Samurai Soapbox

Finally, A New Page!!

2006-06-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

We have a new page! Please go to the new Samurai Soapbox here. You may have to refresh the page due to some problems which we are trying to work out. If anyone has any suggestions, it would be appreciated. See you there!

We Are Moving

2006-06-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

We will be down for the next few days, as we are moving to a new domain. Yes! I will update this page with the new address when we have finished, so thank you for your patience. See you soon.

John Murtha: We Could Cut and Run to Okinawa!

2006-06-19T01:45:00.000-07:00

Ah……….. John Murtha. If you didn’t watch his mumbled interview on Meet The Press yesterday, you, you, you……….. missed some, some great, great insight on how Karl Rove “sits his fat ass in an air-conditioned office” and his st..st..strategy for redeploying troops from Iraq to………. OKINAWA.

You can read the transcript here.

On Karl Rove:

MR. RUSSERT: Karl Rove, the principal political adviser to the president, went to New Hampshire on Monday, and he talked about Democrats who voted for the war and who have now changed their opinion. Here’s what he had to say, and I’ll give you a chance to respond.

MR. ROVE: Like too many Democrats, it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party’s old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles. They are wrong, and profoundly wrong, in their approach.

MR. RUSSERT: Cutting and running.

REP. MURTHA: He’s, he’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, “Stay the course.” That’s not a plan. I mean, this guy—I don’t know what his military experience is, but that’s a political statement. This is a policy difference between me and the White House. I disagree completely with what he’s saying.

So then Murtha, the guy sitting in the NBC air conditioned studio with his big, fat backside, gave us his enlightened thoughts on the Al-Zarqawi death and his bold new strategy for Iraq:

REP. MURTHA: Well, it (the death of Al-Zarqawi) was a military accomplishment from outside the country. We, we bombed, we bombed it. The, the information came from the Iraqis to the Iraqis to the U.S., and then we bombed where he was. And it—so it came from the outside.

The military’s done everything that they can do. And so it’s time for us to redeploy. And Iraqi—only Iraqis can settle this.

Next Russert asks him where we could deploy to given the thought by Rove that most Arab states would not accept our troops for redeployment. Murtha’s answer:

REP. MURTHA: There’s many countries understand the importance of stability in the Middle East. This is an international problem. We, we use 20 million barrels of oil a day. China’s the second largest user. All these countries understand you need stability for the energy supply that’s available in the Middle East. So there’s many, many countries.

Kuwait’s one that will take us. Qatar, we already have bases in Qatar. So Bahrain. All those countries are willing to take the United States. Now, Saudi Arabia won’t because they wanted us out of there in the first place. So—and we don’t have to be right there. We can go to Okinawa. We, we don’t have—we can redeploy there almost instantly. So that’s not—that’s, that’s a fallacy. That, that’s just a statement to rial up people to support a failed policy wrapped in illusion.

Okinawa? O-O-Okinawa? Come, on you big military strategist you. Isn’t that a little far?

REP. MURTHA: Well, it—you know, they—when I say Okinawa, I, I’m saying troops in Okinawa. When I say a timely response, you know, our fighters can fly from Okinawa very quickly. And—and—when they don’t know we’re coming. There’s no question about it. And, and where those airplanes won’t—came from I can’t tell you, but, but I’ll tell you one thing, it doesn’t take very long for them to get in with cruise missiles or with, with fighter aircraft or, or attack aircraft, it doesn’t take any time at all. So we, we have done—this one particular operation, to say that that couldn’t have done, done—it was done from the outside, for heaven’s sakes.

What did he just say? Oh heaven’s sakes, Froggy at Black Five, please help us out:

Froggy: Of course this ignores the six week 24/7 Taskforce 145 "Unblinking Eye" intelligence and surveillance operation that led to having a Delta SR team with eyes on target and designating it with a laser. Apparently Murtha thinks that somebody called 1-800-ZARQAWI with 10 digit grid coordinates and voila! an F-16 launches from Okinawa and 10-12 hours later... poof, no more Zarqawi.

The distance from Okinawa to Baghdad as the crow flies is approximately 4200 nautical miles. Obviously, the Chinese and the Iranians wouldn't be cool with that(flying over their territory), but let's just roll with it. The max combat range for the F-16 with external fuel tanks and 2000 lbs of ordnance is 740 nautical miles so that's like a minimum of SIX midair refuelings in EACH direction.

Thank you very much. I think we can all agree that Murtha is well, well, de, de, delusional.

I wonder if he asked people in Okinawa how they felt about a redeployment to Japan. I think this might sum it up. From The Asian Times Online, 2003:

And like its inhabitants, Koizumi - at least officially - wants fewer troops on Okinawa and informed Rumsfeld that the "reduction of the burden on Okinawa is a big issue for my cabinet". Rumsfeld, however, currently occupied with work on global redeployment plans for the US military, decided not to comment on the Okinawa issue and spoke of "concepts and ideas for redeployment of US troops" instead. "The US is not at a stage of making proposals or anything like that," he said, taking the issue off the bilateral agenda once again.

Koizumi let him off the hook and instead gave Rumsfeld the opportunity to witness the protests first hand while visiting US Marine bases on Okinawa. Protesters gathered in front the US military base advised Rumsfeld and the US to "go home" while calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq (and Okinawa, as some banners read).

Living in Japan, I get the sense in 2006 that those feelings are stronger than ever among a majority of Japanese people. Murtha's idea would never be accepted.

Anyways, The Huffington Post thinks Murtha hit a grand slam:

I had to rewind it just to see this again: "He's sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, 'Stay the course.'"I mean, did Murtha stick it to them or what? Boom! They have no plan. Boom! It's lipservice from Washington. Boom! History will prove them wrong. Boom! Karl Rove has a big, fat ass. It almost makes you weep.

Yeah, it does make me weep……..for joy. Because if this is your mantra for November, I’ll continue to assume that after the election there will still be a majority of air conditioned offices in Congress still open for Republicans to sit in.

More from Jeff Goldstein and Gateway Pundit.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags: Iraq, JohnMurtha, Democrats, Okinawa, Japan

What I'm Reading: Saturday, June 15

2006-06-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

The New York Post writes about documents uncovered from terrorists' computers during raids in Iraq. An interseting read entitled "Terrorist Defeatism".

Islamic militants in Kashmir show how peaceful they are while hacking off noses and tongues.

And of course, House Rejects Timetable for Iraq Pullout.

Have a great weekend! I will be back Monday, unless North Korea decides to test launch a missile again.

Technorati Tags:Iraq, Islam, War, Congress

Bush In Baghdad

2006-06-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I have been asleep here in Japan, and not been able to keep track of the news. But……the Karl Rove story is big, and it also seems Bush made a small trip to Baghdad while I was getting some shuteye. From the Washington Post:

President Bush, seeking to bolster support for Iraq's burgeoning goverment and U.S. war policy at home, made a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday to meet newly named Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and discuss the next steps in the troubled 3-year-old war.

It was a dramatic move by Bush, traveling to violence-rattled Baghdad less than a week after the death of terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a bombing attack. The president was expected to be in Baghdad a little more than five hours.

Bush met with al-Maliki in heavily fortified green zone at a palace once used by Saddam Hussein. It now serves temporarily as the U.S. Embassy.

"Good to see you," exclaimed al-Maliki, who didn't know Bush was in Baghdad until five minutes before they met.

"Thanks for having me," Bush responded. They smiled broadly and gave each other a two-handed handshake in the high-domed marble room.

The trip was known only to a handful of aides and a small number of reporters sworn to secrecy because of obvious security threats for Bush and members of his entourage.

The prime minister had been invited to the embassy on the pretense of taking part in a video conference with Bush, supposedly at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountins. The videoconference was to go on as scheduled, but with Bush appearing alongside al-Maliki.

It was a dramatic move by Bush, traveling in secret to violence-ridden Baghdad six days after the death of Zarqawi. The administration hoped the elimination of Zarqawi and the completion of al-Maliki's cabinet would make war-weary Americans look at Iraq in a more positive light.

Aside from al-Maliki and his cabinet, Bush was to see Jalal Talibani, Iraq's largely ceremonial president. Bush also was to meet with the speaker of the parliament, national political leaders and U.S. troops.

Air Force One landed in hazy daylight at Baghdad Airport, where the temperature was above 100 degrees. Bush transferred to a helicopter for the six-minute ride to the green zone.

You can say what you want: It won’t change anything, it was a political move, Hitler Bush finally went for only the second time to see the mess he has created and blah, blah, blah. But……. I am not a huge fan of George either, but you have to give him credit for making the trip in this dangerous time, even though it is the “green zone”.

If anything, hopefully it sends a rally cry to the troops to keep going despite the barrage they have received from the MSM recently (Haditha and Al- Zarqawi’s alleged abuse by troops).
Call me what you want, but seeing a president, whether it be Bush or Clinton, make their way to the war-zone gives me hope.

Has Koizumi, Berlusconi or any other in the coalition made their way to Iraq in the past three years? Did Clinton ever make his way to Yugoslavia? If they did, correct me if I’m wrong.

Related Tags: terror bush baghdad war

Breaking News On Karl Rove

2006-06-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

BREAKING NEWS: According to Yahoo, Rove will not be charged in the CIA leak case. Move along democrats, nothing else to see here.

November just got more interesting.

Al Jazeera.com: Haditha Was Worse Than My Lai

2006-06-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

Whatever happened to waiting until we know the full details? I will tell you what friends, it will not matter what comes of the investigation. The jihadis, moderate muslims and their media are going to believe what they want. The proof is in the pudding as we take a look at the picture on the front page of AlJazeera.com. The headline reads: Haditha uncovers the ugliness of the War Party. Above is the picture linked with the story and this is what was captioned:

(Reuters Photo) The Haditha massacre is far worse than My Lai

Michelle Malkin gives us the background on these photographs and calls them what they are, LIES.

Update: The above picture has now been removed.

Technorati Tags:Iraq, Haditha, AlJazeera

What I'm Reading. Tuesday,June 13th

2006-06-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

I am busy as usual. If I can't post anything constructive everyday, I will link some good reads. Thank you for your support.

Alexandra at All Things Beautiful asks us to decide if moderate muslims are disingenious or simply ignorant.

Don Darling at The Weekly Standard lays out Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda through Al-Zarqawi's successor, Abu Ayyub Al-Masri.

Columnist Mark Steyn writes that the 'warmongers' are right: It's a war.

Technorati Tags:War, Iraq, Terror, Politics, News

He is Dead. Al-Zarqawi is Dead.

2006-06-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

CNN has just broken in with breaking news that Al-Zarqawi has been killed by air strikes in Iraq.

Yes, the insurgency may not be over, but it has definitely been dealt a big blow.

I have been very busy and not able to blog, but this is big news. Hopefully this will give our troops a morale boost during these difficult times.

If it was an air strike, I am sure he did not suffer nearly as much as the many victims who had to endear his hateful wrath.

Good riddance. And let nobody utter the words “peace be upon him”.

Technorati Tags:Iraq, Al-Zarqawi, war, America, terror, dead, Alqaeda

Disbelievers Of Islam Are Filth

2006-04-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Non-believers are filth according to what is being taught to future imams at British colleges with strong Iranian links.

Here are a few passages from their textbooks via The Times Online:

‘The water left over in the container after any type of animal has drunk from it is considered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a disbeliever’

‘There are ten types of filth and impurities: urine, feces, semen, carrion, blood of carrion, dogs, pigs, disbelievers’

‘When a dog, a pig, or a disbeliever touches or comes in contact with the clothes or body [of a Muslim] while he [the disbeliever] is wet, it becomes obligatory- compulsory upon him [the Muslim] to wash and clean that part which came in contact with the disbeliever’

Tags:jihad, islam, terror, england

Insurgent Photographers Working For The MSM?

2006-04-13T01:26:00.000-07:00

Do you still think you're getting the real story from inside Iraq? Think again.

Do you remeber the New York Times photograph debacle a few months back? Look again.

Do you think the widely respected Associated Press would ever make the same mistake? Think again.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for uncovering the story of the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bilal Hussein. Apparently, she has had a tip that Mr. Hussein may have been detained by U.S. troops after being caught in a weapons cache in Ramadi.

Now, what was he doing there?

Ramadi was also where a supposed large insurgent attack that was reported by CNN and the AP last weekend is being investigated by Bill Roggio. It turns out the story may be a fake. Also according to Michelle Malkin, guess who was one of the photographers for the under investigation report?? That's right, Bilal Hussein.

Malkin has alot of background information and photos, take the time to check it out. This story is still developing.

Also check out The Jawa Report and The Anchoress

Technorati Tags:BilalHussein, AP, CNN, Iraq, Terror

Iran: Human Rights and the Bomb

2006-04-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs for the story about the Iranian application for entrance into the U.N. Human Rights Council. Beware though, there are some disturbing pictures posted, though I feel they need to be seen.

Iran also made the news today for other reasons:

Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday. He insisted, however, that his country does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

In a nationally televised speech, Ahmadinejad called on the West "not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory- scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the northwestern holy city of Mashhad. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" Some stood and thrust their fists in the air.

Dhimwit of the year Cindy Sheehan still doesn’t get it:

With all of the "Left Behind" religious fanatics praying for Armageddon, this thought is made even scarier by the fake believers in the White House who are exploiting the neo-Christian idea that Jesus was a war monger and anything our great leader does is okay, because he is a Christian man!

We must not even, for one moment, contemplate a conventional invasion in Iran either. No matter how George Bush lies about how rosy things are in Iraq, they aren't, and Iraq is proof that war of any kind is a horribly tragic way to solve problems.

We cannot allow our leaders to destroy the world by jousting with windmills that are no threat to our safety, or our way of life.

We must elect leaders that will get at the root causes of terrorism and not pretend that every terrorist can ever be killed to satisfy some kind of primeval bloodlust that flows through the war machine's veins. When our leaders go terrorist hunting, they kill innocent men, women and children and they, themselves, become the very thing that they are trying to teach us to loathe

This week, I AM SPEECHLESS. The slow erosion of our society has begun. Have we pitched the white flag already everyone? Italy and France look like they have. You should throw most of Europe in there as well. Britain looks dangerously close. We are about to lose to ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS on an issue that is strictly about national security.

I am no Bush fan either, but is there a leader out there who doesn’t have BDS? Is there someone out there that will not give into the demands of groups that are sore bent on the destruction or drainage of our society?

Everyday we are in more danger, even more than before 9-11. Yes, some of it is Washington’s doing. But Bin Laden and Iran are right, we look like a paper tiger. We, the people. Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying that a world without the U.S. or Israel would someday become a reality. Do you want to call his bluff? Wake up America, or its goodnight sweetheart, goodnight.

Also check out Captains Quarters, All Things Beautiful and Hugh Hewitt.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags: terror, Iran, humanrights, immigration, nuclear

First France, Now America?

2006-04-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin reminds us that this whole immigration mumbo jumbo is about our security:

*Foreign-born militant Islamic terrorists have used almost every conceivable means of entering the country. They have come as students, tourists, and business visitors. They have also been Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) and naturalized U.S. citizens. They have snuck across the border illegally, arrived as stowaways on ships, used false passports, and have been granted amnesty. Terrorists have even used America’s humanitarian tradition of welcoming those seeking asylum.

*At the time they committed their crimes, 16, or one-third, of the 48 terrorists in the study were on temporary visas (primarily tourist visas), another 17 were Lawful Permanent Residents or naturalized U.S. citizens, 12, or one-fourth, were illegal aliens, and three of the 48 had applications for asylum pending.

*Although the 9/11 hijackers entered on temporary visas, LPRs as well as naturalized U.S. citizens have played key roles in terrorism on U.S. soil. For example, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, ringleader of the plot to bomb New York City landmarks in 1993, is an LPR, and Ali Mohammed, who wrote al Qaeda’s terrorist handbook on how to operate in the West, is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

*The nation’s humanitarian tradition of offering refuge to those fleeing persecution has also been exploited by a number of terrorists. In addition to the three terrorists who had asylum claims pending when they committed their crimes, three other terrorists, such as Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, who tried to bomb the Brooklyn borough subway in 1997, used a false asylum claim to prevent deportation prior to taking part in terrorism.

*Violations of immigration laws are very common among terrorists. Not only were 12 of the 48 terrorists illegal aliens when they committed their crimes, at least five others had lived in the country illegally at some point prior to taking part in terrorism. At least five others had committed significant violations of immigration laws prior to their taking part. For those that were illegal aliens, most entered legally on temporary visas and then overstayed. However, some snuck across the northern border, such as Abdel Hakim Tizegha, who was involved in the Millennium plot.

*In addition to overstaying a visa, terrorists have violated immigration laws in a number of different ways. Some terrorists have engaged in fraudulent marriages to American citizens, such as Fadil Abdelgani, who took part in the plot to bomb New York City landmarks, and Khalid Abu al Dahab, who raised money and helped recruit new members for al Qaeda from within the United States.

*Terrorists also violated immigration laws by providing false information on their applications for permanent residence, such as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who inspired several terrorist plots.

* Still other terrorists have violated the law by working illegally in the United States. At least eight terrorists held jobs for extended periods while living in the country illegally before taking part in terrorism, including those involved in the 1993 Trade Center attack, the plot to bomb New York landmarks, and the Millennium plot.

* A lack of detention space has allowed several terrorists who had no legal right to be in the country to be released into the country. For example, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center Attack, did not have a visa to enter the country, but he applied for asylum when he arrived at JFK airport and because of a lack of detention space he was paroled into the country.

* Past amnesties for illegal aliens have facilitated terrorism. Mahmud Abouhalima, a leader of the 1993 Trade Center bombing, was legalized as a seasonal agricultural worker as part of the 1986 amnesty. Only after he was legalized was he able to travel outside of the country, including several trips to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, where he received the terrorist training he used in the bombing.

* Past amnesties have not hindered terrorism. Mohammed Salameh, another conspirator in the 1993 Trade Center bombing, applied for the same amnesty as Abouhalima and was denied. But, because there is no mechanism in place to force people who are denied permanent residency to leave the country, he continued to live and work in the United States illegally and ultimately took part in the 1993 attack.

* Several terrorists should probably have been denied temporary visas because they had characteristics that made it likely they would overstay their visa and try to live in the United States illegally. Under Section 214(b) of immigration law, individuals who are young, unmarried, have little income, or otherwise lack strong attachment to a residence overseas are to be denied temporary visas. Several of the 9/11 hijackers, including the plot’s leader Mohammed Atta, fit these criteria.

* The visa waiver program, which allows individuals from some countries to visit the United States without a visa, has been exploited by terrorists. French-born Zacarias Moussaoui, who may have been the intended 20th hijacker on 9/11, entered the country using the visa waiver program. Other terrorists such as Ahmed Ajaj, Ramzi Yousef, and Ahmed Ressam attempted to use false passports from visa waiver countries to enter the United States.

* The vast majority of terrorists in the study (41 of 48) were approved for visas by an American consulate overseas prior to entering the country. Of the seven who did not have visas, three snuck into the country and four arrived at a port of entry without a visa.

* At least two terrorists, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and Ali Mohammed, should have been denied visas because they were on the watch list of suspected terrorists.

Read the whole article. There seems to be some interesting characters attending the anti-immigration protests, like anti-American Muslim activists.

Technorati Tags:jihad, protests, immigration, terror

This Week in Japan

2006-03-31T23:25:00.000-08:00

The House of Representatives in Japan has passed a bill to fingerprint and photograph all foreigners (even most permanent residents) as they enter and leave the country. This has caused quite a stir among the foreign community in Japan.

To me, fingerprinting foreigners isn't the problem, Japan has a history of not safeguarding our personal information from public view. Foreigners' personal information has been known to have been leaked onto the internet on numerous occasions.

The other problem is the rhetoric used to justify these bills. For example:

"I think Japan, compared to other developing countries, is a relatively easy country for foreigners to come and settle in. You can even find some in the countryside these days. So this bill would be effective in preventing a flood of foreigners coming into the country and commiting crimes."

"I support the bill. The number of crimes being committed in Japan is increasing these days, and maybe the bill would prevent some crimes to a certain extent. So, what is the big deal?"

Terrorism is another reason for the bill, but if I remember correctly, the only terrorist act commited in this country was by the hands of Japanese citizens.

Technorati Tags:Japan, Gaijin, LDP

Me, Myself and History

2006-03-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

Brilliant! Take the time to read this today. After that, e-mail it to everyone.
From American Digest:

On the Return of History

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief the people march.In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march: "Where to? what next?"-- Carl Sandburg: The People Yes

IN THE DAYS AFTER THE TOWERS FELL, in the ash that covered the Brooklyn street where I lived at that time, in the smoke that rose for months from that spot across the river, when rising up in the skyscraper I worked in, or riding deep beneath the river in the subway, or passing the thousand small shrines of puddled candle wax below the walls with the hundreds of photographs of "The Missing," it was not too much to say that you could feel the doors of history open all about you.

Before those days, history happened elsewhere, elsewhen, to others. History did not happen to you. In your world, until that day, you lived in the time after history. There were no more doors in front of you, all history lay behind you. It was a given.

You would have, of course, your own personal history. You would live your life, no bigger or smaller than most others. You would meet people, have children, go to the job, enjoy what material things came your way, have your celebrations, your vacations, your possessions, and your dinner parties. You would hate and you would love. You would be loved and betrayed. You would have your little soap opera and the snapshots and emails to prove it. At some point or another you would die and be remembered by some for some time. Then it would all fade and the great ocean would just roll on. And that would be fine.

History was behind us. It was something our parents entered for a while during the war but they emerged into what was, essentially, the long peace. They'd had enough history, didn't want any more, and did what they could to keep history from happening. In general, the history of the Cold War is the history of what didn't happen punctuated by a few things every now and then such as Korea and Vietnam. But all in all, for over 50 years, history didn't happen.

With the end of the Soviet Union in a whimper and not a bang brighter than the sun on earth, history was officially over. The moment even got its own book, "The End of History," which stimulated an argument that even more than the book emphasized that history was over.

Most sensible people liked it that way. In fact, a lot of people really liked it that way. Because if history for the world was over, these people could get on making the history that really mattered to them: The History of Me.

More and more throughout the 90s "History" was "out," and "Me" was in. "Me," "Having My Space," "How to Be Your Own Best Friend," "Me, Myself, I," were hallmarks of that self-besotted age. The History of Me was huge in the 90s and rolled right through the millennium. It even had a Customized President to preside over those years; the Most Me President ever. A perfect man for the time and one who, in the end, did not disappoint in choosing "Me" over "Country." How could he do otherwise? It was the option his constituency of Many-Million-Mes elected him to select. I know because I was into Me then and I voted for him because, well, because he seemed to be "just like me." It was a sad day when "Me" couldn't run for a third term, but The Party of Me offered up "Mini-Me" and a lot of Mes turned out for him too.

Many millions of Mini-Mes were very upset when there weren't quite enough Mes in one state to put Mini-Me in office to continue with the wonderful Me-ness of it all. I voted for "Mini-Me" in 2000, but not because he really seemed like Me, but because he was the only thing out there that said he was Me.

Unlike millions of miffed Mini-Mes, I wasn't too upset when he didn't get in after stamping his feet and holding his breath. I suppose I should have. It was what all the really intense Mini-Mes were doing. But I'd already started to become disgusted with all the Me-ness that had been going around so long and this tantrum of the Mini-Mes just made me not want to hang around them. After all, we were well beyond the End of History by this point, so what did it matter?

Then on one bright and unusually fine New York September morning History came back with a vengeance we'd never seen before in the history of America. It came back and it stayed and stayed and stayed. The doors of history swung open again and we were all propelled through them into... what?

Nobody knows. Not the President, not his opponents, not the right, left, center, or just plain unhinged and now in low-earth orbit. We know how it began, but we don't know how it will end. We don't really know what's next. Indeed, we never know.

It was better when we lived in The History of Me. We knew how Me would end -- birth, fun, school, fun, job, fun, family, fun, age, fun, death and then ... probably fun, who knew, who cared? The meaning of this history was not deep but was to be found in the world "fun." Mini-Mes love fun. You could almost say it is their religion, a religion of fun. A funny concept, fun. Fills the space between birth and death. "He was a fun guy" could be a generic epitaph for the era.

Now we find ourselves back in history as it has always been and it is not fun. Not fun at all. The history of history has little to do with fun, almost nothing at all.

Most of the Mini-Mes don't know what to do in a history that isn't fun. All their lives have been about shaping history towards fun and they've been having a good run at it. They like it so much, they are now willing to do anything to bring it back -- the Kennedy Era, such elegant fun; the Clinton Years, "Hey, we partied like it was 1999." In the run-up to the last election and now for the next, there's been and there will be a lot of code swapped about getting the fun back in the game. "Remember the fun of the 90s? You can have it all back. Peace. Love. Understanding. Stock-market Boom. Money. Any number of genders can play." Indeed, these Merry Pranksters of our politics are setting up to run "The Bride of Fun" for President in 2008, even though it is clear she is the least fun of any of them.

Unlike "The Bride of Fun," Fun is very attractive. It is an illusion to Us now, but the Mini-Mes need Fun and want it back more than, well, life itself. The Mini-Mes talk a great game about groups, entitlement, empowerment, but their program really is, like fun, "all about Me."

This is not to say that the incumbent administration is the Second Coming in any way, shape or form. Nor is it to say that Me-ness doesn't dominate that bumbling faction as well. Washington is always about Me-Magnified. In a way, it is true to say that a lot of what is going on is a fight over which set of Mes shall be master. But that is always the case.

Still there are always "differences of degree," and it is on those differences that one must judge. Weighing the two, it seems to me clear that there is, within the core of the current party in power, at least the recognition that "fun" is no longer what we need to be about at this time. Indeed, there is an understanding there, backed with deeds and policies, however flawed in conception and execution, that our holiday from history is over and we need to get back to business if we'd like to be around in any kind of recognizable form by mid-century. There is even, if you look at it closely, a distinct lessening of "Me" and the beginnings of an "Us" on the peripheries of the Party. Not a lot, but when you look at the other, there is none. Only a yearning for the warm mud of Me.

History as it will now unfold will require little from Me but much from Us. I'd like to say that this country's going one way or another tomorrow will be the ruin of the nation. If I could I would be able to get my Me into the Punditocracy. But that is false. One result or another will not be the ruin of the nation for there is, as one of the founding fathers once remarked, "A lot of ruin in a nation."

Should the nation choose to continue in the elections of this year to move forward, to stay the course and continue the offensive, our encounter with history will move forward at much the same pace as it has these past four years, perhaps a bit accelerated. Should the nation choose to step back, to retreat, it will simply retard the process that grips it a bit more than otherwise might be the case. Neither result wil place us back in the History of Me no matter how many yearn for it.

History, having returned, will continue to happen, not to Me, but to Us.

We will have war whether we wish it or not. It will continue to be brought to us as it was brought for many years before we could see it in a pillar of flame by day and a pillar of smoke by night. We will be long in this wilderness, perhaps as long as forty years, and it will take a terrible toll from us, soldier and civilian alike; a toll we have not yet begun to see. Like all global wars in the past century, the war upon us will rise in violence until such time as we either capitulate, or find the will to kill our enemies wholesale. This is not what we would choose, but it is what we shall have.

We could, if we wished, withdraw every soldier from every inch of soil that is not American territory and leave them here inside our borders rusting for a decade. War will still come because war is already upon us, and wars do not end in staged withdrawals, but in either defeat or victory. The lessons of Vietnam and the Cold War teach this to us if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

In this First Terrorist War, the character of our leadership will make a difference to some degree, but it will not decide. It is who we are and who we shall become as a people that will decide. How that will be in the end, I do not know. What I do know is that history, no matter what they tell you, never comes to an end. And because of that, the one small thing that I have the power to do is to decide that I shall no longer vote for Me. I shall vote for Us.

Amen! This kind of reminds me of a little essay Michelle Malkin wrote on the morning of 9/11. That was as is now also a must read.

Technorati Tags:9/11, terror, jihad

The University of Illinois School of Sharia-Journalism

2006-03-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

The University of Illinois, which in recent years has vigorously fought for the right to use an American Indian as a symbol of the University, has fired the editor of the student-run newspaper. What was the reason? For publishing the Mohammed cartoons.

Yes, a depiction of an American Indian can rain dance around the field during halftime of a home game, but do not dare insult the prophet.

More from CNN:

Acton H. Gorton was suspended, with pay, from The Daily Illini days after the Feb. 9 publication of the cartoons, which sparked Muslim protests around the world after they first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

At the time, Daily Illini publishers said the action was taken against Gorton not for publishing the cartoons, but for failing to discuss it with others in the newsroom first.

The Illini Media Co. board of directors, which comprises students and faculty, voted unanimously to fire the editor after a review "found that Gorton violated Daily Illini policies about thoughtful discussion of and preparation for the publication of inflammatory material," according to a statement.

Gorton has said he sought out advice from The Daily Illini's former editor-in-chief and others before deciding to run the cartoons. He has said that accusations he tried to hide his decision were wrong.

On Tuesday, he called his firing a blow against free speech on college campuses.

"If I can be fired, what will other students think who maybe want to challenge the status quo?" said Gorton, who had briefly addressed a board meeting the previous night. "This is a bad precedent."

Gorton said he intends to sue the publishers of The Daily Illini, citing, among other complaints, unlawful dismissal.

Board member Adam Jung said he is confident the company "has acted properly on this issue."

The paper's opinions page editor, Chuck Prochaska, also was suspended for his role in publishing the cartoons. He declined to be reinstated, the board said.

Prochaska said he and Gorton moved quickly to publish the cartoons because they were newsworthy.

"We had a news story on our hands, with violence erupting about imagery, but you can't show it because of a taboo, because of a taboo that's not a Western taboo but a Muslim taboo?" he said. "That's a blow to journalism."

Gorton writes about it on his blog here. Also check out The Jawa Report, GOP and College, and Mother Jones.

Technorati Tags:mohammed,, journalism,, cartoons,, islam,, jihad

The Samurai Spirit

2006-03-15T02:52:00.000-08:00

After coming down on Japan yesterday, I will give it to them today. Japan came out and showed their samurai spirit by dominating the Mexican international team 6-1. Japan only has to win against South Korea tommorow to make it to the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic.

In an interesting twist, if Japan wins by less than seven runs, the U.S. is eliminated even before their game begins against Mexico. More from Yahoo.

After all the complaining I have heard about the tournament and it's system these past two days, it certainly has worked out in Japan's favor. Oh well, ignorance is bliss. My house will be in an uproar, but for once I will have to pull against Japan on this one. Go Korea!

The Call That Burst Japan's Bubble

2006-03-14T02:19:00.000-08:00

It seems yesterday’s baseball game between Japan and America is causing quite an uproar here in the land of the rising sun.

From Japan Today:

FULLERTON, California — A day after the fallout in which Japan had the tiebreaking run nullified in a defeat to the United States, manager Sadaharu Oh remained adamant, saying that he hopes that no such umpire reversals occur in the future at the World Baseball Classic.

“A mistake is a mistake but I hope that they can improve the judging in the future. It's a pity it happened but we have to refocus for our game against Mexico tomorrow," said Oh before Japan held a practice on Monday.

The disputed play came when plate umpire Bob Davidson made a decision to reverse a call by second base umpire Brian Knight on Akinori Iwamura's sacrifice fly to shallow left with one out and the bases loaded in the eighth inning.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who had tagged up at third on the play, clearly beat left fielder Randy Winn's throw home and was initially called safe by Knight, but after U.S. manager Buck Martinez bolted out to argue, Davidson immediately reversed the call.

Television replays of the play appeared to show Nishioka taking off from third base at the same time that Winn made his throw, not early as Martinez and Davidson have suggested but the entire incident has thus far been brushed under the rug.

"Americans were also talking about the dispute, weren't they?" asked Oh, referring to an article on Monday featuring the game in USA Today.

Japan lost the game 4-3 on a two-out walk-off single by Alex Rodriguez in the ninth, but all things being equal, Japan might have at least tied, if not won the game, had the run been allowed.

Iwamura said his teammates were obviously still heated about the Davidson fiasco, but said everyone had to refocus their attention on playing Mexico in their second game of Pool 1 on Tuesday.

"Umpires are only human. Even though we're still upset, we need to focus on beating Mexico now. There will be extra pressure for each player in each at-bat now, especially after last night," Iwamura said.

Nishioka said he had the utmost respect for the American players but slammed Davidson for what he called a play that even an elementary school student could have read better.

"I really felt that all the fans at the stadium were cheering for us when we made fine defensive plays and really showed their passion for baseball. As far as that incident is concerned, I felt like we were being judged by someone in elementary school," Nishioka said.

The 21-year-old speedy second baseman continued, "There's no way we can possibly play a game with a guy like that calling plays. Of course, I respect the players like Jeter and other Americans, but how can I respect someone like him (Davidson)?"

Davidson has been plying his trade in the minor leagues since tendering his resignation in a major league labor squabble in 1999.

"I think he needs to review the umpire rules. I've never seen a reversal like that," Nishioka said.

On Monday, Japan was in the process of formulating an official complaint over the disputed call but had yet to lodge a formal protest.

The most problematic part of Davidson's call from Japan's standpoint is that as crew chief Davidson made the decision based on what Martinez (the American) had said.
Had he decided on the call of his own volition based on a consultation with the other umpires near the field of action, it might have been a different story. This, however, was not the case.

In the build-up to the World Baseball Classic, the Japan professional baseball league had called for a more level playing field by having all of the countries represented from the 16-nation tournament.

Twenty-two of the 37 umpires officiating at the World Baseball Classic are Americans. Masaharu Kasahara, the only Japanese umpire at the Classic, did not officiate in the Japan-U.S. game.

There is also one umpire each from Korea, Cuba, South Africa, China, Italy, Australia, Taiwan, Panama and Canada. Three umpires come from Puerto Rico and another two from the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, Bobby Valentine, the American who coaches Nishioka at the Lotte Marines, said he shares Japan's outrage.

"Even though we have the best players in the field, the umpire was not the best," said Valentine. "It was not Nishioka's mistake. It was the call that was a mistake," Valentine was quoted as saying by Japanese sports newspapers Tuesday.

"The umpire is nicknamed 'Balk Bob Davidson' because he calls so many balks. He wants to stand out. I cannot believe a guy like that is standing there," the Japanese-language Sports Nippon quoted Valentine as saying.

Japanese television networks repeatedly aired footage that appeared to show Nishioka's foot on the bag as the catch was made.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters that he thought it must have been "a difficult call. Maybe it was a more difficult call to make than in sumo."

Environment Minister Yuriko Koike expressed disappointment Tuesday with the controversial call. "I thought the United States was a country of baseball and fairness, but it seems that is not so. I am very disappointed," Koike said at a news conference in Tokyo.

Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka told a separate news conference that Japanese fans are unhappy about what happened in the game in Anaheim, California. But he surmised that the umpiring system for the WBC will probably be reviewed as the event is only being held for the first time.

The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper expressed concern there were too many American umpires at an event meant to stimulate global interest in the U.S. and Japanese national sport.

"They should not call it 'World Baseball Classic' if the theme of the show is, 'It's OK as long as the United States wins,'" the Mainichi said in an editorial.

Okay, I watched the game. I thought the umpire was wrong on the call. But, let’s not turn this into an international incident. Remember Japan had bases loaded in the ninth and failed to drive in another run. America loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth for A-Rod’s base hit. Even if it was 4-3, that base hit could have driven in two runs.

And I have heard talk about how the call burst the Japanese bubble. Come on Japan, where is that samurai spirit?

You have two more games to win, focus on those. It is only a game.

Technorati Tags:Japan,, America,, Baseball,, WorldBaseballClassic

Neo-Cons Warn Against Dhimmitude

2006-03-14T00:08:00.000-08:00

A must read for all of the west and both sides of the party line. I think this essay pins the nail on the donkey of the situation we face today. If only our leadership could put it to the uninformed on these terms! From The Social Affairs Unit:

In 1938, when German troops had again crossed into territory that was not theirs, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich to see Herr Hitler. In his understandable desire for peace, Chamberlain agreed terms, gave up not just some ground, but the entire nation of Czechoslovakia, and returned to London. There he was greeted by Winston Churchill with uncompromising words. Churchill told him:

You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.

Much of the threat we face today bears no similarity to the Nazi threat of the thirties. We do not face vast militarized units, we are not seeing the absorption of nations into a military superstate, and we can be all but certain that we will not in our lifetimes again see the mass mobilization of Europe's citizenry. By all these things we are comforted.

Yet we have, in Europe and the West, a deep and growing problem, and because this problem only occasionally resembles the problem last time, it is all too easy to assume that what we face now is not a problem. Were troops in blackshirts or jackboots to come marching back through our cities today, not a European country would stand for it. The recent reactions from the governments of Europe to the lunatic of Tehran's pronouncements demonstrate this. It was only when he spoke abhorrently of the holocaust that European leaders finally seemed to sit up and take notice. We should take some pride in this fact: there are still things that cannot fail to wake Europe, and lines beyond which we will not be taken.

But we must also be careful. Not everyone who hates us is as stupid or suicidal as President Ahmadinejad. In fact very few of the enemies of freedom today give us such unambiguous expressions of their ideological position, and when they do, few do so in a manner so likely to tempt us into action.

The conflict which we are now in – which we have been most visibly engaged in for five years, but which had in truth opened far earlier - is not a conflict which looks familiar to the people of Europe. It barely resembles conflicts of their past. And just as this war does not much look like earlier wars, so victory in this war will not look like earlier victories. This poses a problem: what will victory in the war on terror – the war against Islamic extremism - look like? How will we know when it is over? How will we know when we've won? The only, and deeply imperfect, guide may be time - the length of time in which we are not hit, seriously threatened or cowed. If we are to have victory then it will emerge as an almost imperceptible victory: it will be a diminuendo towards victory. Only historians will then be capable of determining which battles were vital, which significant, and which illusory triumphs of their time.

The flip-side of this is that defeat in the war on terror – the war on Islamic extremism - will not happen in a familiar manner either. Defeat will not look as defeat would have looked last time. It will rather, I suggest, consist of a gradual accretion of hurts on our society, a wearying accumulation of often minor humiliations: death by a thousand cuts. Rather than waking up one day and finding troops rolling into our cities, we will simply become aware, with a growing sense of numbness, that what we had has slipped away, that what we relied on for support and succour has eroded and washed beyond our reach. If we end in darkness this time, it will be because we shuffled, rather than fell, into it.

In this situation, Churchill's comment to Chamberlain throws us some light. For once again, albeit in very different circumstances, the West faces a threat to its way of life. Once again it is a threat which the peoples of Europe, in their estimable desire for peace, would rather was not there. And because of that wish, vast swathes of Europe have decided it is not there. Busily they preoccupy themselves with changing the subject and ignoring the elephant in the living room.

In their efforts to avoid war, Europeans are once again choosing dishonour. They refuse to cut back their welfare budgets or significantly increase their defence spending, and they still refuse to enforce the measures required to cease or reverse the disastrous effects of mass immigration. Indeed, there is no indication that Europeans are going to alter their path today any faster than they did in the 1930s. As in the 1930s, Europe is tired of war. So when war has been launched upon it, Europe pretends it is not war, and fails to fight back. Indeed it is worse than that. A Transatlantic Trends survey carried out in 2003 revealed that fewer than half of Europeans believe that any war at all – even one in the national interest - can be considered just. Yet in their effort to avoid confrontation now, Europeans are making a worse confrontation down the line more likely: in their effort to pretend-away the risk, the risk is swelling. The word for dishonour this time is Dhimmitude.

This problem starts as a philosophical and moral problem, but it has now become a deep practical problem for Europe and its survival. As Saul Bellow wrote in his foreword to Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind:

We live in a thought-world, and the thinking has gone very bad indeed.

This now needs addressing. And it should be addressed by people like those here today because just as this conflict started as a conflict of ideas, so it will begin to be ended by ideas.

My position – the neoconservative position – on the solution is rooted in the supposition that the answer to the problem of Islam and the West does not lie only at home. I - and neoconservatives in general - hold that the answer to the current crisis in Islamic-Western relations lies not only in a realistic tackling of our domestic crisis, but in a putting onto the right track of the fundamental problems of the Islamic world - the reasons, after all, why so many Muslims come to the West in the first place. Foremost among those reasons are the fact that (with the exceptions of the fledgling democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan) their own historical lands are presently run by despots, crackpots and crime-syndicate families. Until the Middle East and other Islamic lands have a greater measure of freedom, the West can barely be surprised that even fairly hardline Islamists will continue to be desperate to join the welfare-wagon in the West.

I mention this because I believe that to even begin addressing the problems of Islam and the West we must recognise that in today's world it simply is not possible for countries to exist in a bubble. Let's knock that fantasy on the head right away. Our fate – as we were reminded on September 11th – is fundamentally intertwined with that of failed states, tyrannical states and rogue states. When a single plane ride can take you from Amsterdam to Baghdad or a mobile telephone help you to arrange an event in a country you never visit, only the most foolish person could continue to believe in isolationism. To take just one example of how our fates interlink: the Afghan anti-Taliban leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was murdered two days before 9/11; his killers were Algerian men with Belgian passports carrying visas for entry into Pakistan which had been issued in London. Our economies globalised – and we won out economically: but the jihad globalised too.

I also mention this international angle because in talking about the battle we are currently in – the first stage of a war which the Pentagon and others are now looking at as a 30-year conflict – we should regard our military abroad as our first line of defence, as well as our first line of offence. In approaching the problem of Islam and what to do with it in our own midst, we cannot be blind to the problem of how to deal with the swamps in the Middle East which produce those who hit us and those who urge them on. So there are two fronts to this war – the foreign front and the home front. By looking at it this way we can not only analyse where we may be winning but also where and why we may be losing.

On the battlefield this enemy is defeated every time. There has not yet been one military confrontation with this enemy which has been anything less than a rout of that enemy. But just because Al-Qaeda and their sympathisers perform badly in battle, does not mean they cannot win the war. It does not mean that they cannot win the battle of ideas, winning total victory by the side door without having to waste all that money on bullets, missiles and whatever type of IED is "hot" in Afghanistan this season. If you doubt this, then just think back on the so-called "defeats" which we are meant to have suffered since 9/11. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, 100,000 civilians alleged to be dead by a fanciful survey courtesy of The Lancet magazine. What did our enemy do to win these victories? Absolutely nothing. It all came from within.

And I think this must please them. Because sitting around in Guantanamo, getting fed well by the Great Satan sounds like a much more attractive way to wage jihad than squatting in some Afghan camp, hoping your Kalashnikov un-jams in time to fire at those Daisy-Cutters. And not only is it a nicer proposition, it's also a more successful one. After all, who's had more victories against the Western alliance? The guy holed up in a war he's not armed for, or the guy holed up in Guantanamo who's been given all the ammunition the jihad needs by enemies within?

Put it another way: if you were Osama bin Laden at this moment, why would you leave the comfort of your own cave? Why risk turning on your mobile phone, dialling friends and family in order to plan the next mission, when the West is doing a nice job of self-destructing without you? Why bother beating on the infidels when the infidels are busy beating on themselves. Half a dozen low-ranking troops abuse Iraqi detainees and before you know it the Western elites claim (like Robert Fisk did in Britain's Independent) that the West now has no moral authority and no right to act. And more and more Europeans nod sagely and agree how awful we are. Angela Merkel gets three hours with the President and uses her time to stand up for those poor little mujahideen holed up in Guantanamo who didn't fight by the Geneva conventions and so I believe shouldn't be treated as if they did.

The Lancet's false guess at 100,000 civilian casualties in Iraq, led to the immediate offloading of responsibility for those alleged deaths from Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq and Ba'athist remnants straight onto the so-called "Occupying Forces". Cue chest-beating, self-flagellation and every other masochistic pastime of the European left. Granted Mr Zarqawi probably doesn't take The Lancet, but – as we know from members of his group (including one Briton) who've been lifted in Iraq – Zarqawi and co know very well what we are thinking, what we are doing and how to make best use of both. They know very well, for instance, that we're more likely to be chased from Iraq or Afghanistan by press-created public-opposition at home than by the head-hackers of the Jordanian criminal's gang. This is the only regard in which this war does resemble Vietnam. During the Tet Offensive the American military was killing the enemy at ratios of 30-40 for every GI lost. That, under any calculation, should be thought of as a victory. But it was not counted as a victory. Tet is still popularly believed to have been a loss, an impression created solely by the popular press and communist-sympathisers in America and Europe hoping for a big loss for the home side.

Our enemies are aware of these weaknesses in our set-up – weaknesses which Leo Strauss, like Tocqueville would have pointed out as among the innate flaws of liberal democracy on which we must keep a concerned and wary eye. Bin Laden is aware of these fissures: he has taunted us for them, in their manifestation at Mogadishu and elsewhere. What Bin Laden and co know is that at the present moment if you give the West a nudge in the right direction it'll finish the job for you on a kind of auto-self-destruct. When two Americans and one British hostage – Kenneth Bigley – were kidnapped in Iraq in 2004, the two Americans were killed pretty much immediately. It was Bigley – the Brit – who was kept alive for weeks. Why? Because whereas the American press would have stood defiant, the British and European press, right on cue, turned it all around from a story about a murderous gang kidnapping one of our own into a story about Tony Blair and why he'd sent troops into Iraq in the first place. Bigley was kept alive until the pressure on the Prime Minister had reached its peak, and then Zarqawi's gang decapitated him anyway. This is the pattern. If you're a low-level jihadist and you carry out a beheading of an innocent from Europe, then as an added bonus the European press will give you the scalp of their elected leaders.

And you can do the same thing in more peaceful ways, by, say, threatening not to eat Danish pastries until the European Commissioners throw their hands in the air and ask if there's any concession - or sweetener - they can give you to change your mind. As I say – it's guaranteed that modern Europeans will finish the job much better than any two-bit thug or terrorist could have done. Which if you're Osama bin Laden means you can just hang around in your cave watching old Michael Moore films and taking notes for your next home-movie. Because this is the root of the problem that we must grapple with: in the war against Islamic fundamentalism, against Islamist militarism, our troops are winning comprehensively on the field of foreign battle; but we are losing this war at home.

The best indicator of just how much we're losing this war is the creeping increase of dhimmitude - from the general public (who display it occasionally) to our leaders (who now display it routinely). In any circumstances this would be bad, but what makes it so dangerous now, is that in the current war the enemy is, as a demographic and political fact, massed not just on foreign shores, but within the gates of our cities. The collision of forceful Islam with European spinelessness and dhimmitude is fatal for our free societies.

The effects of dhimmitude have been superlatively explained to us by Bat Ye'or and others, but it's worth reminding ourselves of how its modern manifestations work. They arise in subtle ways: a British judge apologises for inadvertently bringing a Muslim to court to answer criminal charges on what turns out to be a Muslim religious festival. Or the French government pretends some riots have nothing to do with Islam, yet visit mosques and send imams onto the streets to dispel the allegedly secular rioters. Dhimmitude rises when people think the feelings of a threatening minority matter more than cherished native traditions of free-speech, when the phony-rebel heroes of the film industry cancel screenings of Submission after Theo van Gogh's murder because they got scared. It occurs in tiny little ways, like non-Muslims referring to "The Prophet" when he is not their prophet, and where they would scorn anybody who referred to "Jesus Christ, the Son of God" as a de facto statement.

Dhimmitude begins in such small ways, but it is growing into a big problem. The enemy's victories on our turf during the war on terror – the only place where they have won any victories - have been almost fantastically lightly won. Could anyone have believed before March 11th 2004 that only a dozen bombs would be needed to cause a change of government in a European democracy? Who could have guessed that killing two hundred Spanish civilians at a crucial moment before an election would bring in not a righteously angry leader - an uncompromising opponent of terror - but a sympathetic socialist who has spent his time in office so far offering up concessions to Islam, and degrading his country's native Catholic Church? Who could have guessed that with little more than the most basic tactics of intimidation, an alleged hardliner like Mr Sarkozy would advocate the abandonment of France's secular traditions and the giving of unique funding and privileges to Islam? Or that, with only loud-mouthed pressure from his Muslim electorate, the British Foreign Secretary would condemn Danish cartoons, but not a demonstration calling for the beheading and mass-murder of the British people?

Who would have thought that after four bombers blew up buses and trains across London last July, the British government would appoint a bunch of Islamists to explain why it happened and then sit and take it as the afore-mentioned "experts" tell them that the fact that Britain was attacked was Britain's fault – oh, and the fault of the Jews of course. If Churchill had sat down in 1940 and asked "Why do they hate us", or appointed a panel of Nazi-apologists to tell him why Britain deserved to be attacked by Nazis, then I can be pretty sure I wouldn't be here today. But nevermind the spirit of Churchill, where is even a hint of self-worth, pride - or even survival instinct? Two and a half millennia ago, Pericles reminded the people of Athens of

all the advantages that are to be gained by warding off the foe.

Today many of the free descendants of those Athenians seem only to want to be reminded of the advantages gained from closing their eyes, keeping their heads down, and making sure they don't upset the Muslims.

So what is going wrong? Why is it that time and again the liberal West is crumpling before the violence, intimidation and thuggery of Islam? Why are we so at risk from something which should by rights be a simple matter to deal with?

The answer is that we inhabit a continent with twin problems. The first problem arises from a reinvigorated and re-emergent Islamic fundamentalism. Militarily, this is relatively easy to deal with, and in foreign lands there is a solution to the problem. But the reason why it is causing such difficulties at home is because this resurgence comes at a time when our societies in Western Europe are too weak-willed, tired and degenerate to act decisively. In this weak state, batting off even a minor infection can prove impossible. There is a metaphor here which the Canadian-born writer Mark Steyn cited recently, when he wrote:

Radical Islam is an opportunist infection, like AIDS: it's not the HIV that kills you, it's the pneumonia you get when your body's too weak to fight it off.

If you do not believe this, then note how Islam is progressing in the West. It is not gaining the concessions and the victories it is by attracting people to its belief-system. It is gaining concessions from the weak-willed, badly educated and ignorant men and women who currently hold intellectual sway over Europe – people who would rather die than appear politically incorrect, and would rather sacrifice their society than be absolutist in defence of it. At the heart of this problem is the primary disease - the AIDS of the West – the disease which has made the opportunist infection of Islam so deadly. That disease is relativism. It is the belief that all cultures are equal even while one culture (our own) is ridden over daily and even while another (Islam) is becoming uniquely violent. The belief that all things are relative has led to an inability among the cultural elites of Europe to stand up for what is right, or even to stand up for their own, because right does not exist in their vocabulary, and in the moral armoury of a self-flagellator, self-defence is the only inexcusable vice.

This crisis in European thought found its high-point in the philosophies of the '68-ers and the French nihilists, Foucault's blessing of the Iranian revolution standing as the consummate demonstration of the gravitation of European intellectuals back towards totalitarianism. They may, like Baader-Meinhof and the Red Brigades, have come at it the other way round, but Derrida and Foucault ended up the helpers and lapdogs of tyrants as surely as Martin Heidegger did.

"But this is about philosophy", people will say, "not about how to stop Islamists killing us". But it is about that, for the nihilistic philosophies of Europe seeped from those who argued them into the heads of those who dared not disagree with them, or who saw – in good faith – the attractions of non-judgementalism. In its attempt to be post-historical, enlightened and rational, Europe found itself incapable of rationalising its own survival. It lost all sense of natural right. It became irrational. Today the effects of the rejection of natural right are practically felt. A society like France's in which revolution and rebellion are ingrained into the national psyche in the wake of '68 can now find no honourable way of crushing rioting and disorder on her own streets. A culture which celebrates rebellion as well as relativism ends up finding no reason not to tolerate its own destruction. And so it will be destroyed. Anyone who thinks that Islamic populations in the West are going to convert to relativism before we are all converted, or subjugated, to Islam is living in a fantasy.

Relativism has one over-riding consequence, and that consequence is the history of Europe over the last forty years. Giving equal attention and respect to all-comers, not only can relativists (the politically correct) not defend their own, they end up drawing a parity across cultures, faiths and behaviours which diminishes the good, and elevates the malignant. When we stare in disbelief at tolerance of the intolerable and the slow turning of that tolerance into acceptance and then acquiescence in evil, we are seeing Europeans acting out the last stages of nihilist philosophy. It is a way of looking at – and acting in – the world which will ruin Europe if we do not rid ourselves of it. Ridding ourselves of our rotten thought-world is the first step (and one in which everyone can take part) towards protecting ourselves from the threats which face us. It is one of the practical ways in which citizens can fight a war which is so far waged and triumphed in only by our military.

Without such a concerted effort, those among Europe's young who are attracted to the Islamic faith will grow. For converts are at present attracted to Islam because they see in it a rigidness they do not at present see in other faiths. They are attracted to a faith which brooks no compromise because they have been brought up in a society in which everything is compromised.

These converts are, though, I believe, nothing more than a sub-strand of "Last Men" – the "Last Man" notion we see in Nietzsche and Fukuyama - the man who lives at the end-stage (though not necessarily the end-time) of human progress. Living under the system of representative governance – always the end-point of human aspiration - there is yet a type of Last Man who cannot bear the lack of struggle, cannot live without struggle and who as a result struggles for the sake of struggle. When there is nothing left to struggle against, he struggles against liberty, against democracy and against freedom. Now the majority of struggling Last Men are presently found among the left who support dictators over democracies, those people whose relativism has brought them full circle back to a support for authoritarian tyranny. But a much smaller section of Last Men are the converts. When we hear of Western converts from Last Men to Muslims, we are witnessing the breaking away of people who never wanted to be part of the system they were fortunate enough to live under.

But I confess that I cannot see the life of the burka and sharia appealing to many brought up outside of Islamic societies. The exceptions, where extreme Islam is able to get a grip, only really occur among those who already have serious deficiencies and inadequacies - convicts, criminals and the unstable such as the Belgian woman Muriel Degauque who last year travelled to Iraq and blew herself up in a thankfully unsuccessful attempt to kill American soldiers. It's worth reminding ourselves what a surreal and spectacularly sad case that is. We have now lost hundreds of troops from the coalition of the willing, who have given their lives in the noble and selfless cause of freeing Iraqis from brutality and tyranny. And here was a girl also from the free West, travelling to Iraq under the hallucinatory power of fundamentalist Islam not to free people, but to impose on them a tyranny which she herself had never experienced. She left a free country to go out and impose tyranny on a people struggling for freedom. A more pathetic and wicked example of the rebellious Last Man can hardly be imagined.

But there are other aspects at these strange crossroads where Islamic fundamentalism and Western freedom meet, and where the misguided can all-too easily wander down the wrong track. As I say, most people are not going to join the army of oppression - but they do not have to join it for that army to win. The most public losses in this war are being created by people at home who are non-Muslims. And these are the people against whom we should be most on the attack – the people who are transforming the actions of minor jihadists into undreamed of successes. It is only because such people have made the body as a whole weak that radical Islam is having the effect that it is now having on Europe.

So it is worth reminding ourselves of the basics of the problem. No European country's Muslim population is currently higher than 10% - which ordinarily would be alright – not ideal, but alright. What makes it a problem is not only that native European birth-rates are falling, but that Western relativists are acting as a megaphone for the Muslim minority, making the volume of that minority exponentially greater and more threatening. This megaphone effect - the unequal power which Islam currently wields, and the power it will increasingly wield as it grows, courtesy of immigration and higher than average European Muslim birth-rates – is cause for great worry.

Anyhow – I promised to propose some of the solutions to this problem, not just spend my time and your patience attacking French thinkers. So what are the answers to our predicament? How do we stop the further humiliation of Europe, and its eventual morphing into an entirely different continent?

The first thing to do is to address the problem at home unsparingly. It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop. In the case of a further genocide such as that in the Balkans, sanctuary would be given on a strictly temporary basis. This should also be enacted retrospectively. Those who are currently in Europe having fled tyrannies should be persuaded back to the countries which they fled from once the tyrannies that were the cause of their flight have been removed. And of course it should go without saying that Muslims in Europe who for any reason take part in, plot, assist or condone violence against the West (not just the country they happen to have found sanctuary in, but any country in the West or Western troops) must be forcibly deported back to their place of origin. There is no earthly reason why Belgium should be home to the liar, thug and militant Abou Jahjah and his ilk. Such people have brought our societies nothing, and we owe them nothing. Last summer, when one of the "failed" 21st July suicide bombers in London was caught in his hideout after the "unsuccessful" attack, he emerged with his hands in the air shouting, "I know my rights". I submit that if you try to blow up men, women and children for the crime of travelling on the underground train in London that you have no rights. Where a person was born in the West, they should be deported to the country of origin of their parent or grandparent. This must become a Europe-wide policy and I hope the great work of the current Dutch Interior Minister leads the way. I for one much look forward to hearing how the spoilt little welfare jihadists get on with the welfare system in Pakistan or the right to demonstrate in Saudi.

The point here is that the whole deal under which Muslims live in our societies must change. At present we ask "why do they hate us", "what did we fail to give them", and suchlike. It is time the West woke up to the fact that the militants in our midst – however large a percentage of the Muslim population – will never like us. And we should not want to be liked by them - so we should stop flattering and playing up to them. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs. There is not an inch of ground to give on this one. Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down. If that means that some Muslims don't have a mosque to go to, then they'll just have to realise that they aren't owed one. Grievances become ever-more pronounced the more they are flattered and the more they are paid attention to. So don't flatter them.

Abroad we must continue our work at taking the war to the terrorists. We are winning that war, and we should extend that war. Iran, Syria and any regime which sponsors or supports terrorism must be made aware that their days are numbered. We must remind the malignant that this war and this era will be dictated on our terms - on the terms of the strong and the right, not the weak and the wrong.

But as I mentioned, the problem, the reason why the war at home is not working as well as it should is because of the underlying disease of the West. We could decide with our immune system low that we should simply cut off all contacts with the outside world, try desperately to ensure that no malicious viruses – however small – get through to us. We can go some of the way to doing that, but there is a much better option. That option is to strengthen our societal immune system, to re-energise and build-up ourselves as a society – to kick off the degraded lazy thinking and action which have characterised Europeans and European policy for too long.

And we must become absolutist – absolutist in defence of our societies, our traditions, our heritage, culture, freedoms and democracies. There is only one way to destroy relativism, and there is only one way to conquer the rise of Islamic militancy and that is to be uncompromising and absolutist. If people want certainty then let us give it to them here. Ignorant people will still say, "Ah, but I'm not sure what European culture is". Well that's their fault, not the fault of European culture.

Many people of an older generation tell me that Europe is lost, that there is nothing we can do to save it. I do not believe that, and I think this may be a generational thing. After all, it is people of my age who will have to put up with an Islamic or dhimmi Europe. We do not want that, and so we must come up with solutions to stop it coming about. If we do not do so now, some awful Le Pen like figure will try to deal with it badly and far more bloodily down the line. Let us act now so that that does not happen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In a tape-recording played at his recent trial in Milan, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed was heard, amid his celebrations of the murder of Nicholas Berg, to say:

Rome, we are entering Rome, Rome, if God wishes we are entering, even entering Rome… Rome, Rome, we are opening Rome with those from Holland. Rome, Rome, if God wishes, Rome is opening. It will be. It will be.

There is, I suggest, only one answer to that – which is to say: Not an inch:

the gates of Rome will not open an inch. You will not get Rome, you will not get London, you will not get The Hague or any other city that is ours. On this there is no room to give, no compromise, no discussion to be had.

Only when we make it clear where we stand will our enemies - and those who have come to Europe who are our friends – know where they stand too.

We owe it to ourselves to do this. But we also owe it to our past. I can think of no greater betrayal than for this generation to give up so lightly what our forefathers fought for at such a great price.

Whatever we – the free peoples of the West – choose, let us be certain, and let us make it plain – that it will not be submission, it will not be dhimmitude and it will not be dishonour.

Want to know what the Islamists think? Mullah Krekar, an Iraqi refugee living in Norway, says Islam will win.

Technorati Tags:war,, Europe,, Jihad,, Islam,,

More Attacks Threatened Against America

2006-03-13T00:48:00.000-08:00

It seems we are all doomed. From NewsNetDaily:

WASHINGTON – Islamic websites yesterday posted a "last warning" warning by Rakan Ben Williams, who describes himself as an "al-Qaida undercover soldier" in the U.S., threatening two major operations designed to bring Americans "to your knees."

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Global Islamic Media Front was responsible for posting the threat.

Williams is a mystery man, who, according to the London Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, is an English convert to Islam.

The threat suggests the attack will be far greater in magnitude than Sept. 11, 2001, because following this one, "there will be no one to analyze and investigate, because the mind and the heart will be unable to comprehend it. ... This will not be a single operation, but two; one bigger than the other, but we will begin with the big one and postpone the bigger one, in order to see [how] diligent the American people is [in preserving] its life. If it chooses life, [it must] carry out the demands of the Muslims, and if it chooses death, then we are its best perpetrators."
The warning appeared in Arabic and in English.

"Do not put your hopes on Bush and his clan, they are incapable of protecting you, and if they think they are, let them foil or stop the two upcoming operations, and punish those who are responsible for them," says the statement. "But if they could not identify and foil the devastating events coming your way, you must ask yourselves: How long will we continue allowing ourselves to be slaughtered with full advance knowledge of our fate?

"Let me now inform you why we opted to inform you about the two operations and your inability to stop them before they are carried out. The reason is simple: You cannot uncover or stop them except by letting them be carried out. Furthermore, the best you could do would be to accelerate the day of carrying out the operations. In other words, if we schedule the operation to take place tomorrow, the best you could do is to make it happen today."

The spokesman claims the operations are inevitable – even if the specific plans are uncovered by authorities.

"This indeed is a sweet situation to be in," he says. "It is a win-win all the way for us. It is the ultimate control and the most stunning way to stop an operation (accelerating it with the same impact). What we are saying is this: You will have a choice of either let us carry it out on our own schedule and with our own hands or allow your own intelligence apparatus to cause it to happen. This second choice will cause a level of dissatisfaction (with your decision makers) to reach its highest level. Therefore, your Homeland Security agencies would have no choice but to surrender and wait for the inevitable to happen."

Williams asserts, he "will not give any more clues; this is enough as a wake up call. Perhaps the American people will start thinking about the magnitude of the danger that is coming their way."

The statement also appears to be an attempt to divide Americans by region.

"O you helpless Americans, especially those living in States far away from Washington, D.C.!" he says. "Your country is comprised of many states that should not have anything to do with Muslims. Take the state of Arizona for example; what does this state have to do with killing Muslims in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq? What interest is it of theirs serving, helping, and siding with the Jews and Israel? If some members of your Congress and Senate are being used as Jewish tools manipulated by Israel, why do you bear the consequences? Why do you bring death and destruction to your homes and lives in an apparent sacrifice for a handful of dishonest men and women?"

The statement says the operations are awaiting only a final order from Osama bin Laden.
"The operations are ready to go, we are just waiting for orders from the commander in chief, Osama bin Laden (may Allah preserve him)," it says. "He will decide whether to strike or to hold. We swear by Allah that there are so many tricks and tactical maneuvers that will make your heads spin, by the grace of Allah. You will be brought to your knees, but not until you lose more loved ones and experience significant destruction."

It continues: "Now is the time to wake up and dust off this state of complacency and ineffectiveness to save yourselves and your loved ones from catastrophes sure to come your way. Remove war mongers from positions of power and throw them in prisons, where they belong. Rid yourselves of 'the Jewish pests' that brought nothing to you but adversity and loss of lives and wealth. They have deceived you for many years, it is time now you turn the table on them and make an example out of them. Rid yourselves of media crafters who deliberately kept you in the dark for so long and made a mockery of you before the rest of the world."

The statement calls for a boycott of NBC and CBS because of their Jewish owners. It calls on Americans to watch al-Jazeera and to visit Islamic websites "to get educated."

"Visit Mujahideen web sites to get to know who they are," it suggests. "You will see for yourselves that they are not what your media outlets made you believe they are. If you cannot do that, the least you could do is to watch Al-Jazeera Channel; there you might get 20 percent or less of the truth about the war zones. Resent the corrupted politicians in Washington, D.C. and demand justice, if they do not give in to your demands, you must declare autonomy so you may live in peace and security."

Williams calls the statement "the last warning you will receive from us. Consequently, if you ignore it, we regret to inform you that we will carry out devastating operations against the states of America and we will not show mercy whatsoever."

Our media outlets have not influenced me in anyway about how I perceive how you are. You have done that yourselves.

This is all probably a heap of bullshit, but thanks for the warning.

Technorati Tags: terror, attack, America, Bush, 9/11, islam, jihad

Iran: Come Fly the Friendly Skies

2006-01-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

From a country whose leader was quoted as saying that a world without Israel or The United States will someday be a reality. From Air Wise News:

Iran has asked the United States to allow direct flights between the two countries after a break of more than two decades, a senior civil aviation official said on Thursday.

The request comes as the United States and its European Union allies are pressing for the Islamic Republic to be reported to the United Nations Security Council where it could face possible sanctions for its nuclear program.

"We sent a letter to the relevant American officials on Wednesday, announcing Iran's willingness to resume direct flights," Nourollah Rezai-Niaraki, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television.

He said the decision to make the request was taken by hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to demand from the large Iranian community living in the United States.

"They have repeatedly complained about wasting time and losing their baggage on connecting flights," the official said.

Iranian airliners have been barred from the United States since the US government broke ties with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

An Iranian civil aviation spokesman said Ahmadinejad's decision did not signal any move to try to improve relations between the two old foes. "I hope American officials do not adopt a political stance in making a decision on this request," said spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh.

This is the greatest idea I have heard all week! Sure, I’ll go for it, if Jack Bauer is the air marshall.

Technorati Tags:Terror, JackBauer, 24, Iran, Plane, Israel, TheUnitedStates

The End of the Road.......Map?

2006-01-26T19:49:00.000-08:00

Democracy is the single greatest institution in the world. Maybe George Bush was right. In one day we went from a weakened and corrupt government that supports terror through back channels to a democratically elected terrorist group controlled one in Palestine. Now, there will be no more excuses for the Palestinian people. They will now be responsible for their actions. Hamas is now the face and voice of their government. Corruption may end, but Hamas’ policy against Israel may not. They may have just chosen peace, or total war. At least from now on, there will be no misunderstandings. Any action against Israel from the Hamas supported military brigades will and should be considered an act of war.

Israel’s government was pushed way right by today’s news. It would be interesting to see what Sharon would have to say about today’s events. I’m sure he would stand strong, not jump to conclusions, rethink his options and wait for the Palestinians next move. Israel and the U.S. should do the same.

Hamas’ will be on thin ice from the start, they will have to halt all terrorist activities and continue (or start) on the road towards peace. Unless, they like ruling from a bunker.

But just so we don’t forget the mantra of the new ruling party in Palestine, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred are here to remind us:

"Hamas views the Arab-Israeli conflict as "a religious struggle between Islam and Judaism that can only be resolved by the destruction of the State of Israel.""...asserts that struggle (jihad) to wrest control of the land from Israel is a religious duty incumbent on every Muslim individually (fard `ain).""Hamas uses both political activities and violence to pursue its goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel and the secular Palestinian Authority...Hamas has also engaged in peaceful political activity, such as running candidates in West Bank Chamber of Commerce elections (isn't that just precious?- SC&A)""The Hamas Covenant cites the long-discredited anti-Semitic fraud, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, describing it as "the embodiment of the Zionist plan to usurp Palestine".

Hamas dismisses the Freemasons, Lions Club, and the Rotarians as organizations promoting "the interest of Zionism." It accuses those organizations, and the "Zionist invasion" in general, of being "behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds."

From the Hamas Charter: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"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."

Hamas rallying cry, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas!"

Finally, there is this- The Hamas Martyrs Oath:

"Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious...The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah's victory is realised

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times...

It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned...

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kassam and his brethren the fighters, members of Muslim Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Muslim Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968 and after...

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: 'The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him...'Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Muslim, male or female. A woman can go out to fight the enemy without her husband's permission, and so does the slave: without his master's permission...

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with...

The day The Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies...
The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion... It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions...

We should not forget to remind every Muslim that when the Jews conquered the Holy City in 1967, they stood on the threshold of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and proclaimed that 'Mohammed is dead, and his descendants are all women.'
Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people. 'May the cowards never sleep."

Technorati Tags:Terror, PLO, Israel, Palestine, Hamas

Hamas Wins 68 Percent of Vote

2006-01-26T01:10:00.000-08:00

Breaking news from Palestine:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) -- Ahead of official election results Thursday, an exit poll showed the militant group Hamas thrusting itself into the center of Palestinian politics, possibly supplanting the ruling Fatah party as the power broker.

The exit poll from Bir Zeit University, a respected Palestinian school, showed Fatah garnered 46.4 percent of the vote and Hamas won 39.8 percent in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council. That translates into 63 seats for Fatah and 58 for Hamas, according to the exit poll.

But other polls showed Hamas claiming a slim majority, a claim echoed by some
Hamas officials, prompting a warning from Jerusalem.
Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel could not accept a situation in which Hamas in its current configuration -- committed to the destruction of Israel -- was a part of the Palestinian Authority.

"I will not negotiate with a government that does not meet its most basic obligations -- to fight terrorism. We are prepared to assist the Palestinians and Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) very much but they must meet their commitments," Olmert said, according to a statement released by his office.

Hamas, which boycotted the last election in 1996, capitalized on widespread dissatisfaction with what is seen as corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, and a perceived inability by the authority to manage the affairs of the Palestinians.

Fatah was formed in 1965 by longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died in November 2004, and dominated Palestinian politics for decades as the mainstream Palestinian nationalist movement.

"Mostly, they were voting for opposition and voting against Fatah -- against corruption, against nepotism, against the failure of the peace process, and against the lack of leadership," said Mustafa Barghouti with the Palestinian National Initiative, a democratic opposition movement.

He added: "Today (Wednesday) was a great day for Palestine. This is the best democratic practice ever in the Arab world.")

Hamas has called for the destruction of Israel and carried out numerous terrorists attacks that have killed scores of Israelis over the years. The group is listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department.

Turnout near 78 percent

Election officials estimated about 77.7 percent of the eligible 1.3 million voters turned out to cast their ballots at more than 1,000 polling stations. Voting closed around 7 p.m. (noon ET) in Gaza and the West Bank, and it was extended in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem for two hours to accommodate heavy turnout. Among those who joined the voters were Abbas and Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas. Militant Palestinian groups had agreed to a cease-fire during the voting, and there were no reports of major violence.

"We are embarking on a new era, and we call on the international community to help us return to the negotiating table with the Israelis, to conclude a peace agreement and implement it," Abbas said at the end of the election.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa told CNN: "It's a happy day. There is no doubt about that. And I think that the Palestinian people are generally happy because of this."

Did things just get better or worse?

Technorati Tags:Israel, Palestine, terror, Hamas, Fatah

Today or Tommorow

2006-01-21T00:19:00.000-08:00

I will be very busy this weekend, and I won’t be able to post. But here is something from Dadmanly to ponder about.

The fierce opponents of the Bush Administration’s policies on Iraq and the Global War on Terror have long used North Korea and Iran as the strawmen for a “there are greater dangers” line of political attack. Where are they now?

Does President Bush and his team have the strength of will to take on yet one more challenge in the face of the inner opposition? Can they overcome the fifth column? Can they eliminate the nuclear threat yet preserve the Iranian people’s hopes and dreams for democracy for them, too?

Can they even move fast enough now, or is it already too late? Must an Israel or Great Britain or other ally already suffer an ultimate consequence of receiving a final death throe from an Iran who has already acquired nuclear weapons?

I’m afraid I agree with commenters who warn there is no way near enough time to use a “topple from within” strategy of aiding and enabling democracy movement within Iran. I do think someone in the last day or two suggested sponsoring a military coup that deposes the mullahs and turns power over to a civilian authority (in time). (Unless of course, those who might have led such an effort died in the recent suspicious Iranian military plane crash.)

Many of us long suspected Iraq was selected after Afghanistan in large part due to its potential as the tipping point in destroying the Middle East as it was, and creating the conditions to thereby unleash the natural and long suppressed aspirations of people in the Middle East for freedom and democracy, to work in concert with military and diplomatic efforts.

Yet this takes place within a very fractured and insubordinate coalition. No, I’m not talking the insubordination of allied nation states, but the almost traitorous rebellion of agencies and agents within the Federal Government. Department of State, the CIA, FBI, members of Congress – all have seen their share of counter-counter insurgency efforts. For political gain, for turf, to exact vendetta, for partisan advantage, for policy control or supremacy. Not to mention a very divided and sometimes ambivalent public, made increasingly skeptical beyond reason by a hostile media.

The battle of our times is upon us, greater than we have ever known in our history, greater perhaps than the twilight years of fascist ascendancy in the 30s and 40s, or the threat of encroaching communism in the 60s and 70s. Nuclear weaponry and global destructive capability has final devolved down to the logical endstate of technical capability. In the hands of madman, surely.

We could stand by and see what happens, we could, and in the face of great uncertainly, fear, and the potential costs of action and mistake, we possibly will.

The problem is, with this technology, it won’t mean that everyone around the world will have to deal with noxious American syndicated television or culturally abusive motion pictures as a consequence. Or a bar on every corner, or earplugs in every ear.

Rather, we’ll all be faced with the kind of nuclear exchange that many of us who lived through the Cold War thought we had averted. And as the mushroom clouds expand, and the world as we know it ends, will we be prepared for what is left?

Not just the damage to our allies or our cities. But to ourselves? To the nation we will and must become, to finally, completely, for once and for all, really fight back against this enemy and vanquish them from the face of the Earth?

For at that point, as we in anguish mourn the extermination of the Israelis or Iranians or Iraqis or whoever else gets caught in the carnage, we will finally have the will to act, and act with extreme violence. And in the killing and the conquering and the elimination of this enemy, we may in the end pay a higher price for victory than ever we imagined.

But fight we will. Now, or later.

Technorati Tags:Iran, Bush, War, Europe

Iran: Is it Deja Vu with the EU? Part Two

2006-01-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

Condoleezza Rice says: No point in more Iran negotiations.

Ahmadinejad says: "We are asking they step down from their ivory towers and act with a little logic, who are you to deprive us from fulfilling our goals?

"You think you are the lord of the world and everybody should follow you. But that idea is a wrong idea."

Simon Jenkins of The Guardian writes the following:

Never pick a fight you know you cannot win.

Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man.

I would sleep happier if there were no Iranian bomb but a swamp of hypocrisy separates me from overly protesting it. How can we say such a country has "no right" to nuclear defense?

At this very moment, US officials in Baghdad are on their knees begging Iran-backed Shia politicians and militias to help them get out of Iraq. From Basra to the suburbs of Baghdad, Iranian influence is dominant. Iranian posters adorned last month's elections. Whatever Bush and Blair thought they were doing by invading Iraq, they must have known the chief beneficiary from toppling the Sunni ascendancy would be Shia Iran. They cannot now deny the logic of their own policy. Democracy itself is putting half Iraq in thrall to its powerful neighbour.

Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.

I think I am with Condi on this one.

What is my strategy? You are fooling yourself if you think the U.S. does not have enough assets to launch an air assault against targets in Iran. The Air Force and Navy have barely been used in Iraq. Go ahead and take it to the Security Council for sanctions. But if the Security Council balks, remember Operation Desert Fox?

I’ll take the blowback for a few years compared to the consequences of an arms race in the Middle East, or even worse, a war of extermination.

What other bloggers think: Vodkapundit, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Technorati Tags:Rice, Iran, EU, IAEA, TheGuardian,

al Qaeda's Chief Bomb Maker Shish Kababed

2006-01-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

It seems the air strike in Pakistan on Sunday was not a complete failure after all. Abu Shish Kabab al-Masri, al Qaeda’s chief bomb maker, seems to have met a similar fate to his victims. More from The Counter Terrorism Blog.

There still haven’t been any updates yet about the other four or five reported al Qaeda members who suffered the same fate, so we may be in for a few more surprises.

Also check out: The Jawa Report and Captains Quarters

Update!! It seems al-Masri was not the only one smoked out on Sunday. According to Tiger Hawk, Khalib al-Habri and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi also perished in the attack. al-Habri and al Magrabi seem to be al Qaeda's chief commanders in the area.

Technorati Tags:alZawahiri, Pakistan, Terror, US

Iran: Is it Deja Vu with the EU? Part One

2006-01-18T03:44:00.000-08:00

Is it the Iraq situation all over again? After a meeting between the major powers of the U.N. Security Council nations, we are at a stalemate once again. All six nations have agreed that Iran must suspend its nuclear program, but Russia and China balked at the notion of sending the case to the Security Council.

The EU3 seek a meeting with the IAEA next month, where they may find their only support from Mohammed Al Baradai. Al Baradai seems to be the only one taking the hardest stance on Iran at the moment. "Diplomacy is not just talking. Diplomacy has to be backed by pressure and, in extreme cases, by force. We have rules. We have to do everything possible to uphold the rules through conviction. If not, then you impose them." said Al Baradai when asked about a referral to the U.N. and the possibility of the use of force. Still, the outlook of success with diplomacy, sanctions and the use of force seems bleak at this juncture.

Two years of diplomacy by the EU3 have brought us nowhere but to brinksmanship. The world’s unwillingness to pull the trigger on North Korea’s proliferation has begged Iran to question our resolve. Russia and China have pushed for continued negotiations with the Iranians, but North Korea is a prime example of where suggested negotiations by the Russians and Chinese have taken us. Do not think it is any different with Iran. Moreover, with China’s dependence on oil and Russia’s defense contracts, the stakes are higher.

Sanctions are meaningless unless oil is put on the table. Iran’s oil output is enough to sustain the country through lightweight sanctions. China also greatly benefits from continued exports of the mullahs oil, which is the only reason they would vote against a resolution. If strong sanctions are imposed, we could almost guarantee a surge in terror attacks around the world and Iraq.

Either way, the U.N. will continue to bury its head in the sand along with the rest of Europe as Kofi Annan does his best to undermine U.S. power in the Security Council. Sanctions may be supported by the EU3, but when it comes to using force for a violation of those sanctions, you can bet on the same treatment we received on Iraq.

So what do we do, if all else fails? The consequences for military action are scary at this point. Will we have a choice? Will Europe stand with us? Will our partners in Asia? Or will it be déjà vu? It all remains to be seen, as the next few weeks will prove to be some of the most gut wrenching in years.

So what do I think we should do? I will keep it short and sweet in part two.

Also check out: ShrinkWrapped

Technorati Tags:Iran, U.S., EU, UN, ElBaradai, China, Russia, sanctions

Iran and the Final Solution

2006-01-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Link Mecca for these excerpts from an Iranian TV roundtable:

"The [Zionists] claimed that they had to be the rulers of the world. That's why they prepared the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] in Russia, and implemented each and every clause. They wrote instructions how to gain control of the global media, and how to control the world's natural resources...."

"One of the mistakes they made – despite their cleverness – was to claim that [the Nazis] used Zyklon-B gas. This gas, according to chemists – and I asked before this program, just to make sure – is a very dangerous gas. It remains in the air and on the skin for a long time. In the photographs they published, German soldiers are seen dragging the bodies of those who suffocated, and they are doing so without gloves or masks. If this was true, the German soldiers should also have died.

"Besides, if six million people had died, wouldn't there be a record somewhere of at least a hundred names?..."

"I hope that one day humanity will reach the conclusion that the only solution for this cancerous tumor is surgery."

Technorati Tags:Nazi, Iran, Israel

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

2006-01-16T23:57:00.000-08:00

Cheers to Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker, who posted the photo above. The photo was released on The New York Times website with a story about Sunday's failed attack on al Zawahiri. There is still speculation however, that the attack indeed failed. The caption reads:

“Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border.”

Does that look like a missile to you? Whose side is the New York Times on anyway?

More insight: Michelle Malkin, The Strata-Sphere
Technorati Tags:Pakistan, alZawahiri, NewYorkTimes, missile, terror,

Iran: A Strategy From the Left

2006-01-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

This was written on an internet forum yesterday while discussing Iran strategies, the poster is anonymous:

There are two possible Iran strategies….

1) Win Congress in the 2006 elections, then impeach Bush and Cheney and putting a Democrat in the White House. This will go a long way toward convincing Iran (and the rest of the world) that the people of the USA will not tolerate insane leadership, and that there is no need for Iran to build a bomb.

2) Let Iran build their bomb, and when the US gets sane leadership again, negotiate Iranian nuclear disarmament.

This resembles something the left would say here in Japan when discussing about a solution to this problem. With rhetoric like this, you can forget about 2006.

Technorati Tags:
Iran, 2006, Democrats

The Liquidation of Zawahiri?

2006-01-13T23:49:00.000-08:00

Update: It was wishful thinking, but the answer is no. I guess us bloggers will all sit back and wait before we pull the trigger on a story like this. Sorry!

Major news sources are reporting Al Qaeda's number two man may have been killed by U.S. air strikes earlier today. From ABC:

Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high-level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them.

The attack took place early this morning Pakistan time in a small village a few miles from the border with Afghanistan.

Villagers described seeing an unmanned plane circling the area for the last few days and then bombs falling in the early morning darkness.

Eighteen people were killed, according to the villagers who said women and children were among the fatalities.

But Pakistani officials tell ABC News that five of those killed were high-level al Qaeda figures, and their bodies are now undergoing forensic tests for positive identification.
Officials say Zawahiri was known to have used safe houses in this area last winter and was believed to be in the area again this winter.

Zawahiri, who appeared just last week in a new videotaped message, had increasingly been taking the operational reins of al Qaeda, and is thought by U.S. officials to be the current true mastermind of the terrorist group.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed on this one. If he is toast, this is great news. Some will say they question the timing on this or will pull the old how many times have we captured the number two man in al Qaeda line, but Zawahiri is better than nothing. You could argue that Zawahiri is a bigger catch, because he seems to be the mastermind behind most of the larger operations pulled off by al Qaeda in recent years. Especially 9-11. Terror will continue however, as Zawahiri will be considered a martyr. If he is dead, we can expect some blowback from this incident. But, he is better dead than alive. Besides, 72 virgins and a donkey was what he wanted anyway. Sayonara.

Technorati Tags:terror, Zawahiri, alQaeda, 9/11, ,

Terror's New Gadget: Disposable Cell Phones

2006-01-13T04:33:00.000-08:00

ABC News reports that disposable cell phones like the ones used to detonate the bombs in Madrid in 2004, were purchased in large quantities in Texas and California in late December.

In one New Year's Eve transaction at a Target store in Hemet, Calif., 150 disposable tracfones were purchased. Suspicious store employees notified police, who called in the FBI, law enforcement sources said.

In an earlier incident, at a Wal-mart store in Midland, Texas, on December 18, six individuals attempted to buy about 60 of the phones until store clerks became suspicious and notified the police. A Wal-mart spokesperson confirmed the incident.

The Midland, Texas, police report dated December 18 and obtained by ABC News states: "Information obtained by MPD [Midland Police Department] dispatch personnel indicated that approximately six individuals of Middle-Eastern origin were attempting to purchase an unusually large quantity of tracfones (disposable cell phones with prepaid minutes attached)." At least one of the suspects was identified as being from Iraq and another from Pakistan, officials said.

Other reports have come in from other cities, including Dallas, and from authorities in other states. Authorities in Pennsylvania, New York and other parts of Texas confirmed that they were alerted to the cases, and sources say other jurisdictions were also notified.

Remember what Cindy Sheehan said about the apathy of the American people this week? Well, with the exception of ABC and the rest of us reporting this, the apathy of most of the news media is stunning and appalling to me! You would think this story would be a major concern. But no, the liberal media will continue to apply double standards to the reporting of the NSA intercept program. I am talking to you New York Times! According to The Anchoress, the New York Times used to think the surveillance of terrorists to stop these threats were a necessity. Her article also asks if we and the media have forgotten what 9/11 was like, which is a question I ask while pondering the news daily! And where is this story on CNN? I’ve had it on all day in Japan, and there hasn’t been even a whisper of it. Thank God for Memeorandum!

Technorati tags:terror, NSA, NewYorkTimes, cellphones, war,

The President's Definition of Debate Is?

2006-01-10T21:46:00.000-08:00

That we should debate responsibly, according to his speech to war veterans today. The end of the speech was directed at Democrats and war critics, who were accused of "comforting the enemy". Interesting, how now we are supposed to act responible and be careful not to annoy during FREE DEBATE! I supported the war and still do, as does Joe Gandelman who has an excellent write up about this on The Moderate Voice. Thank you Joe!

The definition of debate from the dictionary:

debate
v. debated, debating, debates
1. To consider something
2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points
3. To fight or quarrel
4. To discuss or argue

It's not the critics or the debate that are going to cause us to lose this war, it is the management of the battlefield.

Knock it off bloggers! Bush and Congress are Getting Annoyed!

2006-01-09T23:02:00.000-08:00

Damn! I just started this blog anonymously, and now I may have to come out of the closet. (No, not that closet!) Oops! Sorry if I annoyed anyone. I mean my name. My real name. Yes, according to H.R. 3402, the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 Sect. 113, we can all go to jail for two years and be fined for annoying someone on the internet, if you annoy them anonymously. Read the article here at CNET News.com.

In celebration of H.R. 3402, I offer my five favorite ways to annoy people. This annoying piece of work is brought to you by Jokes2go.com. The writer is anonymous.

1. Yell across a crowded room to them: "Hey John, the results came back from the V.D. clinic: we're clean!"

2. Leave the following on someone's answering machine: "Sir, we're not sure if you wanted us to do it, you know, after what happened, so, well, we went ahead and did it anyway. If you don't like it, we can probably take it out, but we will have to charge you extra. Please return this call immediately. Thanks."

3. Tell lots of puns. (For my father)

4. Hide the remote control.

5. Call a house at random, and ask for Gary. When they tell you that there is no Gary there, call again a little while later. Do this at intervals about four times. Finally, when they're fuming and about to scream bloody murder, call a fifth time, and say, "Hi, this is Gary. Are there any messages for me?"

I f you have anymore, post them in the comment section. Until later, Oyasumi nasai!

Cindy Sheehan Issues a Fatwah

2006-01-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

Cindy Sheehan wrote about the apathy of the American people on Michael Moore’s webpage today:

"The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead." William Lloyd Garrison.

The apathy of most of America is stunning and appalling to me. When I found this quote I was filled with wide-eyed wonder that there is one statue left in America complete with statue, or one grave or tomb still occupied.

Then, in my opinion she takes it a little too far. It is debatable, that we Americans are not being asked to sacrifice as much as others before us in times of conflict. I think there is concern on all sides for the troops and situation in Iraq.

If we don't get off of our collective apathetic and complacent backsides to stop the barbaric killing in Iraq, when will the next candlelight vigil be? George Bush and the evil neo-cons are killing our precious soldiers at the rate of 2.78 per day. By my calculations, we should be lighting our candles again and singing "Kumbaya" by October.

Now, where does she get these numbers from? I am not an expert either in this department, but Mark from Decision `08 makes a comment about this. Let’s also remember that congress also voted for this deployment in Iraq, not just the “evil neo-cons”. But if you stand by your numbers, I would argue, that insurgents, friendly fire, everyday criminals, terrorists, and other causes are killing our precious soldiers at that rate.

"I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," said George on December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-ti-mate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was. If George says 30,000…who knows what the truthful total is. It fills me with sorrow and hurts my heart to even contemplate the number.

Okay, now I see why Cindy’s Amazon book sale totals leave much to be desired. Let’s not forget Al Qaeda attacks in other countries around the world in the past 20 years. I’m not even going to waste my breath to list them. Google it! She continues with “America: this is what you are allowing your government to do in your name: Use chemical weapons on other members of humanity. Carpet bomb cities filled with human beings like yourselves.” Now come on, show me where we have carpet bombed a city in Iraq. If someone can, please post a link in the comment section. And please, no links from WW2 or Vietnam. And the chemical weapons story??? Yeah, that's been all over the news lately!

Hillary Clinton told me that the "wheels of government grind slowly." This is a tired cliché and it is unacceptable blather while the war machine is grinding the bones of our children. It is time for us wide awake Americans to make our elected officials speed up the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

If I hear one more rendition of "We Shall Overcome" and then watch the vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TV's and crack open a brewsky content in the fact that they have done something for peace that day, I am going to scream! We can't overcome unless we take the proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!

Hold your vigils and marches in relevant places: such as warmongering local Congressional offices. So many Senators and Congresspeople come to mind. Or in front of a recruiting station. Or Federal Buildings. Or military bases. Then instead of going home and cracking open a beer, or uncorking a bottle of wine, sit down and say "we aren't leaving until you call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq." Put your butt on the line for humanity.

If you really believe in the nonsense that spews from your lips and that of the anti-war left than I have an idea for you, You could put your butt on the line for your cause and: grab a brewsky, get on a plane and scream "Kumbaya" on the way to Iraq, park yourself in front of an M1 Abrams tank and take that proverbial bull on! One other option: Be all you can be, join the insurgency!

Check out an interesting satire on Cindy's fatwah on Protein Wisdom.
Please read this story from the Washington Post about a mother in Iraq and her family staying the course.

Update!!- 5:00 a.m. Looks like Harry Belafonte is also getting in on the act of labeling Bush a terrorist according to ABC News. There is a nice picture of him next to Hugo Chavez also. Well, as Michelle Malkin said, "Don't come back!"

Texas vs USC: A little taste of home

2006-01-08T02:22:00.000-08:00

After a few days wait, I could finally watch the national championship. Here in Japan, we get taped delay. But one thing I always miss about home is watching the game with my family. Watching endless amounts of sumo gets tiring, when that is the basis of your main sports consumption in Japan. And I would take a Budweiser and my mother's hot corned beef sandwiches over sushi any day! Anyways.....

All I have to say is Vince Young will be a major star in the NFL. DO NOT pull a Matt Leinert! Please! Prepare for the draft. The last two Rose Bowls have been a stomping ground for him. Terry Bowden also takes note of him in today's Yahoo Sports editorial section. I am also a believer. I never contemplated Texas would be able to hold Leinart and Bush, but the Longhorns persevered. Congratulations Texas!

Konichiwa?

2006-01-06T22:01:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am! My first blog post. Hello? Can anyone see this? Anybody there?? Anyways I live in Japan. Fukuoka to be exact. Yes, that's right! Japan, the land of the samurai! There is alot more to this place than samurai and sushi, and I will always be on my soapbox about events here and back home in America. Feel free to rant and rave as much as you want! Comments and insights are always welcome! Yoroshiku!