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.

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.

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.

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?

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!"

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!!!

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.

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 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.

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 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 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?

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?

The Clinton 'Bonfire Of Vanities'

'Nightmare' by Zhao Yannian (born in China 1924) 1989, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas

 

I did not get a chance to write about the Bill Clinton/Chris Wallace interview on 'Fox News Sunday' (video), despite reading the transcript a couple of days ago and finally getting to watch the entire Fox program yesterday as opposed to the segment we all saw prior to the airing of the show.

I have mixed views on this, and was almost not going to take the ball and run with it, but being known for taking the bull by the horns despite being on the opposing side of certain issues, it's a difficult one to simply let slide, and besides, my readers have the opportunity to pulverize my arguments for a change of pace.

Whilst I appreciate that the entire conservative side of the Blogosphere has been spitting on Bill Clinton from a great height this weekend, I find too many inconsistencies in their criticisms to feel comfortable about standing behind them all the way on this one. And yes accusing Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" is simply a part of the new raging 'culture of conspiracy', which the ex-President has fallen victim to, we shall have to put that aside.

The famous question from Chris Wallace that sent the former President into a spin was: "Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President.? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops."

Well excuse me, since when do we give a hoot about what that monster of a human being says or thinks, unless it's to rearrange his sorry anatomy? Let's face it, ex-President or not, this is an infuriating question, obviously bringing up emotions greatly fueled by the assertions made in 'The Path to 9/11' ABC documentary. Especially if you feel that you have left "a comprehensive anti-terrorist strategy and the best guy in the country Richard Clark..." to carry it out, and for the next President to get on with.

We can all remember that we criticized his Administration at the time for being too obsessed with terrorism and bin-Laden. Despite conservative bloggers now quoting the U.S. Justice Indictment of bin-Laden dated 1998, to disprove Clinton's claim that "There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaida was a growing concern in October of ‘93." And yes, we all know how to read (from the Indictment):

At various times from in or about 1992 until the date of the filing of this Indictment, USAMA BIN LADEN and other ranking members of Al Qaeda stated privately to other members of Al Qaeda that the United States forces stationed in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, should be attacked;

Beginning in or about early spring 1993, Al Qaeda members began to provide training and assistance to Somali tribes opposed to the United Nations intervention in Somalia;

On October 3 and 4, 1993, members of Al Qaeda participated with Somali tribesmen in an attack on United States military personnel serving in Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope, which attack killed a total of 18 United States soldiers and wounded 73 others in Mogadishu;

We did not have a clue about al-Qaeda in October 1993, and "October 1993" is what Clinton repeatedly said and not November 4th 1998 when the Indictment came out, allowing all those years of hindsight and gathering of intelligence, accusing bin-Laden and al Qaeda's Muhammad Atef, of conspiring to kill Americans.

And yes, we knew about him in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S, and in 1998 when he bombed the embassies in Africa, and in 2000 when he hit USS Cole. But it is simply untrue that we knew about him in October 1993 when Black Hawk Down occurred. At the time we all thought that the Muslim war lord named Muhammad Adid, was murdering Pakistani Muslim troops in their thousands. We went in there with no agenda to establish new Governments or democracy, or investigate an at the time inconsequential bin-Laden, but simply to put Adid's nose out of joint, and eventually transfer power to the ever ineffective UN. As he quite rightly points out we also wanted a quick withdrawal, despite the ordeal having eventually taken six months at the insistence of his Administration.

Osama bin-Laden Dead....Again? (UPDATED)

 

Cross Posted @ NewsBusters

This may be the best present to Israel today for Rosh Ha-Shanah....The Day Of Judgment....How appropriate...

Could this possibly be true? Was it something I said yesterday.....

Via WND I find in the early hours of this morning that a French daily newspaper L'Est Republicain has published that the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden died within days of contracting typhoid fever in Pakistan.

"According to a commonly reliable source, the Saudi police believe that Osama Bin Laden has died," said a Sept. 21 confidential note transmitted by the Directorate-General of External Services.

According to the note to be published by the L'Est Republicain, the Saudi police "would try to obtain more details, in particular the location of the burial site, and then announce the news officially." The DGSE specified in the note that no "jihadist Internet site has for the moment been made aware of the death of Osama bin Laden."

According to the note, "the head of al-Qaida may have fallen victim to a strong case of typhoid fever while in Pakistan, on August 23, 2006," and may have died within a matter of days.

Developing....

Hope In Fear

 

Hezbollah are fighting a historical battle. The stakes couldn't be higher. The goal is Lebanon, the risk is relegation to fringe status. The allies are Iran, Syria and sympathizers such as Venezuela's Chavez ("To my aboriginal and indigenous brothers, we are the real owners of this land." Ahem, I can't wait to see the long faces of all those dimwits spewing the Israel-is-an-illegal-state mantra, when they realize how Chavez is modeling himself as the Arafat of the 21st century, so as to start claiming back US territories) and Cuba -- North Korea is more jealous than supportive. The list of enemies is growing. Worst of all for Nasrallah, the fat cats in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are seeing the writing on the wall: they're next.

Russia is a valid barometer for the true sentiment of those, who are now motivated by fear of losing their golden egg. Arab pride, grotesquely grandiloquent at best of times, usually prohibits even the faintest inkling of accepting Israel as a permanent state and neighbor. It thus carries enormous weight when the Saudi, Bahrain's and the Russian Foreign Minister independently talk of peace with Israel; the Bahrain official's regurgitation of the trite demands including Israel's full withdrawal from the Palestinian territory, resolving the problem of Palestinian refugees, and creating a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem shouldn't be given too much notice:

Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in separate interviews with The Associated Press around the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, spoke of the urgency for an "end game" that could give a glimmer of hope to both sides in the Middle East by resurrecting a process bogged down for three years.

At a Security Council meeting later Thursday, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa called for initial negotiations between Israel and the Arabs with a concrete timeframe, as well as a report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the best way to hold those negotiations. [...]

Lavrov said the mood is not limited to Arab countries; agreement also is growing in Russia and among other outside power brokers overseeing the peace process that it must be re-energized to stop more problems from developing.

But most telling is the easily overlooked statement but the Russian official:

Unless the world acts quickly to increase hope among Arab youth, Lavrov warned, it could lose a whole generation in the region to extremism.

That's the driving force, the writing on the wall, no Arab official will say out loud, but this is what all of them fear the most. Hezbollah's antics in Lebanon revealed to them that the genie was out of the bottle, that their pet terrorists (don't miss the video) had grown independent and disobedient. Too long have the fat cats enjoyed the  cushy feeling of absolving their Jihad duties remote control. Now the Jihadists are turning against them, for Iran is picking up the tab.

"We have found for the first time probably a consensus that is very significant about the need of restarting the peace process," al-Faisal told AP, wearing traditional Arab robes and headdress, and speaking in a hotel suite overlooking Park Avenue.

His emphasis on consensus was the strongest statement yet by an Arab nation on the need to revive efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, and was echoed by the foreign ministers who attended the ministerial meeting of the Security Council.

There is only one emotion stronger in the Arab soul than 'pride', and that is genuine 'fear'. Good. I say, be afraid, be very afraid, and we may finally get somewhere.

And I don't mean just Israel, but also the long overdue denunciation of the rabidly anti-Semitic UN, for it has finally become the safe haven of all lunatics and murderers, whilst busily paving the way for their future reign of fear and genocide:

The conclusion is hard to resist that the U.N. effort is really about persuading America that it can "live with" an Iranian bomb, just as it lives with a Pakistani bomb, because the costs of economic sanctions or military strikes are supposedly prohibitive. But a glimpse of what the world will look like if Iran succeeds was provided on Tuesday by Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Cairo's heir apparent floated a proposal for Egypt to develop its own nuclear programs, clearly a signal that the largest Sunni Arab country will go nuclear itself to prevent Shiite Iran from dominating the region. And where Egypt goes, Saudi Arabia and Turkey cannot be far behind. Is the international system really prepared to live with five, maybe six, nuclear powers in the Middle East?

The media portrayed this week's U.N. speeches as a soap opera showdown between Mr. Bush and his adversaries. But in the matter of Iran's nuclear ambitions, it is not only the Middle East that is at risk, but the U.N., which is why Messrs. Chávez and Ahmadinejad felt so free to mock its evident failures.

"The Path To Hysteria"

 

Certain things need to be just left alone and appreciated in their entirety. Cyrus Nowrasteh's response to the rabid crazies in yesterday's Wall Street Journal is one of those essays. He wrote the screenplay for "The Path to 9/11" and lived to regret it.  TigerHawk  aptly concludes, "When conservatives try to discredit somebody by reference to race, religion or other suspect affiliation, the world justifiably howls in outrage. Manifestly liberal newspapers seem to live by a different set of rules. Why?"

So, without further ado, let Cyrus speak:

I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing.

My Iranian parents fled tyranny and oppression. I know and appreciate deeply the sanctuary America has offered. Only in this country could a person such as I have had the life, liberty and opportunity that I have had. No one needs to remind me of this--I know it every single day. I know, too, as does everyone involved in the production, that we kept uppermost in our minds the need for due diligence in the delivery of this history. Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations. We were informed by multiple advisers and interviews with people involved in the events--and books, including in a most important way the 9/11 Commission Report.

It would have been good to be able to report due diligence on the part of those who judged the film, the ones who held forth on it before watching a moment of it. Instead, in the rush to judgment, and the effort to portray the series as the work of a right-wing zealot, much was made of my "friendship" with Rush Limbaugh (a connection limited to two social encounters), but nothing of any acquaintance with well-known names on the other side of the political spectrum. No reference to Abby Mann, for instance, with whom I worked on "10,000 Black Men Named George" (whose hero is an African-American communist) or Oliver Stone, producer of "The Day Reagan Was Shot," a film I wrote and directed. Clearly, those enraged that a film would criticize the Clinton administration's antiterrorism policies--though critical of its successor as well--were willing to embrace only one scenario: The writer was a conservative hatchetman.

Just Another Monday

"Last Judgment Triptych" by Hans Memling 1467-71, Muzeum Narodowe, Gdansk

 

Whilst our kids look forward to a new iPod or mobile phone at this time of the year, schoolchildren and their parents in Iran received less joyful news on Saturday:

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 17 – A new security organ has been set up to aid police inside schools in Tehran beginning from the start of the new academic year, the chief of police in the Iranian capital announced. Brigadier General Morteza Tala’i announced the formation of a new “Youth Police” which will be present in schools across the Iranian capital.

The announcement appeared in the Saturday edition of the semi-official daily Kayhan. The new security organ will include youths of various ages. “This initiative was taken to help prevent any possible crimes [inside schools]” Tala’i said.

The State Security Forces (SSF) commander in Tehran said that the organ would operate both inside and in the vicinity of the schools. The SSF are already assisted by the Bassij force, affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, in cracking down on social dissent.

To all who think the West, America and the current Administration in particular, are to blame for the actions of the Islamofascists, I say, poppycock! If anything, American ideals of freedom is what they are attacking in classrooms and in the schoolyard.

Once you understand that, it is clear for instance why Charles Johnson @ LGF doesn't believe the Islamist thugs will accept the Pope's expression of deep sorrow over "the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims".

The Vatican (this is no longer just the Pope talking) is trying to get away with a non-apology apology, to appease the Islamic world’s violent temper tantrums. [...]

This is exactly the wrong way to go, for one simple reason. It won’t work. Islamists can tell the difference between diplomatic words and true surrender, and they want the Pope to utterly abase himself.

It would be far better to stand up, and speak truth about the Muslim world’s insane reaction to his speech. The Pope actually has a golden opportunity right now to bring these issues to the forefront of the public dialog, but it looks like he’s not going to use it.

Personally, I love the Pope's nuance in his reference to the 'reaction' not the content. Translated, it means, 'look in the mirror, you fools. You've just confirmed the accuracy of the quote, which is the reason why you need help.' According to the UK Telegraph, the Holy Father most of all voiced his deep sorrow in the way his lecture  "has been exacerbated by the deliberate manipulation of his words by Islamic firebrands and their slick media operation".

The combination of grievance-nurturing multiculturalism and instant headlines is having a disastrous effect on the worldwide Muslim community. There seems to be no limit to its spokesmen's willingness to voice outrage; and their messages are then picked up by fanatics who mount appalling attacks on Christians in Muslim countries. When was the last time a Muslim leader apologised for such atrocities?

The truth is that barbaric attacks happen weekly. No wonder that Benedict favours an urgent dialogue with Muslims on the subject of religious violence, rather than the usual touchy-feely exchange of compliments.

Well, he has started a dialogue now, albeit not quite in the way that he intended. And it is essential that it continue. A self-abasing apology from the Pope would have postponed that discussion yet again.

We suspect that Western public opinion is not displeased that Benedict has said the unsayable. Now it is time for other churchmen to tell their Muslim counterparts that, in addition to dishing out criticism, they must learn how to take it.

Meanwhile, welcome fodder for the rabid Liberals, who are desperately hoping to extend their 'Bush lied People died' smear campaign from Iraq to Iran, comes from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), run by El Baradei, its General Director:

Iran's Blink Is NATO's Wink

 

Has Iran "finally blinked"? If you consider 'temporary suspension' a useful progress, yes... maybe.

Iran has finally blinked, reportedly agreeing to a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as a confidence-building measure in response to growing international pressure.

But in truth, it only serves one purpose: it seeks to derail consensus over sanctioning Iran over its non-compliance to permanently abandon uranium enrichment.

Interestingly, the author, Kaveh L Afrasiabi, thinks this to be "a welcome development", for it "can potentially take the wind out of the sails of the ship of sanctions planned by the US and its allies at the United Nations Security Council." Whose side is he on?

But we've asked for it in the interest of proving our resolve to the international community to explore all diplomatic avenues before stopping a nuclear Iran militarily:

On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested that a temporary suspension might be enough to clear the way for formal negotiations.

Can you call it 'blinked', as Iran is observing and analyzing NATO's latest disgraceful refusal to honor their commitments to fight the Taliban thugs in Afghanistan? Ed Morrissey's criticism of Europe's and NATO's duplicitous behavior is music to Iranian ears; especially because they know how complex and intewoven the roots for these repeated letdowns are:

Perhaps people might recall the insistence of Europe and many here in America on engaging Afghanistan and Iraq through international alliances. We tried in both cases, and we had a lot more support from our allies with Afghanistan, as it had created much less controversy than the war against Saddam Hussein. Our relief by NATO was supposed to show America the benefits of "true" international coalitions in dealing with the complex problems of Southwest Asia.

However, once again, we see that the global community lacks the fortitude to make good on their promises and meet the challenge of their own demands. The same nations that scolded us over our supposedly unilateral approach now refuse to answer the phone when NATO calls on them to meet their pledges of troop support. The French do not belong to NATO, but the rest of Europe will blithely sit and watch Afghanistan's new democratically-elected government fall victim to a resurgent Taliban rather than lift a finger to help. Even Germany, with 2700 troops stationed in the quiet north, refuses to redeploy to assist the US, UK, and Canada in the more volatile southern region.

As with Lebanon, we hear a lot of posturing from Europe on how to conduct war and demands to implement their peace strategies. When it comes time to put themselves on the line for their strategies and goals, they increasingly go AWOL.

Much more indicative is yet again what Iran really fears: it's own people. Don't miss the latest testament entitled "One Last Nail To The Coffin Of Independent Media in Iran".

'Hardball', 'Softball' Or Simply 'Flatball'

A photoshop I did back in July for my 'Valerie 'Flame' Double Exposure Suit'

 

My executive editor @ NewsBusters Matt Sheffield, whilst attending a press party on Thursday night held by MSNBC and National Journal in aid of launching their new joint venture, learns from MSNBC's Chris Matthews that he is no longer covering the Wilson/Plame story because....wait for it.... "It's got too complicated". Eh? Read Matt's account of their little chat, revealing that Matthews is himself averse to 'hardball' questions, especially when they involve bursting the 'bringing down the Bush White House' bubble with a big bang.

A day later, on last night's 'Hardball', and clearly prompted by Drudge pointing to Matt's revelation, Matthews comes out of his long 'boycotting' silence on the Wilson/Plame leak, with a deranged conspiracy theory blowing straight back into his face before the dust has even had time to settle:

MATTHEWS: You guys broke the story that the real leaker in the CIA leak case was Richard Armitage. Michael?

    ISIKOFF: Correct, and it's, you know, it was one of the ironies of the Plame investigation that the guy who was the primary source for Novak, who was the primary source, and it was the sole source for Bob Woodward, was a member of the administration's moderate cell who actually had misgivings about march to war--

MATTHEWS: Do you think he might have been used by the people like Scooter, they put it in front of him knowing he was a blabbermouth?

    ISIKOFF: No.

Er....was that a 'perhaps', a 'maybe', a 'possibly', a 'probably', an 'I don't know'.... Er...no, that was a plain straight down the line fat loud NO. Video courtesy of NRO.

In Chris Matthews' mind a lot can seem awfully "complicated" if you can't blame the golden goose, but then it's comforting to know that the Bush Derangement Syndrome is alive and well

"Now that there isn't a story, Matthews drops it — not because it's a non-story, but because it's too confusing. In reality, it couldn't be any simpler. Richard Armitage told Robert Novak. Rove confirmed this to Novak. There was no conspiracy to 'punish' a Bush critic — only an effort to refute his lies. What's so 'complicated' about that?"

The guru on the Wilson/Plame saga is my dear friend Tom Maguire, who has as usual the latest on the story, this time with an anti-semitic twist. (h/t Matt Sheffield @ NewsBusters for all the links)

Why Does The American Left Demand The Prerogative To Indoctrinate?

 

Bear with me, whilst I dive right in. The militant Left is escalating a firestorm with the clear goal to either censor as 'politically unacceptable', or to completely suppress the upcoming ABC miniseries, "The Path to 9-11". Rhetoric suggests the imminent breakout of hostilities, rapidly turning initial protests into a frenzied witch-hunt, akin only to our Islamofascist foes' response to the Islamic cartoons.

But, at least the Islamofascists didn't fabricate the entire basis for their grievance, and as such, there is only little evidence of chicanery, which is not what we can say for our militant lefties, since they are being caught faking evidence all the time. This excerpt is just the latest example; it's scary:

A Scholastic/ABC document titled "Student Resource Sheet 1" [page-3 left column after heading Iraq] says of Iraq, "The dictatorial government of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003, following an invasion led by the United States. The U.S. government believed that Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction that he planned to use against American and other targets."

The "Student Resource Sheet" omits any mention of two crucial facts: We now know Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and there is a voluminous and growing body of evidence that indicates that the Bush administration knew its claims about weapons of mass destruction were unsupported

Ideological blindness doesn't cut it as the only rational explanation, how a 'belief' is distorted to mean 'confirmed certainty' in order to justify the in itself utterly misleading heading, "ABC-Sponsored teaching materials falsely suggest Iraq had WMD, link War in Iraq to 9/11".

Then there is the additional, rather subtle license to equate ABC's wording 'had been developing' with being 'finished, completed and fully tested' as a basis for the stern rebuttal, alleging now certain knowledge, that Hussein never had WMD and implying equally certain knowledge, that Hussein's army could never have managed to smuggle WMD out of Iraq into, for example, Syria; neither prior nor during the war.

But, even if we feel generous and ignore this perhaps too nuanced discrepancy, we are still left with no disagreement, factual or imaginary, between ABC's account, namely that the "U.S. government believed..." and the allegation that such beliefs were unsupported. That's the whole point of not knowing something, but rather having either faith in the religious sense or suspicion in the case of risk assessment and mistrust. And given Hussein's trackrecord, neither President Bush nor Prime Minister Blair were prepared to take any further risks.

If anything, 'The Path to 9-11' seems to be all about the catastrophic consequence of failing to take preemptive action in order to reduce or eliminate future risks of terrorist attacks.

But in order to maintain the 'Bush lied, people died' slander, their pathetic attempts to rewrite the English dictionary will continue until finally 'belief', which stands for opinion, judgment, impression, view, conviction, is finally replaced with 'knowledge'.

Welcome to Saudi America

For avoidance of any doubt, the above is the famous 1495 painting by Hieronymus Bosch called 'The Fourth King', depicting Muhammad (now photoshopped to be Bill Maher instead) standing in the background looking visibly deranged.

 

What is the problem the Democrats have with Religion in general, Christians in particular....umh Jews too come to think of it....obviously Conservatives....but NOT Islamofascists, who are after all in their eyes innocent of all...er....trumped up charges relating to non-existent terrorist crimes dreamed up by the Administration, the great Satan of the West. As I have said before of their pernicious view in my post Converting To Islam Is Harmless:

The liberals have replaced religion with politics, it's hardly surprising that they don't feel threatened by converting to Islam, after all politics is so all-defining and of such paramount importance to them that it defines who they are. Faithless is in, it's cool, it's liberating....into the abyss they go. But it is important for us to know that they are not afraid, that they are brave, that there is no imminent threat and that we are simply fear-mongering at best and bellicose at worst.

So how does the Godless party end up supporting the most theistic religion of them all? Just asking....

One of my editors @ NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard, points the finger at another bright spark of liberal comedy, Bill Maher, who goes on an anti-theistic rant on HBO's Real Time

[...]Maher suggested that, “If converting to Islam is all it takes to get the terrorists off our backs, then all I have to say is, ‘Lalalalalalala!’” He referred to Americans as “Christians in name only,” asserting that "the best part is that nothing that really matters to you will be different. It’s not like we’re asking you to change your e-mail address." And, he stated that converting to Islam would make conservative Christians happy: “You mean we can stone homosexuals instead of just bitching about them on talk-radio? Thank you Jesus…I mean, Allah.”

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Wasn't the atheist Maher the one who said: "The Christian right are now the party of paranoia, and if you’re going to be that paranoid all the time, just get high” Have I lost all sense of humor you might ask yourself, no, I simply know Maher's views are embedded in that shallow grave he calls comedy

We’re a nation enthralled to religious fanatics anyway. Does it really matter which fanatics we’re enthralled to? They’re both filled with moral pieties and codes of conduct nobody follows anyway. So, let’s pick the one that let’s us take hair gel on the plane. Because, no matter what happens, we’ll always be Americans. Nothing can ever change that. Because even if women here had to start wearing burkas, believe me, they would find a way to write the word “Juicy” on their ass!

For the full mind blowing transcript, courtesy of Noel Sheppard, click below:

Show Me The Bodies

CLICK ON IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO FEATURING THE LIBERAL IDEA OF WHAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD HAVE DONE POST SEPTEMBER 11TH

 

The liberals are attempting to ridicule our dire forewarnings at every turn, busy laughing it all off; it's a pattern, not a stereotype. It's a 'show me the bodies' mentality coupled with "Muslims are the new Jews" (Daily Kos must read rant), making a great concoction of an altogether newly designed derangement syndrome but leaving the tried and tested ingredients unchanged.

Daily Kos contributors are sinking more and more to the same lows as the trained Hamas and Hezbollah distortionists. Posts are culled from unrelated sources to fit the preconceived and fanatically held idea, that this Administration is truly just as evil as the Nazis had been. The tell-tale pattern, unmasking the sheer frivolity of it all, is best observed, when the same set of facts can just as easily be tailored to fit a diametrically opposing and equally preconceived set of beliefs, or more adequately put, paranoia.

Take for instance this cartoon side-by-side used by Kos in an attempt to support their claim, that Muslims today are suffering a comparable fate to the Jewish one, when they'd been persecuted by the Nazis: The 1933 version is clearly anti-Semitic as it aims to 'educate' the population to 'spot' a Jew based on his/her 'looks'. The right one is a perfect example of a political caricature, exaggerating Yasser Arafat's actual looks so as to opine, that he is hiding his true terrorist ambitions behind Abbas' more moderate public persona.

The Kossacs/Lefties, writers and readers alike, are accomplished enough to recognize that of course. But the temptation is too great to resit, to have two big-nosed cartoons side-by-side, with the Jewish one, reeking of the vilest form of anti-Semitism, perfectly setting the tone and neatly tagging the Arafat caricature into the same, otherwise wholly unrelated, xenophobic morass.

World War III Has Already Started

"Mother and Daughter" by Käthe Kollwitz 1919, Private Collection

 

Lorie Byrd reminded me of that heart-wrenching movie from 1991 called 'Not Without My Daughter'.

I had not seen 'Not Without My Daughter' in some time, but it seems more timely than ever watching it now. The movie stars Sally Field and is based on the Pulitzer prize winning book [1987] by the same name, describing the ordeal of Betty Mahmoody, who was held against her will in Iran by her Iranian born husband. She spent two years in Iran before escaping with her daughter in a dangerous trip over the mountains to Turkey. If you have never seen the movie, rent it. It is hard to watch, but it really gives an insight into the way women are treated in Iran.

This year is the 20th anniversary of Betty's escape from her husband, a man rededicated to his Shiite Moslem faith, who kept both virtual prisoners in a land where women are near-slaves. "Betty and her daughter are happy now, although Mahtob still suffers some effects from the terrifying ordeal. They live in the U.S. under assumed names as Betty's husband still threatens to get Mahtob back. However, Betty is no longer afraid of him. "We have so much freedom. I want people to read this story and appreciate their freedom. When they see the American flag or the Statue of Liberty, I want those things to mean to everyone what they now mean to me."

Stories like Betty's give the horrendous suffering and hardship, experienced by millions of Muslim women all over the world, a relatable face, a familiar persona, thus countering an otherwise all too abstract and often far-removed comprehension. Without it, we 'digest' and forget far too quickly. We have a responsibility to keep her story fresh in our minds; not to stoke up hot-headed reactions, but so as to truly understand Amir Taheri's statement earlier today, that World War III "has already started."

Stuart Varney (for "The Journal Editorial Report"): A U.N. deadline for Iran to suspend its nuclear program came and went this week, with that country's president defiantly refusing to compromise, saying Tehran would not be bullied into giving up its right to that controversial technology. The IAEA said Iran showed no signs of stopping its work, beginning enrichment of a new batch of uranium as recently as last week.

Iranian author and journalist Amir Taheri joins me now from London. Amir, President Bush compares today's Islamists with the Nazis. And he's drawing a parallel, it seems, with the 1930s and, by implication, the suggestion is that we're headed towards World War III. Do you think we are headed that way?

Taheri: Well, the war has already started. In fact, it started in 1979 when the Khomeinists invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized these diplomats hostage. But of course when we say war, we shouldn't think only of planes flying and huge armies with tanks and so on. This war has many different facets--ideological, low-intensity war, terrorism and so on. And this has been going on for nearly three decades now, and we are nowhere near seeing the end of it.

Playing The Board

 

"You can tell everything you need to know about a state by how it treats its women" and "We need to stop calling Iraq a war; that was over a long time ago" are powerful statements. Thomas Barnett does not stop there, but makes his case for his future vision of US foreign policy and the dual role military intervention will have to face so as to tackle three incredibly tough ironies:

1. The shorter the war, the bigger the peace effort
2. The smaller the war force, the larger the peace force
3. The easier the war, the tougher the peace

Iraq is an ongoing testimony to this new paradigm. And al-Qaeda certainly sticks to the game-plan: encourage insurgency, engender chaos and wait for withdrawal.

The biggest mistake is to believe, that the U.S. can do or say anything to pacify the Islamofascists. It's not personal, as Barnett highlights, it's not who we are, but what we represent, namely globalization. The Islamic fundamentalists want to disconnect the Islamic world from globalization's 'creeping embrace' and to reconnect it to an idealized past, they believe it offers a better alternative.

In other words, a change in American foreign policy won't make things better.

Instead, argues Barnett, we need to appreciate, that most of Islam is not at war with globalization, but much more in conflict with itself over how best to join the globalized economy.

Which brings us to Iran as the key to the Middle East. Barnett believes, that we are "looking at the equivalent of late-Brezhnevian USSR, a tired, authoritarian regime we killed with connectivity." And that we can do the same again with the Mullahcracy.

And that is where the trouble starts. Barnett has no hesitation to go after terrorists with a new set of rules, meaning essentially, men with no names (special operations forces) go after men with no states (terrorists). But what if a country is ruled by a group of terrorists, as is the case with the Mullahs's grip on power in Iran since 1979 and in Gaza since Hamas won the elections earlier this year, and Hezbollah since we discovered they rule Lebanon?

Making Iran an ally seems impossible given the deeply embedded Mullahcracy and its terror network throughout the world. And allowing Iran to go nuclear is a risk only possible to contemplate after a regime change is not only successfully completed but has also stood the test of time. One thing is for certain, our Thug-In-Chief and his fellow murdering goons are not leaving without a mighty fight. So, even if a moderate regime should establish itself, daily violence would mar Tehran in much the same way as we are witnessing today in Baghdad.

TO WATCH THE VIDEO CLICK ON THE SCREEN-SHOT. IT'S FASCINATING DON'T MISS IT.

Wal-Mart Can Stop A Nuclear Iran (WEEKEND THREAD)

 

Well there's a title you don't read every day! What's the connection? Simple, tell China, that Wal-Mart will shift merchandise production to competing low-cost manufacturing countries, if it doesn't support a UNSC resolution, stopping Iran from going nuclear. After all, a nuclear Holocaust is also bad for business in China.

Make no mistake, Wal-Mart has that kind of purchasing power: Over 10% of all Chinese exports to the U.S. are bought by Wal-Mart, that's well over $20 billion.

"More than 70 per cent of the products sold at Wal-Mart are made in China. If Wal-Mart were a separate nation, it would rank as China’s fifth-largest export market, ahead of Germany and Britain."

The good news is, the threat would remain just that, for China would yield, we'd continue saving $100 billion each year and the Mullahcracy would have to abandon their expansionist ambitions, which they are planning to extort through nuclear blackmail. There was a time, when 'corporate' diplomacy supported the greater good.

Be that as it may, we know only too well, the time has passed when debating foreign policies was about observing facts on the ground or about calm analysis of actual events, and not about scoring ideological points.

The polarization between, what could ostensibly be called, 'pro-war' and 'anti-war' factions and their respective need of constant and forceful validation, whilst at the same time passionately deriding the opponent's stance, is but complete. Or so it would seem to an alien observer, oblivious to both fact and fiction.

Let's examine the latest political and diplomatic battlefield, unfolding before our very eyes over the Mullahcracy's determination to present the world with a nuclear Iran.

Bashing Israel Sells

 

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is first and foremost a businessman, so he is all too familiar with the concept of selling.

And what is the most important issue for the PM in Stockholm today? Yeah, it's to convince Ministers from more than 60 countries to donate as much money to Lebanon as possible. So, all depends on Siniora's impassioned sales pitch, doesn't it; getting into the 'customer's shoes', as it were.

Which leads us to the question of what Prime Minister Siniora believes to be the key 'buying-trigger' for his pitch; what he believes will most effectively promote his needy cause so as to wheedle the most donations out of today's captive audience of over 60 nations plus the officials from the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Red Cross.

Well, we have the answer: Relentless, unequivocal Israel bashing. I just listened to the live coverage of Siniora's disgraceful speech and couldn't believe my ears. This was worse than what Assistant-Thug-In-Chief Nasrallah could have come up with -- as soon as I locate the transcript, I'll add the link [updated with link below]

His diatribe against Israel put Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad's anti-Semitic tirades to shame. No mention of Hezbollah, no unprovoked murder of Israeli soldiers, no mention of the kidnappings, no Katushya rockets, no Israeli civilian deaths and displaced; nothing. As if it never occurred. 

Just Israel, who attacked on July 12 for the seventh time, killed over 1,000 innocent civilians, 1/3 of them children under the age of 12, destroyed homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, roads, bridges - all just civilian infrastructure to her promise to return Lebanon to the dark ages just when it had managed to show signs of recovery; repeatedly and deliberately violated international laws and human rights conventions; displaces over a million people, many of whom returned homeless; and on and on and on.

That, Siniora must have been certain, was what the international community wanted to hear; that is what the PM believes will yield the most sympathy and the most hard cash to be ferreted away.

Absolutely disgusting. However not disgusting enough for us not to pledge $230 mil.... despite Siniora categorically snubbing Israel, whilst the original disgracefully transparent blackmail design of a prisoner swap is back on the cards.

But then you know what, I think I must belong to a breed that is about to become extinct, because I think this is equally disgusting. Heh.

CAIR's Useful Idiots

'Personam non animum' from Henry Peacham's 'Minerva Britanna', 1612 Edition, London

 

The wise adage 'less is more' is really epitomized in my friend Glenn Reynold's take on the Mearsheimer/Walt outrage sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

MEARSHEIMER AND WALT:  Idiots, or anti-semites?

Do I have to choose?

Dana Milbank expertly conveys, (h/t Mac Brachman) that they are indeed both, idiots and anti-Semites, the latter of course being of no great surprise.

Apart from being a rabid anti-Semite with definite genocidal aspirations, you'd also have to be a complete idiot to believe, that the U.S., a free and democratic nation, could even for one moment allow itself to contemplate the genocidal sacrifice of another sovereign nation, in the vague and uncertain hope, to avert potential threats from terrorism - Jewish lobby or not. Because that is in a nutshell, what Mearsheimer/Walt are really advocating when they proclaim that the U.S. is facing "threat from terrorism because we have been so closely tied to Israel."

According to Milbank's report, the CAIR audience "chuckled" at this notion, which is an interesting point to debate. What caused the 'chuckles'?

Was it, as Milbank suggests, that CAIR members ridiculed the academic duo for being naive enough to promote such a singular argument - in an humorous way, naturally, as any propaganda against Israel is always most welcome news? Did the 'chuckles' perhaps reveal the kind of smug sense of superiority, which so often coexists with a much deeper understanding, in this case, the knowledge of Islam's global ambitions, than portrayed by the two useful idiots? Did the 'chuckles' perhaps express mild sneer for the extraordinary ignorance, with which the two useful idiots underestimate the need for the West to defend itself against the eagerly anticipated Islamic assault; for completely ignoring that for nearly 60 years, no other democratic nation in the world was, and increasingly is, facing the daily threat of complete destruction from all its neighbors?

Converting To Islam At Gunpoint Is Harmless

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

 

Omri Ceren is one of my favorite bloggers. His own blog Mere Rhetoric is a must read, and he also co-bloggs @ Joe Katzman's estimable Winds Of Change. Today he sent me an e-mail, as usual hitting at the core and hitting hard with his brilliant post "Just Because You Were Forced at Gunpoint to Convert To Islam Doesn't Mean You Were Harmed In Any Way". Watch out for Omri, he is the new shining star of the Blogosphere 

We know we said we were done for today, but really, these people have just lost it:

Two journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released unharmed today after being forced at gunpoint to say on a videotape that they had converted to Islam. The two journalists from Fox News - Steve Centanni, 60, an American reporter based in Washington, and Olaf Wiig, 36, a freelance cameraman from New Zealand - were held for 13 days in an abandoned garage in the Gaza Strip as hostages of a previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades.

You idiot! You total blistering idiot! Being forced to convert is a harm. It might be the oldest harm short of death - being forced to renounce your faith and your god. Millions of people - literally millions - have died rather than deign to utter words that would force them to give up their faith. No wonder liberal journalists are utterly baffled by fully half of the United States - they don't think having to give up your religion is harmful. We are beyond certain that if Muslim prisoners at Gitmo were forced to convert away from Islam as a condition of their release, the New York Times would not be putting the phrase "released unharmed" into their lede. Way beyond certain. There's a deeper explanation for how paragraphs like this can get written. It's not really bias, as much as it is the blind spots imposed by any ideology. And within that dynamic are questions about the degree of myopia and the room for self-reflection that particular ideologies allow. But don't worry about that right now. Just bask in the beauty of the phrase "forced at gunpoint to say... that they had converted to Islam... were released unharmed"

The liberals have replaced religion with politics, it's hardly surprising that they don't feel threatened by converting to Islam, after all politics is so all-defining and of such paramount importance to them that it defines who they are. Faithless is in, it's cool, it's liberating....into the abyss they go. But it is important for us to know that they are not afraid, that they are brave, that there is no imminent threat and that we are simply fear-mongering at best and bellicose at worst. Do we "need to return to the Iberian peninsula of the 14th and 15th century when the Inquisition forced conversion or the Herodian forced conversions that rent apart society for no purpose" to prove it? I sincerely hope not.

As I have now joined the elite ranks of anti-idiotarian bloggers who have been labeled "Nazis" for having the temerity to identify Islamofascists as the true heirs of the Third Reich, and a racist, a xenophobe, as well as of course an Islamophobe, for daring to be in favor of preserving our sovereignty, free of Shari'a oppression, and a bellicose Christian for having the audacity to advocate it vociferously, whilst still confirming my Christian beliefs, I feel the Democrats have now been uplifted to new dizzying heights of verbal lunacy as the elections approach and they desperately rummage around for scraps of policy to cling on to.

So now even keeping English as a unified language is racist. It seems like this verbal disease is spreading through the Democratic party, down from the very highest ranks, who have proven constitutionally incapable of reining in their superciliousness, and spreading the hyperbolic invectives through the ranks to the Democratic foot-soldiers, like a deadly virus. Have these people gone completely mad? According to my friend the gracious Neo-neocon, some time ago, anger is still in style on the left side of the world.

'Progressively' More Crazy

'Names' by Gilbert & George 2005, Private Collection

 

Have the so called self styled 'progressives' completely lost it? The only 'progress' they have made is one of falling into further psychotic 'Michael Moore clone' abyss: Russel Shaw of The Huffington Post wishes for another terrorist attack on the US to enforce a change of Administration. Eh?

What if another terror attack just before this fall’s elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

I start from the premise that there is already a substantial portion of the electorate that tends to vote GOP because they feel that Bush has “kept us safe,” and that the Republicans do a better job combating terrorism.

If an attack occurred just before the elections, I have to think that at least a few of the voters who persist in this “Bush has kept us safe” thinking would realize the fallacy they have been under.

If 5% of the “he’s kept us safe” revise their thinking enough to vote Democrat, well, then, the Dems could recapture the House and the Senate...

Hidden deep into the text is a false premise of "Even if only from the standpoint of a purely intellectual exercise in alternative future history..." unfortunately getting quickly unraveled by an all too obvious deep sense of wishful thinking on the part of the author.

(H/T my friend Michael van der Galien @ The Moderate Voice)

Jeff Medcalf deservedly tears Shaw from limb to limb. and delivers a powerful sock in the jaw to some previous attempts by the Democrats to play @ Administration:

Shaw also misses a larger point: it was the Clinton administration that turned Somalia into a war mission, instead of an aid mission, and the Clinton administration who launched wars in the Balkans when there was no US interest involved, and little possibility of stopping future violence. It was the Clinton administration that tried to get Israel to "lay back and take it" when under constant terrorist attacks, leading to the recent battles in Lebanon as well as far more terrorism than would have occurred if Israel had not relented on the occupation. It was Carter who let the Soviets invade Afghanistan without a meaningful response, and let the Iranians take American hostages with impunity. Frankly, I don't like our chances in military affairs with the Democrats in charge as a general rule. The party of Scoop Jackson and JFK died a lonely death in the rice paddies of SE Asia, and what's left of their spine is now in the Republican party.

Muslim Glory Predicates Apocalypse

 

Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad confirms it again:

If he ever became the supreme decision maker in his country, [Ahmadinejad] would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel," Giora Eiland, Israel's former national security adviser, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. [...]

The 49-year-old Iranian president, he said, "has a religious conviction that Israel's demise is essential to the restoration of Muslim glory, that the Zionist thorn in the heart of the Islamic nations must be removed. And he will pay almost any price to right the perceived historic wrong. If he becomes the supreme leader and has a nuclear capability, that's a real threat."

Maybe Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is secretly assuring China, that he can cover any Oil supply shortfalls once Iran fulfills its promise and consequently lies in ruins following the inevitable and equally devastating retaliatory nuclear strikes. Could be one reason why Chavez is so openly supportive of our Thug-In-Chief's genocidal cause. Nah, he's just backing whoever 'opposes' his capitalist arch-enemy, the United States of America. Pathetic really, especially as in the eyes of our Thug-In-Chief, he too is nothing but an Christian infidel, who either must convert to Islam or otherwise except Dhimmitude, namely second-class status under Sharia law.

Don't you just love it; first lure Israel into a false sense of security by calling for the need of a 'robust' force of up to 15,000 in order to get 1701 passed and implemented, only to do a complete u-turn: Even though we learn today that close to 7,000 European troops will be deployed, French President Jacques Chirac tells us that a level of 15,000 troops was "excessive'' and it made "no sense'' to have such a large contingent alongside the Lebanese army in the region. Go figure...

But why worry about enemies when you have friends like the French: 

In Danger Of Complicity

"Sisters of Mercy" by Peter Howson 1989, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

 

I love clear and concise summaries that accurately portray often highly complex situations. It would be a mistake to interpret this attraction as some kind of lack of attention or, far worse, lack of interest in the nitty-gritty of detail. Far from it, the most successful campaigns in virtually all aspects of our lives have been characterized by a concise and clear understanding and the effective communication of such summaries.

'Iran Hostage Crisis, Take 2', is exactly the kind of clear and concise summary which fascinates me:

If the U.S. backs down in Iraq, Tehran's mullahs will move in and take the Middle East captive.

If the antiwar crowd and Democrats have their way, the United States will be Iran's hostage once again. An immediate pullout from Iraq would be a victory for Iran, a regime that has declared its ambitions to wipe Israel off the map and establish a  caliphate throughout the Middle East. If we allow democracy to be defeated in Iraq, it will only get harder to release Iraq and perhaps the greater Middle East from the grip of its would-be rulers in Tehran.

Decades ago, the United States underestimated the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's appeal to the Iranian masses and his ability to convert the latent hostility to modernism into political clout. Khomeini overthrew the shah and took more than 50 Americans hostage, thus delivering a significant blow to U.S. prestige and clout in the Middle East.

Now the U.S. is underestimating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his willingness to use proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Muqtada Sadr in Iraq. In the short term, Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis are paying for this sneaky strategy with their lives, but in the long term, it is the United States that will suffer the most. [...]

Iraq is the crucial test of Iran's ambitions. [...]

It makes sense, therefore, that the first line of defense against Iran's ambitions is a stable, democratic Iraq, which would provide a formidable counterbalance to Iran. A pro-Western Iraq that develops its economic ties throughout the Middle East and beyond would compete over growing markets for oil with Iranian economic interests. More important, a democratic Iraq would be a long-sought beacon for the oppressed Shiites of the world, an alternative to the appeal of extremist Iran.

The U.S. military's presence in Iraq keeps Iran in check. An immediate pullout, as prescribed by antiwar liberals and demagogic Democrats, would leave Iraq to Iran — and to the likes of Al Qaeda. And that would be a hostage-taking far more harmful to the United States than the one that happened in Tehran nearly 30 years ago.

Contrast that against the intensifying rhetoric against Israel in the MSM, gradually paving the way for a time, when her existence may be questioned openly by so called respectable members of the chattering classes, always of course under the strictest pretext of wishing to earnestly explore ways to finally return peace to the Middle East. Poppycock...

The UN Staged Chicanery

 

UNSC Resolution 1701 proves to be nothing less than a deliberate and carefully orchestrated chicanery, even though the UK Telegraph Opinion leader only claims that 'UN forces fail Israel': "Whatever the Israeli commandos were doing in Baalbek - seeking to capture a Hizbollah leader or interdict arms shipments - their raid underlines the inadequacy of the Security Council's response to the crisis".

The outrage lives on in the comment section at the Telegraph, as we all come to terms with the fact, that we have been had by a bunch of underhanded UN delegates, who schemed corruption and political chicanery behind closed doors:

"It is breaking my heart that once again the world media and the UN are attacking Israel for doing exactly what EVERY government in EVERY country in the whole world is entitled to do - defend it's citizens!! What do they expect Israel to do? Just wait for another round of ball bearing (or worse) headed missiles to land on its women and children sent by these cowards.
When will the media and the UN recognize that Israel is in the vanguard for all of us.
We are all under attack by these ismlamo-fascists whether we want to acknowledge it or not."

"The major part of this problem is the French with their so-called initiative. The French met with Arab leaders in Damascus before meeting in the UN with the US John Bolton and in so doing compromised the resulting UN Resolution. Unfortunately, the US was too trusting of the French who once more displayed just how devious they are when their own self-interest is in play. Thus the fighting will resume just as soon as Hizbollah feels that it has been replenished by Iran and Syria."

"The Israel-Hezbollah situation is a plain as day: The UN will do what it does best: expensive little. The Islamist determination to destroy the Jewish State will persist. Israel will have to fight again."

The question now is however, will Assistant-Thug-In-Chief Nasrallah repeat Yasir Arafat's bungled coup to oust King Hussein in 1970, which lost him all but the certain rule over Jordan? Will Nasrallah overplay his hand or will he continue to cow the Siniora administration into submission and, with the help of Iranian petrodollars, take over Lebanon and create the next Mullahcracy, never of course taking his eyes of the ultimate goal, namely the annihilation of Israel?

The answer is an unfortunate no; Nasrallah would have studied Arafat's mistakes and learned from them. When you read the detailed account of the attempted coup led by Arafat and his PLO thugs in 1970 in 'Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography' by Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin (Oxford University Press, 2003), the resemblance to the current stand-off between Nasrallah's Hezbollah and the Lebanese Government is absolutely striking.

Apart from the U.S. and Britain's notable change of heart  in the region -- in 1970, Britain had refused to help their erstwhile ally, favoring Arafat over its old friend and assuming he would take over Jordan -- nothing much has changed. Appeasing the murdering thugs is still the going currency in most parts of the West and the clear understanding that "creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would block the conquest of all Palestine" ('Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography' page 40) still dictates all Arab policies to indefinitely prolong Palestinian suffering until their common goal of annihilating Israel is achieved.

Worse, the term 'appeasement' is mutating, as it ever more stands for thinly disguised anti-Zionism, thus increasingly turning a blind eye to the nearing atomic Holocaust, which no longer just a few fanatics, but now even 'respectable' UN delegates secretly believe to be the only solution to bring peace and quite to the Middle East and the Muslim world as a whole.

Topsy-Turvy Works

'The Fall Of The Rebellious Angels' by Frans Floris, 1554, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

 

I am so tired of the same old tactic simply to copy, parrot and plagiarize all and any criticism word for word so as to hurl it back at the critics with total impudence. Even worse though, is to see it work, as we are forced to witness every day all around us.

The Iranian Press Service provides a great summary of Arab voices condemning Hezbollah and Hamas for representing Iran's and Syria's genocidal interest both in Lebanon, the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. The language is clear, frank and substantiated.

Then follows the retort from Iran and Syria:

"This was a New Imperialist War [...] it is the American administration that is making the decisions in this war against Lebanon, while Israel only carries out its instructions."

"This imperialist war to which Lebanon and the [Muslim] nation are being subjected proves that these new imperialists do not respect the U.N. resolutions or the Convention on Human Rights... Their only goal is to divide our Arab region and carve it up into smaller and smaller [pieces] in order to implement their [plan for a] 'New Middle East'. [...] The disturbing question in this context is this: Will the [Muslim] nation wake up [in time] to defend its identity and honor before we all sink?..."

"[The actions of] targeting Lebanon, changing its face, and redrawing its map are merely another stage in the series of hasty, foolish and reckless actions taken by the neo-conservatives in the U.S. and by their ally Israel with the aim of suborning the region to their authority, defeating it, and breaking its will".

"It is the Bush administration that is running... this destructive and murderous war, which moves [from one country to another in the Middle East], while Olmert's government supplies the mechanism [for carrying it out]. [In light of] the failure of [the American] strategy in Iraq and its helplessness [there] after so many years... America [has decided] - in order to compensate itself and cover up [its failure]... - to expand the circle of fire and death by aiming all this criminal, blind hatred at Lebanon..."

"The war that is currently waging [in Lebanon], with its declared and undeclared goals, makes us more certain than ever that Israel and the U.S. are the forces behind the assassination of [former Lebanese prime minister] Rafiq Al-Hariri. The assassination was part of an unsuccessful attempt by the U.S. to enforce U.N. Resolution 1559. The aggression [we see] today began because Israel, as it turns out, is the only one who benefits from this resolution and from Al-Hariri's assassination.."

It's really quite pathetic, but most effective in a climate, where those, who seek to form an honest opinion based on a reasonable degree of truth and a reasonable degree of informed judgment, are few and far between.

Take the first quote for example and replace 'the American administration' with 'Iran' and 'Israel' with 'Hezbollah' and you are staring at the truth:

"This was a New Imperialist War [...] it is Iran that is making the decisions in this war against Lebanon, while Hezbollah only carries out its instructions."

UN's Fine Men Of Distinction

"Figure with Meat" by Francis Bacon 1954, Institute of Art in Chicago, Illinois

 

UPDATE: The New York Times features ATB on the Lakhdar Brahimi article page.

This won't take long. I will come right out and say it. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is definitely an anti-Zionist - my views on the UN's shameful record of deeply ingrained and widely spread, rabid anti-Semitism are of course well known.

He has to be if he choses special advisers like Lakhdar Brahimi, famous for his anti-Zionist views:

To state their beefs broadly, Brahimi's critics argue that he's an anti-Israel Arab nationalist and Saddam apologist. [...]

Brahimi told a French radio station last month, "There is no doubt that the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination … as well as the perception of all of the population in the region, and beyond, of the injustice of this policy and the equally unjust support … of the United States for this policy." When asked by ABC News about his comments, Brahimi didn't back down, saying, "I think there is unanimity in the Arab world, and indeed in much of the rest of the world, that the Israeli policy is wrong, that the Israeli policy is brutal, repressive, and that they are not interested in peace no matter what you seem to believe in America."

He has to be when he praises Brahimi as "one of the finest mediators and negotiators the United Nations has been privileged to call one of its own", and when he proudly claims that Brahimi "is one of our leading global citizens, whose wise counsel I rely on".

Now why this sudden re-emerging interest in Lakhdar Brahimi? Read today's New York Times Op-Ed penned by Brahimi and you know.

Israel’s need for security is real and legitimate, but it will not be secured in any sustainable way at the expense of the equally real and legitimate needs and aspirations of its neighbors.

And we know what those aspirations are: The Annihilation of the State of Israel, no less.

I was shaking with fury after reading Brahimi's Op-Ed. All the talk of Lebanese and Palestinian suffering and hardship, half of which were Hezbollah fighters in civilian clothing anyway, but not one mention of a single Katushya rocket, filled with ball-bearings and other goodies so as to inflict maximum human carnage, all aimed exclusively at Israeli civilians.

Instead of spreading his thinly varnished anti-Zionist mantra, which, given the true intentions and aspirations of the Arab world, is really inseparable from anti-Semitism, Brahimi ought to take a leaf out of his own book and listen to his past pearls of wisdom:

"But you've got to understand what the other guy is about, even if at the end of the process you decide that there is no ground with this man or woman except to fight them."

Who Is Émile Lahoud

 

A buffoon of the highest order, totally corrupt and a puppet figure for Assad's Syria, that's who he is.

This biographical quote is priceless:

According to The New York Times, Lahoud has a reputation for "lounging through most afternoons in his Speedos by the pool at the Yarze country club, reading Paris-Match magazine and holding a tanning mirror." The newspaper reported that Lahoud denied allegations that he went swimming on the day of Hariri's funeral. He told a group of journalists: "I swim every day — it's my workout — but on that specific day, I did not swim."

Well, not surprising, considering that he was the reason Rafik Hariri, the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation on 20 October 2004, was assassinated:

Hariri and others in the anti-Syrian opposition had questioned the plan to extend the term of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, emboldened by popular anger and civic action now being called Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution".

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a recent recruit of the anti-Syrian opposition, alleged in the wake of the assassination that in August 2004 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatened Hariri, saying "Lahoud is me. ... If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon." He was quoted as saying "When I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death." [...]

Mr. Hariri reminded Mr. Assad of his pledge not to seek an extension for Mr. Lahoud’s term, and Mr. Assad replied that there was a policy shift and that the decision was already taken. He added that Mr. Lahoud should be viewed as his personal representative in Lebanon and that “opposing him is tantamount to opposing Assad himself”. He then added that he (Mr. Assad) “would rather break Lebanon over the heads of [Mr.] Hariri and [Druze leader] Walid Jumblatt than see his word in Lebanon broken”.

Irish journalist Lara Marlowe with whom Hariri talked reported similar allegations. According to the testimonies, Mr. Assad then threatened both Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt with physical harm if they opposed the extension for Mr. Lahoud. The meeting reportedly lasted for ten minutes, and was the last time Mr. Hariri met with Mr. Assad. After that meeting, Mr. Hariri told his supporters that they had no other option but to support the extension for Mr. Lahoud. The Mission has also received accounts of further threats made to Mr. Hariri by security officials in case he abstained from voting in favor of the extension or “even thought of leaving the country”.

The Curse Of Success

"Moses and the Golden Calf" by Domenico Beccafumi 1536-37, Duomo, Pisa

 

My reader Mac Brachman points me to an interesting essay from Daniel Pipes, "How war is perceived has as much importance as how it actually is fought".

If Hezbollah manage to get away with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly reaching a deal allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons but refrain from exhibiting them in public, it may still be their biggest PR coup yet. Kofi Annan for his part is simply laying down playing his usual lame anti-Israel self, with the now additional self imposed amnesia taking hold, claiming that "dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN." Israel may beg to differ.

Pipes says that Western Governments "need to see public relations as part of their strategy"; that Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations like Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood clearly do.

This is undoubtedly true. But the part that struck me is that it shouldn't be so.

Pipes tackles this issue indirectly by suggesting that "when West fights non-West, the outcome on the battlefield is a given. That settled in advance, the fighting is seen more like a police raid than traditional warfare. As in a police raid, modern wars are judged by their legality, the duration of hostilities, the proportionality of force, the severity of casualties, and the extent of economic and environmental damage." He cites Paul Kennedy's timeless essay "The Greates Superpower Ever", which portrays the US military as the "only one player on the field that counts."

We comprise slightly less than 5 percent of the world's population; but we imbibe 27 percent of the world's annual oil production, create and consume nearly 30 percent of its Gross World Product and spend a full 40 percent of ALL the world's defense expenditures. As I have noted, the Pentagon's budget is nowadays roughly equal to the defense expenditures of the next nine or 10 highest defense-spending nations-which has never before happened in history.

Again, undoubtedly true. But in order to understand why our leaders and those, who still know right from wrong, should not have to sell basic moral principals to large segments of the population, we need to dig deeper, past the symptoms to the cause.

A Pivotal Moment In The History Of The Middle East

"The Raft of the Medusa" by Théodore Géricault 1818-19, Musée du Louvre, Paris

 

I want to share with you today important words of pristine clarity and reason. Furthermore, I shan't link to the source as yet, for I would like you to allow these words to live and breathe free from any association. For those of you who recognize it, please weigh in and discuss the content without mentioning the source.

Civilians in Lebanon and Israel have suffered from the current violence, and we recognize that responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah. It was an unprovoked attack by Hezbollah on Israel that started this conflict. Hezbollah terrorists targeted Israeli civilians with daily rocket attacks. Hezbollah terrorists used Lebanese civilians as human shields, sacrificing the innocent in an effort to protect themselves from Israeli response.

Responsibility for the suffering of the Lebanese people also lies with Hezbollah's state sponsors, Iran and Syria. The regime in Iran provides Hezbollah with financial support, weapons, and training. Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks.

Syria is another state sponsor of Hezbollah. Syria allows Iranian weapons to pass through its territory into Lebanon. Syria permits Hezbollah's leaders to operate out of Damascus and gives political support to Hezbollah's cause. Syria supports Hezbollah because it wants to undermine Lebanon's democratic government and regain its position of dominance in the country. That would be a great tragedy for the Lebanese people and for the cause of peace in the Middle East.

Hezbollah and its foreign sponsors also seek to undermine the prospects for peace in the Middle East. Hezbollah terrorists kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, Hamas kidnapped another Israeli soldier for a reason. Hezbollah and Hamas reject the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security. [...]

The conflict in Lebanon is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region. [...]

The Olmert Metamorphosis From Churchill To Chamberlain

 

Israel refuses to leave southern Lebanon until Lebanese forces and international forces can secure the border area. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah promised to fight as long as Israel remained in southern Lebanon. UN's Kofi Annan has confirmed the Lebanese PM Siniora to be the gofer running between Nasrallah for instructions and back to the French and Arab League patrons for approval. It's going to be a long hot summer...

Only history will tell, a decade from now, but the writing may already be on the wall.

At this moment in time it is evident that Israel's signature on the UNSC Resolution 1701 is celebrated as a clear victory by the UN appeasers and anti-Semite member states, diligently paving the way for Thug-In-Chief to fulfill his promise to wipe Israel off the face of the world.

We have also been told that "the US decision to seek a cease-fire was the result of Israel's amateurish bungling of the first three weeks of the war. The Bush administration, they argued, was being blamed for the Olmert government's incompetence and so preferred to cut its losses and sue for a cease-fire. There is no doubt much truth to this assertion.

The Israeli government's prosecution of this war has been unforgivably inept. At the same time it should be noted that the short-term political gain accrued by the US by forging the cease-fire agreement will come back to haunt the US, Israel and all forces fighting the forces of global jihad in the coming weeks and months.

By handing a victory to Hezbollah, the resolution strengthens the belief of millions of supporters of jihad throughout the world that their side is winning and that they should redouble efforts to achieve their objectives of destroying Israel and running the US out of the Middle East."

What is not entirely clear is why Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert chose to fashion himself after Chamberlain instead of Churchill only days into the conflict?

What the hell happened to the unconditional release of the kidnapped soldiers. We have in effect legalized Hezbollah's 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.

This is not what Israel had in mind; instead the nation was hoping for a strong leader and for this kind of speech (read the whole thing, it's powerful):

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.

Today, Binyamin Netanyahu is certainly getting ready to capitalize on the current mood of frustration and dispair over Israel's failed military mission only moments after Olmert took full responsibility for having tied both hands behind IDF's back during the past 4 weeks.

Remember, We Won The War (UPDATED)

 

Eventually....

It just took us a lot longer and left millions more dead.

It started the Cold War, which, some 40 years later, we won too.

It paved the way for the Marshall Plan, which critically led to the transformation of an entirely new Europe in the form of the European Union (EU), made up of currently 25 independent states based on the European Economic Communities (EEC), practically without borders, complete with common currency, Central Bank and an European Parliament, which supervises the European Commission (EC). Simply unimaginable at the end of WWII.

It caused the Japanese to realize that US-pioneered capitalism was the way to go following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, giving us today the second largest, entirely peace-loving and democratic economy after our own.

Fast forward....

Only by looking at the bigger picture in this wider historical context am I able to fight the heavy heart with which I must accept that the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 has handed Hezbollah and its state sponsor Iran and Syria a "near-total victory". [you must read the entire piece by Caroline Glick, it's brilliant]

...and an unprecedented defeat for Israel and its ally the United States. [...] in practice it makes it all but impossible for Israel to defend itself against Hizbullah aggression without being exposed to international condemnation on an unprecedented scale.[...] By empowering Annan to evaluate compliance, the resolution all but ensures that Hizbullah will not be forced to disarm and that Israel will be forced to give up the right to defend itself. [...] the resolution rewards Hizbullah's aggression by giving international legitimacy to its demand for territorial aggrandizement via acts of aggression, in contravention of the laws of nations.[...] Moreover, by allowing Lebanon to make territorial claims on Israel despite the fact that in 2000 the UN determined that Israel had withdrawn to the international border, the resolution sets a catastrophic precedent for the future.[...] the Palestinians, Syrians and indeed the Jordanians and Egyptians will feel empowered to employ aggression to gain territorial concessions from the Jewish state even if they previously signed treaties of peace with Israel. The message of the resolution's stand on Shaba Farms is that Israel can never expect for the world to recognize any of its borders as final.[...] the resolution treats as equivalent Hizbullah's illegal aggression against Israel and Israel's legitimate military actions taken in defense of its sovereign territory.[...]