of Germany, the neo-Nazi Party has won several seats. In fact (little remembered fact here) that's how Hitler gained power in the first place. He didn't win a a majority in a two-party system. He rose to Chancellor of Germany after winning just 35% of the vote in German elections.

In other words, he did not have the support of anywhere near half of the German people. You can understand why that is dangerous. Ten percent of Americans believe Elvis is alive. I'm guessing if you ran on the Elvis ticket, and threw in free pizza and a strong anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, you would be able to clear 35% of the vote in America, no matter who you were, or what the rest of your platform stated.

Now, I'm being absurd, but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, back to present day Germany and the pile of dog crap they slipped in. With the "results" of the election being what they are, Merkel's Party will have to form what is ironically known as a "Grand Coalition" with Schroeder's Party. Oh boy. That would be like George Bush having to share the White House with John Kerry.

And the problem is, both Schroeder and Merkel say they ought to be Chancellor. Them's some big huge shrivelled up testicles on that guy Schroeder to think he ought to have the Chancellorship when he didn't win a majority. But, hey, in Germany, his claim actually makes sense.

Check this crap out (from GeoBandy):

In an eerie echo of performances by recent Democrat presidential election losers Al Gore and John Kerry, leftist German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose Social Democrats were defeated in Germany’s national elections last week, is insisting that he actually won and should still be the chancellor.

BERLIN - A belligerent performance by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a TV talk show after German elections, which his party narrowly lost, has drawn widespread criticism and fuelled alarm the country could be lurching into a political crisis.

Like most European nations, Germany has a parliamentary system in which the Chancellor, the equivalent of a Prime Minister, is chosen from the party with a parliamentary majority. When, as is the case in the German election, no single party wins a majority, a coalition government is formed by agreement among parties with enough members to total a majority.

Schroeder, however, is demanding that votes be counted differently than they have always been counted and insisting that, once recounted as he demands, his party will have won the election. (Sound familiar?) Schroeder’s performance on German television was, to put it mildly, surreal:

A grinning Schroeder first accused the TV moderators of having "an intellectual problem" and not being objective in their reporting and questioning.

Turning to a grim-looking Merkel he said: "Do you seriously think my party will accept this offer for talks with Frau Merkel? ... Under her leadership she will never get a coalition with my party."

What the hell does the dumb "Frau" think, she's supposed to be in power?

Islamic Jihadis Leaving Iraq
Going to France

More evidence that we seem to be coming closer to winning the war in Iraq comes from an unlikely source; a French judge who seems to have it in for America:

PARIS - Islamic extremists are returning to France from Iraq's battlegrounds with the skills and desire to carry out attacks in Europe, a top anti-terror judge said Thursday — warning that Europe needs a better-coordinated effort to face the threat.

The Iraq war is changing the face of militancy in France, investigating judge Jean-Francois Ricard said in an interview with The Associated Press. As with some of the suspects in the London bombings, some French Islamic radicals with violent intentions are unknown to authorities, he said.

Islamic militants from France have long participated in armed struggles and received battle training around the globe, in places such as Chechnya, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, Ricard said. But only rarely have such militants sought to bring violence back with them, he said.

"I have confirmation ... of this return (from Iraq) with action targeting our countries. We've been starting to see it this year" and in 2004, Ricard said. "It's very worrying."

"The return of some individuals is starting: They're taking round trips. You can't think that once in Iraq, there's no return," he said. "It is not true."

He declined to say how many French citizens could be involved, but said authorities must keep close watch over any potential suspects and their collaborators.

They wouldn't be returning to France if they weren't giving up in Iraq.

Belmont Club Is Uproariously Funny

Wretchard, not a guy I would usually associate with mirth, actually had me laughing out loud this morning. First he has an analysis of the Battle of Tal-Afar as told by Time Magazine. Wretchard notes that, while the Time article contains many negative phrases about the war in Iraq ("elusive and inexhaustible enemy""success" is "elusive""inexhaustible enemy emboldened by the US presence""gradual . . . erosion" in public support), it is almost singularly lacking in specifics.

Wretchard concludes that if a future historian were to rely on this article to tell the story of the Battle of Tal-Afar, he would believe America lost, and would, thus, write something like this:

Two groups of men fought in a place called Tal-Afar about 3,532 years ago. One group of men, called 'insurgents', soundly defeated another group called Americans, and their allies the Kurds, but for reasons unclear in the manuscript fragments, the insurgents evacuated the battlefield although they could hardly be pressed by the Americans, who were apparently a people who frequently cursed, yelled and ran from place to place in fear.

Heh.

Rushdie To Muslims
"Speak Up Now"

Salman Rushdie calls on Muslims not to allow their religion to be hijacked by extremists:

LONDON: Novelist Salman Rushdie has urged the "silent majority" of Muslims to speak up to prevent their culture being hijacked by extremists.

"If it goes on being silent, then its culture and religion will be hijacked by the extremists and it will be very difficult to go on saying 'that's not us.' ... You've got to speak up,"' Rushdie said in an interview with the BBC World Service.

Rushdie said he believed the majority would speak out.

"Maybe it takes something as horrifying as the bombings in London to make people break ranks," Rushdie said, referring to the July 7 attacks in which four suicide bombers killed 52 subway and bus passengers in London.

"But I think there's a lot of evidence that there's a great deal of soul-searching and rethinking going on," he said.

I hope he's right. Thus far, all I see changing after the London bombings is a lot more Westerners are angry. Muslims don't seem to have changed their attitude a whole lot that I can see.

Why Insane People Should Not Have Nukes
Iran Parades Missiles
Warns "Death To America"
"Israel Must Be Wiped Off The Face of the Earth"

From Agence French Presse:

TEHRAN (AFP) - Under pressure over its nuclear programme, Iran flaunted its ballistic missiles and warned any nation considering attacking the Islamic republic would face a "destructive and fiery" response.

And, if you think that's bad, get a load of this:

On show at an annual military parade on Thursday were thousands of troops and a range of hardware including six of Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missiles -- which sported banners saying "Death to America", "We will crush America under our feet" and " Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth".

They're just screaming, "Please come and kill me," aren't they?

Europe Died In Auschwitz

An article from Spanish journalist, Sebastian Villar Rodriguez. From Front Page Magazine:

I was walking along Raval (Barcelona) when all of a sudden I understood that Europe died with Auschwitz.

We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims! We burnt in Auschwitz the culture, intelligence and power to create.

We burnt the people of the world, the one who is proclaimed the chosen people of God. Because it is the people who gave to humanity the symbolic figures who were capable of changing history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud...) and who is the origin of progress and wellbeing.

We must admit that Europe, by relaxing its borders and giving in under the pretext of tolerance to the values of a fallacious cultural relativism, opened it's doors to 20 million Muslims, often illiterates and fanatics that we could meet, at best, in places such as Raval, the poorest of the nations and of the ghettos, and who are preparing the worst, such as the 9/11 and the Madrid bombing and who are lodged in apartment blocs provided by the social welfare.

We also have exchanged culture with fanaticism, the capacity to create with the will to destroy, the wisdom with the superstition.

We have exchanged the transcendental instinct of the Jews, who even under the worst possible conditions have always looked for a better peaceful world, for the suicide bomber. We have exchanged the pride of life for the fanatic obsession of death. Our death and that of ourchildren.

What a grave mistake that we made!!!

When I visited France a few years ago, the impression I was left with was a country which had stopped in time. There was a funereal silence over the city of Paris, an air of oppession, not of government, but of spirit. People talked in hush tones, as if afraid to wake the dead.

It was the oddest sensation. My wife noticed it too. Our comments to friends were, of course, met with incredulity, because it is common to be charmed by Paris, to find it "romantic." But, I am quite sure that we were right. Why else would one hear songs from the fifties played everywhere throughout the city? They are still stuck in their Maurice Chevallier/Charles DeGaulle heyday, because that's when they died.

Europe did die as the result of Auschwitz. I believe that. Auschwitz dealt Europe a death blow, and it took about twenty years for the spirit to be extinguished. The soul of Europe is dead, but the people live on. And there is thriving culture there, but it has little to do with Europe. It is the culture of their immigrants, and that which they import from America.

Europe can use these things to build on, but they can not go back to what they were.

Ted Turner Proclaims Himself
The Center of the Moral Universe

Yesterday, as I was driving across the Arizona desert, I was listening to the Dennis Prager show on the radio and he was playing excerpts from a Wolf Blitzer interview with Ted Turner. The interview was so bizarre you have to wonder if Turner has entered the dementia stage of some undisclosed illness, or something.

The subject was North Korea. Turner said, he doesn't think Kim Jong Il is a bad a guy as everybody makes him out to be. He said, people said similar things about the Soviets, but he looked them in the eye and he knew they were good people.

Wolf Blitzer countered with something like, "Well, North Korea is one of the worst states in the world. Kim Jong Il is an evil man."

Turner replied that he couldn't be sure Kim Jong Il was evil because he hadn't met him. Although, he had seen pictures of him, and he looked just fine by Ted Turner's standards.

So, in other words, Ted Turner is able to make moral judgements about people based upon the way they look at him, which the rest of us are not able to make based upon the facts. Until Ted Turner actually gets to meet Kim Jong Il face to face, all the rest of us are just going to have to wait to find out whether or not he is really a bad guy or not.

I guess we can rest easier that Turner has seen photographs of the Il one, and he looks to be ok. But, you know, I think we had better get Turner on a plane over to NoKo pretty soon here, because as you can see from the post below, Kim Jong Il might be ready to pop.

If anyone finds the video of this bizarre interview, please let me know. I'd love to put up a link.

Why Insane People
Should Not Have Nuclear Weapons

Two days ago, North Korea agreed to relinquish it's nuclear program. Now, they claim the U.S. is plotting a nuclear attack on their country, so now they are sitting at the negotiating table and threatening America:

In a second day of bluster after its disarmament accord, North Korea accused the United States on Wednesday of planning a nuclear attack and warned it could retaliate.

North Korea "is fully ready to decisively control a pre-emptive nuclear attack with a strong retaliatory blow," the communist nation's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an English-language commentary carried by the state Korean Central News Agency.

At six-nation talks in Beijing on Monday, North Korea promised to give up its nuclear weapons program in return for economic aid and security assurances.

Since then, however, the North's rhetoric has underscored its unpredictability and cast doubt on its commitment to the accord hammered out with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States after four rounds of contentious negotiations stretching over two years.

Despite the tough statements, none of the North's negotiating partners said they expected a breakdown in the disarmament talks, which are scheduled to resume in November when the parties meet in the Chinese capital to begin the hard work of implementing the agreement.

North Korea makes the Mullahs of Iran look sane, by comparison. But their odd rantings about the Jews and the Great Satan tells us all we need to know about their mental health. We can not allow such people to have nuclear weapons.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Eyes Wide Open
Romney Says Wiretap Mosques
Islamists Get Very, Very Angry
Romney Says, "So What?"

From LGF:

BOSTON — A coalition of Muslim and civil libertarian organizations Friday demanded that Gov. Mitt Romney apologize for his comments last week, when he suggested that some mosques should be wiretapped.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts delivered a letter, which was co-signed by 21 other organizations, saying that Romney’s comments characterized Muslims living in the U.S. as potential or actual terrorists. “Governor Romney, the safety of Massachusetts is built upon the trust all residents — citizens and immigrants — have in their government,” the letter stated. “Your willingness to profile and scapegoat an entire community based on religious affiliation only serves to erode trust and increase fear.”

Romney said in a Wednesday speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that U.S. counterterrorism efforts need to be focused on tracking Muslims that come into the U.S.

“How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who’ve come from terrorist-sponsored states? Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?” the governor said, according to a transcript provided by his press aides.

He continued, “How about people in settings, mosques for instance, that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror? Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what’s going on? Are we seeing who’s coming in? Are we seeing who’s coming out? Are we eavesdropping, carrying out surveillance on those individuals from places that sponsor domestic terror?”

While the Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee said Romney’s remarks were “dangerous” and asked him to retract them, Romney told reporters that he stood by his comments.

“When it comes to protecting our citizens, there is no place for political correctness,” Romney said at an unrelated press conference.

“We should be doing more in terms of intelligence and counterterrorism in the state to protect ourselves from terrorists. We spend a lot of our resources thinking about response, but response can’t protect us. We have to be able to prevent attacks.”

Romney said that if U.S. intelligence officials have information that a person is “preaching messages of hate and terror,” then there should be sufficient grounds to conduct surveillance on them in their places of worship.

“Surely, we have to recognize that some of this has gone on in mosques in the past,” Romney said. “Most mosques are teaching doctrines of love and consideration, but there have been places of extremism where certain teachers have been identified as having been involved in or led to terrorist attacks. Let’s not pretend that’s not the case.”

Camelback Mountain

I've been in Phoenix on business the past few days. I did alot of driving around. Man, is Arizona ever a beautiful state. The immensity of the landscape is breaktaking, and the surreality of the rock formations is sometimes unnerving.

One can't help think about the first pioneers of early America riding across these lands in wagons. They must have thought the land both blessed and haunted.

Anyway, every once in a while I have to trot out my liberal roots for show, so today I've got to comment on something that's going on out in Phoenix, which is just a travesty in my opinion. Many conservatives might disagree with me here, so I'll try to make my case well.

:)

Here's the thing; good ole' Donald Trump (in many ways a man to be admired) wants to build a 14-story hotel on Camelback Road, right smack in front of Camelback Mountain. That sounds like a great idea. It will bring revenue into the city, give people jobs, and help tourism. Great.

The problem is the hotel he wants to build is 100 feet taller than existing regulations allow. The city council is considering it, and apparently the issue will be decided in the next few days.

The answer ought to be, "Mr. Trump, your hotel idea is fired."

Here's why: Camelback Mountain is beautiful. It is a tourist attraction in itself.

Camelback Road is the Rodeo Drive of the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. There is already ample shopping, dining, and hotels along Camelback Drive. The restriction on the height of buildings is there so that the view of the mountain is not obscured, thus destroying the tourism value of the area. In other words, by building this tall structure Trump wants to milk the golden goose and kill it at the same time.

Now, that's kind of an extreme statement, right? It's only one 14-story hotel, after all.

But, the truth is, it's always just one hotel, and then another, and then another. No, no, no, no, no.

You know what this reminds me of? A few years ago I was meeting with a wealthy man in Napa Valley. He was a developer. During the course of the meeting he complained to me about how the city of Napa was anti-business. I asked him what he meant. He said they have too many restrictions on land use. Land can not be broken down into areas of less than 10 acres. So, how is one to start a variety of businesses in Napa?

Well, the thing is, Napa is Napa because of it's restrictions. It is wine country, with beautiful vineyards, and it sports a wine industry which is the talk of the world. It's wineries bring big tourism. People flock to Napa by the tens of thousands to go wine-tasting for the weekend.

Understand, Napa is just a little sleepy town. Napa is no Phoenix-Scottsdale. It is not a huge swath of land. So, the tourism is disproportionate to the area already.

The point is this developer and Donald Trump are doing what developers do. They look at a piece of land and envision what value it has, and what they can do with it. But, the problem is, the value of the land is based upon what the land is before the developer does his magic.

Land development is like interior decorating. Sometimes developers, or decorators do a wonderful job and sometimes they ruin the place. Anytime a developer or decorator comes in and wants to make structural changes to an already picture-perfect living space, you know they are motivated more by ego, than by an instinct to improve.

Say no Phoenix.

How Do You Spot An Anti-Semite?

The following story is a test. Those who maintain we should believe this, are anti-Semites.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Hamas could one day amend a charter calling for the destruction of Israel and hold negotiations with the Jewish state, a political leader of the Islamic militant group in the West Bank said.

“The charter is not the Koran,” Mohammed Ghazal told Reuters in an interview in Nablus on Tuesday.

“Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions ... The realities are different.”

So, as time goes on and Hamas makes more and more overtures in this direction, you will know that those who work with Hamas towards their new "reality, are the equivalent of Nazi collaborators.

Oh, and if you think my saying they are the equivalent of Nazi collaborators is extreme, then here is an excerpt from the Hamas Charter:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

You see, there really is no doubt; that which animates Hamas is the same thing that animated Hitler. So, it is not at all unfair to say that anyone who works with Hamas for "peace" is the equivalent of a Nazi collaborator.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

The Secret War:
Evidence We Are Winning In Iraq

From an interview with Colonel Robert Brown, Commander of The 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Multinational Force-Northwest, via Belmont Club:

Q How is the state of the insurgency different today than when you arrived to start your mission?

COL. BROWN: There's a significant difference from when we got here last October. Last October, we faced a foreign fighter that was very well-trained. I remember watching attacks out -- we had an attack that involved about 60 foreign fighters in a pretty complex ambush. By complex I mean three or four forms of engagement. They'll hit you with an IED, small arms, mortars -- a very complex attack. We saw that regularly in November and December. We also defeated -- in one of those fights, we killed 40 terrorists, and we did not lose anybody, and we defeated them every time they tried to do that against us. We really worked hard and aggressively at getting out. I mean, we conducted some 2,100 cordon and searches, and thousands of aggressive offensive operations -- 18 attacks a day against the insurgents back in that time period. I remember watching an attack and seeing the insurgents move against us, and I had to look and say, gee, are those our guys or their guys because they're moving very well around buildings. Now, that was November and December. What we saw is that that's faded away very quickly, as we captured and killed. And we killed some 550 enemy and captured over 3,000.

And as we got to February and March, we saw a completely different foreign fighter. We've captured Libyans. We've captured Saudi, Yemenis, Algerians. And many of these -- one Libyan that we captured about a month and a half ago -- he was clearly brainwashed. And he was told that, you know, what was going on here and brainwashed to come and be a -- what he thought was -- he was going to be a foreign fighter against this crusade against the Muslim religion. He got here. He saw that was not correct. They told he was going to be a suicide martyr. He said he didn't want to do that. When we happened to capture him, several other foreign fighters and the cell leader that was orchestrating them, he was very happy to talk to us about what he had seen and what they had done.

And very interesting that younger foreign fighter that we're seeing now -- very poorly trained. We would call them more like RPGs for hire. And we believe it's the -- we know that the leadership is severely disrupted. Again, from -- about 25 percent of the attacks were very complex prior to elections, as I described. Now we're down to five percent are complex. And we're at the lowest number of attacks by far over the last three months. And that is -- clearly the foreign network is disrupted. The leadership is severely disrupted. We captured Abu Talha, the number-two al Qaeda leader in the north of Iraq. And right after that we got Abu Bara, Madhi Musa (sp), Abu Zab (sp), the next six leaders that would step up and take over. Nobody's taken over now. It's not a very popular position because if they step up, they get captured or killed. And so they're really disrupted, totally different.

The other thing -- the other huge change is the population. And in a counterinsurgency, of course, the terrorists don't have to -- the people don't have to love them; they just have to remain neutral and not turn them in. And when we got here, the people were intimidated, and they were neutral. Now they are turning them in. We'd like to call it, you know, the terrorists swim in a sea of anonymity, and that sea has been taken away from them.

And for example, when we got here, they could fire mortars, and they did that. Three hundred mortar attacks a month was the average for the six months prior to us getting here. As we got the population more and more on the side of their government and their security forces, as they saw how the terrorists offered no hope for the future and their government did, they started turning these guys in. And in the beginning, a guy would fire a mortar; in a city of 2 million, it's pretty hard to track him down. Well, we've captured over 142 mortar systems, and now the average is six attacks a month in the entire province, from 300 to six.

And just a couple of weeks ago, when they did fire a mortar, the people told what they looked like, what their license plate was. In one case, they knew one of the individuals. The Iraqi army went out, tracked them right down, arrested them, and there you have it -- much different from that prior to elections, when, you know, they wouldn't say anything. It was -- we didn't see anything, and it was very hard to stop this.

Heh.

UN Says Palestinians Better Off Economically
Than Other Arab States

Melanie Phillips analyzes the UN Development Prgrams Annual Report:

On the global political stage the UN is Israel’s implacable foe, helping create the impression that the country is grinding the Palestinians into abject poverty and destitution – that is, when it not committing genocide against them. Leaving aside the inconvenient detail that genocide wipes out whole populations while the numbers of Palestinians have actually been increasing, official data published this month by the UN gives the lie to its own propaganda about the lack of Palestinian well-being. The UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2005 is a massive tome. But chapter five which deals with violent conflict makes it clear that it was the second intifada beginning in Sept. 2000 which reversed a small trend towards improvement on the Human Development Index and resulted ‘in a sharp deterioration in living standards and life chances,’ more than doubling the poverty rate. Israel is commonly blamed for this deterioration. But as the report observes: ‘...violent conflict is one of the surest and fastest routes to the bottom of the HDI table’. And that conflict was started and promulgated by the Palestinians.

What is even more revealing is that in tables on p 220, the Occupied Palestinian Territories are in the medium cluster with an HDI of 0.729 – a better standard of living than the Arab states overall which have an HDI of 0.679. On the Human Poverty Index, the territories are ranked seventh on a list of 103 developing countries, with other Arab countries ranked below them. Saudi Arabia is ranked 32; Syria is 29; Iran is 36; Egypt is 55; liberated South Africa (all those who accuse Israel of ‘apartheid’, please note) is 56.

Now what is the one factor which the Palestinians have that other Arab states do not have, the factor which lifts their living standards above even those Arab states which have massive oil wealth? It is their close economic relationship with Israel, both in terms of the jobs that Israel provides for them and the massive amounts of aid that Israel pours in to the territories. And what has been the Palestinians’ response to this country which is so crucial to their living standards? Why, to murder its citizens in great numbers and try to destroy it altogether. And what has been the outcome of that genocidal campaign against Israel, apart from murdering large numbers of Israelis? Why, to put Palestinian development into reverse.

Is this the biggest self-inflicted wound in history?

There's that old saying, "Don't suicide bomb the hand that feeds.

Simon Wiesenthal Dead at 96

From Associated Press:

VIENNA, Austria - Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died Tuesday. He was 96.

Wiesenthal, who helped find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the policeman who arrested Anne Frank, died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

"I think he'll be remembered as the conscience of the Holocaust. In a way he became the permanent representative of the victims of the Holocaust, determined to bring the perpetrators of the greatest crime to justice," Hier told The Associated Press.

A survivor of five Nazi death camps, Wiesenthal changed his life's mission after the war, dedicating himself to tracking down Nazi war criminals and to being a voice for the 6 million Jews who died during the onslaught. He himself lost 89 relatives in the Holocaust.

Wiesenthal spent more than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals, speaking out against neo-Nazism and racism, and remembering the Jewish experience as a lesson for humanity. Through his work, he said, some 1,100 Nazi war criminals were brought to justice.

"When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it," he once said.

Pakistani President Musharraf
Reaches Out To Jews

From Daniel Pipes at Front Page Magazine:

When the Malaysian currency tanked in late 1997, the country’s then-prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, said he had “definite information” that Jews were the cause. “We do not want to say that this is a plot by the Jews, but in reality it is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge, and coincidentally [financier George] Soros is a Jew.” Mahathir went on to say that just as “the Jews would rob Palestinians…this is what they are doing to our country.”

Mahathir’s anti-Semitism is so typical of discourse in the Muslim world over the last generation that I have found an “uneasy parallel” between it and Nazi Germany of the 1930s.

This background makes clear the historic nature of a speech by the president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, to the American Jewish Congress on September 17. More coincidentally, he, too, singled out George Soros as a symbol of Jewish financial prowess, but very differently.

Lauding Jewish groups in the United States, Musharraf remarked that they “were at the forefront in opposing the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia,” adding: “I am told that the largest contributor to the Bosnian cause was the Jewish-American businessman and philanthropist, George Soros.”

Most news coverage of the Musharraf speech focused on the prospect of Pakistan opening diplomatic relations with Israel (Reuters: “Pakistan leader urges U.S. Jews to help make peace”), but what is potentially of lasting importance about the Musharraf address – beyond the mere fact of its being delivered to a Jewish organization – was the president’s respectful, accurate, and constructive comments about Jews.

He began with the important observation that Jews and Muslims “have many similarities and few divergences in their faith and culture,” then listed three specifics: belief in the oneness of God, shared ways of greeting, and a common phrase in the Talmud and Koran. And Moses, he pointed out, is the prophet most often referred to in the Koran.

Musharraf noted how “our experiences and histories intertwine” and then elaborated on what he called the two communities’ “rich and very long” history of interaction. He mentioned the “shining examples” of Cordova, Baghdad, Istanbul, and Bukhara, the golden period of Muslim Spain, and the joint experience of the Spanish Inquisition. Generalizing from the inquisition, he correctly asserted that Jews and Muslims “have not only lived together and shared prosperity, but also suffered together.”

Against this background, Musharraf portrayed the period since 1945 as an aberration. As I have also noted, 1945 was the pivotal year when Jews stopped leaving Christendom for Islamdom and reversed directions. The past six decades, in other words, broke a pattern of thirteen centuries. Musharraf resisted ascribing blame for this gulf but limited himself to noting that the problems occurred during the “bloodiest century in human history.”

He commended American Jews for their role in protecting Bosnian Muslims and praised them for offering “legal and other assistance” to Muslims in the United States. “I wish to acknowledge and appreciate this,” he said. Musharraf also flattered Jews as “probably the most distinguished and influential community” in the United States. Looking to the future, he emphasized the role of compassion in repairing Muslim-Jewish relations.

Properly to appreciate the significance of this speech means hearing it with Muslim ears. It may not sound like much, for example, that he referred to the Holocaust as the Jewish people’s “greatest tragedy,” but the profusion of Muslim Holocaust deniers, including Mahmoud Abbas, makes this an important statement.

Musharraf’s speech can significantly affect Muslim views of Jews only if it is part of a larger effort. So, in the question period, I asked him if he would take steps to ensure that his vision of Jews be spread. He admitted to having not thought this through but on the spot there, in public, in view of a bank of television cameras, he made a commitment to do precisely that.

Musharraf’s reaching out to Jews is part of a much broader project of developing what he calls “Enlightened Moderation” in Islam. Although until now more talk than action, even the talk is a major achievement. Sadly, only Musharraf and one other Muslim leader, King Abdullah II of Jordan, are articulating a moderate version of Islam, but at least those two are doing so.

For his efforts, Musharraf deserves appreciation and encouragement.

(Pastorius comment): Yeah, he sure does. It's actually amazing that Musharraf would choose to make such a stand. There have been multiple attempts on his life over the past few years. A couple of them were rather close calls. He's either a very brave and visionary man, or this is part of a larger strategic plan the goal of which I can not imagine.

Monday, September 19, 2005

North Korea Agrees To
Drop It's Nuke Program

From Associated Press:

BEIJING - North Korea agreed Monday to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, a breakthrough that marked a first step toward disarmament after two years of six-nation talks.

The chief U.S. envoy to the talks praised the development as a "win-win situation" and "good agreement for all of us." But he promptly urged Pyongyang to make good on its promises by ending operations at its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

"What is the purpose of operating it at this point?" said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. "The time to turn it off would be about now."

Despite the deal's potential to help significantly ease friction between the North and the United States after years of false starts and setbacks, Hill remained cautious.

"We have to see what comes in the days and weeks ahead," he said.

President Bush called it a positive step, but he expressed some skepticism about whether North Korea will live up to its promises.

"They have said — in principle — that they will abandon their weapons programs," Bush said. "And what we have said is, `Great. That's a wonderful step forward.' But now we've got to verify whether that happens."

Negotiation backed up by the threat of force. As Vito Corleone said, "You can get far with a kind word, but you can get much further with a kind word and a gun."

This is why the United States must remain the most powerful nation on Earth, if humanity is to stand a chance of surviving; France, Russia, China - and all the other civilized countries of the world, who sit with such dignity on the United Nations Security Council - would never act to stop North Korea, or Iraq, or Iran, the way the U.S. has done.

No, instead they would just continue to sell N. Korea the parts to make the bombs.

Iraqis Gather In Streets In Defiance of
Zarqawis Declared "All-Out War"

While the media does it's damndest to give us the impression that we are losing in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites are gathering in the streets of Karbala in defiance of the death threats from the "insurgents" (Islamic Jihadis). Just days before, Zarqawi had declared a massive "all-out war" on those who showed up:

KARBALA, Iraq - Hundreds of thousands of Shiites descended Monday on the holy city of Karbala, paying tribute to one of their most revered religious figures in what Iraqi officials called a defiant pilgrimage despite threats by militants.

In Baghdad, officials also announced that one of Saddam Hussein's nephews was sentenced to life in prison for funding the violent insurgency, and would stand trial on other charges.

Authorities said they had already uncovered a cache of explosives and arrested four insurgents for allegedly planning on the pilgrims attending festivities marking the birthday of the 12th Shiite imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi.

Similar gatherings in Karbala and other Shiite holy cities have ended in tragedy. In December, more than 50 pilgrims were killed in a series of bombings in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, and in March, at least 181 people died in coordinated bombings of Shiite pilgrims in Karbala and Baghdad. Both attacks were blamed on Sunni extremists.

Just days before this celebration, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a recorded message, declared an "all-out war" on Shiites and others deemed American collaborators. But Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi said Monday such threats would only "strengthen the defiance" of Iraqis.

Abdul-Mahdi said the Shiite pilgrims heading to Karbala were the "biggest (example of) defiance in the face of threats by al-Zarqawi," according a statement released by the Iraqi presidency.

The explosives cache found near Karbala was discovered late Sunday on farm land on the outskirts of the city, said police spokesman Rahman Mishawi.

Three "non-Iraqi Arabs" were arrested, Mishawi said, along with a man armed with several hand grenades who was caught walking with a procession of pilgrims.

Officials said they expected more than 1 million people to gather for the celebration marking Imam al-Mahdi's birth in 868 A.D. According to Shiite tradition, he vanished without a trace and will return before Judgment Day leading the faithful in a battle for a true and just Islamic state.

The Meaning Behind the Name "Arafat"?

The journey to Mecca, called the Hajj, is one of the pillars of Islam. Thus, it is a sacred journey, filled with signifigance. The Hajj demands "purity of soul, body, mind, and dress." Apparently, it is also a spiritual journey with room for hatred of Americans and Jews.

Should that surprise us?:

Amer Abbas, 45, came from war-ravaged Iraq to find serenity in the spiritual journey.

“I beg God to make the Americans leave our country and put an end to the occupation.
The Americans are responsable for all the destruction that has hit out country,” said Abbas, who is from “Diyala, in the Sunni Triangle which resists the occupation.”

Yeah, it's the Americans, not Hussein. Not the Iraqi's themselves. Right.

Somehow, the people of Iraq, unique among all the peoples of the Earth, themselves have no responsibility for their position in the world. And somehow the evil Americans control all. Think about it, Amer. What does that say about your people?

And then, we've got Ahmed:

Ahmed AbdelKarim, an Egyptian building painter based in Saudi Arabia, was performing the hajj for the eleventh time. But lacking the Saudi approval necessary to carry out the pilgrimage, the 37-year-old had no place in the camps and spent the day in a tiny tent on the pavement.“I want to pray that God rids Palestine of the Jews,” AbdelKarim said.

Now, I find this an interesting quote, because the title of the AFP article from which this quote is lifted is "Two million Muslims stand on Mount Arafat in hajj climax."

While it is notable that such a sentiment would be expressed on a mountain called Arafat, that is not actually why I find this a particularly interesting quote. The truly intereting thing about the quote is what it reveals about Arafat, his goals, and who he must have thought he was to his people.

Apparently, Mt. Arafat overlooks Mecca, which is the destination of the spritual journey of the Hajj. Does that sound familiar?

At the end of Moses' life, God took him to the top of Mount Nebo, so that he could look down on the Promised Land just before he died.

So too, the Muslims climb to the top of Mt. Arafat, just before they descend to the final destination of their Hajj Pilgrimage; Mecca.

Yasser Arafat's given name was not Arafat, it was al-Huesseini. The name al-Husseini was also the surname of Arafat's mentor Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the period of the 1930's and 1940's. The Grand Mufti worked with Hitler to insure that as many Jews as possible be put to death. Here is a photo of the Mufti with Hitler.

So, Yasser Arafat adopted the name Arafat at a later date. We are left to assume that the name Arafat meant something to him, if he was willing to abandon the name of his mentor to assume the new name of Arafat.

I'm guessing he thought of himself as a kind of Moses, leading his people to the promised land.

It is interesting to note that, in his mind, the final piece to the puzzle which must be completed before his people were able to reach the spiritual Mecca, was the removal of the Jews from the land of Palestine.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

It's All About The Ladies

A woman is about to drop her ballot paper in a ballot box in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005. Afghanistan held landmark parliamentary elections on Sept. 18, the first in three decades. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

We Are Winning The War On Terror

I hope the Astute Blogger doesn't get angry with me, because I'm going to just steal his entire post here. I'm afraid that if I simply say, "God read it," only a percentage of you will do so. So, here it is:

Bush's bold post-9/11 moves have spurred a worldwide democratic revolution which is shattering old myths and splintering old tribes - ALL FOR THE BEST:

Today, in Afghanistan they're holding parliamentary elections (!!);

soon Iraqis will hold a constitutional referendum (!!);

Syira was kicked out of Lebanon (!!);

the AQ Khan nuke smuggling ring was broken up(!!);

Qaddafy renounced all WMD's and quit his WMD programs (!!) ;

Pakistan and India hold peace talks (!!);

Pakistan's Musharraf meets publically with Israeli officials and Jewish leaders - as do leaders from several Arab Gulf nations (!!);

AND THE U.N. LOOKS LIKE ITS FESTERING SORES OF INEPTNESS AND INCOMPETENCE (is the U.N. the Louisiana/New Orleans bureaucracy the world, or what!) is coming to end end and real reform - led by Ambassador John Bolton - will soon be undertaken; and so on...

As these great events occur, idiotic myths which shackled the world to vestigial thinking and stagnant inneffective polices fall by the wayside:

The Leftist myth that the Taliban had halted the herion-trade was debunked by Ahmed Rashid in 1999 - TWO YEARS BEFORE 9/11 - from The Taliban: Exporting Extremism by Ahmed Rashid November/December 1999 Foreign Affairs :

China, too, has been affected by the ascendance of the Taliban. Beijing shunned the civil war in Afghanistan until February 1999, when it first made overtures to the Taliban in an attempt to stem the tide of Afghan heroin flooding Xinjiang. The heroin was helping fund Islamist nationalist opposition to Beijing among the Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic groups. ...

Around Kandahar, poppy fields stretch as far as the horizon. In Herat, the Taliban have set up model farms where farmers learn the best methods of heroin cultivation. The U.N. Drug Control Program reports that Afghanistan produced 4,600 metric tons of opium in 1999-twice as much as in the previous year. Afghanistan now produces three times more opium than the rest of the world put together. Ninety-six percent of it is cultivated in Taliban-controlled areas, making the Taliban the largest heroin producer in the world. ...

Whereas Afghan opium was exported to the West through Pakistan in 1980, there are now multiple export routes through Iran, the Persian Gulf states, and Central Asia. As these routes expand, so do the beneficiaries. U.S. officials claim that, with most of his bank accounts frozen, bin Laden now finances his operations through opium.

Chinese officials report that drug smuggling from Afghanistan is similarly funding the Uighur opposition. Uzbekistan's government has drawn a direct drug-smuggling link between Afghanistan and the Ferghana Valley, where the IMU is based. The civil war in Tajikistan was partly fueled by Afghan drugs, and Pakistan's economy has been crippled by them.

Furthermore, according to governments in the region, heroin addiction is growing: there are now five million addicts in Pakistan, three million in Iran, and one million in China,largely in Xinjiang.

But because there was a temporary surge in herion production in the ensuing chaos after the Taliban were defeated, the Loony Left argued that perhaps this why the "Bush Crime Family" (a term Cindy Sheehan likes to use!) WANTED to crank up the drug trade.

WELL: the Karzai goverment is making a lot of progress on that front, and once again heroin production is declining.

Another long-time myth that has crumbled is the myth of Pan-Arabism. The burgeoning civil war in Gaza goes on (with genocidal racist/jihadist Gazans murdering corrupt racist/ nationalistic Gazans and nary an Arab nation takes sides. Sunni Arabs daily murder HUNDREDS of Shia Arabs in Iraq and nary an Arab nation takes sides. And these deadly clashes destroy another myth: the myth of Muslim unity; the myth that somehow Bush's Iraq War was "uniting the Muslim world against the USA." Well, if that was the case why is MOST of the terror and most of the killing Sunni on Shia, and NOT Muslim of non-Muslim!? And Iraq also exposes the fact that the ISLAMOFASCIST ENEMY is most willing to murder Muslims of their OWN SECT: the Arab Iraqi Sunnis are murdering Kurds - who are also SUNNIS!

What do all these shattered myths and the mayhem between these splintered tribes have common?

They were all brought on by the Bush Doctrine, which holds that a false peace and an "unstable stability" brought about by supporting tyrannies was NOT worth a thing, and that risking temporary instability - in order to increase liberty and democracy (and thereby prosperity) - would not only "drain the swamp" (by making life for those trapped in tyrannical nations more worth living), but would make us safer and the whole world more stable and more properous.

Though we are still in the obvioulsy unstable part of the struggle - obviously STILL IN THE DESTRUCTIVE PHASE OF THE "CREATIVE DESTRUCTION" of the previous global status quo, there are ample signs that it is working (see paragraph #2).

As the wise man says: FASTER PLEASE!

The Astute Blogger has one of the best blogs on the internet. I recommend reading him everyday.

Iran's Plan To Defeat The United States
In The War on Terror

From Amir Taheri at Benador Associates:

Incredible though it may sound there are signs that Tehran may be preparing for a military confrontation with the United States, and has convinced itself that it could win.

The first sign came last June with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the Islamic Republic, an event that completed the conquest of all levers of power by the most radical elements of the establishment.

Since thenIran Readying for Conflict With US the revolutionary factions have conducted a little publicized purge of the military, the security, the civil service, and state-owned corporations and media.

The most significant purges have affected the military high command.

Among those replaced are the defense minister, the commander-in-chief of the regular army and his four deputies, 11 senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and five commanders of the paramilitary Mobilization of the Dispossessed. Some of the purged officers have been "parked" in a mysterious new organ called "The Defense Guidance Commission" attached to the office of the "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenehi.

The minister of intelligence and security and the minister of the interior, who controls the police and the gendarmerie, have also been replaced.

Another sign that Tehran may be preparing for war is the appointment of military officers to posts normally held by civilians, such as governors, mayors and directors of major public corporations.

But, perhaps, the surest sign yet is the military build up under way in the five provinces bordering Iraq. The region, with a population of 20 millions, has been put under the control of the IRGC which has also taken over units of the regular army, including the 88th Division, and the border police. Iran is estimated to have 250,000 troops in the area, its biggest military build-up since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

One of the first acts of the new Cabinet led by Ahmadinejad was to approve an "emergency" fund of $700 million to be disbursed at the discretion of "the supreme guide" for "sacred defense purposes."

The new administration has also decided to speed up defense disbursements under a five-year plan approved by Khamenehi last year. The plan aims at doubling the military budget by 2010. But it now seems that, thanks to rising oil revenues, most of the plan could be completed by 2008.

In the past few weeks top regime figures, including Khamenehi and Ahmadinejad, have made a series of unscheduled visits to Mash'had, Iran's second largest city. One curious fact revealed during these visits is that a bunker-like structure to house the "supreme guide" is being completed close to the "holy shrine" of Reza, the eighth imam. The complex could also house the top echelon of government, including the president, the Cabinet and members of the Islamic Majlis (Parliament).

The choice of Mash'had is not accidental. The city is located 1,000 km from Tehran and thus as far as possible inside Iran from American fire power in Iraq and the Gulf. The US is also expected to shrink from attacks against the Mash'had bunker for fear of collateral damage to the "holy shrine" of the imam a few hundred yards away.

The summer's comings-and-goings in Mash'had have provoked rumors that Khamenehi plans to appoint Abbas Va'ez Tabasi, the mulla who runs the eighth imam's foundation, as "deputy supreme guide", just in case!

The belief that the Americans would not attack sites close to "holy shrines' has also led to the creation of a massive new military base at Fadak, a suburb of the "holy city" of Qom where the eighth imam's sister is buried, south of Tehran. Work on the base that covers an area of 7.2 square km started in August.

Piecing together the bits of the jigsaw one may guess the outline of Tehran's scenario for what it believes is an inevitable clash with the US:

• The diplomatic tussle over Iran's nuclear plans goes to the Security Council that will fail to take a decision thanks to Russian and Chinese vetoes.

• The US, after much huffing and puffing launches air strikes against Iran's nuclear installations. (Tehran loves Israel to also participate because that would give the Islamic Republic a better claim to be fighting on behalf of Islam as a whole.)

• Iran retaliates by ordering the forces it controls inside Iraq to attack American and British troops. At the same time the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah launches massive rocket attacks against Israel while Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, whose leaders spent the past month in Tehran meeting Khamenehi and his aides, organize a wave of suicide operations against Israel from Jerusalem and the West Bank.

• The US and its British allies, stationed in southern Iraq, launch a three-pronged attack, from Shalamcheh, Hamroun and Shatt Al-Arab to seize control of Khuzestan, the province that accounts for 70 percent of Iran's oil production.

• Iranian Special Forces attack Iraq from the Zaynalkosh salient, south of the Kurdish provinces, some 80 km from Baghdad's first defenses in Ba'aqubah.

• Hazara Shi'ites strikes against Kabul, the Afghan capital, from Maydanshahr while Pushtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the remnants of the Taleban, some of whom are under Iranian protection, attack across Afghanistan.

• The Americans and their allies attack Khuzestan.

• Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz.

• The Americans attack the Iranian provinces of Kermanshahan and Kurdistan.

• US-led forces attack across the Mandali-Ilam axis. The Iranians retreat to the Zagross mountain range, the first line of Iran's natural defenses. (To fight along the Zagross the IRGC is building new bases at Khorramabad, Pessyan, Borujerd, Zagheh and Malayer in the province of Luristan. The bases would assure the logistics of a quarter of a million troops, and provide temporary shelter for half a million refugees from the border. These bases will complement older ones further west, at Sahneh and Kangavar. )
• Oil prices top $100 and the global economy plunges into a crisis.

• Americans launch cruise missiles against "regime targets" in Tehran. But the regime is already in Mash'had.

• Global TV networks air images of "indiscriminate carnage" and "wanton destruction" in Iranian cities.

• The Security Council meets in emergency and orders a cease-fire while the American media and Congress revolt against President George W Bush and his "pre-emptive" strategy.

• Anti-Bush marches in Washington and dozens of other cities with Hollywood figures and other celebrities calling for Bush to be overthrown.

• Bush accepts a UN-brokered cease-fire and withdraws his forces.

• The Islamic Republic emerges victorious from what Ahmadinejad sees as "a clash of civilizations."

• The Americans leave Iraq and Afghanistan as Bush becomes a lame duck for the rest of his presidency.

• The Islamic Republic gains new domestic legitimacy and proceeds to crush its opponents as "enemies of the nation and of Islam."

• Iran can speed up making its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles without being harassed by Washington.

• Iran becomes "the core power" of a new "Islamic pole" in a multipolar system with China, the European Union and Latin America, Under the Bolivarist leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez emerging as other "poles".

• Bush's successor acknowledges Iran's new status and sends Bill Clinton, who apologized to Iran for "our past misdeeds" in 2000, to Tehran to offer another formal apology on behalf of Bush's successor and offer Ahmadinejad "a grand bargain".

• The Islamic Republic is now free to proceed to address what Khamenehi has described as its "greatest historic task" which is the destruction of Israel.

Sounds outlandish? Well, it is.

The Islamic Republic is a fragile structure in a zone of political earthquakes. Logically, the last thing it should want is war. Nevertheless, former President Muhammad Khatami has warned that Tehran may be boxing itself into a position in which it will either have to surrender or fight.

The only question is, do maniacs surrender when they have nuclear weapons at their disposal?

Palestinian Hitler Youth

Members of the Fatah youth movement chant slogans during a rally for Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas at a hotel in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina, January 5, 2005. Palestinian fighters wounded 12 soldiers in a rocket attack on Israel Wednesday, defying calls for a cease-fire from Mahmoud Abbas, the frontrunner to succeed Yasser Arafat in an election Sunday. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Why Do We Tolerate
Muslim Paranoia and Irrationality?

From the London Spectator, via Little Green Footballs:

I have heard no reports of Christian or Jewish combatants firing on Red Crescent vehicles. Our loathing of whatever enemy we are up against, it seems to me, is less visceral and far less rooted in notions of certainty. We are rather less inclined, these days, to wish hell upon an entire people.

The totalitarian flavour of Islam — the unshakeable belief in its own rectitude and a terrible paranoia directed towards serried ranks of enemies, real and imagined — makes the thought of firing on an ambulance carrying wounded infidel soldiers at least permissible and quite possibly, according to Islam’s more rigorous disciples, a beholden duty.

And this is where I believe our Prime Minister has got it the wrong way around: it is the core ideology of Islam that is the problem, not a handful of incendiary preachers. But maybe he’s beginning to realise that right now.

According to the Daily Telegraph, a Muslim barrister who ‘advises’ the Prime Minister has said that Mr Blair is the victim of a sinister conspiracy between the Freemasons and the Jews, who control him and took us to war in Iraq. Ahmad Thomson, from the Muslim Association of Lawyers, has previously denied that six million Jews died in the Holocaust: that’s a ‘big lie’, he avers.

There are quite a few people who think along similar lines to Mr Thomson, particularly in the United States. Mr Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, was one such. These people call the US government ZOG — the Zionist Occupation Government — and they tend to have rather too many canisters of weedkiller in their basements.

You might have heard similar sentiments from David Icke, too, although David believes that it is giant lizards rather than Jews pulling the strings. My point is that these people are usually lumped together under the generic heading of ‘nutters’. And sometimes ‘psychos,’ ‘weirdoes’, ‘loonies’, etc.

But in Britain you can believe such paranoid, irrational gibberish and not merely be tolerated and excused the eponym ‘barking madman’ but actually be invited to divulge your stupidity to the Prime Minister personally. Because you are a Muslim and such poisonous paranoia is sort of expected from you, instead of being sectioned and maybe having a spot of ECT, you get to have your fantasies indulged.

I think Rob Liddle is giving the British too much credit actually, because in Britain it is within the mainstream to say that United States foreign policy is dictated by Neocons and the "Jewish Lobby."

Saturday, September 17, 2005

The Saints Will Come Marching In

Sunset is seen over in New Orleans, September 12, 2005.

The French Quarter is opening again on Monday. Dixieland is rising from the dead. The sound legacy of Louie Armstrong will grace America once again.

Yes, We've Been Telling You That For Awhile Now

Palestinian lawmakers are calling for members of the cabinent of Mahmoud Abbas to resign in wake of the anarchy in the streets of Gaza:

Palestinian legislators on Thursday demanded the resignation of the cabinet of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, holding it responsible for the ongoing state of anarchy and lawlessness in Palestinian Authority-controlled territories.

"The situation is very dangerous, especially in the Gaza Strip," said Rouhi Fattouh, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. "We are demanding that the Palestinian Authority put an end to security chaos and start collecting illegal weapons. The Palestinian leadership isn't doing enough to impose law and order."

Noting that the PA had yet to fulfill its pledge to consolidate the security forces, the report accused Qurei's cabinet of negligence with regards to enforcing law and order. It also stressed the importance of putting an end to the phenomenon of masked gunmen roaming the streets of Palestinian cities and refugee camps.

Legislator Abdel Aziz Shahin held PA Interior Minister Nasser Youssef responsible for the continued anarchy. "There will be no stability until the security chaos ends," he said.

When your schools, your media, and your politicians teach nothing but violence for over thirty years running, then all you will have generations of people who only know how to create violence.

How To Wake Up

In his continuing Washington Times series on the War on Terror, Tony Blankley says we need an old war spirit to fight this new war. The old war he refers to is World War II, in which we proudly fought a "total war":

American writer and social historian Studs Terkel memorably called World War II "the good war."

Terkel interviewed hundreds of GIs and their families many years after the war. They recalled that the struggle lifted them above their personal lives to fight on behalf of something they believed was greater than themselves.

World War II was good, despite the millions of deaths, the limitations on daily lives, the encroachment on peacetime liberties and the arduousness of wartime life. The war was good because the sacrifice was for a noble cause, for the perpetuation of America and the American way of life.

The struggle against Islamist terrorism is an equally good war -- and for the same reasons. We have just as great a responsibility to win our struggle against insurgent Islamist aggression as our parents and grandparents had to win World War II.

There is no other cause so urgent. If we do not pay with our sacrifices now, we (and our children) will pay in greater losses later. We must be prepared to be just as ruthless and rational as the "greatest generation" was in defeating fascism.

Just as their generals and admirals made no compromise to the imperative of total victory on the battlefield, so British and American political leaders, courts and popular opinion let the requirements for victory define the powers of their government on the home front.

Prior to America's entry into the war, Congress passed laws that, collectively, authorized President Franklin D. Roosevelt to instruct the FBI to investigate suspected subversive activity.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, the Smith Act of 1940 and the Voorhis Act of 1941 were the grounds for Roosevelt's wartime domestic surveillance of American citizens whose political activity might lead them to serve the interests of opposing nations.

Attorney General Robert Jackson described the targets and responsibility of the FBI's domestic intelligence activities as involving "steady surveillance over individuals and groups within the United States ... which [are] ready to give assistance or encouragement in any form to invading or opposing ideologies."

Roosevelt authorized the FBI to use wiretaps (without a warrant), surreptitious entries and "champering" (secretly intercepting and reading private mail without consent).

A total of 25,655 noncitizens living in the United States were interned or deported during the war years because of their ethnicity or nationality, rather than their words or conduct. They included 11,229 Japanese, 10,905 Germans, 3,278 Italians, 52 Hungarians, 25 Romanians, five Bulgarians and 161 other foreign nationals.

The Supreme Court later held, in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), that "executive power over enemy aliens, undelayed and unhampered by litigation, has been deemed, throughout our history, essential to wartime security." The high court added: "The resident enemy alien is constitutionally subject to summary arrest, internment and deportation whenever a 'declared war' exists." So the power to intern or deport comes into effect only when war has been declared.

Today, we are under attack not by a nation, but by groups of militant individuals who claim Islam as their faith. Yet for the first time in human history, the destructive power of terrorists can be as great as that of a traditional nation-state that has declared war. We need a mechanism to deal with this change.

During World War II, the country was faced with the prospect of large numbers of people -- again identifiable by ethnicity, not conduct -- who were real or potential enemies.

The logic of the Supreme Court's opinion is applicable to the situation we face today. The court held that people ethnically connected to the war-makers are more likely to support them than are others -- and our country at war has a right to protect itself from this presumed higher risk of danger.

This is true regardless of the personal innocence of particular individuals. The term we would use today is "ethnic profiling," and 200 years of American law and practice during wartime permits ethnic profiling for the common defense.

The war power "extends to every matter and activity so related to war as substantially to affect its conduct and progress," Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone wrote in the majority opinion.

Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses were prosecuted during World War II for refusing to let their children recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, a liberal, wrote the majority opinion in the case. He upheld the school expulsions and parental prosecutions for violating compulsory attendance laws.

Justice Frankfurter observed that "the mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities."

This is particularly applicable to the situation we face today. Radical Islamists are demanding to be covered by Shariah -- laws compiled over a thousand years of Muslim jurisprudence, based on the Koran and its commentaries -- rather than by the laws of the United States, Britain, Germany or the other non-Muslim nations in which the radical Islamists live.

Although Justice Frankfurter is remembered as a great liberal, in the 1940s, liberalism still understood our country's history and government's role in unifying our nation.

"We are dealing with an interest inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values," he wrote. "National unity is the basis of national security."

Today, schoolchildren, senators and elite journalists would giggle at the idea of applying Justice Frankfurter's lofty words to the defense of the modest little Pledge of Allegiance.

But back then, as now, we were a nation of newly arrived immigrants, threatened from abroad and bombarded with destructive ideologies.

Then, it was communism and fascism. Today, it is multiculturalism, political correctness and, among the Muslim population, radical Islam.

Good morning, America. It's time to get up and face the day.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Iranian TV Says
9/11 Made By Mossad

You've got to see this. Click here to go to the video.

Egyptian Forces Beat Palestinians With Sticks
Human Rights Groups Yawn

The Pedestrian Infidel points out that Egypt is now doing everything Israel ever did, and worse, to try to control the Palestinian Jihadis, but the media, and the human rights organizations, and the UN itself, are all turning a blind eye:

Those poor oppressed Gazans. Now Egypt is beating them with sticks and rolling out the barbwire. But do you hear a peep from all those Palestinian sympathizers that Egypt is being mean. Nope, not a peep.

RAFAH, Egypt Sep 16, 2005 — Thousands of Palestinians broke through Egyptian and Palestinian Authority lines on the Gaza border Friday, pouring into Egypt in defiance of government attempts to secure the frontier.

It was the second afternoon in a row when crowd power overwhelmed the measures imposed in the morning to restore order on the Gaza-Egypt border, the Palestinians' only outlet to the world that avoids Israel.

The surge started when Palestinians waiting to cross pelted their own security forces with stones at the Saladin gate, the main informal crossing on the border, in this border town.

When the Palestinian security officials gave way, the crowd pushed through the iron gateway and tackled the Egyptian police....

Policemen tried to beat the crowd back with sticks, but they were overwhelmed. There was no official figure for the number of Palestinians who entered Egypt, but The Associated Press estimated them at about five thousand.

Let's see, when the Israelis beat back a Palestinians crowd they are condemned by the UN, castigated in newspapers like the Guardian, and accused of Genocide by politicians and organizations like Amnesty International. But when Egyptian forces do it, no one says a word.

I wonder why that is. What is the difference between the Egyptians and the Israelis which could lead to the different response?

Could it be because the Israelis are Jews?

Heh

The Astute Blogger notes that Katrina victims, who are temporarily being put up in the Astrodome, do not blame Bush for their plight, but instead blame Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Nagin.

The Astute Blogger's post is priceless. Go read it.

Massachusettes Governor Says
"Wiretap Mosques"

From Jihad Watch:

WASHINGTON -- Governor Mitt Romney raised the prospect of wiretapping mosques and conducting surveillance of foreign students in Massachusetts, as he issued a broad call yesterday for the federal government to devote far more money and attention to domestic intelligence gathering.

In remarks that caused alarm among civil libertarians and advocates for immigrants rights, Romney said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation that the United States needs to radically rethink how it guards itself against terrorism.

''How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who have come from terrorist-sponsored states?" he said, referring to foreign students who attend universities in Massachusetts. ''Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?"

''How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror," Romney continued. ''Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on?"

Mitt Romney's idea may sound crazy to the more liberal-minded of us, but I guarantee you that we are going to here more and more and more of this if Muslims don't take care of the problem. The solution is not up to non-Muslims, it is up to the Muslim community.

Why? Because they have the most personal connections with those who are preaching the Jihadi ideology.

We don't know who is and who isnt'. All we know is that a sizable percentage of Mosques in the United States have made anti-Infidel hate literature available to their worshipers.

After the London Bombings of July 7th, I did a series of posts where I reiterated that until Muslims start taking action against the Islamists in their midst, they can expect to be treated with increasing distrust in our world.

Here's what they can do to start to make things better:

1) start by contacting Christian churches, Jewish Synagogues, and Mormon Temples down to their mosques for a day of gathering up the hate material, and carting it to the recycling plant.

2) call the FBI every time they hear of Islamist terrorists recruiting people on campus or in a Mosque.

3) eject Imams and other speakers from Mosques when you hear them say things like this and this.

When mainstream Muslims start taking strong action against such hatred, then they can expect the level of respect for their community to rise dramatically. Until then, they can expect suspicion.

World's Dumbest "Intellectual" Says
It's Time For Bin Laden To
Take His Place Among World's Statesmen

Perhaps, the dumbest "intellectual" I have ever heard of:

Bruce Lawrence is the Duke professor who says that jihad means "being a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one's anger." Now he has joined to that bit of wisdom the assertion that Osama bin Laden needs to take his place among the world's statesmen.

From the Duke University Chronicle:

Bruce Lawrence, professor of religion, is publishing a book of Osama bin Laden’s speeches and writings.

Only days after the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a Duke professor is trying to explain the motivations of the tragedy’s organizer—jihadist Osama bin Laden.

Bruce Lawrence, professor of religion, edited and wrote the forward to the book Messages to the World—The Statements of Osama bin Laden. The text, which goes into print today and will arrive in bookstores in the fall, is the first to include the translations of the Arabic writings of bin Laden.

The book features a collection of 22 speeches and interviews given by the leader of the terrorist organization al Qaeda between 1994 and 2004....

“If you read him in his own words, he sounds like somebody who would be a very high-minded and welcome voice in global politics,” Lawrence said.

After analyzing his writings, Lawrence said he concluded bin Laden does not have an ultimate goal that he wants to achieve in his jihad but that he does have a specific target.

Spencer comments:

He doesn't have an ultimate goal, eh? Apparently Lawrence did not read the writings he was editing all that closely. Osama makes it quite clear in his message to the American people of November 24, 2002 that he is waging "Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme." He criticizes the United States for failing to adopt Islamic law:

"You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator."

What, then, is his goal? To restore the caliphate and Sharia in the Islamic world, and then by offensive jihad to extend it over the non-Muslim world. This is emphasized not only by Osama but by other jihadists around the world. How could Lawrence have missed it?

And, although this isn't Bin Laden's "ultimate" goal, I would add that he has also stated that it is a "religious duty" to aquire nuclear weapons, and that he has sought and received a Fatwa authorizing him to kill 2-4 million Americans.

That may not be Bin Laden's "ultimate" goal, but it sure would seem pretty ultimate to us, wouldn't it?

Atlantic Monthly Calls Palestinians
Pawns In A Permanent War Against Israel

Yes, well they did 44 years ago anyway.

Neo-Neocon has dug up a treasure of an article from a 1961 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, which reveals that what ought to be evident about the Palestinian cause today, was as plain as the nose on your face back in 1961:

A reader recently alerted me to an astounding article by Martha Gellhorn which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in October of 1961, forty-four years ago.

The article is entitled "The Arabs of Palestine," and it was the result of a series of interviews Gellhorn had with residents of Palestinian refugee camps, and talks with Israeli Arabs, as well.

At the time of Gellhorn's article, the various refugee camps she visited were under the jurisdiction of Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. Keep in mind, also, that she was describing conditions that existed long before the 1967 war that resulted in Israel having jurisdiction over some of the areas Gellhorn visited. Therefore nothing Gellhorn writes about Palestinian attitudes towards Israel could possibly be the result of an "occupation" that hadn't yet occurred.

Here are some of her opening salvos:

Although no one knows exactly how many refugees are scattered everywhere over the globe, it is estimated that since World War II, and only since then, at least thirty-nine million non-Arab men, women, and children have become homeless refugees, through no choice of their own....

The world could be far more generous to these unwilling wanderers, but at least the world has never thought of exploiting them. They are recognized as people, not pawns. By their own efforts, and with help from those devoted to their service, all but some six million of the thirty-nine million have made a place for themselves, found work and another chance for the future. To be a refugee is not necessarily a life sentence.

The unique misfortune of the Palestinian refugees is that they are a weapon in what seems to be a permanent war. Alarming signs, from Egypt, warn us that the Palestinian refugees may develop into more than a justification for cold war against Israel...

... today, in the Middle East, you get a repeated sinking sensation about the Palestinian refugees: they are only a beginning, not an end. Their function is to hang around and be constantly useful as a goad.

Was Nancy Gelhorn a prophet? Well, what was obvious to her 44 years ago is even harder for the general public to grasp these days.

The truth is, public perception of the Palestinian situation has gone backward during the course of my lifetime.

I am in my early forties. When I was a kid I had insomnia (well actually, I still do). So, I used to stay up late watching the TV news in desparate hope that it would put me to sleep. I remember, clearly, being 7, 8, 9 years old, and seeing Yasser Arafat and his insane followers on the news; hijacking, bombing and generally making a menace of themselves.

The difference, though, was in those days, he was called a terrorist, not a head of state. He had not won a Nobel Peace Prize. He was not even allowed on U.S. soil, let alone to speak at the United Nations.

The leftist transfiguration of Yasser Arafat has been an abomination, and one motivated by all sorts of anti-Western idiocy, which has over time mutated into virulent anti-Semitism.

Go read the rest of the Neo-Neocon post. It's worth it.

Swedish Muslim Students Laugh
And Shout "Allahu Akbar"
While Watching Beheading Video

In Sweden, the phenomena of young Muslim kids glorifying suicide bombers and Jihadi activity is becoming so prevalent that the government is looking into ways to deal with it:

Jihad is Only an Inner Struggle

A high school teacher in Malmö, Sweden, discovered that about a dozen Arab students were laughing and shouting "Allahu Akbar!" while watching a DVD of infidel hostages being beheaded in Iraq. The headmaster didn't think the incident was such a big deal.

Security police to monitor children

Swedish security police unit Säpo plans to keep tabs on Muslim schoolchildren who express admiration for suicide bombers and other terrorists. Teachers are expected to assist in monitoring the attitudes of young pupils, and the plan has sparked strong reactions, newspaper Aftonbladet reports.

Talks are already planned between school authorities and Säpo, and many educators do not feel that watching and reporting on students is part of their job. Sweden's Liberal Party is behind the proposal.

"Get teachers to spy on danger pupils"

Teachers in Stockholm could be asked to report pupils who praise suicide bombers, if new proposals are put into action. But Säpo, Sweden’s security police, say that they are cautious about any moves to turn teachers into informers.

The proposal for teachers and security police to start cooperating, which will be put before the city’s education committee next week, was originally the idea of the Liberal Party.

The party came up with the idea after the London terror attacks in July, in which the bombers were young Muslim men, one as young as 18. The Liberal Party’s Lotta Edholm told Aftonbladet “Muslim extremism is now a threat against a number of pupils in Stockholm’s schools.”

You know something has really changed in Europe when the Liberal party is prosposing what they heretofore would have called "spying" on students.

Still, they are couching their fear over evidence of Jihadi behavior as concern for the "threat" it poses to students. It does not pose a "threat" to students. It poses a threat to Swedish society.

Oh well, we can't expect Liberals to deal with the full scope of consequences. We must leave that to Conservatives and remember that the Liberal will blame us for doing it. It's the way of the world.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Meandering In Your Inner Sanctum

A visitor walks inside the ' The Luminarium Levity II ' by Architects of Air at Hong Kong's Victoria Park Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005, as part of the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration. The walk-through sculpture immerses visitors in light and color. It is inspired by Islamic architecture and features winding passages of small domes reminiscent of the repetitious forms found in the bazaars of Iran. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Not An Ordinary War

"In times like these - in times of great tension, of great crisis - the compass of the world narrows to a single fact. The fact which dominates our world is the fact of armed aggression, the fact of successful armed aggression, aimed at the form of Government, the kind of society that we in the United States have chosen and established for ourselves. It is a fact which no one longer doubts - which no one is longer able to ignore.

It is not an ordinary war. It is a revolution imposed by force of arms, which threatens all men everywhere. It is a revolution which proposes not to set men free but to reduce them to slavery - to reduce them to slavery in the interest of a dictatorship which has already shown the nature and the extent of the advantage which it hopes to obtain.

That is the fact which dominates our world and which dominates the lives of all of us, each and every one of us. In the face of the danger which confronts our times, no individual retains or can hope to retain, the right of personal choice which free men enjoy in times of peace. He has first an obligation to serve in the defense of our institutions of freedom - a first obligation to serve his country in whatever capacity his country finds him useful."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
July 19, 1940

This was said 1 year and 5 months before Pearl Harbor. Can you imagine how Americans felt about being told they must expect to give up their freedoms? Can you imagine how American felt about being told they were at war?

Thank You Mr. President
And To The Glorious American People

The other day the Democratically elected President of Iraq, Jalal Talibani, gave an extraordinary speech, thanking the American people for what we have done for the Iraqis. From the Anchoress:

“In the name of Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you. Thank you, because you liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship.”

“Mr. President, you are a visionary, great statesman. We salute you. We are grateful to you. We will never forget what you have done for our people.”

All of us who supported the war have reason to be proud. America has done a great and historic thing.

Some Of My Best Friends Are Jewish

From Front Page Magazine:

The annual United Nations General Assembly serves as an opportunity for world leaders and diverse groups to meet. One such meeting this year includes Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, reaching out to American Jewish groups.

On September 19, 2001, Mr. Musharraf made a televised message to the Pakistani people to explain how his nation would respond to September 11. Referring to “the first six years of the history of Islam,” Mr. Musharraf said:

Mohammed himself went from Mecca to Medina to save Islam...when the prophet reached Medina, then he entered a friendship treaty with his enemies, the Jews...because of the peace treaty with Jews, he was able to fight the infidels of Mecca. After six years, the Jews noticed that Islam was becoming stronger. They got very irritated.

Mr. Musharraf then explained why Mohammed was willing to sign a peace agreement with the infidels even if it temporarily made Muslims look weak.

There was a battle between Muslims and Jews, and of course by the grace of God, Muslims won the battle...Mecca was conquered. What lesson do we derive with this incident?...On this occasion, a strategic decision is to be taken...if you are facing two problems and you have to choose one, then it is better to take the lesser evil....

The temporary good relations between Mohammed and the Jewish tribes of Arabia (Qurayza, Khaybar, Khaynuqa, and Nadhir), who were wiped out by Muslims, is well-known in the contemporary Muslim world, as it is often mentioned in textbooks, sermons, and TV shows. Yasser Arafat frequently referred to the concept of a temporary truce (Hudna) in justifying the Oslo Accords with Israel. Other Arab and Muslim leaders also frequently refer to this.

For example, following threats to bomb Los Angeles, Egyptian labor party head Magdi Ahmad Hussein appeared on Al-Jazeera on October 17, 2004, explaining:

600 to 700 prisoners were killed in the raid on the Qurayza tribe. Why do they conceal this? Why do they hide the fact that the Prophet gave the order to assassinate some poets – to assassinate! Not in military operations, but rather by individual assassination. Why did he order the assassination of K'ab Ibn Ashraf, the Jew, leader of Khaybar...As a result, the Jews became fearful and terrified.

Syrian legislator Mohammed Habash appeared on Syrian TV on July 29, 2005, discussing the characteristics of the Jewish tribes of Arabia. He explained that the Jews smelled so bad it “made people sick,” and that “when the Prophet's companions reached Al-Madina, they all contracted fever because of the filthy environment.”

“Stories From Before the Verses Came Down” was a Jordanian-produced series that ran on Saudi Iqra TV in February 2005, which was based on the Jews of the time of Mohammed. The series portrayed the Jews as despicable “pigs” scheming against Mohammed. Part of the plot included Jews altering the Torah to hide the fact that Mohammed was a true prophet; how early Jews planned “a very long war” against the decedents of Muslims and Jews depicted as having “joined forces with Satan.” One episode showed Jews engaged in voodoo, creating a doll of Mohammed and sticking it with needles in his head, liver, and eyes.

Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, one of Sunni Islam's most prominent scholars, explained on his Al-Jazeera show on January 19 this year: “One of the first things the Prophet Mohammed did when he went to Al-Madina was to make a pact with the Jews...The problem started because of the Jews. They were the ones who were treacherous and violated the pact.” Mr. Al-Qaradhawi added, “The problem with the Jews is not one of faith or religious laws. The problem is the covetous aspirations that have characterized their attitude since the days of the Prophet Mohammed, that brought this position toward them since the days of Mohammed, and later on in our times.”

By reaching his hands out in friendship to the Jews, President Musharraf has a unique opportunity to distinguish himself from other Arab and Muslim leaders who have given messages of peace in English and hate in Arabic.

Let's hope Musharraf means it. As a wise man once said, "Trust, but verify."

Iranian President Says
Iran Will Share Nukes
With Other Muslim States

From Little Green Footballs:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology, considered to be a front for bomb-making by Washington, with other Islamic countries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Thursday.

The comments were likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program just ahead of a key meeting of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog this month which could decide to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for punitive action.

“The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

The remarks were made during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, IRNA said.

Peaceful State Watch
Palestinians Torch Synagogues

I've been travelling the past few days, so I wasn't able to keep up with all the news. They were eventful days in the Peaceful State of Palestine, to say the least. For instance, as we know, since Israel left Gaza, the Palestinians have been running amok.

They looted the Greenhouses which Israel had left behind for them to use for commerce purposes (at the expense of Jewish donors living in New York City). Well, there goes the business.

Then, they blew a hole in the Egyptian border.

They dug a tunnel into Egypt for arms smuggling purposes.

And they vowed to destroy Israel.

Then they torched the Synagogues the Jews had left behind when they evacuated:

NYTIMES: "KISSUFIM CROSSING, Gaza Strip, Sept. 12 - Palestinians moved into the former settlement of Neve Dakalim today after Israel ended its 38-year presence in the Gaza Strip, setting fire to the main synagogue and ripping out aluminum window frames and metal ceiling fixtures. The Palestinian flag and the flag of the militant group Hamas flew from the synagogue roof. "

As the Astute Blogger notes:

The Gazans did NOT choose to reclaim or recycle the religious buildings ... OBVIOUSLY, the Gazans could not control their racist hatred, and the Gazan authorities could not control the Gazans. The Gazans torched the EMPTY synagogues and demolished them by HAND by swinging hateful sledge-hammers into concrete columns. This display of UNBRIDLED HATE AND GENOCIDAL DESTRUCTIVENESS reveals EVERYTHING you need to know about the chances Gazans have at establishing the rule of law in their own "space" and about the chances Israel has at peaceful relations with the Gazans.

So, the Jews are gone - there are no Jews left in Gaza - and still the Palestinians are angry.

What could they possibly be angry about?

Mice Infected With Bubonic Plague Missing

From Associated Press:

NEWARK, N.J. - Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago, and authorities launched a search though health experts said there was scant public risk.

The mice were unaccounted-for at the Public Health Research Institute, which is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government.

Federal official said the mice may never be accounted for. Among other things, the rodents may have been stolen, eaten by other lab animals or just misplaced in a paperwork error.

If the mice got outside the lab, they would have already died from the disease, state Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said.

The possibility of theft prompted the institute to interrogate two dozen of its employees and conduct lie detector tests, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Thursday.

The FBI said it was investigating. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating, the newspaper reported.

Flight 93 Memorial
Did We Win?

Somehow, I doubt it will be this easy. But, the architect says he will make changes:

WASHINGTON - The architect of the memorial to a plane downed in western Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, said Wednesday he would work to satisfy critics who complained that it honors terrorists with its crescent-shaped design.

Designer Paul Murdoch said he is “somewhat optimistic” that the spirit of the design could be maintained.

“It’s a disappointment there is a misinterpretation and a simplistic distortion of this, but if that is a public concern, then that is something we will look to resolve in a way that keeps the essential qualities,” Murdoch, 48, of Los Angeles, said in a telephone interview.

I can't wait to see what those changes are. Sorry to be pessimistic, but I have a feeling they won't be sufficient.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Egypt Discovers Tunnel Under Gaza Border

Now that Israel is out of Gaza, will Egypt live up to it's agreement to monitor the border and prevent illegal arms smuggling? Believe it or not, the answer just might be yes (From Associated Press):

El-ARISH, Egypt - Egypt said Wednesday it had found an arms-smuggling tunnel under the Gaza border, and Palestinians crossing the frontier were warned to return by sunset when passport controls will be reimposed.

Egyptian border guards discovered the tunnel in the al-Duhniya area, 2 1/2 miles south of the Rafah crossing point, on Tuesday evening, a security official said.

The tunnel contained 38 firearms and three rocket-propelled grenades, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The tunnel penetrated to the Palestinian side of the frontier, and Palestinian security forces seized the weapons Wednesday, the official said.

(Pastorius) But, even if Egypt does live up to it's committment, they seem to be no match for the Islamic Jihadis of the Peaceful State of Palestine, who yesterday blew a hole in the border crossing (From Little Green Footballs):

Hamas militants have destroyed a section of a concrete barrier erected along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Palestinian and Egyptian troops have been trying to shore up the barrier to stop Palestinians crossing into Egypt after the withdrawal of Israeli troops. In chaotic scenes, thousands of Palestinians have streamed over the border in the last few days without undergoing official checks.

Despite this, Egypt says that its Gaza border is officially closed.

Militants from Hamas cleared an area before setting off explosives that blew away a section of the wall. Palestinian security officers present did nothing to prevent them. A local Hamas commander warned them not to try to intervene, the AFP news agency reported.

(Pastorius) I wonder how Egypt feels about it's illegal immigration problem?

Meanwhile on the other border (the one they share with Israel) Hamas is threatening to destroy Israel entirely. And, amazingly enough, for the second time in the past few days, Agence French Press is reporting things from the land of reality, instead of the land of dhimmitude:

KFAR DAROM, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Officers from Hamas's militia are vowing to turn Gaza into a huge armed camp devoted to digging Israel's grave, with tunnels, rocket attacks and a free flow of weapons and militants from Egypt.

"If Israel attacks the West Bank, we will fire rockets from here," thundered Hamas officer Abu Muad, bouncing his young son on his lap during a "victory parade" in the abandoned Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in central Gaza.

Ground commanders, with bushy black beards and pistols strapped to their sides, rode defiantly in a convoy of 50 jeeps and SUVs to cheers of Allah Akbar (God is Great) from a rapt crowd.

Many officers remained unmasked, in testimony to their soaring confidence after Israel ended its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip on Monday.

Commanders from Hamas's Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades armed wing spoke triumphantly of their post-Israeli withdrawal war strategy from the Gaza Strip.

They sketched out a vision of tunnels into Israel, regular rocket attacks on the Jewish state; a free flow of weapons and militants from Egypt; and constant smuggling to the West Bank.

They spoke of their determination to turn the strip of Mediterranean coast, home to 1.3 million people, into an armed camp intent on the destruction of the Jewish state with a Palestinian Authority powerless to stop them.

Speaking perfect English, an Al-Qassam officer bragged that the group was banking on smuggling more and better quality arms from Egypt now that Israeli troops had handed security on the southern border to Egyptian guards.

Abu Muad painted Gaza as a giant weapons laboratory, where militants will perfect their rockets, such as their trademark Qassams.

Abu Hamza, a refugee camp commander, said Hamas would infiltrate Israel from Gaza despite the security fence and high-tech surveillance.

"We will have tunnels into Israel. We can smuggle into the West Bank by many means. In the name of God, Gaza is the first step and next the West Bank."

Israel's deputy defence minister, Zeev Boim, warned Monday that Israel would treat any future rocket or mortar attack from Gaza as tantamount to an act of aggression of one state against another.

I like the way Zeev put that. Sounds familliar.

Anti-Semitism at the International Red Cross

From Little Green Footballs:

GENEVA - Member countries of the international Red Cross movement met on Monday to investigate whether they can revive an effort to give Israel full status five years after the last attempt failed because of Arab-Israeli tension. [Of course, this “Arab-Israeli tension” doesn’t preclude the ICRC from dealing with Arab ambulances, even when they’ve been shown to be used for transporting terrorists and weapons in Palestinian areas. —ed.]

The disagreement centers around whether a red Star of David can join the emblems of the red cross and red crescent to identify ambulances, medical workers and others on humanitarian missions.

Israel, which cooperates with the movement, has been denied full membership over the emblem issue for 57 years.

The latest proposal envisions what its proponents call a red crystal — a square standing on one corner, with a blank white interior and a thick red border. Magen David Adom, or MDA, the Israeli society, would be allowed to put its Red Star of David in the center but the Israeli military would not be able to use the combined symbol in an armed conflict to protect its medics.

Once the diplomatic conference agrees to an additional symbol and two member countries ratify it, all members of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement would be free to chose one of the three symbols.

The red cross emblem was first adopted in 1863, when Swiss humanitarians founded the movement to care for war victims. It simply reverses the colors of the neutral Swiss flag, without any religious intent.

But Muslims, reminded of the crusader’s cross from centuries earlier, refused to use the emblem. Instead, the Ottoman empire was already using the red crescent to protect its medical workers in the 19th century.

The red crescent, along with the Red Lion and Sun of Iran, was enshrined with the red cross in the Geneva conventions of 1929.

The American Red Cross has come in for a fair share of criticism lately, but they are the only branch of the Red Cross to stand up against this craven nonsense:

The American Red Cross has been campaigning for full Israeli membership for years. It has withheld six years’ of payment owed to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — totaling approximately $34 million — since May 2000 to protest the MDA’s not being admitted.

Pastorius comment: And, in case you think it's only about appeasing the Islamic Jihadis, then here's some info. A few years back, Cornelio Summaruga, who was at the time, the head of the International Red Cross was asked why they had not included Israel as a participating country. His answer?

If we include the Star of David, we might as well include the swastika.

I can't provide links today, because of the problem I'm having with my computer, but that quote is true. You can reference in a Krauthammer article from April of 2002. Google it.

Incidentally Bernadine Healy, who was at the time, the head of the American Red Cross, is the one who reported what Mr. Summaruga had said. She is a hero. She also got herself into trouble with the IRC on another occasion when she criticized the IRC for taking America's 9/11 donations and using them in other countries.

In the end, the fact that she spoke up, intimidated the IRC into doing the right thing. But, if I am not mistaken, she ended up losing her job first.

Bernadine, you are a hero.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Islamic Jihadis

I've been thinking, for a while now, that my use of the word Islamofascists probably does not serve my cause well. I think I probably come across as being similar to those who would call Bush a Nazi, or America a fascist state.

The thing is, the words fascist and Nazi have been deligitamized through overuse. I have been using the word Islamofascist with the thought that reasonable people would see that I make a clear case for the fact that they are fascist. They run, or want to run authoritarian states. They control through physical and mental intimidation, and like the Nazis they want to kill the Jews.

Funny thing, when I started writing CUANAS I thought this would be an easy enough case to make. I started CUANAS with the idea that I would educate Christians about the reemergence of anti-Semitism in our time. I believed that this would be instantly recognizable to people once they were presented with the facts. I believed that the lessons of history were clear to my fellow Christians;

that anti-Semitism is a warning sign of great evil,

that anti-Semitismon a societal level usually leads to the murdering of Jews,

that anti-Semitism MUST be confronted,

and that one of the most pathetic chapters in Christian history was the apathy of Christians in the face of the rise of Nazism, and the complicity of many Christians in the murdering of Jews.

While it is true that Christians, at this stage of the game, are the best friends Jews have got, I find, personally, that my warnings go unheeded in the circles in which I travel. This causes me much frustration and deep disappointment.

The only thing I can think of to account for the apathy I encounter is that, perhaps, the language I use sounds alarmist and is therefore dismissed. Frankly, I don't know how one could develop an alarm loud enough for the problems we face, but I understand that sometimes a whisper will be heard better than a scream.

Thus, I am going to start referring to our enemy as the Islamic Jihadis, rather than Islamofascists. I think most people are now aware that Jihad is many times used in the context of making war. So, it is my hope that when I explain that an Islamic Jihadi called for the death of Jews on state-sponsored TV, that maybe it will be heard.

I hardly think this is change is suddenly going to exponentially increase the impact of the work I do. However, maybe it will serve to win more of the casual drop-in readers I get, and maybe it will decrease the rolling of eyes, and the incredulous looks I receive in my personal life.

I had the experience of few months back of having sent a few key people in my church a brief email with three links as examples of the murderous anti-Semitism in the Arab World. I was met with silence. Not a return email. Not a comment in the foyer at church. Nothing. Just complete silence. Oh yes, and, over the next few weeks, an acceleration in jokes about my blogging.

As I said, the only explanation I can come up with for this sort of behavior is that something about my way of putting things is undermining my message.

I've also decided that, since a picture is worth a thousand words, instead of calling the Islamic Jihadis Nazis, I will simply post photos of their Nazi antics. So, you can expect to see pictures of Jihadis flashing the Heil Hitller sign on a regular basis.

Our society has become accustomed to thinking of Nazis as white-supremacists. Well, some Nazis are white supremacists, but a lot more are Islamic Jihadis. When I say this, I do not mean that the Islamic Jihadis strictly adhere to the totality of Nazi ideology. But that they do adhere to the part that calls for death to the Jews.

Most people in our society are completely unaware of the fact that Arab Muslims worked with Hitler during World War II. Most are unaware of the fact that there is a direct line between Nazism and the movement for a Palestinian state. Most are unaware of the fact that the Grand Mufti al-Husseini was Hitlers point man in the Arab world, and that he was also Yasser Arafat's mentor, and, rumor has it, his uncle.

This ignorance allows the Islamic Jihadis to carrry on the war against Western Civilization in the guise of being freedom fighters. But, what kind of freedom is Jihad and Sharia? The answer, of course, is it is not freedom. It is tyranny.

By the way, I want to thank everyone who has been stopping by lately and leaving all the thoughtful comments. It heartens me to know that there are like-minded people out there. I wish you people were my neighbors instead of the ones I have, to be frank. But, I guess that's what I get for living in SoCal.

The blogosphere is not like traditional media. It is not about one person talking and millions listening. It is about communication and community. Always on Watch puts out some information, and I pick up on it, and then someone else gets it from me. We pass on information. We do not simply beat on our bully pulpit. I pray that between us all we can make more and more people aware of the menace we face.

Here's an off-topic aside. For the next couple of days, I am stuck using a Mac. For whatever reason, this Mac does not interface with blogger very well. Thus, I am not able to create colors, italics, bold, or any other way to separate quotes from the body of my post. Sorry.

I know that I should learn to use html. Well, ok fine. I will.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene

Thanks to TruePeers for sending this over to me:

Premier Dalton McGuinty said today Ontario will reject the use of Shariah law and will move to prohibit all religious-based tribunals to settle family disputes such as divorce.

His announcement comes after hundreds of demonstrators around the world this week protested a proposal to let Ontario residents use Islamic law for settling family disputes.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was reacting to a recommendation, by former NDP attorney general Marion Boyd, to allow Muslims to establish Shariah-based tribunals similar to Jewish and Catholic arbitration bodies

In Montreal around 100 people gathered Thursday to protest the tribunals. In Ottawa more than 100 others, mostly women, protested in the rain in front of the parliament building.

And in the western German city of Dusseldorf, about 25 people protested at the Canadian consulate.

"If the Shariah is used in Canada, I also feel threatened here," said protester Nasrin Ramzanali, who said there should be a clear separation of church and state.

Other protests were planned this week in Waterloo and Victoria, and in Europe in Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Stockholm, Goteborg, London and Paris.

Ontario has allowed Catholic and Jewish faith-based tribunals to settle family law matters on a voluntary basis since 1991, but the practice got little attention until Muslim leaders demanded the same rights.

It is good news that Canada has opted to quash the introduction of Sharia into their legal system. However, they are doing it by eliminating Jewish and Christian arbitration, which they have allowed for years. TruePeers comments:

The Judeo-Christian ethical system is the moral foundation of out liberal democracies. It is the moral foundation of Western Civilization. If we eliminate Sharia by also eliminating our own moral foundation, we will have cut our legs out from underneath ourselves:

TruePeers also sends along this quotation:

"The 'secular state' is a liberal state, but it is neither opposed to religion nor does it fancy itself the referee of religion. It is liberal because it knows that it is temporary, not because it imagines itself to be neutral." - Douglas Farrow

Burnin' and Looting Tonight

Israel is now officially out of Gaza. So what do the Palestinians do?":

Hours after the IDF rolled out, vans bristling with masked gunmen and blaring martial music rolled into this abandoned settlement, passing donkey carts laden with loot and families picnicking on yellowing lawns.

OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel officially ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority on Monday evening, but by then the fate of Israel’s settlements had long been sealed. By early Monday morning, tens of thousands swarmed the settlements celebrating what leaders here called “a day of rebirth of the Gaza Strip.”

Students cut school, the terrorist groups carted out their homemade RPGs and prayed in the settlements’ smoldering synagogues, the poor scavenged the settlement carcasses, and the PA police and other security forces watched.

Looters torched synagogues and ripped what they could from what were considered the settlements’ sturdiest buildings.

The greenhouses, left behind by Israel as part of a deal brokered by international mediators, are a centerpiece of Palestinian plans for rebuilding Gaza after 38 years of Israeli occupation. The Palestinian Authority hopes the high-tech greenhouses will provide jobs and export income for Gaza’s shattered economy.

During a tour of Neveh Dekalim, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei implored Palestinians to leave the structures intact, even as people scavenged through debris elsewhere in the settlement.

“These greenhouses are for the Palestinian people,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to touch or harm anything that can be useful for our people.”

Just minutes away, crowds of looters in the Gadid settlement overwhelmed hundreds of guards trying to protect the greenhouses. Guards acknowledged that in many cases, they were unable to stop the looting.

“They are taking plastic sheeting, they are taking hoses, they are taking anything they can get their hands on,” said Hamza Judeh, a Palestinian policeman.

Remember that about a week and a half back I wrote a couple of posts about the looters in New Orleans and how anarchy is the natural state of man, so when civilization is taken away, it isn't long before man will return to his natural state?

Well, here you go.

Israel was the only civilization the Palestinians knew. The governing bodies of the Palestinian territories (Fatah and Hamas) are terror organizations. That's not much of a civilizing influence. So, this is to be expected.

Israel leaving is the best thing for the Palestinians in the long run. They need to learn how to take care of themselves. (Hat tip LGF)

Monday, September 12, 2005

Atlas Kicks Some Ass

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has got herself worked up into a Fallaciesque rage, and rightly so.

Just When You Thought
Britain Was Waking Up

From National Review:

After the 7/7 bombing attacks by Islamo-fascists that killed scores of Londoners, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced with great fanfare that he would create a Home Office task force of committees to "tackle extremism." The purpose, he asserted, was to confront "head on" the rise of radicalism among young Muslims.

How is it working out so far?

Well, first came the word that an invitation to participate in the effort had been extended to the media secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain, Inayat Bunglawala, known for his anti-Semitism, who refers to Osama bin Laden as a "freedom fighter," and describes Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman ("the blind sheikh" behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing conspiracy) as "courageous."

Next to join the team was Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor (and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) who has praised jihadists attacking Israeli and American forces. Ramadan has just recently landed on his feet in England (where he has been appointed to teach at St Anthony's College at Oxford) after being banned from the United States and France.

Last week it was announced that coming aboard would be Yusuf Islam, better known as the pop singer Cat Stevens, who has become a "peace activist" since converting to Islam in the late 1970s — and an unusual one in that his appearance on a watch list due to what U.S. officials (according to Fox News) called "alleged associations with possible terrorists" caused a trans-Atlantic flight on which he was a passenger to be diverted last year.

Now comes the latest, from Sunday's Times of London:

ADVISERS appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims. They want to replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognise the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths. The draft proposals have been prepared by committees appointed by Blair to tackle extremism....

What is the reasoning? How would it possibly advance the cause of suppressing militancy to suppress memory of the atrocity that is central to the 20th Century history of Europe and to the grandeur of Britain's singularly heroic role in that history? Why, by preventing Muslims from feeling "hurt and excluded," of course.

If all this were not stunning enough, the Times adds in the briefest of asides that Blair's extremism tacklers will also lodge objection to the prime minister's proposal to ban the noxious Hizb ut-Tahrir organization. This militant group is barred throughout much of the Islamic world. Nonetheless, Blair's very helpful advisers contend it should be keep its wide berth in England because, they claim, it does not advocate violence in or against the U.K.
Here's how the Heritage Foundation described Hizb ut-Tahrir in a 2003 study:

Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) is an emerging threat to American interests in Central and South Asia and the Middle East. It is a clandestine, cadre-operated, radical Islamist political organization that operates in 40 countries around the world, with headquarters apparently in London. Its proclaimed goal is jihad against America and the overthrow of existing political regimes and their replacement with a Caliphate (Khilafah in Arabic), a theocratic dictatorship based on the Shari'a (religious Islamic law). The model for Hizb is the "righteous" Caliphate, a militaristic Islamic state that existed in the 7th and 8th centuries under Mohammad and his first four successors, known as the "righteous Caliphs."...

Hizb explicitly rejects democracy.... Yet some regional observers have called for the legitimization of Hizb and its integration into the existing political model. [Footnote omitted] In doing so, they ignore the obvious — Hizb's goal is to smash the existing state apparatus, not to become a player within it.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reported last week that the 7/7 attacks appear only to have strengthened the resolve of those in Blair's government hell-bent on a strategy of "engagement" with militant Islam — gripped by the delusion that such cross-pollination will eventually transform the jihadists rather than sustain the alarming transformation of England itself. Thus they are moving toward approval of a visa allowing the reentry of Shiekh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Mulsim Brotherhood cleric (and a trustee of the Oxford University Center for Islamic Studies) who supports suicide bombers in Iraq and Israel, the stoning of homosexuals, wife-beating, female genital mutilation, and other charming aspects of the Islamist agenda.

It's a good thing the Brits are only "tackling" extremism. Who knows what they would do if they decided to start promoting it?

And then of course there's the Muslim thinker whom Blair consults with who believes that the Jews and Freemasons are controlling the world's events:

Tony Blair decided to wage war on Iraq after coming under the influence of a “sinister” group of Jews and Freemasons, a Muslim barrister who advises the Prime Minister has claimed.

Mr Thomson said: “Pressure was put on Tony Blair before the invasion. The way it works is that pressure is put on people to arrive at certain decisions. It is part of the Zionist plan and it is shaping events.”

Mr Thomson wrote a book in 1994 in which he said Freemasons and Jews controlled the governments of Europe and America and described the claim that six million Jews died in the Holocaust as a “big lie”.

He also wrote that the Jews have no right to live in ”the Holy Land“ because they are not a pure race and therefore not the true biblical Israelites and that Saddam was used as an excuse for US troops - ”including thousands of Jews" - to occupy Saudi Arabia.

You know, if Blair is following a policy of "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies even closer," then he's going to flat-out have sexual relations with that guy.

Roll over and go back to sleep, Britain.

The West's Last Chance

From Tony Blankley in the Washington Times:

The threat of the radical Islamists taking over Europe is every bit as great to the United States as was the threat of the Nazis taking over Europe in the 1940s.

We cannot afford to lose Europe. We cannot afford to see Europe transformed into a launching pad for Islamist jihad.

While we in the United States and Europe have vast resources for protecting ourselves, we have thought ourselves into a position of near impotence.

Beyond the growing number of Muslims committed to terrorism is the threat from the Islamic diaspora's growing cultural and religious assertiveness -- particularly in largely secular Europe, where Muslim cultural assimilation has not occurred.

It is beginning to dawn on Europeans that the combination of a shrinking ethnic-European population and an expanding, culturally assertive Muslim population might lead to the fall of Western civilization in Europe within a century.

This phenomenon, called Eurabia, is viewed with growing fatalism both in Europe and in America. Such fatalism, however, is premature.

Last November, an Islamist terrorist's butchering of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie revealing abuse of Muslim women, aroused deep fears in Holland and across the Continent.

The public anger, which included the burning of mosques in traditionally tolerant Holland, is evidence that the European instinct for survival has not been fully extinguished.

But that survival instinct is threatened by the multiculturalism and political correctness advocated in media and academe -- and institutionalized in national and European Union laws and regulations for half a century.

Europe's effort at cultural tolerance since World War II slowly morphed into a surprisingly deep self-loathing of Western culture that denied the instinct for cultural and national self-defense.

If Europe doesn't rise to the challenge, Eurabia will come to pass.

Mr. Blankley has an important new book entitled The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? I intend to buy it today.

Read the the rest of his article here.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

The Message of September 11th

The Islamic Jihadis will do anything they can to kill as many of us as is possible. In addition, they would like nothing more than to bring down our civilization.

Therefore, we must work to strengthen our understanding of what it is that makes our civilization great. We must understand that the precious freedoms we are afforded are a treasure. We must understand their origin.

And, we must understand how fragile our life is, and that Western Civilization is a unique oasis of goodness when seen in the scope of the barbarity of history.

We can not afford to lose our civilization and it's values. We must do anything we have to to protect our beautiful culture.

Ditch Holocaust Day

Tony Blair's (Muslim) advisors are calling on him to ditch Holocaust Day, because it may be offensive to Muslims:

ADVISERS appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.

They want to replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognise the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths.

The draft proposals have been prepared by committees appointed by Blair to tackle extremism. He has promised to respond to the plans, but the threat to the Holocaust Day has provoked a fierce backlash from the Jewish community.

Holocaust Day was established by Blair in 2001 after a sustained campaign by Jewish leaders to create a lasting memorial to the 6m victims of Hitler. It is marked each year on January 27.

The Queen is patron of the charity that organises the event and the Home Office pays £500,000 a year to fund it. The committees argue that the special status of Holocaust Memorial Day fuels extremists’ sense of alienation because it “excludes” Muslims.

A member of one of the committees, made up of Muslims, said it gave the impression that “western lives have more value than non-western lives”.

Muslims may be offended? Why would that be? Maybe it's because Holocaust Day reminds Muslims that they didn't succeed in killing every last Jew on the planet.

After all, Muslims worked hand in hand with Hitler. Many Muslims, to this day, are Nazis.

Look at that destruction, that massive, senseless, cruel loss of human life ... and then I ask you to look in your hearts and recognize that there is no room for neutrality on the issue of terrorism. You're either with civilization or with terrorists.
On one side is democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human life; on the other is tyranny, arbitrary executions, and mass murder.
We're right and they're wrong. It's as simple as that.
-- Rudy Giulani, October 1, 2001

"You love life, we love death."
-- Osama Bin Laden March 14, 2002

September 11, 2001

Never Forget

September 11, 2001

Only a tiny minority of Muslims want to be suicide bombers, and only a slightly larger minority want actively to provide support networks for suicide bombers, but big majorities of Muslims support almost all the terrorists' strategic goals: For example, according to a recent poll, over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under sharia in the United Kingdom. That's a "moderate" Westernized Muslim: He wants stoning for adultery to be introduced in Liverpool, but he's a "moderate" because it's not such a priority that he's prepared to fly a plane into a skyscraper.

-- Mark Steyn

Also, go see Michelle Malkin's 9/11 post. It's the best I've seen.

Remember the People

Always Remember.

Remember the Firemen

They ran into the buildings, while everyone else was running out.

Remember the heroes.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
- Matthew 16:19

Remember Beslan

Hostages sit on a floor in a gym as a hostage-taker stands with his left foot on a book apparently with a device connected to a chain of explosives in the school in Beslan, Russia taken in this undated image from television during the early part of the siege which began on Sept. 1, 2004. (AP Photo/NTV-Russian Television Channel)

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Beslan stormed an elementary school taking over 1000 people hostage. They stabbed babies to death, shot toddlers in the back, forced children to eat rose petals and drink their own urine, raped teenage girls, executed their teachers and blew themselves up in a crowded school gymnasium. Death toll: 338.

Remember Beslan

Beslan, Russia, September 1, 2004. Muslim men stormed an elementary school, taking over 1000 students and teachers hostage. They wired the whole school with explosives, apparently intending to blow up every child who was there. In the end, 331 people were murdered, including 186 children.

Beslan, Russia, September 1, 2004. Yes, that's blood on the floor from the body of a person who was murdered and then dragged across the floor in plain sight of hundreds of children.

Remember What They Have Done
In The Name of Allah

Here on the fourth anniversary of September 11, let's look back at an article Michelle Malkin wrote on the third anniversary:

The third anniversary of Sept. 11 is upon us. We remain at war -- and the media remain in denial.

How many times have you picked up a newspaper and read about terrorist attacks perpetrated not by Muslim terrorists, but by generic "militants" or "guerrillas" or "rebels" or, as Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes noted the Pakistan Times called them, "activists"?

It wasn't no-name militants or wayward guerrillas who have butchered, beheaded and slaughtered thousands of innocents over the last three years alone. Anniversary reality check:

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Russia stabbed babies to death, shot toddlers in the back, forced children to eat rose petals and drink their own urine, raped teenage girls, executed their teachers and blew themselves up in a crowded school gymnasium. Death toll: 338.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Spain detonated bombs on four commuter trains during Madrid's rush hour. Death toll: 190.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Bali blew up a beach resort with an electronically triggered bomb at one bar and a car bomb hidden in a van at another nightclub filled with young Western tourists on holiday. Death toll: 202.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Pakistan kidnapped and beheaded American journalist Daniel Pearl.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Saudi Arabia kidnapped and beheaded American engineer Paul Johnson.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Iraq kidnapped and beheaded American independent contractor Nick Berg.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Iraq kidnapped and executed Italian security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in the Philippines kidnapped and killed American missionary Martin Burnham.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Israel engineered near-simultaneous suicide attacks on two buses, killing at least 15 people.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Morocco waged suicide bombing attacks in Casablanca.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Turkey bombed synagogues and the British consulate.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in America hijacked and incinerated three planes full of men, women and children, trapped pregnant women and firefighters in smoke-filled stairways, and forced office workers to leap 99 stories to their deaths after saying final prayers from the ledges of the World Trade Center on a peaceful September morning. Death toll: 3,000.

And I will add some of my own:

In the name of Allah, the Islamic government of Sudan has carried out a 21 year long campaign of genocide against Christians, Animists and Sufi, killing 2.2 million people.

In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists detonated four bombs on London's public tranportation system, killing 56 people and injuring over 700.

In the name of Allah, over 200 bombs were set off in India one morning, killing one and injuring over 100.

In the name of Allah, countless bomb attacks have been waged against the ordinary citizens of the Philippines, killing scores and injuring people by the hundreds.

In the name of Allah, Saudi Arabia has a policy of "No Jews Allowed" inside the borders of their countries.

In the name of Allah, Muslims across the world perform cliterectomies on their daughters. In one Kurdish province of Iraq a study was done recently which revealed that two-thirds of girls have been genitally mutilated.

And finally, remember that this is just a partial list. I could go on and on and on, for page upon page.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Never Forget September 11th

I'm Only Talking About Shaq

That Shaq is one good mother... :

MIAMI - Sweat dripping from his head as he worked in the midday South Florida sun, Shaquille O'Neal loaded the last item into a cavernous 18-wheel trailer and pointed to the generous stranger.

"Give the man a hug," he urged his children, who quickly obliged. "Tell him thank you."

For the last week, O'Neal and his wife have coordinated efforts to help those in Louisiana and Mississippi whose lives were ripped apart by Hurricane Katrina. And Saturday, O'Neal was on the front line, personally accepting medical items, toiletries, clothes and other items from those inclined to help.

The tractor-trailers hired by the O'Neal family are expected to begin rolling Tuesday toward Baton Rouge, La. — where O'Neal, the Miami Heat center, attended LSU.

"I commend everybody who's helping out in some way," O'Neal said. "Whether it's monetarily or going to the stores and buying cases of water, bundles of ice ... there's a lot of people chipping in, and my hat goes off to every American and non-American that's helping."

"I'm just doing what I've been taught by my parents to do," O'Neal said. "This is the right thing to do, and I'm trying to urge other people to do it."

Gee, Pastorius, that's nice and all, but why are you posting about this on CUANAS?

Well, I'm glad you asked. The reason is because Shaquille O'Neal is a Muslim.

He's a Muslim who helps people when they need help. When God's people need to be fed, Shaq feeds them. When God's people are thirsty, Shaq will bring them water. When God's people are tired and cold, Shaq will clothe them and give them a place to stay.

He doesn't confine his charity work to fellow Muslims. He helps "the least of these."

Jesus said that when you feed his people like this, it is as if you have fed Him.

Shaq seems like a righteous man to me.

Peaceful State Watch

It looks like my predictions are coming true. Israel tells Gaza, "No attacks, and we mean it":

JERUSALEM - Israel threatened Saturday to deliver an unprecedentedly harsh response to any attacks from Gaza after Israeli troops quit the territory next week and hand it over to the Palestinians.

Egypt, meanwhile, deployed the first of 750 soldiers assigned to police the volatile Gaza border to prevent arms smuggling and illicit crossings after the Israelis end their 38-year occupation.

"An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change ... in the nature of our response to even an attempt at terror," Maj. Gen. Yisrael Ziv, the military's chief of operations, told Israel Radio. "We shall have a far more extreme reaction to any attempt."

I just hope the Palestinians (known as the people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity) will miss this opportunity to get their asses kicked.

Build a state, please. Build a constitutional government, with modern human rights provisions. Build businesses. Build schools. Build friendships. Please build.

They Did What? To Her Clitoris?
With a Dull Blade and No Anaethesia?

Good news. In Denmark, Islamic Imams are calling for a ban on Female Genital Mutilation. From Fjordman:

Circumcising girls should be prohibited, says a group of prominent Danish imams. The imams stated in their declaration that circumcision is a cultural practice - not a religious one - and can and should be avoided, reported daily newspaper Information on Friday.

The declaration was signed by Abdul Wahid Pedersen, Mohammed Fouad al-Barazi, Ahmed Abu-Laban, Fatih Alev, Abu-Bakar Nur Shirwa, and Adan Yusuf Qanyare. Al-Barzi's status as a prominent Islamic clergyman lent authority to the statement.

'No forms of circumcision of women are required or customary for Muslims, and Danish law prohibits any form of female circumcision - regardless of whether it takes place in Denmark or outside of the country - therefore we recommend that circumcision of girls in all its forms is stopped,' the imams wrote in their declaration.

How many girls in Denmark have been circumcised is unknown, but according to the World Health Organisation, the practice is slowly on the rise internationally.

But, it seems the Danish Imams are swimming upstream because the sacred Hadiths call for female circumcision. Therefore, in Egypt, Doctors are proposing a "moderate" of mutilation. From the Fatwa Bank, via Fjordman:

Islamic Ruling on Female Circumcision

Actually, this is a controversial issue among jurists and even among doctors. It has sparked off fierce debate in Egypt whereby scholars and doctors are split into proponents and opponents.

However, the most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet's hadiths – even though such hadiths are not confirmed to be authentic.

It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife: "Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands".

The hadith indicates that circumcision is better for a woman's health and it enhances her conjugal relation with her husband. It’s noteworthy that the Prophet's saying "do not exceed the limit" means do not totally remove the clitoris.

Actually, Muslim countries differ over the issue of female circumcision; some countries sanction it whereas others do not. Anyhow, it is not obligatory, whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world. But whoever chooses not to do it is not considered to have committed a sin for it is mainly meant to dignify women as held by scholars.

The Imam at Fatwa Bank is kind of up in the air on the issue, isn't he? Do it if you want, or not if you don't want to. He's like a relativist - about mutilation.

Great.

Anyway, this is all a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, because the reality is Female Genital Mutilation is on the rise throughout Europe:

Young girls born in Europe to immigrant families from Africa are being subjected to ritual genital mutilation, and authorities are doing little to discourage it, a leading women’s rights activist warned.

Somalia-born supermodel and best-selling author Waris Dirie, who has campaigned to end the disfiguring practice she suffered at age five in her homeland, said yesterday that she estimates one in every three African families living in Europe is secretly carrying out the ritual on their daughters. No official figures exist.

The procedure – illegal in most European countries – is especially prevalent in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in Austria, where an estimated 8,000 girls born into immigrant families have been affected, Dirie said.

“We don’t know who’s doing it and where,” because there are few initiatives to prevent it or to encourage doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers and others to report suspected cases, Dirie said. An exception is France, where there is strong awareness and education, she said.

“What good is a law if no one is paying attention?” Dirie told reporters in Austria, where she was being honoured yesterday by a Roman Catholic men’s movement for her efforts to stop the practice.

Islamic religious leaders are telling Europe’s Muslim Africans that the prophets recommend the ancient ritual, which involves the removal of the clitoris, often with a dull blade and no anaesthesia, Dirie said.

“That is a catastrophe,” she said. “Every imam who is not actively against genital mutilation is guilty. Mutilation is not a tradition – it’s a crime that must be abolished.”

Islam, as practiced, enslaves and mutilates women. There is no room for this in the world. We need to rid the world of Imams who preach this madness.

Friday, September 09, 2005

The Grand Vision Of
The War On Terror Part III

Part III is posted over at The Internet Journal of Public Policy.

Hope you like it.

Will The Christian Lambs Lay Down For the Lions?

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has been tearing it up recently. She is one of the best bloggers on the internet, and has the best-looking blog around.

I am particularly appreciative of the work she is doing to bring awareness to the fact that Islamic radicals have have been going on rampages against Christians recently, which have been almost as bad as their campaign against the Jews.

Here's the news from the Peaceful State of Palestine:

Christians in the Holy Land have handed a dossier detailing incidents of violence and intimidation by Muslim extremists to church leaders in Jerusalem, one of whom said it was time for Christians to "raise our voices" against the sectarian violence.

The dossier includes 93 alleged incidents of abuse by an "Islamic fundamentalist mafia" against Palestinian Christians, who accused the PA of doing nothing to stop the attacks.

The dossier also includes a list of 140 cases of apparent land theft, in which Christians in the West Bank were allegedly forced off their land by gangs backed by corrupt judicial officials.

A spokesman for the Apostolic Delegate, the Pope's envoy to Jerusalem, said nothing had been done to tackle the problem despite repeated appeals to the PA to rein in Muslim gangs. The dossier currently in church hands details far worse allegations of violence, notably the torture and murder of two Christian girls in 2003. (Telegraph-UK)

But wait, there's more:

A Muslim mob converged on the Palestinian Christian town of Taibeh, burning and looting 13 homes owned by relatives of a man suspected of having an affair and impregnating a 30 year old Muslim woman who worked for him. Prior to the mob attack, in yet another suspected "honor killing," the pregnant woman, Hiyam Ajaj, was found dead from poison.

Lara Sukhtian, of the Associated Press (AP), has written a compelling article about the incident that included context regarding Muslim-Christian tensions, as well as the disturbing practice of "honor killing" among both Muslim and Christian Arabs. While I understand that coverage of the massive Hurricane Katrina relief effort has appropriately bumped many other news items, this compelling story is of particular interest to Christians and women's rights advocates, as well as the general public.

In contrast to the dwindling population of Christians in the PA territories -- as well as surrounding Muslim countries -- Israel's Christian population is vibrant and growing.

Radical Islam has seized the reins of power in much of the Muslim world. They are at war with us. We must realize the truth of this. Radical Muslim ideology and government controls the counries of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Sudan, Niger, and to a lesser extent, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

That's a lot of countries and a lot of people. And they want to bring down Western Civilization and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate.

We need to shake ourselves awake and start really fighting. We could lose all of this, my friends.

As we approach 9/11 we must realize that the message they sent us was that they will do anything they can to kill as many of us as they possibly can. Think about what that means in a world where a single weapon can wipe out a city.

We need to wake up.

These are the flags of a few Islamic countries. Note the crescent, which is the symbol of Islam, just as the cross is the symbol of Christianity.

Say No To "The Crescent of Embrace"

This is the design for the memorial to commemorate the the crash of United Air Lines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. It is entitled "The Crescent of Embrace."

UAL Flight 93 was the flight where American hero Todd Beamer and his fellow heroes stormed the cockpit and took the plane down, saving countless American lives.

We don't need hugs, from a crescent of embrace, or anything else, to commemorate such heroism. We need to celebrate the lives of our brothers and sisters.

The architects who designed the "memorial" actually sound as if they are sincere. But, at best, their sincerity has led them to create a completely inappropriate, and downright offensive design.

The people who were killed on 9/11 were killed in the name of Islam. To erect a "memorial" commemorating those who were murdered which features the symbol of the ideology of the murderers, is akin to erecting a memorial to the Holocaust which features a Swastika.

Let me be clear. I do not think all Muslims are evil, nor is all of Islam evil. However, as I said, the murders of 9/11 were committed in the name of Islam. The last thing we want to remind ourselves of when honoring our dead is the ideology of the those who murdered our brothers and sisters.

I want to vomit when I think of this travesty of a memorial. We can not allow this to happen. Do we really want to allow our civilization to drown itself in Ophelia's tears?

Enough of feeling sorry and sad. We need to be angry. We need to fight for the beautiful civilization we created.

UPDATE: My friend at Always On Watch just emailed me this poem, written by one of her high school students. This kid's thoughts put the the sentimentality of the "adult" memorial to shame:

What Dreams May Come

Early to rise,
Early to bed,
For yearsHistory has repeated itself.

Day and night,
Night and day,
The world keeps turning
Like a needle on a broken record.

Over the years,
the record has a few scratches.
And one scratch is
Enough to stop the music-

On this day a shout came from many people-

People who would get up,
have their coffee,
Read the newspaper,
and go to work,

But this time all eyes are on those who shouted-
Shouted-
This is not a dream.

Those people died.
This is real smoke-
On this day all schooling stopped.
All roads to Washington are closed.

As the families of those who died
Watched in horror as this
News was being repeated
Like a broken record on the television,

All hope was lost.
Nothing ran through their minds
Except that family member,
That empty chair,
The kiss or hug before their spouse,
son, or daughter went to work.

To those who lost someone important to them-
On this day the world stopped.

What of them?
What dreams may come for them?
I pray and hope for comforting dreams,
Dreams of happiness and love.

For the bodies of the lost loved ones may be here,
But their souls are up there,
Walking on the streets of gold
And sitting at the right hand of God.
They will be watching,
And hoping for dreams that are magical.

To those who came to destroy
The freedom of America-
Our freedom cannot be destroyed!
Every time an attempt or an attack is made,

People from all over the world unite
To help fight for freedom
and destroy the C.A.I.R.ing system that hates
Everything we are and do.

God is on our side,
And the American dream still lives.

See, the kid gets it. A child is needed to lead us. Although, I must say, I have a feeling this child is more of a man, than the appeasing, sobbing, crying weasels who would think a "crescent of embrace" is an appropriate "memorial."

This kids poem has REALITY in it. It is not sentimental. It talks about the ways things happened, the loss people felt, their prayers for their lost loved ones, the faith they wield.

The "crescent of embrace" is a sentimental, maudlin, syrupy, flight into mystic emotionalism. A society which becomes mystic in it's approach to daily life is a decadent society.

We need to be real. We need to feel the punch in the face of reality. The crunch of our teeth. We need the kick in the gut, to have the wind knocked out of us, so that we are gasping for breath.

Gasping for life itself.

We need to cry out, "We don't want to die. We want to live."

And then, we need to kick some ass.

"LET'S ROLL."

UPDATE II: You can email the architect who designed this "memorial" at paul@paulmurdocharchitects.com.

Please be polite, but please be explicit in your disapproval of his work. Mr. Murdoch seems like he might be a good and sincere person, but what he has created is a travesty.

Here's what I sent:

Mr. Murdoch,
You seem like a good and sincere person who genuninely wanted to create a memorial honoring the dead of UAL 93. However, what you have created is a travesty.

There are many good Muslims who practice a moderate form of Islam. But, the people who were murdered on September 11th, 2001 were murdered in the name of Islam. And the crescent is the symbol of Islam just as surely as the cross is the symbol of Christianity.

To erect a memorial in honor of those murdered which features a crescent, is akin to erecting a memorial to the Crusades which features a cross, or to erecting a memorial to the Holocaust which features a swastika.

Please do everything in your power to see that your creation is not used.

Sincerely,

Pastorius
Chistians United Against the New Anti-Semitism
http://www.cuanas.blogspot.com/

My friend Always on Watch checked in with her email to the people at Paul Murdoch Architects:

Dear Mr. Murdoch,
Using the crescent, the symbol of Islam, is an unacceptable theme for a memorial to Americans who may have saved one of our nation's landmarks. By using the symbol, you are giving tacit support of radical Islam, the ideology which perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.

Furthermore, use of the crescent desecrates the memory of those American patriots who died in the service of this nation.

Two years ago, I personally visited the Shanksville site. I was so moved by the impromptu tributes there! Even the grafitti in the portable toilet honored those patriots aboard Flight 93. This site in Shanksville deserves a better tribute than the symbol you are proposing.

If you persist in using the crescent design, you will have, in effect, placed the equivalent of a swastika at Auschwitz. Would you do such an insensitive thing? Worse, would you so glorify the hate-filled ideology responsible for the slaughter of millions?

Be an American, sir! Do not use the crescent as a theme for the Flight 93 Memorial!

Thursday, September 08, 2005

The Grand Vision Of
The War On Terror, Part II
The Homoerotic Cult of Islamofascism

Jamie Glazov interviews Ralph Peters about his view of the overarching strategy, possibilities, and meaning of the War on Terror. When we left off yesterday, Peters was discussing the abuse and enslavement of women in the Islamic world, and the cultural weakness which it reveals. From Front Page Magazine:

Peters: Now, I realize this isn't the sort of thing most people consider as a strategic factor, but I am thoroughly convinced that the one foolproof test for whether or not a society has any hope of making it in the 21st century is its treatment of women. Where women are partners, societies take off--as ours has done for this reason and others. Where women are property, there's simply no hope of a competitive performance.

In the collective culture of the Middle East, we're dealing with a deeply neurotic, if not outright psychotic civilization. I wish I could be more positive. But the average Middle Eastern male just has snakes in his head. And, by the way, the place isn't much fun, either. A mega-mall or two does not make a civilization.

FP: You make the observation that “Islam produced a strain of violent homoeroticism that reaches into al-Qaeda and beyond.” Please expand on this reality a bit for us.

Peters: Another issue "sober" Washington wouldn't consider as a strategic concern, but this ties in with the fear of and disdain for women. If you read the notes and papers they left behind, it's evident that the hijackers of 9/11 were a boy's club with strong homoerotic tendencies.

Read Mohammed Atta's lunatic note describing how women must be kept away from his funeral to avoid polluting his grave. Does that sound like a guy with a happy dating history?

Of course, sex between men and boys is a long tradition from North Africa through Afghanistan (fear of women always leads to an excessive fixation on female virginity--so she won't know her husband's inadequate--as well as homoerotic undercurrents).

They don't talk about it, of course--it's supposed to be anathema--but very few Middle Eastern mothers would trust their good-looking young sons around many adult males. This has deep roots, right back to the celebrations of the Emperor Babur's fixation on a pretty boy in the Baburnama. And the related dread of the female as literal femme fatale, as vixen, as betrayer, appears in much of the major literature--especially the "Thousand and One Arabian Nights," which, in its unabridged, unexpurgated version, is one long chronicle of supposed female wantonness and insatiability (the men are always innocent victims of Eve).

Pretty hard for the president to work this into a State of the Union message, but I'm convinced that sexual dysfunction is at the core of the Middle East's sickness--and it's certainly sick.

Nothing about our civilization so threatens the males of the Middle East as the North American career woman making her own money and her own decisions. We don't think of it this way, but from one perspective the best symbols of the War on Terror would be the Islamic veil versus the two-piece woman's business suit.

There is no abyss more unbridgeable between our civilizations than that created by our respect for women and the Islamic disdain for the female. There are many aspects of our magnificent civilization that threaten traditional, backward societies, but nothing worries them so much as the independence of the Western woman--not that they approve of freedom of any kind.

This may sound extreme, but I have repeatedly come across stories over the past few years - written or related by Arabs who have left Islam - which make the same claims about the homoerotic nature of Islamofascistic society. For instance, here is one such article by Physllis Chesler, wherein she discusses the stories of various ex-Muslims:

... a crucial question must be asked: from a psychological and anthropological point of view, what kind of culture produces human bombs, glorifies mass murderers, and supports humiliation-based revenge? According to Minnesota based psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, it is a culture in which shame and honor play decisive roles and in which the debasement of women is paramount.

In an utterly fascinating and as-yet unpublished book, which I will be introducing, the Sheik's New Clothes: the Psychoanalytic Roots of Islamic Suicide Terrorism, Kobrin, and her Israeli co-author, counter-terrorism expert Yoram Schweitzer, describe barbarous family and clan dynamics in which children,

1) both boys and girls, are routinely orally and anally raped by male relatives; infant males are sometimes sadistically over-stimulated by being masturbated;

2) boys between the ages of 7-12 are publicly and traumatically circumcised; many girls are clitoridectomized; and

3) women are seen as the source of all shame and dishonor and treated accordingly: very, very badly.

According to Dr. Kobrin, "The little girl lives her life under a communal death threat--the honor killing."

Both male and female infants and children are brought up by mothers (who are debased and traumatized women). As such, all children are forever psychologically "contaminated" by the humiliated yet all-powerful mother.

Widespread child sexual abuse leads to paranoid, highly traumatized, and revenge-seeking adults. Clearly, only evolution of democracy and the elevation of women can begin to change such dynamics. Western feminists, American leaders: Please note. Alas, historically and theologically, Arab and Muslim culture strongly opposes both democracy and equality for women. This is why the battles to liberate Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East are so important and so very difficult.

Here's a story from the Palestinian ex-Muslim, Walid Shoebat:

Walid Shoebat, an ex-PLO terrorist, came to visit. He has been speaking about his renunciation of terrorism and conversion to evangelical Christianity. Shoebat confirmed the widespread sexual abuse of both boys and girls in Palestinian society. "It is a strange society. Homosexuality is forbidden but if you're the penetrator, not the penetrated, it's okay." He is describing prison sexuality. "If you're a teenage boy with no hair on your legs other boys your age will pinch your butt and tease you. Once, I saw a class of clothed teenage boys sexualize their gymnastics exercizes. And once, on a hiking trip, I saw a line of shepherd boys waiting for their turn to sodomize a five year old boy. It was unbelievable."

Shoebat's father also told him stories about starving Arab men who would barter sex for meat from Iraqi soldiers. According to Shoebat, teenage boys prey upon younger children; older male relatives prey upon pre-adolescent and adolescent boys and girls. They do not have intercourse with the girls since this would render them un-marriageable and bring shame upon their families. I heard many stories in both Afghanistan and Iran about the male preference for anal sex, even within marriage, either as a form of birth control or as a preferred homosexual practice.

Most Arabs and Muslims will deny that this is so. They will attack westerners who say so as "orientalists, colonialists, racists."

Such perversion reveals a profoundly weak culture. When human beings treat each other with such disrespect it is evidence of deep anger, which at bottom is self-loathing. A society which produces such deep human wells of self-loathing is also a society which is ready to turn on itself, if given a reason to do so.

The overarching strategy of the War on Terror is to plant Democracies which can then shine as Cities set on a Hill for the rest of the Islamic world. Democracy will serve as the stark contrast needed to give bitter, hopeless people, trapped in this perverse culture, the perspective needed to renounce the existent culture and demand change.

This is why we need to persevere; for the hundreds of millions of people living lives of enslavement and perpetual psychological torment. As a moral civilization, we must commit ourselves to making sure this sick state of affairs is not allowed to continue on.

A Coincidence
Or Reason To Be Afraid?

The Astute Blogger points out that Bashar Assad of Syria and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority have both canceled their trips to New York City for next weeks United Nations General Assembly Convention:

1 - Assad has just canceled his NY visit - scheduled to allow him to attend the opening of the UN.

2 - Abbas did the same thing earlier in the day (blaiming it on "unrest" in Gaza).

SO... WHAT DO THEY KNOW? Or fear? I think they might know something very bad is planned to coincide with the UN General Assembly convention - and/or the anniversary of 9/11. AND: while a lot of our resources are focused on the Gulf Coast.

I hope the FBI is reading this...

[ASIDE: Ariel Sharon will be attending. If he cancels, then I am staying out of town!]

I'm not too sure there is reason to be afraid. Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be there. It is unlikely that if Assad knew of a possible terror operation he would not tell Ahmadinejad. Besides, the information would much more likely go the other way, as I believe Iran would be the first to know if anything was up.

If Ahmadinejad cancels, then everybody better head out to the Hamptons for some sun.

P.S. The thing that really worries me about this is I don't think I've seen the Astute Blogger be wrong on any of his predictions as of yet. He's gotta be wrong sometimes, right?

Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Ass
On The Way Out

This Jihadi has a really, really good idea:

LONDON: A radical Islamic cleric who was banned from Britain in the wake of the July 7 London bombings on Wednesday described the political response to the attacks as "evil," and urged British Muslims to follow his example by leaving the country.

Omar Bakri Mohammad, who was born in Syria but lived in Britain for 20 years and had been allowed to live indefinitely without being granted a passport, left for Beirut in August....

Bakri, who praised the September 11 hijackers in the United States in 2001 as "magnificent," prompted outrage after the July 7 bombings when he said he would never tip off police if he knew a Muslim was about to carry out an attack....

He said he left Britain because of the government's response to July 7, and to the failed repeat bombings a fortnight later, which has seen a crackdown on Islamic extremism.

"I left with the intention that I did not want to come back, because of the evil ideology and evil policy adopted by the British government," Bakri said.

Before this response to the bombings, Muslims in Britain were "living in harmony," Bakri said. "I was living in the U.K. because I really loved the country, which was really my second home, and I had no problem with the culture.

"However, after the bombings of July 7, I think the British government adopted a policy to cover up their own failure to find who was behind the bombing, to start to accuse the so-called extremists. Unfortunately some people bought that from them."

Britain's Muslim population should consider following his lead, Bakri said.

"Myself, personally, I do not see any reason to stay in the U.K. after the new laws of terrorism," he said. "I think the Muslim community can no longer live in peace in the U.K. It is better for them to think to leave."

I wish all Jihadis would follow his lead.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

The Grand and Inspiring Vision
Of The War on Terror, Part I

The bigger picture in the War on Terror; first, Victor Davis Hanson explains why we can't simply up and leave Iraq, the way the surrender monkeys on the anti-War Left keep calling for:

Vietnam is once again in the air. Last month's antiwar demonstrations in Crawford, Tex., have been heralded as the beginning of an antiwar movement that will take to the streets like the one of 30 years ago. Influential pundits -- in the manner of a gloomy Walter Cronkite after the Tet offensive -- are assuring us that we can't win in Iraq and that we have no option but a summary withdrawal. We may even have a new McGovern-style presidential "peace" candidate in Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold.

America's most contentious war is being freely evoked to explain the "quagmire" we are supposedly now in. Vietnam is an obvious comparison given the frustration of asymmetrical warfare and savage enemies who escape our conventional power. But make no mistake, Iraq is not like Vietnam, and it must not end like Vietnam. Despite our tragic lapses, leaving now would be a monumental mistake -- and one that we would all too soon come to regret.

If we fled precipitously, moderates in the Middle East could never again believe American assurances of support for reform and would have to retreat into the shadows -- or find themselves at the mercy of fascist killers. Jihadists would swell their ranks as they hyped their defeat of the American infidels. Our forward strategy of hitting terrorists hard abroad would be discredited and replaced by a return to the pre-9/11 tactics of a few cruise missiles and writs. And loyal allies in Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan, along with new friends in India and the former Soviet republics, would find themselves leaderless in the global struggle against Islamic radicalism.

The specter of Vietnam will also turn on those who embrace it. Iraq is not a surrogate theater of the Cold War, where national liberationists, fueled by the romance of radical egalitarianism, are fortified by nearby Marxist nuclear patrons. The jihadists have an 8th-century agenda of gender apartheid, religious intolerance and theocracy. For all its pyrotechnics, the call for a glorious return to the Dark Ages has found no broad constituency.

Nor is our army in Iraq conscript, but volunteer and professional. The Iraqi constitutional debate is already light-years ahead of anything that emerged in Saigon. And there is an exit strategy, not mission creep -- we will consider withdrawal as the evolution to a legitimate government continues and the Iraqi security forces grow.

We forget that once war breaks out, things usually get far worse before they get better. We should remember that 1943, after we had entered World War II, was a far bloodier year than 1938, when the world left Hitler alone. Similarly, 2005 may have brought more open violence in Iraq than was visible during Saddam's less publicized killings of 2002. So it is when extremists are confronted rather than appeased. But unlike the time before the invasion, when we patrolled Iraq's skies while Saddam butchered his own with impunity below, there is now a hopeful future for Iraq.

Yes, and as I said earlier today (in this post), our victory in Iraq, and the Constitutional Democracy which it is bringing about will be a step in the strengthening of moderates across the Islamic world, giving them the courage and vision to throw off the shackles of their radical Islamic governments.

And besides, an even larger vision for the War on Terror is slowly starting to take shape. Can we remake the whole world as we did in World War II? Ralph Peters believes we can, and he gives his prescription for just how we can do it. The first step is to beat the hell out of the Islamic extremists:

... the First Battle of Fallujah, in the spring of 2004, was an example of how to get it as wrong as you possibly can. We bragged that we were going to "clean up Dodge." And the Marines went in, tough and capable as ever. Then, just when the Marines were on the cusp of victory, they were called off, thanks to a brilliant, insidious and unscrupulous disinformation campaign waged by al-Jazeera. I was in Iraq at the time, and the lies about American "atrocities" were stunning. But the lies worked and the Bush administration, to my shock and dismay, backed down.

Let's be honest: The terrorists won First Fallujah. And for six months thereafter Fallujah was the world capital of terror--a terrorist city-state. It was evident to all of us who had served that we'd have to go back into Fallujah, but the administration--which I support--made the further error of waiting until after the presidential election to avoid casualties or embarrassments during the campaign. Well, fortunately, in the Second Battle of Fallujah the Army and Marines realized they had to do it fast, before the media won again and the politicians caved in again. The military had been burned once and they were determined not to get burned again. And they did a stunning job--Second Fallujah was a model of how to take down a medium-size city. Great credit to the troops, mixed reviews for the politicos.

The bottom line is this: If you have to fight, fight to win ... We should never go to war lightly, but if we must fight, we have to give it everything we've got and damn the global criticism. There's a straightforward maxim that applies: In warfare, if you're unwilling to pay the butcher's bill up front, you will pay it with compound interest in the end.

The second step is to understand the evil of the vision of the enemy, and understand how it's evil leads to weakness:

Any society that refuses to exploit the talents and potential contributions of half of its population can't remotely hope to compete with the USA or the West in general. Worse, the virtual enslavement of women is as much a symptom of other ailments as it is a problem in and of itself. Where women are tormented by bitter old men in religious robes, there's never a meritocracy for males, either. And such societies are consistently racially and religiously bigoted. Take Pakistan: While the USA is operating at a phenomenal level of human efficiency in the 21st century, say 85%, Pakistan would likely measure in at 12 to 15%.

They just keep falling comparatively farther and farther behind, they hate it, and, of course, they blame us. We're dealing with the abject and utter failure of the entire civilization of Middle Eastern Islam--not competitive in a single sphere (not even terror, since these days we're terrorizing the terrorists). It's historically unprecedented--and unspeakably dangerous.

As far as the inhuman, inhumane--and stupid--treatment of women in the Middle East, yep, Islam is scared of the girls. I wish Freud were alive--he'd really get a look at a civilization's discontents. If you're not terrified of female sexuality, you don't lock women up, insist on covering them up from scalp to toenail and stone them to death for their "sins."

Every single Muslim culture in the greater Middle East is sexually infantile--to use the Freudian term. For all their macho posturing, the men are terrified of their feared inadequacy. It's like one big junior high school dance, with the boys on one side of the gym and the girls on the other--except the boys have Kalashnikovs.

Now, I realize this isn't the sort of thing most people consider as a strategic factor, but I am thoroughly convinced that the one foolproof test for whether or not a society has any hope of making it in the 21st century is its treatment of women.

Where women are partners, societies take off--as ours has done for this reason and others. Where women are property, there's simply no hope of a competitive performance.

This is one of the keys to how Ronald Reagan was able to persevere, inspire faith, and, ultimately defeat Communism. In the early 1950's as a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan watched as the Communists attempted to take over the Union through the means of thuggery.

Reagan assessed the situation thusly:

1) Any idea which has to use thuggery to win must not be capable of winning on it's own merits.

2) The weakness of Communism is in it's inability to inspire people to action through rewarding their successes.

His conclusion was that Communisim would, if challenged with strength and determination, eventually collapse under the weight of it's own bitterness and lethargy.

He stood up to the Communists in theUnion, and was rewarded with years of death threats and the loss of his first marriage to Jane Wyman. However, he persevered because his faith was based in reason, and he eventually won.

Likewise, he eventually was proven correct on the global stage as well, as we saw the Soviet Union collapse in 1989, and the Berlin Wall come down in 1991.

(To be continued tomorrow)

The Beginning of a Long Goodbye

Significant news about the war in Iraq from the Washington Post:

NAJAF, Iraq, Sept. 6 -- The U.S. military pulled hundreds of troops out of the southern city of Najaf on Tuesday, transferring security duties to Iraqi forces and sticking to a schedule that the United States hopes will allow the withdrawal of tens of thousands of its forces by early spring.

The handover came as Marine F/A-18 jets bombed two bridges near the Syrian border, hitting infrastructure in an area where insurgents have maintained effective control despite off-and-on offensives by U.S. forces. Insurgents have used the bridges to move fighters and arms across the Euphrates River toward Baghdad and other cities, the U.S. military said.

In the same area, U.S. warplanes later destroyed a building that insurgents had used to fire upon American and Iraqi troops, a U.S. military statement said. At least two suspected foreign fighters were killed, the military said.

Sounds like some final cleaning up before we leave.

Christianity In The
Peaceful Islamic State of Indonesia

The peaceful Islamic country of Indonesia has a law on the books called the Child Protection Act. That sounds like a good thing, right? We all want to protect children. So, what does a peaceful Islamic state like Inodnesia want to protect children from?

Why, Christianity, of course. From Little Green Footballs:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Three women charged with violating Indonesia’s 2002 Child Protection Act by trying to convert Muslim children were found guilty on all charges in an Indonesian court and sentenced to three years in jail.

The verdict against Rebecca Loanita, Etty Pangesti e Ratna Mala Bangun was pronounced on September 1 after four months of trial during which Muslim extremists tried to intimidate and influence the judges.

The charges against the three women were brought by the so-called the Indonesian Council of Mullahs which claimed they tried to convert Muslim children at a Happy Weekend event.

The three women had organised a week-end of songs, games and outings for Christian children alone, an element that their attorneys had stressed but that the court in Indramavu (West Java) chose to disregard it on the grounds that non-Christian children were present.

Muslim extremists were present at the trial hearings where they tried to intimidate the judges.

The women’s attorneys said that the decision was influenced by the constant threats and not any legal merit the case might have had. No Muslim child was converted and none was forced to attend.

What is more, the extremists released a statement to the press calling on the court to impose the death penalty on the women.

Eyewitnesses present at the sentence hearing said that the same extremists arrived carrying a casket shouting that they would bury the three women if they were not found guilty.

After the decision was read and sentence passed, the crowd in the courthouse broke out in shouts of “Allahu akbar” (God is greater).

You see, of course, this is the way it is done in a peaceful Islamic state.

By the way, one question; Aren't Leftists in our part of the world concerned that Christianity is harmful to children as well?

The Logic Of Islamofascism Explained

Jamie Glazov interviews Robert Spencer in Front Page Magazine. Mr. Glazov notes that he has received numerous death threats from Muslims for criticizing the violence which seems to be inherent in Islam. Glazov is confused. Spencer explains:

Glazov: ... the numerous death threats I have received entail the same irrational paradigm. Let me explain:

While it is a given that many Muslims are on our side against extremism, that we must ally ourselves with them (i.e. Free Muslims Coalition, Sheikh Palazzi etc.), and that Muslims have the power to collectively reform and change their religion into one of tolerance and peace (and that we must promote this effort), I have at times shed light on the elements of the Islamic religion that, as you show, legitimize and promote violence. Because of this, I have often encountered email correspondence of the following nature:

[a] A Muslim emails me and tells me to never say again that Islam ever advocates violence because this is not true.

[b] I answer in an email that I am not saying such a thing off the top of my head but simply just gathering conclusions from reading the Qur'an (i.e. the Verse of the Sword, Sura 9:5, 9:29 etc.) -- a source from which Osama and al-Zarqawi receive their inspiration.

[c] Then the Muslim writes back saying that he will kill me.

The logic here is very twisted. How does the individual who threatens me rationalize his step c with step a?

If his effort is to convince me of the inaccuracy of my own findings, he is not doing a very successful or convincing job, to say the least. What is the psychology here?

Spencer: This is a strange contradiction from a non-Muslim perspective, but not from that of a Muslim who believes in traditional Islamic legal directives calling for the deaths of unbelievers who are at war with Islam.

From the perspective of such a man, Islam is indeed a religion of peace:

the peace that will prevail over the world when Sharia is the supreme law of every land.

To bring this about, he believes he is commanded by God to wage war – not undifferentiated mayhem, but war for specified purposes, under specific circumstances and for particular ends.

When you invoke the Qur’an and other Islamic sources to make that point that elements of the Islamic religion legitimize and promote violence, you are doing so as an infidel. Even if what you say is correct, you are approaching it all as an infidel and are thus insulting Islam. And this insult must be avenged. It isn’t that you are inaccurate, it is that you are critical.

You are mistaking what they see as justice for undifferentiated violence.

This would be the equivalent of an American killing a Muslim for saying that Democracy causes violence.

The Enemy's Biggest Weapon

Jamie Glazov interviews Robert Spencer in Front Page Magazine:

FP: What is your inspiration to speak the unspoken truths about Islam?

Spencer: I speak out simply because few others are doing so. The general refusal to face the realities of what we are really up against in what is popularly known as the war on terror is crippling our ability to mount a fully effective response to the challenge of the global jihad. Political correctness and well-meaning naïveté are playing into the hands of the jihadists and making for some egregious policy miscalculations. Several rather high-profile conservatives, for example, have told me that by focusing attention on the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and fanaticism, I am alienating moderate Muslims who might otherwise be our allies in the struggle against Islamic terror. So in effect they would prefer to pretend that Islam is a peaceful religion at its core in the hopes that this fiction will win us some friends in the Islamic world.

This kind of thinking is flawed in many ways. In the first place, pretending that anything false is true is not ultimately going to get us anywhere. And if we refuse to allow honest exploration of what it is about Islam that is making so many Muslims violent today, we are not really helping sincere moderate Muslims: in fact, we’re cutting the ground out from under them by denying that there is anything about their religion that they need to face and combat if they wish to establish a lasting framework for peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims.

I wish Robert Spencer would have been a little more clear here. He says that sincere moderate Muslims need to "face and combat" the realities of their religion. Yes, I do believe that there are sincere moderate Muslims who possibly need to "face" the reality. However, the emphasis should be on combat. Moderate Muslims know what the problem is. But, they need to find it within themselves to combat the Islamofascist Jihadis in their midst.

I find it hard to believe that people who are sincere moderates do not know what the problem is. Let's face it, normal human beings, would prefer to live in constand enmity with their fellow man.

I have often said, that I believe that the preponderance of Muslims are absolutely normal people - people just like us. However, I think they find themselves in the same situation that Natan Sharansky describes in his book The Case for Democracy. They are living in a Fear State. The cost of speaking out against the prevailing system is perceived to be too high to be worth doing.

This is why our overarching strategy in the War on Terror is the correct strategy. By setting up states within the Arab World which can serve as an example - of Democracy and Human Rights - to those who live in fear states, we are giving them the idea that they can overcome by speaking out. At a certain point, if we persevere, we will have brought about the tipping point, and all the dominoes will fall, as they did when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The problem is, in my opinion, we are a long, long way from that happening at this point. And, I believe that Iran is probably the key. And, apparently, it is the key we are afraid to turn.

Anyway, back to the Spencer interview. Glazov asks Spencer a great question:

FP: If Islam is truly a religion of peace and tolerance than why is it so dangerous to say what you want about it? You have received death threats over the years for instance. Can you talk a bit about this?

Spencer: Yes, these threats are in effect saying, “Say that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, or we’ll kill you!” I have received death threats, but I am not going to stop telling the truth because of them. If everyone who tells truths that others don’t want people to know gives in to violent intimidation, what kind of world would it be?

I'm glad Robert Spencer doesn't allow the death threats to stop him from speaking out. We all owe Robert Spencer our gratitude for the work he is doing. But, the truth is, even here in America, Robert Spencer is afraid.

You will notice he doesn't do a lot of public speaking. In addition, you might notice that no one knows where he lives. People like Michelle Malkin, or the boys at PowerLine, who do blogs which focus on a wider range of issues, and who do not make it their business to try to educate Americans about the menace of Islamofascism do not have any problem telling us where they live.

Robert Spencer will not do so, nor should he.

Now, think about it, if Robert Spencer has to be afraid living here in America, how much worse must it be in the Islamic world? That is the sum total of the problem. Fear is the biggest weapon of the enemy we have to defeat.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

French Television Says Israel Killed Child On Purpose
Viewing Raw Footage Shows French Slander

From Nidra Poller in Commentary Magazine:

... the story of Muhammad al-Dura has attained near-mythic stature in the Arab and Muslim world. In the West, though its essence is largely forgotten, it has fired the political imagination of many who accept it as emblematic proof of Israeli culpability for the outbreak of the armed conflict and even for Palestinian “martyrdom operations” against Israel’s civilian population.

... a cameraman for France-2, a channel of the state-owned French television network, captured the death of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy, allegedly shot in front of his helpless father by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. A news report, dramatically narrated by France-2’s Jerusalem correspondent, was instantly aired and was offered free of charge to the world’s media.

The effect was immediate, electrifying, and global. Overnight, Muhammad al-Dura became the poster child of the incipient Palestinian “struggle” against Israeli “occupation” and a potent symbol of the genocidal intentions of Israel’s government. A doctored photomontage was soon produced for Arab-Muslim viewers, featuring an imported image of an Israeli soldier apparently shooting the boy at close range.

That the death of Muhammad al-Dura was the real emotional pretext for the ensuing avalanche of Palestinian violence—and a far more potent trigger than Sharon’s “provocative” visit to the Temple Mount—is attested by the immediate and widespread dissemination of his story and of the pietà-like image of his body lying at his father’s feet.

Streets, squares, and schools have since been named for the young Islamic shahid. His death scene has been replicated on murals, posters, and postage stamps, even making an iconic appearance in the video of Daniel Pearl’s beheading. His story, perhaps the single most powerful force behind the Palestinian cult of child sacrifice over the last years, has been dramatized in spots on Palestinian television urging others to follow in his path, retold in a recruitment video for al Qaeda, and immortalized in epic verse by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
But is it true? Although serious doubts were immediately raised about the veracity of the France-2 news report, they were swept aside by the emotions it provoked and by the flare of violence in the last months of 2000. France-2 indignantly turned down all requests to investigate or even to help others investigate by releasing outtakes. To this day, many people believe that even to raise a doubt about the authenticity of the report is tantamount to denying the reality of the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

But let us begin at the beginning, with France-2’s prize-winning scoop, aired just hours after the incident.

Here is what viewers saw and heard: a few seconds of rioting somewhere on the West Bank, followed by a vague scene of armed men at Netzarim junction, a crossroads in the Gaza Strip. A jeep comes down the road. A single shot rings out, and a man in uniform at the open door of the jeep falls or jumps to the ground, clutching his right leg. An ambulance pulls up, stops on the far side of the road. The man is dragged across the ground, placed on a stretcher with his weight resting on his wounded right leg, and loaded into the ambulance. Charles Enderlin, France-2’s correspondent, announces in an eyewitness-style voiceover:

Three PM at Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip. A dramatic turn of events. The Palestinians shot live ammunition, the Israelis replied. Ambulance drivers, bystanders, journalists are caught in the crossfire.

Now the camera focuses on a man and a boy crouched behind a concrete barrel or culvert, their faces contorted in fear. Enderlin: “Here Jamal al-Dura and his son are targets of gunfire from Israeli positions.” The camera pans to a nearby Israeli outpost. The father waves with his right hand in the direction of the Israeli position. The father is hunched behind the barrel, the boy nestled against his back. Enderlin:

Muhammad is twelve years old. His father tries to protect him. He waves. But another round of fire bursts out. Muhammad is dead, and his father grievously wounded.

During the 55-second sequence, two shots have hit a concrete-block wall that stands like a backdrop for the scene, landing far afield of the father and son. Other bullet holes, similarly off-target, can be seen in the wall as well. The father shields the boy; the father’s arm is clearly visible, perpendicular to the ground. Guttural cries are heard, adding to the feeling of panic. The last round of gunfire kicks up a cloud of dust, obscuring the man and boy. When the dust clears, the boy is stretched out at his father’s feet; the father bobs his head as if groggy.

And that was it. As Enderlin would later explain, the reason France-2’s scoop was offered free to the world was that the producers did not want to earn a profit from so tragic an incident. Only the terrible moments of the child’s death throes, he added, had been edited out, being “too unbearable.”

The film sequence itself, attributed at first to a “France-2 cameraman,” was subsequently identified as the work of the station’s Palestinian stringer, Talal Abu Rahmeh. By then, the full authority and reputation of France-2 itself had been indelibly stamped on the footage.

Within days, an elaborate narrative was being disseminated to flesh out the elusive details of the 55-second video. On October 3, 2000, testifying under oath before the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh alleged that Israeli soldiers had intentionally, in cold blood, murdered the boy and wounded the father. Abu Rahmeh’s testimony was precise and vivid.

There had been, he said, a five-minute exchange of fire between Palestinian policemen and Israeli soldiers. This was followed by fully 45 minutes of gunfire coming exclusively from the Israeli position and aimed directly at the man and the boy crouching desperately behind a concrete barrel. According to the cameraman, he had captured on film a total of 27 minutes of this fusillade, risking his own life in the process. As an experienced war photographer, he could attest without hesitation that the Israeli outpost was the only position from which the boy and the man could be hit.

Early on, for example, it was pointed out that the 55-second video did not show any of the normal signs consistent with wounds from high-power bullets. There was no blood on the victims’ clothes, on the wall, or on the ground. Their postures appeared wholly voluntary, with no sign of shock or trauma.

As for Abu Rahmeh’s claim of a 45-minute free-for-all, experts in ballistics concurred that automatic rifles fired uninterruptedly for that length of time would reduce their victims to shreds, and the concrete block wall behind them to rubble. Nor did such behavior accord with what one knew about the ethics, discipline, and skill of IDF soldiers.

Early doubters of the received version included the French documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov, who sued France-2 for spreading false information; the case was thrown out of French court. Nahum Shahaf, an Israeli physicist who led the first official IDF investigation, has been studying the incident ever since, accumulating one of the most exhaustive film libraries on the subject. Metula News Agency (MENA), an Israel-based, French-language service, likewise undertook a lengthy and still ongoing investigation.

Esther Schapira, a German television producer who went to Israel convinced of IDF guilt, came away with a film exposing the contradictions and discrepancies of the France-2 news report; she was convinced that the boy had been killed by Palestinians. In a June 2003 article in the Atlantic, the American journalist James Fallows concluded that Muhammad al-Dura “was not shot by the Israeli soldiers who were known to be involved in the day’s fighting,” but also that we would never know who killed him.

... we do have extensive evidence of what was occurring at Netzarim junction on September 30, 2000. More than a dozen cameramen were at the junction filming the action that day. They were all Palestinian, but they were working for Reuters, AP, NHK, France-2, and other prestigious networks. Aside from Abu Rahmeh’s footage, brief excerpts from what they shot have appeared in news broadcasts. But hours of outtakes also exist, and their eloquence is astounding. I cannot claim they show everything that happened, but enough raw footage exists to substantiate what follows.

On all the outtakes I saw, only one exchange of gunfire takes place: a brief outburst from the bunkers and a responding series of shots, ostensibly from the Israeli position. As for the death scene, it was filmed in front of a concrete-block wall abutting a makeshift building, opposite the pita but situated at an angle that made the al-Duras’ barrel inaccessible to gunfire from the Israeli outpost.

The Reuters, AP, and France-2 outtakes that I viewed show two totally different and easily identifiable types of activity at Netzarim junction: real, intifada-style attacks, and crudely falsified battle scenes. Both the real and the fake scenes are played out against a background of normal civilian activity at a busy crossroads.

In the “reality” zone, excited children and angry young men hurl rocks and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli outpost while shababs (“youths”) standing on the roof of the Twins throw burning tires down onto the caged lookout; this goes on seemingly for hours, without provoking the slightest military reaction from Israeli soldiers.

At the same time, in the “theatrical” zone, Palestinian stringers sporting prestigious logos on their vests and cameras are seen filming battle scenes staged behind the abandoned factory, well out of range of Israeli gunfire. The “wounded” sail through the air like modern dancers and then suddenly collapse. Cameramen jockey with hysterical youths who pounce on the “casualties,” pushing and shoving, howling Allahu akhbar!, clumsily grabbing the “injured,” pushing away the rare ambulance attendant in a pale green polyester jacket in order to shove, twist, haul, and dump the “victims” into UN and Red Crescent ambulances that pull up on a second’s notice and career back down the road again, sirens screaming.

In one shot we recognize Talal Abu Rahmeh in his France-2 vest, filming a staged casualty scene.* (* Students in a special course at the Israeli Military Academy, who had access to this raw footage, tagged and tracked the amateur actors as they went through their day, playing multiple roles. The injured and dead jump up, dust themselves off, play at offensive combat; casualties evacuated by ambulance are later seen loading a fellow actor into an ambulance or smiling with satisfaction as the ambulance door slams shut.)

Split seconds of these ludicrous vignettes would later appear in newscasts and special reports; the husk, the raw footage that would reveal the fakery, had been removed, leaving the kernel rich in anti-Israel nutrients. Such staged scenes showed up, for example, in a dramatic CBS 60 Minutes special report on Netzarim crossing—a place “now known,” intoned Bob Simon, echoing Palestinian sources, “as Martyr’s Junction.”

The al-Dura death scene was filmed right in the middle of these falsified incidents. It can be localized and situated. In one section of Reuters footage we see the man and the boy crouched behind the upended culvert as a jeep drives slowly up the road, stops in firing range of the Israeli position that is clearly visible in the near distance, makes a U-turn, drives in the opposite direction, stops short of the barrel/culvert, and helps perform the clearly faked evacuation of a man wounded in the right leg, as also shown in the France-2 news report. In fact, two ambulances stand for a long moment no more than fifteen feet from the al-Duras. There is no evidence of armed combat in their vicinity. No sound of gunfire. Men run down the road, passing in front of the al-Duras. No one is hit.

I also viewed a copy of the satellite feed transmitted by Abu Rahmeh late in the afternoon of September 30. In addition to the 55 seconds aired that evening, it includes a final image of the boy who would be described afterward as “killed instantly by a shot to the stomach”: in it he is seen shifting position, propping himself up on his elbow, shading his eyes with his hand, rolling over on his stomach, covering his eyes.

Go read the rest.

America's Most Wanted Terrorist
And His Nuclear Ambitions?

World Net Daily says there is a terrorist within the United States already who has control of nuclear weapons and is planning on using them to destroy American cities and wreck our economy. I present this article not because I necessarily believe this information to be true (it probably isn't), but because I think it might be true. From World Net Daily:

The individual who merits the distinction of the "America's most dangerous" fugitive is Adnan el-Shukrijumah, a diminutive, 30-year-old terrorist who stands at 5-foot-4 and weighs 140 pounds.

El-Shukrijumah represents the perfect "sleeper agent," since he speaks English without the slightest hint of an accent and possesses the uncanny abilities to blend into a crowd, to alter his looks, and to assume a multitude of identities. He is the proverbial Mr. Cellophane. Nothing about el-Shukrijumah indicates his radical Islamic orientation. He remains clean-shaven and never wears a long shirt or chews a toothpick. He has been known to have a beer on occasion (like an average American Joe), to smoke an occasional Camel and even to carry rosary beads in his pocket.

El-Shukrijumah's face does not appear on the nightly news, even though a BOLO ("Be-On-the-Lookout") was issued March 21, 2004, by FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

He is neither the subject of feature articles in leading newspapers nor of special reports on CNN and Fox News, let alone the three major networks. But no one is more of a threat to the lives and well-being of every man, woman and child within the United States than this ferret-faced terrorist.

Adnan el Shukrijumah, a trained nuclear technician and accomplished pilot, has been singled out by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil, a nuclear event that is known among al-Qaida planners as "the American Hiroshima."

The terrorist was last seen in Mexico, where, on Nov. 1, 2004, he allegedly hijacked a Piper PA Pawnee cropduster from Ejido Queretaro near Mexacli to transport a nuclear weapon and nuclear equipment into the U.S. The plane's tail number was XBCYP.

Adnan el-Shukrijumah was born in Guyana Aug. 4, 1975 – the first born of Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, a 44-year-old radical Muslim cleric, and his 16-year-old wife.

In 1985, Gulshair migrated to the United States, where he assumed duties as the imam of the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn.

The mosque, located at 554 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, has served as a hive for terrorist activities. It has raised millions for the jihad and has served as a recruiting station for al-Qaida. Many of the planners of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, including blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, were prominent members of this notorious "house of worship."

Adnan Shukrijumah attended flight schools in Florida and Norman, Oklahoma, along with Mohammad Atta and the other 9-11 operatives, and he became a highly skilled commercial jet pilot, although he, like Atta and the other terrorists, never applied for a license with the Federal Aviation Commission.

In April 2001, Shukrijumah spent 10 days in Panama, where he reportedly met with al-Qaida officials to assist in the planning of 9-11.

Following the success of 9-11, el-Shukrijumah became singled out by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to spearhead the next great attack on America – a nuclear attack that would take place simultaneously in seven U.S. cities, leaving millions dead and the richest and most powerful nation on earth in ashes.

To prepare for this mission, el-Shukrijumah, along with fellow al-Qaida sleeper agents Anas al-Liby, Jaber A. Elbaneh, and Amer el-Matti, was sent to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, a facility that boasted a five-megawatt nuclear research reactor, the largest reactor of any educational facility in Canada.

At McMaster, where they may have enrolled under aliases, el-Shukrijumah and his associates reportedly wasted no time in gaining access to the nuclear reactor and stealing more than 180 pounds of nuclear waste for the creation of radiological bombs.

Jane Johnson, a spokesperson for McMaster University, declined to comment on the stay of the al-Qaida operatives at the school. She insisted that such information was confidential.

See, there are problems with this story. A radiological bomb is of no use to a person who wants to destroy a city. And it would be of no interest to a person who already planned on having a nuclear weapon, because a nuclear weapon would be so much stronger as to render a radiological bomb irrelevant.

Author V.S. Naipaul Discusses Islam,
The West, India, and the Arab World

From Fjordman:

What is of account, in Naipaul's view, is the larger global political situation -- in particular, the clash between belief and unbelief in postcolonial societies. ''I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery,'' he said. To what extent, he wondered, had ''people who lock themselves away in belief . . . shut themselves away from the active busy world''?

''To what extent without knowing it'' were they ''parasitic on that world''? And why did they have ''no thinkers to point out to them where their thoughts and their passion had led them''? Far from simple, the questions brought a laserlike focus to a central paradox of today's situation: that some who have benefited from the blessings of the West now seek to destroy it.

In November 2001 Naipaul told an audience of anxious New Yorkers still reeling from the attack on the World Trade Center that they were facing ''a war declared on you by people who passionately want one thing: a green card.''

What happened on Sept. 11 ''was too astonishing. It's one of its kind. It can't happen again,'' he said in our conversation. ''But in the end it has had no effect on the world. It has just been a spectacle, like a bank raid in a western film. They will be caught by the sheriff eventually.''

The bigger issue, he said, is that Western Europe, while built on tolerance, today lacks ''a strong cultural life,'' making it vulnerable to Islamicization. He even went so far as to say that Muslim women shouldn't wear headscarves in the West. ''If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture,'' he said. ''It's a form of aggression.''

And yet, for all his laments, Naipaul is not invested in the notion that Western civilization is in decline. ''That's a romantic idea,'' he said brusquely. ''A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying. . . . It's a university idea. People cook it up at universities and do a lot of lectures about it. It has no substance.''

The ''philosophical diffidence'' of the West, he maintains, will prevail over the ''philosophical shriek'' of those who intend to destroy it.

A Hindu by birth, though not observant, Naipaul finds India a place of great hope. It is, he says, the country where belief and unbelief coexist most peaceably. The economic development of India -- and China -- he said, will ''completely alter the world,'' and ''nothing that's happening in the Arab world has that capacity.''

Yet Naipaul called it ''a calamity'' that, even with its billion people, ''there are no thinkers in India'' today. India is also where he turns for a theory of history. ''The only theory is that everything is in a state of flux,'' he said. This is his own ''personal idea,'' he said, but one linked to a philosophical concept in Indian religion.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Opelia Drowning With A Rose

I've Been High
by
R.E.M.

Have you seen?
Have not will travel
Have I missed the big reveal?

Do my eyes,
Do my eyes seem empty?
I've forgotten how this feels.
I've been high
I've climbed so high
The light, sometimes it washes over me.

Have you been?
Have done will travel
I fell down on me knees
Was I wrong?
I don't know, don't answer.
I just needed to believe.

I've been high
I've climbed so high
The light, sometimes it washes over me.

So I dive into a pool.
So cool and deep that if I sink I sink,
And when I swim I fly, so high.

What I want
All I really wanted
Just to live my life on high.
And I knowI know you want the same
I can see it in your eyes.

I've been highI've climbed so high
The light, sometimes it washes over me.
Washes over me
I close my eyes
So I can see
Make my make believe, believe in me.

Mysterious Blast In Gaza

Associated Press can't figure out what happened:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A mysterious blast after nightfall Monday leveled a building in Gaza City, killing four people and wounding at least 30, residents and hospital officials said. The violent Islamic Hamas group blamed Israel, but the Israeli military said it was not involved.

The explosion came hours after Palestinian security forces got their first look at demolished Jewish settlements in Gaza, touring the area ahead of Israel's formal handover in mid-September. The joint tour by Palestinian commanders and Israeli military officials marked the first time Palestinian authorities were allowed into the settlements, which were evacuated two weeks ago.

The blast in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shajaiyeh destroyed a house where known Hamas members lived. Hamas charged that an Israeli missile hit the house, with a group spokesman, Munir al-Masri, accusing Israel of continuing its "dirty assassination policy, which gives us the right to respond and to defend ourselves."

Some residents said it was apparently a case of explosives in the house detonating prematurely as Hamas militants worked on a bomb.

Gee, do you think? Has Israel ever denied responsibility? Like say, did they deny that they took out Yassin, or Rantissi? God, is AP stupid, or do you think they just don't want to know?

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called the explosion "regrettable" ...

Why do you think Abbas thinks it's regrettable that Hamas didn't get to finish making their bomb?

The Truth Will Win Out
And America Will Prevail

This news is coming from this blog a couple of days later than it was first revealed (because I'm so sick of the political carping), but just for the record:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request.

“Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

“The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. “The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.”

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Arghh. I am so sick of all the blame Bush crap. CNN is on non-stop hate Bush mode. CNN is broadcasting to the world that America is idiotic and that Bush doesn't care about the American people. Outside of America, no one even knows what is going on.

My blogbrother Titus has a post on how the truth came flying right out of Mayor Nagin's mouth the other day, and CNN buried that too:

Mayor Nagin: The President looked at me. I think he was a little, uh, surprised. He said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the Governor. I said he (and I don't remember exactly what...) two options. "I was ready to move today. The Governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision."

Interviewer: The President told you the Governor said she said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

Mayor Nagin: Yes.

Go read the rest.

And I've got a message for all you America haters out there who are spreading slander about us when we're down. We'll meet you in the history books my friends. And they will show how we beat this, and we will become richer and you, in your idiocy and with your childish attitudes, will be poorer, because you don't take responsibility for yourselves. Instead, you just try to blame America and take America down.

All Creation Cries Out The Glory of God

I recently was accused of harboring pantheistic sentiments by a friend and fellow Christian. The truth is, I probably do walk a fine line between strict monotheism and pantheism. I believe there is a God. I believe He created the universe. I believe that He has communicated with us via the Bible, (although I'm not too sure about the immense changes that took place between the time of the Law-giving, and the later Old Testament where God says he's sick of our burnt offerings).

What is it with the huge change in an Omniscient, Omnipotent God? Hmm?

Anyway, I guess the best way I can put it is to say I think the Bible is God's Word to us, but maybe in the case of some lessons we needed to learn our conciousness weren't ready for God's reality, and so He made changes as we learned and grew. I don't know. I don't get it. (By the way, I've read explanations for these changes, and they didn't make sense to me, so it's not like I'm completely working from ignorance, although I might be working from idiocy.)

There is too much inexplicable genius to the Bible for me to simply say that it is not God-inspired. So, I believe the Bible is infallibly what God wanted us to have, but I don't understand all of it, and would not choose to live by all of it. For instance, I would not stone a homosexual to death. Doesn't make sense to me. Nor, do I wish hell on my enemies (for the most part).

:)

Capital punishment for murder, on the other hand, does make sense to me. So I, like everyone, choose what I do and do not follow.

Anyway, here's the thing. As an artist, and as an emotional person, and as a romantic, I must admit, I do sometimes have a hard time separating God from His creation. The Bible itself says that "The heavens declare the Glory of God." In some sense, it seems to me we do have a divine spark, that you can see God in people. That you can find God in a flower.

So, yesterday I was sitting around reading Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Check this out (in case you're not a poetry person, think about how falling in love makes you feel):

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad,
I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever,
I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill,
the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much?
have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun,
(there are millions of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead,
nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either,
nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
I have heard what the talkers were talking,
the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance,
always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
always a breed of life.

To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme
I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips
and gently turn'd over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone,
and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me
the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers,
and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.

I feel that way about life quite a bit. (Yes it's true, I am not only the angry Pastorius of CUANAS). I believe that marital love is a sacrament given by God to man, so that we can begin to understand the kind of Oneness and Joy He wants to share with us; the Bride of Christ. And I find in love a joy which makes me feel closer to God. I feel like I can see God in my wife and children.

Of course, there's a lot of pantheism in Whitman's poem, isn't there? But I understand where he is coming from. And I think all of us who have fallen madly, passonately in love would also understand. Am I not right about that?

How are we supposed to be lovers, and be in love, and not feel such a feeling of Oneness? How are we supposed to give ourselves without feeling subsumed. And who created the feeling of the unity of Love in the first place? Why would He have created it this way, if we were not supposed to feel it?

Was this feeling born in us from having eaten the apple?

Is it wrong to feel intense unity in love?

I don't have answers. All I know is that, because God tells us to worship Him and not His creation, I will make every attempt to follow His Will, but His creation is so beautiful, and is such a Gift, that I can't help but feel sometimes that God is hiding within everything.

So sue me. Someone already paid the judgement you would win against me.

Heh.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

At Least Someone's Trying To Save Us From The Fate Of Ophelia

Iranian News
The Reason For Muslim Calamities?
Because Khameini's Decree About
Wiping Israel From The Middle East
Hasn't Been Carried Out

From Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 03 – A radical Islamist weekly close to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised suicide operations against the United States and Israel as the correct strategy to carry forward the message of the Islamic Republic, as advocated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“The reason for all the calamities of Muslims is the fact that the decree by Imam Khomein