All Things Beautiful

"The Quickest Way Of Ending A War Is To Lose It"

"Blind Leading The Blind III" by Peter Howson 1991, Private Collection, London

As Caroline Glick reminds me of the George Orwell quip above, the Israeli Government's "desire to attempt to bolster the popularity of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general elections" looks set to go :

Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war.

All so called peace proposals on the table consisting of the usual array of EU concilatory 'stop or I'll say stop again' bullshit starting with the assumption that all of Hamas' demands are met as a matter of course, thereby negating all of Israel's by definition, including the all important permanent 'cease fire'. No-one is asking it "to disarm, end its weapons trafficking or commit itself to a permanent cease-fire".

Has everyone conveniently forgotten that Hamas is genocidal? They are not interested in peace or diplomacy, they are simply interested in eradicating the Jews. Period. Hamas militants need the violent clashes. It's what they do. It's their day job, paid for through myriad and seedy channels by Iran, under the general auspice of 'Holy War'. Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization, its purpose the destruction of Israel. Hamas men are Jihadists, all boys future supplies for the course; women, necessary to keep the cycle going.

"The EU is arguably committing a war crime by accepting Hamas as a legitimate side to a dispute. In turn, by accepting the EU as a legitimate interlocutor, Israel itself gives credence to the view that Hamas is a legitimate actor. "

What the hell happened? We have in effect legalized Hamas' illegal aggression, and given it the same consideration as the legitimate defense of the sovereign state of Israel, whilst at the same time making it impossible for her to defend herself against further aggressions without attracting the wrath of the International community. The 'land for peace' in 2005 was a treacherous and ungrateful concept, which simply vindicated the warning that historically any land Israel relinquishes will be used to attack it. Hamas can now comfortably lob rockets from Gaza, giving Israelis 30 seconds to take cover. Yeah right.

The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians.

The attacks on Israeli citizens have little to do with what Israel does or does not do. They have everything to do with an ideology that despises – and openly seeks to destroy – the Jewish state. Consider that rocket attacks increased substantially after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, and they accelerated further after Hamas seized control last year.

The language of the Middle East is clear, why is Israel the only country not allowed to speak it? But speak it they must: "The late King of Jordan had no qualms about using his might to put down a Palestinian uprising during "Black September" in 1970. He ordered refugee camps to be bombed. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people died. The PLO then moved its headquarters to Lebanon. Arafat moved to Cairo and later to Tunis.

Former Syrian President Hafis al-Assad, the father of Syria's present ruler, pulled no punches in fighting insurgent members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He devastated the city of Hama in February 1982, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians. No one accused him of "genocide" -- and if someone had, al-Assad would have asked his critics not to meddle in the domestic affairs of his country."

When are we going to even begin to understand that the war Israel fights is our war. It is the war of today, the war with Islamist extremists who are not interested in diplomacy, and even less in the survival of the infidels. They need a swift and expedient kick in the groin delivered by the entire international community. Zero tolerance internationally, recognition that we are on Israel's side with as many politically incorrect actions as we can muster, and yes I am talking about standing up to Iran:

“......Iran is the most lethal, the most dangerous, and the most aggressive terror master in the world today.” Like the global totalitarian movements and regimes that threatened Western civilization in the last century, the Iranians come with a messianic ideology that admits no compromise with its enemies.  This war will only end with a winner and a loser, not with two contented negotiators. Forget that our enemies want us dead or dominated, they don't want a world at peace in which they will have to deal with real problems of governance.  They are waging jihad, not diplomacy.

“It follows from this that you cannot "solve" Gaza by fighting in Gaza alone, you have to win the terror war.  And to do that, you must accomplish regime change, just as Netanyahu said.  But the crucial regime change must be accomplished in Iran.  Whatever Israel accomplishes in Gaza (and the same holds for our battles in Iraq and Afghanistan), it is only a matter of time before the mullahs reorganize, rearm, and return to battle. And the next battle may involve nuclear weapons.

Hamas is simply acting on the direct instructions of the Iranian Mullahcracy that reigns supreme. Iran is the biggest threat to our way of life, the democracy that we hold dear, the freedom that we cherish and take for granted. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens that the battle over Palestine is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West.

We are all well aware how Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is modeling himself on Grand-Master-Über-Thug Ayatollah Khomeini (may he rot in Hell for all eternity).

We also know with certainty, that the Mullahcracy has been desperately trying to build their nuclear bomb at least since the early Nineties. We furthermore know today, that with all the various assurances given to stop production in the past, no such efforts were in fact made. Nothing but bold faced lies.

Finally, we know, that for the period of almost two decades, every promise of co-operation, extracted from the Mullahcracy at various times by the U.S., several EU member states, the IAEA, the UN and other such illustrious parties so as to prevent a nuclear Islamic Republic in the heart of the Middle East, has only ever been feigned with one aim in mind, to buy more time for the Mullahcracy to reach nuclear ecstasy.

And the only variable, determining the time-line, remains unchanged: the war will start when our Thug-In-Chief finally manages to get his dirty mitts on the nuclear bomb. Nothing else, no UNSC resolutions, no diplomatic efforts and certainly no appeasement policies will stop the lethally delusional  Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor his Thug-In-Chief.

Victor Davis Hanson tells it how it is:

”There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.

Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community. Hamas has no pretensions, like the PA, of being a governing authority; it used violence to rout the PA and then bragged that its charter pledging the destruction of Israel remained unchanged. Israel evacuated Gaza; Gazans in response looted their own infrastructure, alienated both the PA and Egypt,and then sent off more than 6,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, while eagerly becoming a terrorist puppet of theocratic Iran.

Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world's craven reaction to all this.

Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien's Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised "international community," the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annihilation its aim and religious fascism its creed.”

I leave you with Barry Rubin's must read:

Today, people ask, why didn't the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony, because they didn't think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner.
[...]
Answer: ideology. A doctrine and belief system will make people act in a way that doesn't fit pragmatic expectations. Why should Hamas start a war against a stronger power? Due to believing itself to be stronger and its need to mobilize mass support. Why should Palestinian leaders reject a state even if it means the end of an increasingly small degree of "occupation"? Due to belief that total victory is inevitable, that compromise is treason, and that their enemies are satanic.
[...]
No matter how much diplomatic aid, sympathy, or money the West gives Hamas — and it has saved Hamas and the PLO over and over from their own mistakes — they will not become grateful or pro-Western. Anti-Western and anti-American sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Palestinians — and Iran's regime, and Syria's government, and Hezbollah, and other Islamists — need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems? Themselves?

If you save the terrorists today, they will commit more terrorism tomorrow. If you let them escape the consequences of their own extremism, you can guarantee they will stay extremist and take a lot of the masses with them.
[...]
This is the Middle East of 2008 and not of 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998. The Palestinian issue has little effect on any other issue. The real conflict is Iran-Syria against Egypt-Saudi Arabia. Islamists are seeking to conquer the region from Arab nationalists. Radical groups are not interested in happy homelands but jihad and genocide.

And so the issue is not why Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza now, but why Hamas in Gaza is attacking Israel now.

So fasten your seat belts, it continues to be, as it was before, just a matter of time. The Jews are fighting our war, what will it take for us to understand that? As long as we continue to make excuses at every turn and fail to acknowledge the elephant in the room, nothing will change.

But hey, what the hell, as Christians, let's rant and rave in support of Hamas' genocidal tirade of depraved indifference to human life. After all, specially designed for those who wage war against Allah, it passed a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority this Christmas legalizing crucifixion .

That nails it for me, what about you? Looking for a banner-waving chanting protest to march to, so we can spit some more insults into Israel's face? After all we need to find someone to blame for the Brits promising the same piece of real estate to the Jews and the Arabs.

Shame on us.

P.S. PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO SOME 600 COMMENTS ON PREVIOUS POSTS, THE COMMENTS ON ATB ARE BEING SHOWN IN REVERSE, I.E. LAST COMMENT FIRST.

"Whatever it is I am against it!"

"The Brazen Serpent" by Michelangelo 1511, Fresco, Cappella Sistina, Vatican

P.S. Please note that due to some 400 comments on the previous post, and 600 on the post before that, the comments on ATB are from now on being shown in reverse, i.e last comment first. Typepad's new software shows only 50 comments per page, and the commenters in long threads were made to flick some 10 pages, so I changed it.

UPDATED BELOW ON DEC 3RD IN EXTENDED ENTRY

I received the below e-mail from David Horowitz, the Editor of Front Page, this morning, and I have to say I agree with him, we are beginning to sound like winging Liberals.

Like it or not, and my own huge reservations regarding his appeasement policies aside, Barack Obama is here to stay.  We had better start getting used to it, otherwise we will spend the entire next term screaming like headless chickens doing an impersonation of Graucho Marx in "Dunk Soup": "Whatever it is I am against it!"

Having got that off my chest, I still think that producing a Birth Certificate would have helped some 64 million people who voted for him, make a decision between fully legal choices, and not ones that involve the tearing up of The Constitution

Conservatives need to get a grip. My email box is full of right-wing trash talk (sorry, I'm peeved this morning) about Obama's fake birth certificate, his alleged covert Islamism, and Hillary's scandals. Worse, we were running a FrontPage story on this last wild goose until I canned it.

Since not everybody is following me at this point, let's take them one at a time. First, the birth certificate. Is Obama a legitimate president of the United States? Well, let me put it to you this way: 64 million Americans voted to elect Barack Obama. Do you want to disenfranchise them? Do you think it's possible to disenfranchise 64 million Americans and keep the country? And please don't write me about the Constitution. The first principle of the Constitution is that the people are sovereign. What the people say, goes. If you think about it, I think you will agree that a two-year billion dollar election through all 50 states is as authoritative a verdict on anything as w e are likely to get. Barack Obama is our president. Get used to it.

"We Are All Jews Now!"

The famous painting by Otto Dix 'The Skat Players' 1920, Gallerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Germany

URGENT MESSAGE: Due to the large number of comments on this post (almost 400 at present), and 550 on the previous one, in order to circumvent the new Typepad system which allows only 50 per page, I have changed the display to show newest comments first. You can then click on 'next' to read the previous ones 50 at a time.

Thank you for the hundreds of e-mails of support, begging me not to stop blogging, even if it means a post a week, an image, anything. The jury is still out...

I have been temporarily torpedoed out of my Sabbatical cocoon by this e-mail, in response to my original post called The Myth of Palestine Part II, which happens to be my favorite of all time on ATB (Part I is here). The e-mail sent my heart rate pumping, and reaching for my pills. Perhaps having stayed away from blogging had weakened my stomach for these 'anonymous cowards' who frequently pollute my Inbox. Like this one, more often than not they are in response to my Myth of Palestine posts linked to above:

I disagree. They do exists and have every right to. Racist Israelis such as yourself are one of the problem in the Middle East. If anything, the UN and the US made a mistake by creating a Jewish state. You guys were wiped off by the Romans. I wondered why? Now, with the help the American tax money, you guys are wiping the Palestinians off the map.

While Americans pay attention to China's treatment of Tibet, the world is watching Israel and their annihilation of the Palestinians.

Keep hiding under your yamacas [sic], because Karma is a bitch.

For the umpteenth time....[yawn]: I am not Israeli, nor am I Jewish. I don't wear a yarmulke, I wear Prada. If that makes me 'The Devil', so be it. Just so that we all understand each other, I am a devout Christian, and I am vehemently against the tyranny of Islamofascism. Calling me a racist simply because I am pro-Jewish, is simply ignorant.

Unlike you dear Anonymous, I don't hide under a rock, you can find out who I am simply by clicking 'ABOUT' in the top right hand corner of my Blog.

I have written enough about Israel, the so called 'Palestine', and the whole mess in the Middle East, for everyone to know that I am fiercely pro-Israel. Realizing that the Arabs in Saudi are finally reaching an understanding of the realities facing the conflict in the Middle East, it is uncanny to think that, sanity is prevailing, and the region is accepting that siding with extremists is going to get them killed at best, and let them be seen to be 'sleeping with the enemy' and then get killed anyway, at worst.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: after nearly 40 years of pin-point targeted response to Arab rabid hostilities leading to this perverse situation where the West pays the Palestinian officials, synonymous with terrorism, billions of Dollars so that they can keep spitting into Israel's face, we have come a full circle.

Nothing changes. Let's just sit tight whilst Iran builds its nuclear bomb, so that we can all cry about it afterwards, like we did when we calmly watched Hitler slaughter the Jews.

One of my favorite quotes from Charles Moore @ The Telegraph published a while back, to be never more relevant as it is today:

All I want to ask my fellow Europeans [and Americans] is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilization even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb."

I believe we suffer from acute self-aggrandizement and individualistic hyperbole, which in the final analysis is nothing but ignorant arrogance as it is both hollow and superficial in all its aspects.

In many ways, the term 'Clash of Civilizations' contains the seeds of a most comprehensive truth. I am afraid though that we will have to come to terms with the fact, that the lines will prove to be much more blurred and drawn criss-cross throughout our society. Just when we reluctantly acknowledge the reality of a long-drawn-out conflict centering around religious beliefs; just when we thought that the factions could be limited to those of Judea-Christian beliefs versus Islamic ones, must we realize, that the scope is far wider: Faith versus Skepticism with all its variations such as cynicism, pessimism, disbelief, agnosticism, atheism, and anti-Semitism. In short, the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless, otherwise called Nihilism.

The lines in the sand have been drawn...as I have said before: "We Are All Jews Now"!

As Sir Winston Churchill wisely said, and my father bravely lived: "You have enemies? Good. That means you have stood up for something sometime in your life."

Indeed.

Introducing The Angel Of Death (Repeat)

Crowds of people have congregated as if in anticipation of experiencing a miraculous religious vision - but instead a grotesque dead chicken lies slumped across the cliff-top in front of them. The crowd's inability to recognize the inanity of the object they are venerating, emphasized the futility of their mission.
"Chihuahua" by David Alfaro Siqueiros 1947, Museo de Arte Alvar y Carmen T de Carillo, Mexico City

By now, at the tail end of 2007, we all know who Mohammad-Ali Ramin is. But when I first wrote about him some eighteen months ago he was a relative unknown, and aside from the odd flutter at the beginning of this year, when he claimed in a December 28th interview with a Tehran-based 'Baztab' news website that Hitler was Jewish, he is keeping his powder relatively dry. I still say, fasten your seat belts, it's going to be an explosive ride:

"We will acquire this [nuclear] technology and export it to all the 150 countries. This is the power we have not yet used."

Mohammad-Ali Ramin's looks are deceptive.

He is good looking with his soft, well manicured beard. His looks are either German or Scandinavian, blue eyes, light hair. Nothing threatening, charming smile; you'd invite him to your dinner party without a moments hesitation. Well almost....

Little would you know that you would be wining and dining the very reincarnation of Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Eichmann, Dr Josef Mengele dubbed 'The Angel of Death', you name it, take your pick, improved only in looks and finesse. Pure, unabashed, soft-spoken evil. Measured in tone, deliberate and utterly confident in everything he says. He's not a psychopath, but someone who is absolutely convinced to occupy the moral high ground, certain of his convictions being sanctioned by Allah himself.

Politics Of Terror Reign Supreme

 

What the hell are these people still doing in Great Britain? We will never learn will we. No, not until the politics of terror reign supreme, the delusional denial suffocates us to a painful death and liberal deranged PC-thinking chokes us with the perpetual whining: “we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings..”....eh?

In turn, the Liberals in America have brought every argument of this nature down to accusations of racial prejudice, and ad hominem attacks of being against other cultures if you dare declare that America has a culture of it's own. They have entirely managed to kill any sense of proud heritage they once had, in favor of some sort of misplaced democracy which allows others to spit on their culture. Why? Why should the Americans and the British allow others to spit on their culture whilst living in THEIR country? What's next? We all have to speak Arabic, and live by the Law of Shari'a just so as not to upset our Islamic friends who think our infidel culture is inferior and we should all be dead or converted.

Until the West begins to pay attention to what Muslim extremists are saying in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, rather than what their apologists sprout forth for foreign consumption, the word insulting will not take on the new meaning and level of hatred it should do.

It is a matter of 'demographic time' before Islam will become the religion of the majority, ruled by the law of Shari'a. Just in case we think we are sitting cosily here, and this is someone else's problem, we need to know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in America. Today, the number of followers of Islam in the United States has reached 7 to 8 million Muslims in the United States. More than a quarter of a million people of Arab descent live in southeastern Michigan, making the area the second-largest Arab community outside the Middle East (after Paris, France).

The vast majority (80%) of American mosques are funded with Saudi Arabian money and most subscribe to 18th century Wahhabism that calls for the spread of Islam through violence. Many mosques, "Islamic Learning Centers" and Arab/Muslim Student Unions are distributing large numbers of pamphlets and leaflets attacking Judaism, Christianity and other non-Muslim religions and urging young Americans to convert to Islam.

The so called 'moderates' don't exist. There are only those who admit openly to supporting conversion to Islam through 'Jihad' and those who don't. There are only those who get their hands 'officially' dirty and those that don't. And then of course there are the 'Ellison atheists', and they belong to the 'nutball category'.

The threat of Islam is real. More so than Communism and Fascism ever was, because with Islam, Muslim activists are willing to kill and to die for the cause of spreading their religion. 'Jihad', is a sacred duty for all Muslims to perform, by any support or means available to them. Jihad is not, as asserted recently by apologists in the West a "spiritual struggle", but a Holocaust of non-Muslims.

The Power Of Demonization

 

Kenny Pierce continues from his ATB post on The Black Pleasure Of Hatred And Cultural Provincialism:

"From debate on the Senate floor about interrogation tactics at Guantanamo:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor. If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.   -- Senator Dick Durbin

I recently wrote a post expressing my concern about the prevalence of hate-speech and hate-rhetoric in modern American politics, in which I used Senator Durbin's demonization of the Guantanamo interrogators as an example of objectionable rhetoric. And a good friend of mine, who happens, like Durbin, to detest Dubya and to consider Guantanamo to be an indelible stain on our national honor, had a response that interested me very much. She couldn't understand why I would have a problem with Durbin's rhetoric; well, okay. But then, even more interestingly, she in the very same conversation complained about conservatives' referring to liberals as "unpatriotic" and as "aiding and abetting the enemy." That is to say, she thinks that sometimes it's okay to demonize, and sometimes it isn't, though she's vague as to how one is supposed to tell what is good demonization and what is bad demonization.

Fairly deep into the conversation she got somewhat plaintive in her frustration over my (to her) incomprehensible take on Durbin's rant:

Why must [Durbin's contention] be put nicely? Why is not this remark evaluated on the basis of the truth that underlies and causes the occasion? Why, Kenny.... why, why, why? :)

The conversation petered out shortly thereafter and we've since moved on to other topics. But the more I think about her question, the more I think it's a question worth a careful and detailed answer. The problem is, there are several reasons to say that responsible people do not, except under exceptional circumstances (if ever), resort to that particular rhetorical tactic. So I think what's called for is a series of posts, each one examining in detail a single reason that demonization is a bad thing, something which we as individuals should not engage in and which we as a culture should not deem socially tolerable. My time constraints being what they are, I may not be able to finish the series (I usually don't manage to finish long series of this nature, because the family-of-eleven things, and the job-that's-demanding-enough-for-me-to-be-paid-enough-to-support-a-family-of-eleven things, tend to rise up and derail me). But I can at least make a start, beginning with what I think is most important; and perhaps other people can pick up the baton when I wind up dropping it.

The Democratic Congress' Fatal Self-Deception

 

I give you my dear friend Kenny Pierce with yet another gem:

"If Fred Thompson doesn't have all the other Presidential pretenders quaking in their boots -- especially the charmless Hillary -- then they're way too bloody stupid to be running the country. His take-down of Michael Moore was masterful in about half a dozen different ways.

Meanwhile the Democratic Congress continues on its suicidal path toward the destruction of its own party. I can't remember in which on-line forum I said, shortly after the mid-term elections, that I thought the Democrats' apparent success would turn out to be a disaster for them, and that Hillary's candidacy had just taken a major hit. My reasoning was that the Congress, being rendered stupid by their hatred of Dubya, would take entirely the wrong lesson from those elections, and would proceed to spend the next two years making it absolutely clear that no matter how bad an idea it is to give Republicans power, giving Democrats power is, mirabilu dictu, an EVEN WORSE idea.

And the Democrats are playing out the script exactly as written.

See, when those elections came in, suddenly everywhere you turned the Democrats were talking about their "mandate," and specifically they were claiming that they had a mandate "to end the war." Now, let's set aside the fact that the Congressional elections were not, in fact, a referendum on the war, and that the Constitution (which the Dubya-terrified insist that Dubya wishes to undermine) certainly does not say that if the opposition party wins control of Congress during a war, then Congress is authorized to usurp the power and function of the executive branch. (When you hear a Democrat complaining about Dubya's attempts to behave un-Constitutionally, ask them if they object to Nancy Pelosi's blatant attempts to pursue a shadow foreign policy in direct opposition to and subversion of the President's foreign policy. Nobody who supports what Pelosi did has any business pretending that it's Constitutional checks and balances they're out to defend.) Let's pretend for the sake of argument that the only issue that anybody in America took into account in casting their Congressional vote this last time around, was the war. What, then, is the real mandate?

I'll tell you what it is. The mandate is not to stop waging the war. The mandate is to stop screwing around getting nothing accomplished like Bush and Rumsfeld and Co. have spent the last four years s-a-g-n-a. The American people thought that if Bush was allowed to just keep on muddling along and pretending that Rumsfeld was right and you could conquer the world with six National Guardsman, a K-9 unit, and a bunch of high-tech equipment, then we'd continue right on with the slow bleed of Iraq and never get anywhere.

The Black Pleasure Of Hatred And Cultural Provincialism

 

I give you my great friend and mentor Kenny Pierce:

"Usenet veterans are familiar with the common rule, "Whoever mentions Nazis or Hitler first, automatically loses the argument." My own feeling has always been that the only way that that rule could possibly be valid, would be if you had a bunch of people in your discussion who weren't worth talking to anyway -- which, I have to admit, does after all describe a great many Web "discussions."

See, there are two different ways in which I can introduce a comparison to Hitler. In the first, the guy I'm talking to has just embraced a position that seems to me to be more or less the same thing in principle as that of Hitler or Stalin. But I know perfectly well that the guy sitting across the cyberspace table from me is a nice guy who would be appalled at the thought of committing genocide. I therefore point out that his position is very similar to a Nazi position, precisely so that he can explain to me wherein lies the difference. In short, when I say, "It seems to me that you're taking a position that's not significantly different from that of the Nazis," the point is to give my friend the opportunity to say, "Oh, well, I see where you're coming from with that, but you're missing something: here's how my position is different from Hitler's." The analogy is directed at exploring his position, with which I strongly disagree but which I suspect I may not fully understand; and there is not the slightest question of any disrespect of his character.

But the other reason to introduce a comparison to Hitler, is precisely in order to attack my opponent's character as a human being -- to show not that he is intellectually wrong, but to prove that he is morally contemptible. In this form, when I say, "You're just like the Nazis," the point is not to give my opponent the opportunity to clear up a misunderstanding on my part. It is a vicious personal attack. The point is not to introduce understanding, but to inflame passions. The point is not to enhance the discussion, but to demolish all hope of the discussion's ever yielding fruit. And when somebody starts throwing Hitler around in that fashion, then the discussion is indeed over; and the question of which person is correct on the original issue pales in importance, compared to what you have just learned about the character of the Hitler-mongerer. For a vicious character is a far worse thing than a false belief.

What Matters More

A compilation of Francis Bacon portraits, ca 60's, held in private collections in London

 

Yesterday morning we woke up to Senator Jo Lieberman's probing question: "What matters more to us, the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?"

Well, as to option-A, fair question, providing of course you have consensus that we are still fighting over there.

Problem is, most Democrats -- and increasingly poll-weary Republicans -- have bought into their own propaganda that the war is already lost; all that is left to do is exercise damage control on the way back home.

Leading us swiftly to option-B: No one wants to be associated with a loss, especially not with a lost war and all the blame that follows in tow.

So, are we really witnessing a 'political fight over here'?

I think not. We are much more treated to front-row seats in an unfolding blame-game of epic proportions.

This kind of constellation brings out the worst in most politicians as they prepare the fight for survival;  as they prepare for a prolonged period of musical chairs.

The sad consequence is an ironic convergence of bad choices made. Ironic, because the resulting actions by both Democrats and Republicans increasingly resemble Gore Vidal's post-Watergate gloom 30 years ago.

The Jury Is Out

 

I am baaack!

This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle.

President Bush wryly hit the nail on the head when he was referring to Lt. Gen David Petraeus as the 'new commander'.

Only last week did the Senate unanimously confirm General Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, full well knowing that his appointment "marks the real start of the new US strategy in Iraq, but is also seen as a last chance to turn things around".

And the new US strategy is what? Is it just more troops -- 21,500 extra U.S. troops, to be precise? Does it mean, that these extra "troops are now going to run out and look for gun battles with insurgents in back alleys", as critics immediately after the President's State of the Union address had us believe?

Of course not.

Restoring Humility To Our National Psyche In The Face Of Nihilism (Repeat)

 

Preparing for travel, hence not much time for blogging right now, I am re-posting something I wrote last year, on a subject dear to me, as relevant today as it was when I first thrashed it out on my keyboard.

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine essay out called "The Prison of the Present".

I rarely disagree with him and on his many brilliant insights, especially when put so expertly in historical context, as Hanson has again succeeded to do.

The question "..aren't choices usually between the bad and the far worse?.." leads to very relevant historical comparisons, which do not seek to "..excuse present mistakes by citing worse ones from the past--or to suggest that all wars are always the same. Much less should history's examples be used to stifle necessary contemporary criticism that alone leads to remedy."

Instead, Hanson believes that "..knowledge of the capricious nature of wars of the past can restore a little humility to our national psyche":

We need it. Ours is the first generation of Americans that thinks it can demand perfection in war. Our present leisure, wealth, and high technology fool us into thinking that we are demi-gods always be able to trump both human and natural disasters. Accordingly, we become frustrated that we cannot master every wartime obstacle, as we seem otherwise to be able to do with computers or cosmetic surgery. Then, without any benchmarks of comparison from the past, we despair that our actions are failed because they are not perfect.

The key question to me, one which is constantly on my mind these days, is the one concerning the level of the current collective "Confidence" in ourselves as a Nation and whether such confidence or the lack of it, if this is indeed the case, lies at the heart of the acrimonious divide which has beset our nation in the face of the war on terror.

Nuclear Communist Islamofascism

'Winter Landscape with Church' by Caspar David Friedrich 1811, Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund

 

'Nuclear Communist Islamofascism' -- you think I am joking, just wait...

During his recent trip to Iran, the German head of the opposition Green party faction, Fritz Kuhn, confirmed how the leading thugs of the Mullahcracy had been caught by surprise after Russia and China supported UNSC Resolution 1737.

On the contrary, they had hoped to isolate the U.S. by splitting away Russia and China, and, with a bit of luck, even most of Europe. What they didn't expect, was the unanimous vote against them.

I don't share many convictions with Fritz Kuhn of the Green party -- bloody champagne communists, the lot of them, if you ask me -- but because the Mullahs know the Green party to be thoroughbred appeasers, because they trust them not to interfere, they'll drop their guard on occasions lower, thus revealing more, than intended. And the likes of Kuhn, or John-America-is-a-"pariah"-Kerry, never seem to disappoint. Kuhn goes out of his way to explain to his Iranian counterparts, all that is needed is to tone down the rhetoric; that they should understand, eventually Israel will connect such rhetoric with the 'Atomfrage' ('atomic question' - some question, yeah right...), "...you know, what would happen, if someone who talks so aggressively, has the atomic bomb at his disposal...That's the thing, you guys in Iran have to understand, that there is a connection...". Wow, really? Now that you are telling me.... My word!

On the other hand, we have the Supreme Thug-In-Chief Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei blinding us with breathtaking logic: American forces plant the bombs in order to create the appearance of sectarian violence. "They are well familiar with the secrets of their seditious job. They know how to provoke Sunnis against Shiites and how to incite Shiites against Sunnis. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran the colonialists intensified their efforts."

Faces Of Evil

"Martyrdom of St Erasmus" by Dieric Bouts the Elder ca.1458, Sankt Peterskerk, Louvain

 

Well, if dealing with naughty 'Hubby Bubba' is all Hillary is proposing to offer as credentials to deal with evil men, one poster child, Hossein Shariatmadari, should pop the cork.

And only days after the first annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, it is of particular importance to put a face to evil whenever possible, hence the link to Hossein's picture from Holy Crime's list of Iran's 'Most Wanted' -- don't miss the Mullahcracy's panoptic who's who of butchers and henchmen.

You remember my expose on Iran's current godfather of evil, Mohammad-Ali Ramin, who trumped his Holocaust denial with the recent claim that Hitler was Jewish and the founder of Israel -- all of course in the interest to further discredit the State of Israel in preparation for its destruction.

So, what sets Hossein Shariatmadari apart? Not surprisingly, he joins Mohammad-Ali Ramin as a member of a neo-fundamentalist think tank, another who's who of evil; all are of course sworn supporters of Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad and Supreme-Thug-In-Chief Ali Khamenei -- recently voted the 'least popular of Iranian leaders', just over 1%....

Also, Hossein is busy spreading the Holocaust denial propaganda via the Iranian daily, Kayhan, where he is Editor and General Manager of the Kayhan Institute and Publishing Company or, according to the Official News Agency of the Islamic Republic (IRNA), the head of the 'Media Mafia' -- it's a must read, granting us a rare insight as to the extend to which the Mullahcracy have fashioned their entire infrastructure after that of the Nazis.

No Union In The States

'St George Fighting the Dragon' by Pieter Pauwel Rubens, ca.1606-10 Museo del Prado, Madrid

 

"OK, let's do it" were the President's starting words to Nancy Pelosi, moments before the official SOTU speech began.

Do what? Plenty:

The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity. And I say, for the sake of our own security … we must.

But how?

Shortly after 9-11, President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair accepted, that western diplomacy, including all of UN Security Council posturing, couldn't even touch a single nerve of the growing threat of so called Islamic radicalism. Both men realized, that the number one priority was to prevent a further escalation of jihadist attacks; that they had no choice but to lead the charge to alter one particular, theretofore well established perception of the West among the Islamofascists, namely that the West is militarily impotent. 

Consequently, both men understood that military action was unavoidable and necessary, because it was, what the murdering thugs feared the most, but expected the least -- and thanks largely to our opposition's irresponsible, because politically motivated, defeatist rhetoric, this sense remains unchanged today among all members of the Iranian Mullahcracy, thus in effect prolonging the conflict.

And therefore, irrespective of all successes and mistakes combined, something else was unavoidable and equally necessary, nay, critical for the survival of the enemy: Bloody resistance against the threat of a secular society allied with the Great Satan in the West. The President summed it up for us:

The Big Push - To Take America Down A Peg Or Two

"The Survivor" by George Grosz 1944, Private Collection

 

Even award winning historians sometimes can't resist the allure of contortionist acrobatics. I am of course speaking metaphorically as I am referring to Adam Hochschild's extraordinary efforts to connect National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's "the big push" quote to 600,000 killed soldiers with the disastrous "The Big Push" campaign during the 1916 Battle of Somme.

Rarely have we been treated to such spurious foundation, which in a nutshell depend solely on the vivid description of trenched warfare in "muddy, shell-pocketed wasteland" during WW-I and an isolated quip by retired US Army Lieutenant-General William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, saying: "It's like finding yourself in a hole and then digging deeper."

That's it. That's all that connects the horrors of World War I with tackling the murdering Islamofascists in Iraq; an analogy in itself, conjuring up the image of trenched warfare and, voilà, we have the headline: "Why the 'big push' sounds horribly familiar".

If we needed more evidence that those surrounding US President George W Bush have a tin ear for the lessons of history, it came this month when National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley referred to increasing the number of US troops in Iraq as "the big push" that would bring victory closer.

"The Big Push" is a phrase that came into the language with another troop surge that was supposed to bring another war to victory. For months beforehand, the Big Push was how British cabinet ministers, propagandists, generals, and foot soldiers talked about the 1916 Battle of the Somme.

I am no longer surprised by the bold-faced audacity, with which the left attempts to discredit all and every efforts to defeat acknowledged evil in the form of proxy terrorists from Iran and Syria, hell-bent to bring death and destruction to our way of life; irrespective whether Democrat or Republican, to them we are all Infidel scum.

But this contortion to fabricate a connection between Hadley's "the big push" and WW-I, just to be able to deliver the opening broadside of having a 'tin ear for lessons of history', is simply pathetic.

None of that alters the fact, that the Administration is facing growing opposition against the 'surge' even from within Republican ranks -- and I hesitate a guess, the President's SOTU address in a few hours time isn't going to change that -- but, at least the arguments are perfectly transparent in so far as they are politically motivated or, as Dean Barnett @ Hugh Hewitt explains, motivated by taking the U.S. down a peg or two.

Danger And Opportunity

 

"Our two revolutions are at heart the same", Chavez said, comparing Iran's overthrow of the Shah with his self-styled socialist movement.

Such statements always intrigue me.

Could Chavez really be so ignorant and not only fail to grasp the difference, but the sheer enormity of it? Or does he so much like the sound of a catchy phrase, cheerfully continuing the every day practice of endlessly reciting socialistic slogans, in the perpetual effort to placate the mostly uneducated poor and thus condemning them to remain just so? Is it possible, that he doesn't know any better? Or does he choose to ignore the Mullahcracy's all-important emphasis on it being an Islamic revolution; that they couldn't care less about all the worldly and material promises inherent in the western ideology of 'revolutions'.

Back in the dusty streets of Tehran, critics are quick to attack the obvious:

What are our bounds with Venezuela, Nicaragua or Ecuador and Bolivia? Are we neighbors? Do we share the same faith?

Of course not. Chavez is just another Infidel; yes, one of use temporarily, but Infidel none the less. Much in the same vain as Infidel members of the MSM are temporarily praised when promoting Islamofascist propaganda. Case in point is BBC's dramatization of Thug-In-Chief's visit to South America:

"With his eyes fixed firmly on the Middle East, the last thing President Bush wants is another hostile diplomatic front opening up in his own backyard. But with the arrival of the Iranian president in the region, that is exactly what some commentators are predicting", reported the BBC’s Latin America correspondent, adding that, "The most worrying alliance for Washington is that being forged between Iran and Venezuela".

Most worrying indeed... especially as our Thug-In-Chief is most likely promising nukes to each and every one who will support his struggle against all of those nasty nations trying to stop him from fulfilling his promise of a nuclear Holocaust. What a dream scenario: the US surrounded by hostile nuclear powers, giving hell to the great Satan in the North. That ought to buy our Thug-In-Chief some time to sort things out in the Middle East - or so he hopes.

But why worry? The Haute Couture shows in Paris are the biggest ever with almost double the designers parading before overcrowded catwalks. Our love for the monarchy is alive and well, judging by Dame Helen Mirren's success at the Golden Globe awards; a success likely repeated at the Oscars.

Failure Is Not An Option

'The Crucifixion (detail)' by Matthias Grünewald ca. 1515, Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar

 

"Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life." President Bush, Wednesday, January 10 2007.

Can you say it anymore clearly than that? No, of course you can't. But who is listening?

Nobody!

To those, who realize the need for us to remain in Iraq in order to push back at the Islamofascists, the President is preaching to the already converted. And according to the ostriches among us, he merely continues with his 'fear/war-mongering' and 'sable-rattling' so as to divert attention away from the no longer so secret agenda of turning the United States of America into a fascist dictatorship, or, depending on whether our ostrich got up on the wrong side of the bed, into a evangelical theocracy.

So, no mileage there. Period.

And period again. That's the problem. No matter the eloquence, no matter how persuasive the logic and arguments, the opposition has long abandoned any interest in reason. Were it not so, the safety of unconditional hatred would have to be abandoned, which is of course much too inconvenient, for it is tantamount to popping out the pacifier from a baby's mouth.

The alternative?

Where Was The Outrage?

'The Return of the Prodigal Son' by Rembrandt ca. 1669, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

 

A dear friend in New York sends me this in an e-mail:

"The last few days’ news coverage in Europe of the pending and then the actual execution of Saddam Hussein has been bewildering. It has removed some of the satisfaction of justice finally being done.  It is unbelievable how the “world” now in a reinvigorated fashion is calling for the ban of the death penalty. Where were these cries when Saddam Hussein, apart from all his well documented atrocities, regularly had innocent people condemned to death and executed by his favorite method – by hanging. But Saddam hanged people publicly letting the poor victims’ bodies remain hung for hours for public display and “games”. Where was the outrage by the world? Where was the outrage of the world when 9 innocent Jews were hung in a public spectacle accused of spying for Israel and where their through the wall air condition units were deemed to be secret radio transmitters? Nothing of what was allowed Saddam Hussein, was ever afforded to his innocent victims – Christians, Jews, Kurds and Shiites.

CNN and the International Herald Tribune have actually inferred that the US may be behind the execution, the trial was unfair, the US should never have handed Saddam over, life imprisonment would have been a crueler sentence, he will be more dangerous dead than alive, he will become a celebrated martyr in the Islamic world for standing up to America, the violence in Iraq will increase dramatically, the world will be outraged and broadly condemn the execution etc., etc. Each statement is ludicrous and irresponsible. It doesn’t only show bias against the US, clumsy and cheap flirtation with the Arab world, but it demonstrates ignorance, superficiality, total lack of responsibility and no attempt to uphold the most basic standards of journalism.

Blind Justice (New Year's Thread)

 

Saddam is dead, but our Thug-In-Chief is very much alive, albeit politically wounded.

I don't know why the news about Saddam's hanging fails to stir any emotion in me. Well, other than being incensed by the reaction from the left. Thanks to Jim @ Gateway Pundit for the display of liberal bullshit, such as this classic from Huffington Post

Saddam indeed was a brutal dictator.

The fact that atrocities worse than those caused by him are now going on during the occupation, should make the Bush administration feel ashamed that they have made Saddam's brutal dictatorship look like a walk in the park.

I believe that every execution is controversial; Hussein's probably the least of all in terms of accumulated guilt -- he certainly deserved to be put to death by his people.

Iran's Middle Finger Is Firmly Up

 

Ahem, this is no surprise to anyone, least of all ATB readers, who had a heads up nudge well ahead of time.

Well, I don't know what the appeasing, rabid anti-Semite ElBaradei was playing at, but the astonishing admission of one of Iran's top officials, that they were playing games with the IAEA so as to gain more time to complete their true nuclear ambitions, namely the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, as I revealed exclusively ahead of the MSM already in February, is something that ElBaradei certainly cannot deny anymore. I have never trusted that man, and his image as the Director General caught sleeping at the wheel grows more suspicious every day.

But, alas nothing. And certainly not at the seemingly perpetual stage of endless so called 'diplomatic wrangling', better described as impotent hand wringing; of utterly diluted UN sanctions, which Iran knows won't bite -- after all, the MSM has made it abundantly clear that any possibility of military strikes against Iran has completely evaporated, so why care about sanctions without any stick attached. All that is left, is a UN, hell bent on pursuing their usual 'stop or I'll say stop again' strategy.

Demonizing Christmas....Has Anything Changed?

 

I wrote this post at this time last year, and I am curious my gentle readers...has anything changed? My friend Francis Porretto, whose blood pressure rises at the mention of the subject, doesn't seem to think so. The inimitable Ann Althouse points to war on Christmas Chinese style. Meanwhile, see for yourselves...

This is an outrage.

Let me say this out loud and clear: "I am a devout Christian", and whilst I am at it let me proclaim that "I am fiercely pro-Israel". So there you have it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you rabid anti-Semites, you fanatical Islamofascists, and you militant Jew hating Holocaust deniers.

Now we have that out of the way, we can continue...

'Show Me The Bodies'

"The Head of Medusa" by Pieter Pauwel Rubens c. 1617, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

 

Deborah Lipstadt, the American scholar who coined the term "Holocaust denier" and who has made it her mission to combat the contention that the Holocaust did not happen said:

"What's in the settlement? How many gas chambers would you like me to settle for? What number of Jews killed should I agree to in the letter of apology? You have to stand up for the truth of what happened."

And stand up and shout out, 'Holocaust deniers' are rabid anti-Semites, or to put it more accurately, they are racists and liars.

Released and unfortunately returning David Irving, serves as a poster child for the mindset and attitude of all those who hate Jews and who prefer for their own ideological reasons to "persistently and deliberately misrepresent and manipulate historical evidence".

Our very own Mac Brachman, who most of you know to be a frequent and valued commenter here @ ATB, was recently rightfully exasperated in the face of such determined vigor to defile the Holocaust Remembrance; apart from feeling sick to the stomach, the only thing left is to name and shame, to cut right to the chase whenever we encounter such mindless or deliberate evil.

There is only ever one purpose behind all of this: To spread hatred, animosity and envy against Jews.

No other motivation could possibly drive these perfidious proponents. And thanks to Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad and his pet conference, the true intentions and motivations in all their ugliness have once and for all been revealed for all to see.

"Depicting Jews as the overwhelming victims of the Holocaust gave the moral high ground to the Allies as victors of the war and allowed Jews to establish a state on the occupied land of Palestine,"

Oh really? Not quite enough rabid anti-Semitism it would seem for Carter adoring Liberals, who rather busy themselves to minimize the Holocaust Deniers' Conference as a harmless jibe at the West in response to Europe's mixed reaction to the Mohammed cartoons - our Thug-In-Chief expected of course the relentless persecution and prosecution of the cartoonists and, as Danish statutes prohibit the death penalty, the deportation of said offenders to Iran, where the just execution could have been swiftly meted out.

Interesting to note that Ahmadinejad's right hand man, Mohammad-Ali Ramin, has been appointed Secretary General to the newly formed 'World Foundation for Holocaust Studies'. I wrote about him extensively earlier this year in my article The Angel of Death (check it again if you have time) This is a dangerous man we should all be watching very carefully. Mohammad-Ali Ramin who is what Joseph Goebbels was to Hitler, appears moderate, calm and reasonable, yet his views are the same as those that led without fail to the biggest atrocities and genocidal crimes committed by man-kind.

A World Apart

 

Dave Bailey over at FaithFreedom shares with us today his gradual path to the realization, that "despite oft-repeated claims to the contrary, the Koran was definitely not a book of peace".

One week before Christmas, surrounded by the lovely sights and sounds of the Advent season, Bailey's reminder of why most Muslims hate us, seems particularly far removed. But our boys and girls in Iraq face this bigoted hatred every day as they miss their families and loved ones especially badly at this time of the year. So let us 'tune-in', as it were, before we send our prayer and thoughts:

Politicizing 'An Inconvenient Truth' (Repeat)

"St Roch Asking the Virgin Mary to Heal Victims of the Plague" by Jacques-Louis David 1780, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille

 

I received an e-mail this morning from Alex Muchow @ Across The Board, a new reader of ATB, who is passionate about the subject of global warming: "The crisis that the earth faces is real, and the evidence that suggests that humans are responsible for global warming is indubitable and overwhelming. I think it is very important that we make this issue known to the world. Very important indeed."

Alex panged my conscience and prompted me to re-post below what I wrote a few months back, and re-visit this important subject once again, the relevance of which cannot possibly be forever stained by the mere fact that Al 'Truthiness' Gore seems to have monopolized the subject and given it the all too evident liberal spin. As I say below: "Think of Gore and his message what you will, the issue is far bigger than that." And it is.

Are we too blasée? Do Republicans not care for the environment? Are we placing partisan ideology before the healthy future of our children?

These and a flurry of related questions that have been bugging me over the last few days since Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" hit the silver screen, giving his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming a decisive push.

Let me be upfront and tell you outright, that I have not been able to reach any halfway satisfactory let alone conclusive answers to these fundamental questions. How could I.

Calling us "a renegade band of rightwing extremists", didn't help shoring up sympathies for his cause. But neither did Bill Gray's sensationalist and holy unrelated comparison, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews", add any credibility to his claim that Global warming is a hoax.

So what is a blogger to do? Take up the study of climatology and question the research and data hurled back and forth between scientists of both camps, with the media pitching for a position of their own? I don't think so...

The Race For Souls (Weekend Thread)

'The Adoration of the Name of Jesus' by El Greco 1578-80, National Gallery, London

 

The term, 'Southern Christians' needs our attention and Spengler's reminder of Philip Jenkins' fascinating book, 'The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South' is indeed timely. (You must read the entire article, and in particular the second page)

It is timely, because in these foreboding times, clarity of vision is of supreme importance, not least so as to overcome any feeling of despair, but instead, to refocus on how each and everyone of us can do his or her best to forge a better world for our children.

Programs, like the series at the Carnegie Council called 'The Resurgence of Religion in Politics', help us recapture the all important strategic overview, especially, when we are granted a rare understanding of the grand motivator, which is driving key strategic decisions of foe and friend alike:

The fact is, that the race for souls in the most populous parts of the world is won by Christianity.

Point Of No Return

'The Fall of Icarus' by Pieter Pauwel Rubens 1636, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

 

Just as the Iranian president does not draw any connection between the occupation and his desire to nullify Israel's existence, the world should also view the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and the Iranian threat to Israel as separate issues. Ahmadinejad does not recognize the 1967 borders - or any borders - for a Jewish state. He uses Holocaust denial to eradicate the moral basis for Israel's existence, and even says so openly. That was the explicit explanation that the Iranian foreign minister gave for why it is necessary to discuss the "myth" of the Holocaust right now. To counter this, it is necessary to create a moral, diplomatic, political and even military front - one that will be activist rather than sleepy and apologetic, and that will make the discussion of Israel's destruction unprofitable for the Iranians even before any discussion of the goals of the nuclear capabilities they are developing.

This from Haaretz today, entitled "Iran grows strong, the world yawns".

It is with deep frustration and even deeper sense of brooding anxiety, that I am forced to face this awful reality all around us; the world yawns in the face of Israel's looming doom, and never more so, than after Lebanon War II.

Articles, editorials and valued opinions are more outspoken than ever, yet in a tragic way, instead of arousing the desired sense of urgency, they seem to intensify the feeling of despondency and inevitability.

The only thing worse to a heated debate against someone, who is fuelled by anti-Semitism and bigotry is a dejected 'whatever'. It almost seems, even outgoing Kofi Annan feels a point-of-no-return has been passed:

Could It Be?

 

The Baker-Hamilton Plan is all the talk of course (Iraq Study Group - or ISG for short), which in a nutshell is a proposal to reverse the strategy of taking the war-on-terror to the murdering thugs' home in favor of embracing them à la, 'keep your friends close, but your enemies closer'. Instead of fighting the Islamofascists, the ISG is opting for talks.

So, what does that mean? To be blunt, talking to the Mullahcracies in Iran communicates to the rest of the world two very important messages, both of which carrying enormous consequences:

One, conceding victory to Iran over domestic control in Iraq; fuelling bloodshed on the streets of Baghdad and getting the MSM to lay the blame on our doorstep has been a spectacular success for the Islamic spin doctors and their sympathizers/appologists all round. Surrender now would not be the consequence of failure or our inability to succeed, but because democracy has proven to be as weak and feckless a system as its adversaries assume.

The jihadi's theory of victory is simple; the West can be bullied into not lifting a finger to defend itself.

Victor David Hanson puts this first message, the all-important admission of defeat, into historical perspective when he writes, "A civilization that has lost confidence in itself cannot confront the Islamists."

What would a beleaguered Socrates, a Galileo, a Descartes, or Locke believe, for example, of the moral paralysis in Europe? Was all their bold and courageous thinking — won at such a great personal cost — to allow their successors a cheap surrender to religious fanaticism and the megaphones of state-sponsored fascism?

Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today's Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats — and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in "liberal" Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge — although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.

And we need not only speak of threats to free speech, but also the tangible rewards from a terrified West to the agents of such repression. Note the recent honorary degree given to former Iranian President, Mohammad Khatami, whose regime has killed and silenced so many, and who himself is under investigation by the Argentine government for his role in sponsoring Hezbollah killers to murder dozens of Jewish innocents in Buenos Aires.

Two, the permanence of the State of Israel is in play; it's negotiable or as Hamas unabashedly demands "the international community correct its 1947 mistake," while in the same breath affirming that this doesn't negate its readiness to first take over the 1967 territories "without preconditions" - as per the "phased solution" model (i.e. Israel's phased destruction). Caroline Glick shouts out, "Jews Wake Up!"

'Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'....Eh?

The 1922 portrait of Dr. Stadelmann [mustache removed] by the famous Otto Dix, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, W.Landmann Collection

 

Absolutely furious, and quite rightly so, Mac Brachman kindly sends me the link to Jeffrey Goldberg's WaPo review today of President Jimmy Carter's "despicable book", sending me into a spin of unprecedented proportions on this seemingly peaceful Sunday morning.

President Jimmy 'Cowardly Appeasement Policy' Carter is a disgrace. This we know. We also know that he is a rabid anti-Semite, a coward, and acknowledge the fact that the agreement signed 25 years ago with Iran releasing the 52 American hostages was negotiated and signed by President Jimmy "Cowardly Appeasement Policy" Carter, on January 20th 1981, the day of President Reagan's inauguration, as his last glorious act as President of the U.S. just before he handed the sullied reigns over to Ronald Reagan.

As I have written before, almost all the trouble with the Iranian Mullahcracy and their murderous activities throughout the Middle East are deeply rooted in Carter's ignorance which in no small part resulted in the diplomatic obligations set out in the Algiers Accords Agreement, which codified the January 1981 deal between the United States and Iran under which the hostages were released, approx. 8 billion dollars in Iranian assets were unfrozen, and an arbitration tribunal was established in the Netherlands to settle claims between the two countries. In the first part of the document, the United States pledged that it "will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." Elsewhere, the United States pledged to "bar and preclude" any claims filed by the hostages against Iran.

Under the Agreement, the United States is obligated "to terminate all legal proceedings in United States courts involving claims of United States persons and institutions against Iran and its state enterprises, to nullify all attachments and judgments obtained therein, to prohibit all further litigation based on such claims, and to bring about the termination of such claims through binding arbitration...."

Lost In Translation (Weekend Thread)

 

Whilst my good friend Jeff Goldstein @ Protein Wisdom is on a semi-Sabbatical, his guest poster 'Ahem' asks: "Will the Saudis Succeed in Exporting Shari’a to the US?". The post is a must-read, but I was particularely grateful for the link to Robert Locke's brilliant essay:

The laws of Saudi Arabia, based upon the sharia law mandated by the Koran, do not recognize the rights and freedoms guaranteed Americans by the Constitution. The Saudi government makes no secret of its ambition to export Islamic tyranny worldwide, as the Koran commands. What most Americans don’t realize, is that American courts are helping it in a number of ways. For example, they are collaborating with Saudi attempts to squash the free-speech rights of Americans with abusive libel lawsuits....

Charles Johnson @ LGF wryly sums it up as "may the best culture win".

So, is it about culture? You bet. Commenter 'Passerby' from Singapore speaks for the vast majority of Muslims who live outside the Islamic trouble spots. He/she is as much an onlooker as we are, very likely enjoying the same civil liberties and economic advantages as we do -- Singapore has banned wearing the Islamic headscarf in public schools and is well known for its careful policies to manage the second most densly populated country in the world, especially given the fact, that it is a multi-religious society made up of 40% Buddhists, 15% Christians, 14% Muslims, 5% practicing Taoism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Baha'i Faith, and some 15% professing no religion (source).

But, most importantly, 'Passerby' has the same familiar and heartwarming memories surrounding religious ceremonies and regular rituals experienced together with friends and family from the earliest days of his/her life, spanning all the way to the present day. And when confronted with our quest here on ATB to shed light on the threats facing us and our children in the future, it must be difficult to consolidate the personal experiences and the harsh tone with which we take issue with Islam as it presents itself to us every day in the usual trouble spots.

First, I want to say to all the 'Passerbys' of this world, you are most certainly welcome to join our journey and our quest to navigate through the dense forest of disinformation on all fronts, both domestically and internationlly. All here on ATB will most heartily agree with "Hatred against other religion and people in it is certainly a barrier to foster closer ties and to erase any tensions among us all."; all will cheer statements suggesting that knowledge is the only answer to combat bigotry, "so we know what is wrong and what is right."

Most of us thought of Islam as just another religion and would have endorsed Al-Kafirun's call for unbiased religious tolerance. But acquiring knowledge about Islam, not slander, as 'Passerby' seemed to suggest, has caused us to take a different turn -- I can't of course allow questioning our ability to differentiate between the Qur'an and the Hadith to remain unchallenged and suggest to simply paste 'hadith' into the Google Search field on my side bar and search ATB; that should serve to nicely to demonstrate how thoroughly we go about our learning.

Understanding the full extent with which both religious and political leaders in practically all Muslim countries have systematically indoctrinated countless generations with hatred and prejudice against 'Infidels', especially Jews and Christians, gives us the much needed perspective to comprehend and debate such incidents as the cartoon war and the violent reactions to the Pope's lecture in Germany.

Actions speak louder than words. Christian actions were marred by dark periods in history; but unlike contemporary Muslims, we don't deny them nor do we ignore, that we have evolved during the centuries hence into a demonstrably peaceful religion - the era of the Spanish Inquisition has passed since many centuries, but, as 'Passerby' knows only too well, her evil offspring, namely the violent suppression of heresy against Islam is very much alive in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, to name just a few. Try build a church in Riyadh or organize a Christian prayer group in Islamabad and see how the words from Al-Kafirum hold water.

It is my dearest wish, that all 'Passerbys' would redirect their concerns to the Jews and Christians living amongst Muslim bretheren in Islamic countries; any sadness, in what was mistook for hatred against Islam on ATB, should much rather be caused by the fate of those, whose life is made unbearable by violent attacks because they are either Infidels or have the courage to confront the dark ages ingrained in today's Islam.

Peace is what we thought we had, and all we want. Al-Kafirun's words describe Judea/Christian actions over many many years, but bear no resemblance to the condition prevalent in almost all Islamic countries.

The Day After

 

My Blogfather Hugh Hewitt puts it like this:

Congratulations are in order to the Dems who ran a skillful campaign that kept the focus on the GOP's scandals and away from the left's agenda. The GOP couldn't recover from Foley's repulsive conduct, and the enemy was willing to kill randomly in the run-up to the vote in order to demoralize an American public.

After an eventful night hosted by CNN and surrounded by some of our finest, Ed Morrissey is calling a spade a spade:

I don't think anyone can honestly look at the results tonight and say that we saw anything less than a trip to the woodshed for the Republicans. We may hold the Senate by the barest of margins, but the House is gone in a substantial manner. Some will make comparisons between this six-year election and those past (1986, 1974, 1958) and claim a moral victory in containing the losses, but that simply won't fly.

This is a big loss, and it will hurt the GOP and the Bush administration. Even if we do hold the Senate, we will have to find compromise candidates for the federal bench, and also look forward to more taxes and regulation. Free trade is a goner. The prosecution of the war on terror will get limited by a probable repeal of the Patriot Act, or at least an attempt to do so, and I'm very sure the Democrats will move to defund the operations in Iraq by a date certain in order to force a "phased redeployment".

And that's not even counting the myriad investigations that Democrats will launch against the Bush administration. Republicans will keep it from getting out of hand, but the Democrats will want to build enough damaging allegations to win again in 2008.

Ouch!!!

May Your Voice Be Heard

"Angel Annunciating" by Lorenzo Lotto 1527, Church of St.s Vincent and Alexander, Ponteranica, Italy

 

Victor David Hanson echoes my progressively bemused sentiment: "what is it about George Bush that seems to reduce once sober and experienced liberal pros to infantile ranting?"

I mean, if this sorry display of pure aggression and absolutely zero substance by Cliff Schecter is elevated by his fellow Lefties as handling "the talking heads perfectly"; if such a performance of almost pure thuggery on national TV is the kind of reference card to be celebrated as "by far one of the best strategists the Democrats have going from [sic] them", all rationality is indeed lost.

Maybe it is this very 'Anything-Republican Derangement Syndrome', which is causing voters to feel increasingly nervous to hand over the reigns, "as they realize that no matter what the problem is, the answer can't be more Democrats".

After all, maybe it isn't such a good idea to be entirely "Under the Influence of Liberalism":

I find it interesting that, in today's maniacal media world, conservatives are taken to task for every syllable they utter, but liberals are given a pass.

A GOP gaffe will be replayed ad nauseam on news broadcasts, news magazine programs, and comedy shows. Then, it may get a second round of play on liberal talk radio and ripped-from-the-headlines TV dramas.

But when a liberal makes a rhetorical blunder, he or she is excused because, after all, he or she really didn't mean to say it. The guilty party is too erudite or too compassionate for the remark to be taken at face-value.

Sen. John Kerry is the latest case in point. Kerry indicated this week that if you’re a student who does not study hard and do your homework, you will end up “stuck in Iraq.” It should be evident to every American that this is an insult to the fine men and women who have put their lives on the line to try to rebuild Iraq and keep us safe from Iraqi-sponsored terrorism.

But a number of journalistas are telling us that no, the Democrat from Massachusetts couldn't possibly have meant what he said, given the fact that he himself is a veteran of war. No, we’re told, he just botched a joke. After all, Kerry is no David Letterman.

It seems to me that a more likely excuse is that he was speaking under the influence of liberalism. [...]

Free speech is, indeed, priceless. But when it is misused, the costs can be high for our democracy and our security. It’s one thing for a radio talk show host to spout off—it’s quite another for a Senator to criticize our troops in wartime.

And that's the problem. The utter erosion of any remnants of any kind of civility and reasonableness is, if not caused outright, at least compounded by a generation, which according to Derek Bok, Harvard's current president, doesn't understand the first bit about quantitative reasoning and has failed to acquire "the knowledge needed to be a reasonably informed citizen in a democracy".

Suzanne Fields elaborates in today's must read and connects this sad phenomenon to John Kerry's remark:

An honest embrace of diversity and multiculturalism would require inclusion of the military. But in the Ivy League not all diverse cultures are equal. Faculty and students share John Kerry's contempt for the military man and woman.

But the senator's inadvertent insight hasn't received the notice it deserves: A college education doesn't necessarily make someone smart. [...]

Worse, they don't know what they don't know. Surveys show these naive relativists, destructive deconstructionists and superficial sophomore philosophers, incapable of analyzing and dissecting even their own ideas, to be immensely pleased with their educations. Maybe it's just as well they don't serve in the military.

But problems emerge when the schism mentality expressed by John Kerry fuses contempt for military service with a sense of superiority for not serving. In "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our Country," Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer expose the core of such elitism. "When those who benefit most from living in a country contribute the least to its defense, and those who benefit least are asked to pay the ultimate price, something happens to the soul of that country."

A prejudice against the military, coupled with grade inflation and lack of intellectual discipline, combine to create spoiled and pampered students who lack the will to defend their country from those who would destroy it. It was not always thus. In World War I, a draft was established in part to prevent the nation's most privileged young men from volunteering, compelled though they were by a sense of honor and a desire to serve. They were needed more, so it was argued, for civilian jobs and leadership at home.

The Blame-Game

'The Scream' by Edvard Munch 1893, National Gallery Oslo, Norway

 

This is a good question:

On Election Day, when thinking about the effect of your vote on your wallet, it is important to stop and ask yourself: What Would the Democrats Do?

Increase regulation, raise taxes -- Democrats typically mistrust the effects of tax cuts and how they generate windfall individual and corporate tax revenues, which would otherwise not have materialized, because it is an indirect measure and outside of their direct control -- and shoring up entitlements.

But that's on Tuesday.

Today, we need to reflect on the anniversary of a terrible event, some 27 years ago. On November 4, 1979 Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad and fellow terrorists seized the United States embassy in Tehran, thus marking a significant milestone in Islam's foray against the West and Judea/Christian traditions and values. Pax Islamica is the goal, as I keep reminding us all; Islamic peace will reign supreme once all other religions have been successfully suppressed and all Infidels either killed or converted.

Most Muslims don't think about their religion in these terms, thank God. But that doesn't lessen the fact, that today's President of the Mullahcracy, governing Iran, was also the leader of those, who unleashed unmitigated terror on 52 embassy staff members for 444 days. It doesn't lessen the fact, that President Carter infused new meaning to the term 'Appeasement' and it certainly doesn't lessen the fact, that the same group of murdering thugs started Lebanon War II and are turning Iraq into a daily showpiece of the full depravity governing Islamic Jihadists.

Tehran knows the significance of this anniversary and duly commemorates it.

Some of our (ex)-leaders instead see fit to lay blame for political gain, completely ignoring the most infuriating outrage of all: 27 years later, Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad continues to terrorize Americans and all those who are seeking to shake off the dehumanizing chains of 'Islam by the letter'.

Their bickering completely fails to acknowledge the fact, that our Thug-In-Chief only came to power Summer 2005. That since then, Iran dramatically increased its terrorist activities and support for its web of proxy armies throughout the region, largely emboldened by the 'Bush lied, People died' camp over here and abroad to shed the theretofore cumbersome efforts to keep their nefarious activities covert. They conveniently ignore, that Ahmadinejad's push for regional hegemony has started a nuclear race in the Middle East because, just like Israel, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia do in fact take the Thug-In-Chief and his threats seriously.

If anything, the biggest blame for the escalating violence in Iraq is the West's impotence vis-a-vis Islamic impunity and violence and the obsession to rationalize their barbaric behavior in terms which are both divorced from its true source, namely the Quar'an and Sharia law and the mindset of the medieval perpetrators. The consequence, as so instructively demonstrated during Lebanon War II, is one hell of a resounding command to all murdering thugs, echoing far and wide, 'All systems GO! The Infidel Yellow Dog has no teeth. Do not fear the mighty army for it is on a leash controlled by a dysfunctional public unable to muster any unanimous resolve to stand in our way."

And therefore, if the blame-game we must play, the biggest mistake of all, was and still is the failure to intimidate the enemy. And that, my Liberal friends, is one fault you can not lay on the doorstep of this administration, but you must seek in front of your own.

Life Is What Happens When You Are Making Other Plans

 

This is what one of my readers wrote to me today, whilst gently reminding me that he hopes all is well with me: "There must be many things that press upon your time, but please know that many people look forward to your writing and your blog. I'm certain that you are in the thoughts and prayers of many, most certainly in mine."

Kind and thoughtful as all my readers are, he reminds me that I have been truly blessed with the most incredible people who read my blog and genuinely care about what I write.

Life right now is what is happening and it's most inconvenient, as my fingers are itching to hit the keyboard again and bring you some of that ATB magic you have all said you have been missing so much....

Whilst I am on the subject of ATB, and unbeknown to me, TypePad in their infinite wisdom and fight against spam, have prevented us from having full HTML in the comment sections, hence all your links will have to be in the raw format, without our dinkey little <a href=.... symbols that we have all grown to love and which make the text so much neater. You can still use the usual HTML for blockquotes and italics and bold symbols etc. [correction, Francis Porretto in the comments below seems to have posted a normal HTML link, so I give up trying to understand TypePad] However I have to warn you, I have spent the last two days trying different permutations to post a comment from one of my commenters who has been labeled as spam by TypePad and I have failed to post it for him, despite trying every single way. If you have problems let me know, but make sure you save your comments before posting.

And so on an entirely different note, with 6 days to go, we're set for the sprint to the finishing line to begin: All eyes are of course on Missouri Republican Sen. Jim Talent, who is still slightly ahead (1-2% according to latest Zogby Interactive polling - comprehensive analysis here) of Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill; and then there is of course the cliffhanger in Tennessee: Republican Bob Corker leads by a hairbreadth over Democrat Harold Ford Jr. "in the race for the seat that will be vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist".

Ohio's Senat race remains hotly contested. Incumbent Republican Sen. Mike DeWine pulled to just two percentage point behind Democrat Sherrod Brown. In the prior three polls, DeWine was about four points behind. Pollster John Zogby says DeWine is seeing growing support from the state's Republican base, with about 90% of Republicans in the most recent poll saying they will vote for him, up significantly from earlier polling rounds. Brown leads DeWine 59%-33% among independents.

And what's up in Pennsylvania, guys? Democrat Bob Casey Jr. is racing ahead of Sen. Rick Santorum (nearly 10% according to latest polls) - we need a reversal here and whilst we are at it, bring back a lead for incumbent Sen. George Allen over in Virginia; Democrat Sen. James Webb is leading currently, cashing in on his pedigree earned during the Reagan era as secretary of the Navy. Could it really be, that Allen's absolutely normal instincts to protect his mother and her haunting insecurity, which has remained so tragically alive in her own mind over so many years, is costing him votes...

Well, according to Salon, Kerry's "botched joke" (h/t Rick Salant) has interrupted the Democrat's hegemony over the MSM -- it's refreshing to have such an unabashed admission from the horse's mouth:

It's not that what Kerry said will, in and of itself, change the course of the election. But after weeks in which the Democrats have won news cycle after news cycle, weeks in which the Republicans have been stuck talking about George W. Bush and defending or distancing themselves from his war on Iraq, Kerry gave the Republicans the break they couldn't buy for themselves. For the last 24 hours, cable news and talk radio has been filled with talk of Kerry's words rather than Bush's woes. For the last 24 hours, Democrats have been denied the chance to build on the wave that might sweep them to victory next week

Good! More interruptions please. Let's interrupt the bloody MSM and their unprecedented bias and hold on to the house shall we?

No Sigh Of Relief Anytime Soon (Weekend Thread)

 

So, should we breathe in for the long overdue sigh of relief? Can Cpl. Gilad Shalit soon go home and restart his life? It's been over four months now; remember he was captured on Sunday, June 25th after Palestinian terrorists had dug a tunnel to attack an IDF army post in Israel. Let's hope so.

But now we need to look at the cost -- not in the sense of weighing up, of course, but rather in the way of understanding the bigger picture.

Hamas militants need the violent clashes to continue. It's what they do. It's their day job, paid for through myriad and seedy channels under the general auspice of 'Holy War', namely Jihad. [...]

Hamas is Hamas, a terrorist organization, period. It's purpose is the destruction of Israel; to them all Palestinian men are Jihadists, all boys future supplies for the course; women, necessary to keep the cycle going.

Of course they want their murdering thugs back. It's a numbers game: The more bodies to throw into the fight the sooner the genocidal dream is hoped to become a reality. Free them, and we all know, they will come back to kill and maim as many Jews as they possibly can; spare them, and you allow them to attack with increased vigor, for that is what they have been taught to be their single and only purpose in life -- oh, I forgot, apart from ensuring that every future generation carries on with the murderous objective, like so:

On Friday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar kicked things off at a rally in Khan Yunis, bringing down the house by declaring that Israel is "an abomination in the Middle East" that will someday "disappear."

"We will never recognize Israel, and in the end the [fate of] Zionists will be like that of the Crusaders, the Persians and the English, who left," said Zahar, a founding father of Hamas.

"We want all of Palestine, every centimeter, from the river to the sea, from Rosh Hanikra to Rafah. If we can form a state within the 1967 borders we will do so, but this doesn't mean that we will relinquish our right to every centimeter of Palestine's land."

There it is. No room for us Jews. No room for our history, our past presence here. No room for our common ancestry with the Palestinians. No room for Abraham. He was, after all, not from here. He was from Mesopotamia. Let him go back.

There it is. There's not a centimeter that we can call our own. But don't take Zahar's word for it. Listen to a speech from later that same day.

The occasion was the Silver Anniversary observance of al-Quds Day, a national festival of protests the length and breadth of Iran, meant as a tribute to the Jewish-occupied Holy City of Jerusalem (al-Quds in Arabic).

The speaker was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose opening reference to Israel said that there was no reason for Israel to exist.

"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," Ahmadinejad told thousands at a Death to Israel pep rally in Tehran.

"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed ... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

And, just in case you have been mislead to believe that Israeli violence begets Palestinian violence; that this is all one hell of a vicious circle; that U.S. and UK foreign policies are much to blame, remember the report from British policeman, Superintendent Raymond Cafferata:

"On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a[n Arab] police constable named Issa Sherif from Jaffa in mufti. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, "Your Honor, I am a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him."

Jews don't cut off children's heads, are not known to commit such unspeakable atrocities. In contrast however, look around the world and place a pin on the map wherever such horrendous crimes against humanity are being committed and you will find, that Islam seems to govern almost all the actions of the perpetrators.

No difference some 80 years ago, at the time of the 1929 Hebron massacre, described so vividly by the British policeman. And that, my friends, is what Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood and all the rest of them, including the me-too clown in Syria, have in mind for every Jew they can lay their bloodstained mitts on. That is what Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad really dreams about, in all its gory detail.

The bomb is second-best, and only a last resort, should it fail to deter the international community so as to look the other way as Hezbollah & Co. do their worst.

The Pallywood Al-Durrah Affair

 

A story which I had managed to miss blogging about completely, was covered extensively by my friend neo-neocon who flew to Paris and attended yesterday the second of the three al-Durrah (four versions of spelling exist) defamation trials at Le Palais de Justice.

But first some background

French Judges are carefully examining harrowing television images of a Palestinian father shielding his son from a burst of bullets.

The ghastly television footage transformed 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura into an international martyr of the second intifada and ignited a lingering controversy. Six years later, France 2, the state-supported channel that captured the exclusive video, is fighting to protect its reputation in a French courtroom, where it is suing three Internet critics who questioned the channel's veracity.

To confront its on-line detractors, France 2 is invoking the 1881 press slander law that Émile Zola defied when he published "J'accuse" in the Dreyfus affair. In effect, it is an insult law that protects individuals or groups from defamation that "strikes at honor" and reputation.

The channel's lawsuits accuse three Web site operators - an Israeli translator, a Parisian doctor and a former candidate for Parliament turned media consultant - of impugning the station and its Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, a gravelly voiced veteran whose work and writing have drawn plaudits from the mayor of Paris and President Jacques Chirac, among others. [...]

In his first report, which France 2 released without charge to other international television stations, Enderlin said simply that the father and his son "were the target of fire from Israeli positions." He was not actually there when the shooting happened but worked closely with a Palestinian cameraman who filmed the scene.

Since then, the debate has shifted from where the bullets came from - it is unclear whether it was Palestinian or Israeli fire - to whether the shooting was a form of street theater staged for propaganda effect.

Neo-neocon is in Paris covering the second trial involving "Pierre Lurçat, a 39 year old Jerusalem resident and president of an association called Liberty, Democracy and Judaism was sued because he is the leader of an organization listed as the legal operator of a Web site,www.liguededefensejuive.com, that urged readers to attend a planned demonstration against France 2 in 2002: "Come demonstrate against the lies of France 2," it said, and "the gross manipulation with an award for disinformation to France 2 and Charles Enderlin."

Those of you who are used to the free-for-all that is the internet are probably more than a bit perplexed as to what the big deal is here. That this sort of statement could be a cause of action in any court in a country that considers itself to be a modern, developed, progressive nation--not to mention a bastion of liberty--is ludicrous.

Let's put aside for the moment the question of whether the accusations this defendant made against France 2 and Enderlin are true, as blogger and historian Richard Landes (and, in the interests of full disclosure, acquaintance and friend of mine) has suggested at his website Second Draft and his blog Augean Stables.

Forget it? Isn't it of the utmost importance? Absolutely of the utmost importance. I happen to believe the evidence is strong that both France2 and Enderlin may have done exactly what Lurçat and the other two defendants have accused them of doing (at the very least the plaintiffs almost certainly lied in their original allegations that the Israelis deliberately killed the boy, and about the amount of footage they had and what it showed; I've written at some length on al Durah/France 2 before, here and here.)

Some more on her latest impressions, in case you missed "the gilded exterior with a hollow heart", whilst Richard Landes @ his blog Augean Stables has extensive backgrounder and has followed the trials personally from the beginning.

Whilst researching, I discovered this extraordinary piece dealing with the Muslims who aggressively demanded the 1741 Voltaire play to be canceled in Saint-Genis-Puilly, due to it's offensive subject. Why stop at blogging Pallywood, why not go 265 years back to the famous "French 18th Century champion of enlightenment" if you can get away with it...

The Devil Doesn't Wear Prada

 

When in touch with his feminine side, he wears a full head to toe veil called a burqa or niqab, covering nose, mouth, everything really, except for a small crocheted grill over the eyes or simply an opening. The devil is showing the world how to disguise totalitarian militant politics as religion, and strip away every ounce of freedom and dignity from its Muslim women. Europe has finally woken up to the fact that their liberty is in danger of getting swallowed in a pile of politically correct apologetic garbage.

"Must one be more Muslim than Mohammed?" It's astonishing how often I am asked this question. Europeans are finally waking up to the fact that it is Islamism, not Islam, that is hostile to everything Europe holds dear. Women's rights. Secular law and education. Tolerance of gays and different faiths.

The very principle of reason as superior to superstition, the science of Galileo and the free speech of Voltaire—all is under threat from a totalitarian politics disguised as religion.

Europe is not about to descend into a new war on belief. But there's no mistaking the change in climate. In Britain, Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, touched off a storm by suggesting that Muslim women should not wear a full-length veil. It was socially divisive, he explained, "a mark of separation" rather than community. When Prime Minister Tony Blair subsequently agreed, he only reinforced the impression that the country is heading toward even deeper tension between Muslims and non-Muslims. The trend lines are similar elsewhere, whether in France (with its riots) or the Netherlands (with new laws banning the head-to-toe burqa in public) or Belgium (where in recent municipal elections the anti-immigrant Flemish Bloc nearly won control of Antwerp.)

Back home

If the latest FBI hate-crime statistics are any indication, of the 1,314 verified offenses motivated by religious bias, 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.

Only 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic, despite claims of rampant anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S. by groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Mac Brachman sends me this, from his local Chicago Tribune: 'Displacing a Muslim woman's scarf leads to 40 days sensitivity training'

"Religion is a waste of time," Huffman said without apparent malice, as his fingers traced ceramic tiles that spell out the 99 names of God in Islam. He checked his mobile phone text messages with his other hand.

Zapata, 32, a Mexican-American Muslim convert, winced at the comment, but she later said she was optimistic about the next several weeks.

"I don't know how reflective he's going to be. I feel the resistance," she said. "I think he has good potential."

Indeed. Well I am glad it wasn't me; I am afraid, I would definitely have ended up in jail. I am naturally prone to a fair amount of resistance when having Islam shoved down my throat. I think I'll just carry on wearing Prada, thanks.

Mac continues:

Guess who sponsored the training the young man endured, er, underwent? CAIR's Chicago office. But we must all be sensitive to Muslims, even when they show no reciprocity or insist on veiled anonymity and other gestures to distance themselves from the pluralist society they're supposedly trying to integrate themselves into, while attacking Jews and making them the font of every evil conspiracy on earth (9/11 conspiracy theories, anyone? Holocaust denial, two bags a dollar, cheap?) is perfectly OK. I'll conclude this post before I nauseate myself.

UPDATE: I wish I had this wonderful post earlier, written by the inimitable Fausta, depicting her first experience spotting a niqab, nearly thirty years ago in London, at my old stomping ground 'corner shop' by the name of Harrods.

The Bloody Dance Of The Qur'an

 

My friend Gaius Arbo sends me an important op-ed from the WaPo. Nothing new to readers of ATB, but still a vitally important message we have to keep on sending. "It shows what we are fighting." Gaius tells me. "It is not Islam - it is the Islamist extremist interpretation of Islam. And it is written by a Muslim woman, Asra Q. Nomani."

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation.

The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where a Muslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a few years ago.

Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that women must be treated as equals under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" — they reject outright violence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporary definitions of domestic violence.

Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's veils as an obstacle to integration in the West. But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper challenge of integration. How the Muslim world interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam can be compatible with life in the 21st century. As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."

Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with "beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.

At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This is America," I protested. "How can you tell men to beat their wives?"

"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."

He was doing the dance.

Gaius goes on to say "Nomani is making a point here: How can you expect to stop suicide bombers, jihadists and preachers of violence when it is perfectly acceptable to many Muslim males to engage in domestic violence. She quotes another Muslim woman describing the thought process among too many Muslim males: "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."

Well in our culture it is not okay to beat a woman 'lightly' or otherwise. Period.

The 'Humiliation Of Occupation' Rears Its Ugly Head Again

 

I give you Joseph Farah of WND

I've waited to deal with the following news development because it is so disturbing to me personally, I needed to let my rage subside.

I can now speak and write coherently about the latest ghastly statements by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concerning the Middle East. But it's not easy.

Last week, Rice said America could have no greater legacy than to divide the land of Israel and establish a Palestinian Arab terrorist state to end what she called the "humiliation of occupation." She made the statement at a dinner celebrating the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine.

"The Palestinian people deserve a better life, a life that is rooted in liberty, democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism, unburdened by corruption and misrule and forever free of the daily humiliation of occupation," she said. "I promise you my personal commitment to that goal."

Of course, no one can argue that Arabs deserve a better life. As a matter of fact, as an Arab-American who covered the region as a journalist for many years, I can tell you they had one when they were living under Israeli control. Since they have been living under autonomy and under the control of terrorists, life has indeed been miserable.

What chance is there for democracy or liberty or a life uncompromised by violence and terrorism or unburdened by corruption and misrule under leaders sworn to destroy their neighbors and committed to unending war?

It's worth mentioning that these leaders, the ones who are going to usher into existence Rice's fantasy of democracy, liberty and an end to terrorism and corruption, consider all the Jews of the Middle East as occupiers. The only way that occupation will end is by their annihilation. And when Rice feeds their passions with this kind of talk, she is in reality paving the way for a future holocaust.

But she wasn't finished with those insensitive, misguided words.

A Matter Of Interpretation

'Family of Marsupial Centaurs' by Salvator Dali 1940

 

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia commenting on abortion and homosexual rights vis-a-vis the Bill of Rights. As a primer on the subject, a quote from Justice Scalia's book, 'A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law':

The American people have been converted to belief in The Living Constitution, a "morphing" document that means, from age to age, what it ought to mean. And with that conversion has inevitably come the new phenomenon of selecting and confirming federal judges, at all levels, on the basis of their views regarding a whole series of proposals for constitutional evolution. If the courts are free to write the Constitution anew they will, by God, write it the way the majority wants; the appointment and confirmation process will see to that. This, of course, is the end of the Bill of Rights, whose meaning will be committed to the very body it was meant to protect against: the majority. By trying to make the Constitution do everything that needs doing from age to age, we shall have caused it to do nothing at all. [Emphasis mine]

Video Transcript:

I’m in the business of enforcing democracy. What democracy means is that on controversial issues, even stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, whatever, we debate with each other and persuade each other and vote on it. Either our representatives or through a Constitutional amendment in the states, we decide the question. Now there are some exceptions to that in any liberal democracy, and in ours, most of those exceptions are contained in the Bill of Rights. But that Bill of Rights was adopted by the majority which is why it is proper in a democracy to have a Bill of Rights, because the majority adopted it.

Now when they adopted it what did they take out of that general principle? What did they take out of that general rule of democracy? That we allow open speech, we persuade each other and we vote. What did they take out of it? They never took out these issues…abortion, homosexual conduct. Nobody ever thought that they had been included in the rights contained in the Bill of Rights which is why abortion and homosexual sodomy were criminal for 200 years. Now whether that’s a good idea or bad is not what I’m talking about. That’s not my job to say that. It is my job to say whether the Bill of Rights has taken it out of the realm of democratic debate. Just because you feel strongly about it…it isn’t necessarily in the Bill of Rights. [h/t Jay @ Stop The ACLU]

Anybody got a problem with that?

The irony of course is that Justice Scalia spent his life defending what the Liberals keep alleging to be the worst offences committed by Consveratives: usurping the democracy by circumventing strict formalistic processes. Yet, their charge against Scalia is, that he is too formalistic.

Of all the criticisms leveled against textualism, the most mindless is that it is "formalistic." The answer to that is, of course it's formalistic! The rule of law is about form. If, for example, a citizen performs an act--let us say the sale of certain technology to a foreign country--which is prohibited by a widely publicized bill proposed by the administration and passed by both houses of Congress, but not yet signed by the President, that sale is lawful. It is of no consequence that everyone knows both houses of Congress and the President wish to prevent that sale. Before the wish becomes a binding law, it must be embodied in a bill that passes both houses and is signed by the President. Is that not formalism?

A murderer has been caught with blood on his hands, bending over the body of his victim; a neighbor with a video camera has filmed the crime; and the murderer has confessed in writing and on videotape. We nonetheless insist that before the state can punish this miscreant, it must conduct a full-dress criminal trial that results in a verdict of guilty. Is that not formalism? Long live formalism. It is what makes a government a government of laws and not of men.

Right there, another glaring proof of Liberal hypocrisy. The conservative vote matters more than ever.

Islam's Cosa Nostra

 

Never loose sight of the unique threat posed by Iran. It's the only country run by Islamic purists with enormous piles of cash to invest in their evil cause. It's Islam's Cosa Nostra and 'The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution', or Revolutionary Guards for short, are their henchmen.

Kim Yong-il needs to resort to criminal activities and starve his people to finance his court of cronies and maintain power over North Korea; diamond trade in Africa has become more transparent and is increasingly better regulated since 9-11, eliminating the livelihood of some of the usual suspects; Taliban in Afghanistan are a nuisance mainly because of the flourishing drug trade -- curb that and you've killed the Taliban -- but they still depend materially on the support from Iran.

Andrew Higgins at the Wall Street Journal penned an important essay about the business of terror, referred to as 'Revolutionary Guard Inc.' (linked to Iran Focus as WSJ is subscription only). The following organizational chart provides the initial overview: Needless to say, Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad was a member during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

In fact, we are treated to a rare insight behind the scenes; the kind where we can get a glimpse of our enemy's determination to sustain Oil riches to pay for the sanguinary cause of imposing Shari'a law on the rest of the world -- well, the Middle East first, then the rest of the world... Higgins heading tells all: 'A feared force roils business in Iran'

The Jagged Edge Of The American Left (Weekend Thread)

"Game Boys" by Peter Howson 1991, Private Collection London

 

Matt Shefield, my executive editor @ NewsBusters leads the charge:

Last week, the CBS News staff nearly revolted when [Katie] Couric and her producers dared to allow someone to say on the show that school violence is the product of people taking religion out of public schools.[...]

For all their talk of being impartial and balanced, the fact is that network news is run by secular leftists who will continue spiraling ever downward in the ratings rather than adopt a more tolerant attitude and start hiring conservatives and religious people. They have a perfect example of success in Fox News but they deliberately choose not to follow it because they perceive news which isn't left-wing to be illegitimate. [emphasis mine]

Peggy Noonan picks up the theme of the intolerant left and their warped idea of free speech @ The Wall Street Journal in her latest piece:

It is not only about rage and resentment, and how some have come to see them as virtues, as an emblem of rightness. I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail. It is about something so obvious it is almost embarrassing to state. Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with. This--listening to the other person with respect and forbearance, and with an acceptance of human diversity--is the price we pay for living in a great democracy. And it is a really low price for such a great thing.

We all know this, at least in the abstract. Why are so many forgetting it in the particular?

Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don't. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America. [...]

What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together. The Democratic Party hasn't had enough of this kind of thing since Bobby Kennedy died. What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions, but I wonder if the left could tolerate asking itself even a few. Such as: Why are we producing so many adherents who defy the old liberal virtues of free and open inquiry, free and open speech? Why are we producing so many bullies? And dim dullard ones, at that.

"Why do Americans on the left think only they have the right to dissent?" she asks. Why indeed.

And the root cause for such ironically domineering attitude, as it has been shown time and time again in the Left's campaigning style and content, is that the vast majority of its base is driven in their personal lives by destructive emotions such as envy, resentment, bitterness and most of all, pure and gut-wrenching hatred which, like any pressure cooker under too much heat, needs to release its steam through the emergency valve.

But, just as with steam, a retort in kind is never part of the equation. After all, the underlying perception is a righteous condemnation of the outside world; for it has caused the misery, it is to blame for all hardship and wrongs brought upon the individual. How dare the collective 'they' then have the audacity to add insult to injury.

The Right is not free of such unfortunate supporters, but the overwhelming majority are people who are driven by an urge to achieve, to improve, to advance, to build; not to tear down, to destroy and to systematically debase the key ingredient of success: excellence.

The liberal media simply continues to spin it's own web of deceit in full support, sinking deeper into their ignorant oblivion...

The Dichotomy

'Spectre Of Stockholm' by Peter Howson 1992, Private Collection, London

 

"We expect your retaliation; it's what unites us and divides you."

This from the mouth of a common thug and murdering terrorist, who is of course glorified among far too many fellow Muslims the world over as a 'mujahideen' or 'jihadist' fighter, spreading the glory of Islam.

His response is chilling to the bone as he is being interrogated shortly after his fellow Jihadist thugs had just managed to detonate a dirty bomb in the heart of London. A brilliant fictional but chillingly realistic drama called 'Dirty War' produced by British Luke Alkin. Hundreds of thousands dead, many more dying from radiation poisoning; major parts of the City of London cordoned off for the next 30 years due to contamination; countless businesses and lives ruined; property prices in free fall with no respite anywhere near in sight.   

The sanity of his actions were questioned, citing the inevitable retaliation, causing even more suffering among those, he calls brothers and claims to avenge. "We expect your retaliation; it's what unites us and divides you", brilliantly sums up everything that has happened since 9/11. We are dangerously divided over this issue, and it will be our downfall.

It is the most succinct description of the tragic dichotomy plaguing democratic nations and free societies both East and West: In contrast to a history of millennia during which the individual was virtually powerless and exposed to often limitless physical and mental abuse, we are now experiencing an era where never before in living memory one person, or a small group, is able to inflict cataclysmic devastation and carnage on literally millions whilst at the same time enjoying equally unprecedented levels of protection against any civil rights infringement, effectively barring any form of effective interrogation or prevention; this is compounded by the fact, that individuals are allowed to make their murderous intentions crystal clear by countless and unfailingly explicit announcements without fear of repercussion. It's there for all of us to see, hear and read, if only we chose to. But most of us don't.

Ignorance Is Bliss

 

Arafat learned to manipulate the West, and Abbas is even more adept at telling us what we want to hear. But behind our backs the same old message is going out: 'Humour them. One day they'll drop their guard, they'll be weak and then we'll wipe them off the map.'

Disturbing in itself, of course; but, for me, much more disturbing is the constant need to debate and persuade those around us. They are no fools, to be sure. They are 'just' ignorant of the facts. The little bit they do pick up here and there is garnered from fleeting moments on CNN and daily newspapers, in short the MSM.

Conversations go like 'Oh, that is interesting, but I remember hearing/reading quite a different account ... are you sure you have got your facts straight?...' Then the really aggravating moment follows: Eyes glaze over before even the first sentence is out. Most people just don't care either way. The saying, 'Ignorance is bliss' describes the true nature of their carefree oblivion perfectly.

North Korea's nuclear blast, whether real or hyped up, and Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's promise to wipe Israel of the map couldn't be more disconnected as far as they are concerned. 'What has this commie lunatic to do with the Middle East conflict'. 

A lot. Apart from being a global add campaign -- don't bother building it yourself, we'd be happy to supply you with all the know-how or with as many nukes as you care to order -- it proves to the Mullahs and their jihadist armies the world over, once you've got it, nobody is going to touch you any longer.

The Russian Bear Awakes

 

I read Caroline Glick frequently and always with keen interest. Her insight is sharp and refreshingly unabashed by shackles of political correctness. Earlier this year her urgent warning call following Ilan Halimi's barbarous murder in France introduced yet another of her commanding one-liners: "Today, every Jew in the world is on the front lines of war."

As was the case seventy years ago, every Jew today is a target for our enemies, who shout from every soapbox and prove at every opportunity, that their goal is the annihilation of the Jewish people. From 1933-1945, the enemy was Nazi Germany. Today, the enemy is political Islam. Its call for jihad aimed at annihilating the Jews and dominating the world is answered by millions of people throughout the world.

Among the lessons of the Holocaust, there is one that is almost never mentioned. That lesson is that it is possible, and indeed fairly easy to exterminate the Jews. The fact that the Holocaust happened proves that it is absolutely possible for the Jewish people to be wiped off the map - just as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas leader Khaled Mashal promise.

Then came the Lebanon War II and UNSC Resolution 1701, which effectively sealed Israel's fate to face yet another war with an even better equipped and supported proxy army in the not so distant future on her northern borders.

Next, President Vladimir Putin of Russia promises the world during the Valdai Club early September, that "Russia would not use its rapidly intensifying and expanding global energy leverage to dominate others like "a superpower" would."

'The UN And The Jews' Indeed (Weekend Thread)

'Dream of Solomon' by Luca Giordano ca. 1693, Museo del Prado, Madrid

You know, I take courage when the consistently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic UK newspaper, the Guardian expresses despair over the increasingly likely selection of, what they say is a 'faceless' successor to Kofi Annan; I am talking of course about Ban Ki-moon, the current South Korean foreign minister.

Breaking the mold of the longstanding tradition among UN officials throughout the ranks to fashion the UN into "the foremost global platform for anti-Semitism", must indeed drive senior UN officials to despair, together with their faithful MSM minions.

"The mood among staff is glum," one of the officials said. "We are not very excited about the outcome." With morale low at the UN after five years dominated by divisions, deadlock and corruption, they are sceptical about Mr Ban's ability to turn the organisation round or provide the strong, inspirational leadership they had been hoping for.

Yeah, 'strong, inspirational leadership' in the fight against the hated Zionist state is what they were hoping and looking for. Let's refresh our memory with Anne Bayefsky's incredibly crisp and concise analysis, 'The UN and the Jews', mentioned in my post 'UN's Global Mission: Reviving, Spreading And Fueling Rabid Anti-Semitism' in July.

Where the UN has fallen markedly short is in the application of these principles [meaning the principles of self-determination, which are now taken to entail not just the basic right of political independence but guarantees of non-interference by other nations, a realm of domestic jurisdiction and national sovereignty, and the preservation of historical, cultural, and religious particularities], and in no case more strikingly than that of Israel. The key factor has been the changing composition of the international body. From the late 1940’s to the mid-60’s, the original membership more than doubled. Of the 67 new states joining in this period, 80 percent attached themselves to the Group of 77—the UN’s third-world caucus, made up of many former European colonies—and some 40 percent had Muslim majorities. By 1977, the five members of the Arab League who helped to found the UN had been joined by all sixteen others.

To this radicalized and often Soviet-influenced contingent, self-determination was invoked in UN circles not as a general principle but as a tool to wield against the West, especially the U.S. and its increasingly stalwart ally, Israel. Self-determination was a right of the oppressed, to be exerted against oppressors. In the prosecution of this cause, the weight assigned to historical claims was itself selective and discriminatory: those who rejected the UN's 1947 partition plan for Palestine were labeled the oppressed, while Jewish victims, from Palestine to Europe, were characterized as the oppressors.

By this means has the UN negotiated the passage from omission to commission. Not only has it consistently failed to appreciate or even to acknowledge the state of Israel’s preservation of Jewish independence and identity, it has become the loudest and most determined foe of the Zionist project.

They don't want a man who will focus on "administrative detail"; that would curtail their gravy train. They don't want a leader who "knows to disagree without being disagreeable"; that would forgo juicy Israel bashing headlines. They don't want a man with strong convictions; that would jeopardize the continuation of mindless anti-Zionist propaganda.

In short, they don't want a man who is described as "intelligent, polite, moderate and honest" and who supports "UN reform, transparency and the free market".

We may of course find to our dismay, that Ban Ki-moon has little sympathy for a beleaguered Israel, but in absence of a confirmed anti-Semitic, Muslim candidate, I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and look forward to rid the airwaves of the spineless and hopelessly corrupt Kofi Annan.

The Palestinian Code Of Honor

"St Mark Freeing a Christian Slave" by Tintoretto 1548, Accademia, Venice

 

My friend JoshuaPundit is quite rightly enraged about the meeting that took place between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the leader of Tanzim, the so called 'military arm' of Abbas' Fatah. He asks: "Anybody remember a certain US president saying, `You're either with the terrorists or with us'?"

Because the Bush Administration wants to look good and curry favor with people like the Saudis and the EU and continue to flush more taxpayer dollars down the Palestinian rathole without actually breaking US law by funding a terrorist government, they are actively working to subvert the Palestinian democracy by supporting Arafat II because he's better at hiding his real agenda - the elimination of Israel.

This kind of hypocrisy is disgusting on every level. Not to mention damaging to our war effort.

So let’s catch up on the background here. As I have said before: The militants from both Fatah and Hamas are hell bent unstoppable on their way to have their prolonged bloodshed. Hamas is in power, Fatah is lurking in the shadows, but make no mistake about it, they are both terrorist organizations, period. Their purpose is the destruction of Israel; to them all Palestinian men are Jihadists, all boys future supplies for the course; women necessary to keep the cycle going. So, don't give me the old toffee about Hamas' charitable work and allegedly incorruptible track record, and Fatah’s wish to legitmize terrorism as their newly elected opposition has. Yeah right.

Arafat's entire life was dedicated to keep the violence going. The West periodically mixed in their pet conspiracies, charging Israel at various stages that it equally wished the violence to continue. Poppycock.

This whole charade is built on logic best illustrated by this statement: "And since Hamas is bad, Abbas must be good." Eh?

Don't Get Me Started....

 

Don't get me started on ex Florida Rep. Mark Foley and how the whole sordid affair is playing out - just get on with it already, Speaker Dennis Hastert,  Majority Leader John Boehner and all the rest of you; I refuse to talk about it on ATB.

One of Michelle Malkin's readers echoes my sickened sentiment:

I am sick and tired of people turning everything into a political issue. Foley is one sick individual who should have never been in congress in the first place.  I couldn't care less if he's a republican or democrat,  he's a deeply disturbed man.

But back to politics. I liked the New York Sun's headline 'General Schumer's Secret Agenda'. The Sun picks up on Schumer's quote, "This is war" and rather skillfully addresses the main reason for my state of despondency:

His metaphor was a dagger aimed at the heart of those many moderate and independent-minded Americans who want to fight a war on Islamic extremist terrorists, a war on cancer, a war on poverty — but not a war on Republicans. Mr. Schumer is described further in the article [Friday's Wall Street Journal] as among those arguing that the Democratic Party should keep its agenda secret from the voters. "For more than a year, Democrats debated what platform to have for 2006, or whether to have one at all. Mr. Schumer was among those mostly content to bash Mr. Bush," the Journal reported.The newspaper quoted General Schumer as saying, "For us to put out a big range of ideas gives Republicans a target and gets the message off George Bush."

General Schumer is a lot of things, but he's not stupid. So if he wants to keep the Democratic Party's ideas secret from the American people in a closely fought election, it just may be that he realizes how unpopular his party's ideas are with the American people. The Democrats want to cut and run in Iraq, retreat into a defensive crouch in the war on terror while making good relations with France the top priority in American foreign policy, impose huge tax increases on American businesses and families, and appoint judges who are soft on violent criminals but easy on ambulance-chasing plaintiff's lawyers. With those kinds of ideas dominating his party, it's no wonder General Schumer wants to keep them a secret from the voters.

That's it, isn't it. The 'smart' opposition intends to hoodwink its more thoughtful voters, hoping that the 'Bush-lied-people-died' smear campaign, with all its offshoots, sufficiently distracts from real issues and from the debate as to how the Democratic Party is proposing to tackle them. Michael Barone observes this morning that....

...Their pit bull attacks on President Bush, their constant references to the Abu Ghraib abuses as if they were typical, their opposition to letting the NSA listen to conversations from Al Qaeda suspects to persons in America, and to letting interrogators of unlawful combatants use techniques that have helped us foil those plotting violence against us — these amount to a strategy of rule or ruin.You must let us rule this country, or we won't regard it as "our" country anymore. So much for the first person plural.

Well, what can I say, now General Schumer must rethink his Bush-bashing strategy and how best to include Hastert & Co.

It's time for some celebration to lift the mood, I say. Congratulations are in order to my dear friend Ed Morrissey on his three year anniversary yesterday, of unstoppable brilliance and simply awesome stats. My darling friend the Anchoress, my mentor and guide in troubled blogging waters has my heartfelt congrats on her 2 million visit milestone.

No Excuses For Terror

 

An extraordinary documentary on Islamic terrorism aired on Channel 5 in the UK this week. Made by left wing British journalist David Aaronovitch, it spares no punches in its criticism of the leftie sympathy towards Islamic terrorism, whilst they continue to condemn any actions instigated by Israel and the U.S. All 4 parts are a must see, and I have set the video to play all.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: after nearly 40 years of pin-point targeted response to Arab rabid hostilities leading to this perverse situation where the West pays the Arab officials, synonymous with terrorism, billions of Dollars so that they can keep spitting into Israel's face, we have come a full circle.

(h/t LGF)

Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad Caught Red-Handed

'Jews Praying in the Synagogue' by Maurycy Gottlieb ca. 1878, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv

 

We are all well aware how Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad is modeling himself on Grand-Master-Über-Thug Ayatollah Khomeini, may he rot in Hell for all eternity.

We also know with certainty, that the Mullahcracy has been desperately trying to build the bomb at least since the early Nineties. We furthermore know today, that all the various assurances given in the past, that no such efforts were in fact made, were also nothing but bold faced lies.

Finally, we know, that for the period of almost two decades, every promise of cooperation, extracted from the Mullahcracy at various times by the U.S., several EU member states, the IAEA, the UN and other such illustrious parties so as to prevent a nuclear Islamic Republic in the heart of the Middle East, has only ever been feigned with one aim in mind, to buy more time for the Mullahcracy to reach nuclear ecstasy.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani feels quite evidently so secure in his conviction that we in the West still refuse to acknowledge this unyielding track record of utterly determined defiance when he, as part of a feud with a military commander over responsibility for the 1988 cease-fire, released a letter from Ayatollah Khomeini written in 1988 saying "that Iran would need nuclear weapons to win the war with Iraq". And he is right; exposing the deceitful agenda of our Thug-In-Chief and his Mullahcracy does not pass for headline news:

In the letter, Khomeini, who died in 1989, quotes the country's leading military commander of the day on the weaponry Iran would need to continue fighting. The letter also reveals that Iran's economy had been almost destroyed by the eight-year war and that the supply of military volunteers was drying up.

The letter strikes a nerve because the current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has denied that Iran plans to develop nuclear weapons. He has said that such weapons would violate Islamic principles.

But the letter suggests that Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, had no such qualms.

We knew of course, that our Thug-In-Chief was lying through his teeth when he stated that nuclear weapons violate Islamic principals. But we couldn't quite prove it. Now we can and that should be big news, especially amongst the apologist Liberals. The word of Khomeini is as good as law for Ahmadinejad; he would never contradict it save for false pretenses in the interest of spreading the dominance of Islam.

Again, I ask my Liberal friends, which part of, "alone of the world's major faiths, Islam was founded by a prophet who used force to win converts" do you not understand"?

"I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah,' " Muhammad proclaimed in his farewell address to his followers in AD 632.

Spare me the intellectually challenged retort of citing missionary precedent of forceful conversions; the spotlight is directed on Muhammad and his teachings, and at the stark contrast in which they stand to those of Jesus Christ.

Instead, and on this Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we ought to remember the injustice meted out against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as it was wrongly blamed for the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. In the words of Menachem Begin:

"The whole campaign of blaming Israel for the massacre, of placing moral responsibility on Israel," he wrote, "seems to me, an old man who has seen so much in his lifetime, to be almost unbelievable, fantastic and utterly despicable.

"After the September 14 [1982] assassination of president-elect Bashir Jemayel we decided to move the IDF into West Beirut to prevent a Christian revenge on the Muslim population. It never occurred to anyone dealing with the Lebanese military units which subsequently entered the Sabra and Shatilla camps that they would perpetrate a massacre.

"The first horrific truth is that Arabs murdered Arabs. The second truth is that Israeli soldiers stopped the carnage. And the third truth is that if the current libelous campaign against Israel should go on without a reaction of outrage by decent men - yes, outrage - then within a matter of weeks or months everyone everywhere will have gotten the impression that it was an Israeli military unit which perpetrated the horrible killings."

"How right Begin was", are the closing words by Yehuda Avner, author of this moving tribute (he served on the personal staff of five prime ministers, including Menachem Begin).

I wish all my Jewish friends that you may have an easy fast!

Independent Thought

'The Annunciation' by Bernardo Strozzi 1643-44, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

 

'From Beirut to the Beltway' has a refreshing take on Hezbollah's struggle for acceptance at home:

What happened since the Syrian withdrawal, and the latest war, was the gradual descent of Hizbullah from a high plateau engineered by Assad and local elements into the dungeons of domestic politics. This war may not have destroyed Nasrallah's rockets, but it flushed their holiness down the chute of the Lebanese sectarian system. Hizbullah's weapons, once holy and beyond  criticism, are now accused of being foreign tools, and regarded with suspicion. [...]

The "party's" monopoly over all matters resistance and sacrifice is slowly ending. [...]

It is my opinion that Nasrallah is a criminal for keeping us all in his freezer.

Hizbullah constantly markets itself as something better than the militias that reigned during the civil war. Since that war ended, Hizbullah repackaged itself as a resistance movement and placed itself on a higher moral ground, above all other militias and political movements in the country. The alleged "purity" of this militia was employed to advance the notion that their political representatives are honest and above all others.

Even Michel Aoun believes that, and has defended Hizbullah's allegedly untainted record in Lebanon in a recent interview with Elaph. Aoun, like many others, is delusional, for Hizbullah did use their weapons against other Lebanese. I lived in a Beirut neighborhood that saw some of the fiercest fighting between Amal and Hizbullah. In fact, armed clashes between Amal and Hizbullah continued until recently (somehow, these clashes are seen as friendly clashes between brothers or some nonsense like that). Many southern villages are divided along Hizbullah and Amal lines, and there have been numerous incidents that were largely ignored by the media. [...]

In short, Hizbullah is not better than the others. They did kill other Lebanese in the past and their "strategy" continues to kill them in the present. While most parties now look beyond the war, and are making amends, Hizbullah is still stuck in one that is partly of its making.

You can easily get lost in the jungle of Lebanese politics and recent history. As usual, we only see the tip of the iceberg and understand even less. But understanding the intricate dynamics of Lebanese politics as they are unfolding in front of our eyes is more important than I had initially realized, for it serves as a test-bed of things to come in the region and in Europe, set so disasterously on its way to demographically evolve into 'Eurabia'.

Nasrallah and Hezbollah clearly wish to 'convert' Lebanon into the next Islamic Republic, modeled closely after its Iranian Masters. And, as usual for the fundamental Muslims, 'convert' means accept Shari'a law or die. As such, Nasrallah is the only remaining militia warlord in Lebanon today, fully armed and ready to use violence to spread the Caliphat. Who were the others and where are they today?