Coming soon to a family member near you.

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.

In every case, the people who suffer [from terrorism] most are absolutely incidental. Innocence only plays into the hands of terrorists; they want innocent people because it improves their script. All terrorist victims, in Beslan, London, Iraq, everywhere... the people who die and lose their limbs, the children who are ripped apart, have absolutely no say. It's absolutely random and it's terrifying.

Kevin Sim, the director of "Dispatches: Beslan" documentary film on Scottish tv.

My son was under me and when my blood began to drip on him he screamed, 'Mummy! Mummy!'. I didn't want him to see me bleed. I didn't want this to be fixed in his memory. So I automatically raised my hand to hide my face, and I felt with the tips of my fingers that the bone was sticking out. That's the last thing I remember.

A mother who was inside the Beslan school during the terrorist incident 9/1/04 in N. Ossetia, Russia.

What exactly happened remains unclear: the first explosion seems to have been accidental, but the others weren't, and the armed local volunteer militia who were standing around, many of whom had children in the school, may have stormed the building regardless - followed by the army, who brought in helicopter gunships and a tank. After a terse phone message - "Best regards to Putin. Allahu Akbar" - the terrorists started firing back. . . .

* * * *

Yet Shamil Basaeyev, the Chechen rebel leader regarded as the mastermind behind the Beslan event, as well as the Moscow theatre atrocity, has promised more such raids. "They are not expensive," he has said. "Beslan cost only €8,000 (£5,587)."

"A picture of terror." By Jim Gilchrist, The Scotsman, 7/21/05(all emphasis added).

Summary:

• Muslim terrorists.
• Muslim terrorist trademark exclamation "Allahu Akbar" -- Allah is great! -- followed as the night the day by depraved acts.
• Slaughter, maiming of children, other innocents.
• Unimaginable grief courtesy the ROP™.

Q: Does anybody now care in the least what the grievances of these bottom feeders are?
A: Hell heck no.

Q: Is it a question of avenging grievances?
A: No.

Q: Is it part of a brutal campaign to achieve domination over infidels everywhere?
A: Unh huh.

Q: What kind of a god do these primate wannabes think is watching them that would rejoice in the cold-blooded murder of women and children?
A: Some kind of malevelolent demon.

The Colonel has to confess it would be a lot different moral calculus if those were armed women and children. Probably, that's what the Freedom Fighters were expecting -- stiff resistance from the kids.

But unarmed women and children is just a bit tooooo much. Bottom line.

The Gift of State Terror.

Gift to Japan.

Japan suffered from radical politics prior to WWII. Any voice of reason was cut down or scared away from public life, leaving only the militarists to decide its fate.

Once out of Japan, the Imperial Army behaved without moral restraint, indulging in mass rape and executions, cannibalism,^[1][2] human biological experimentation (Unit 731),^[3] mistreatment of prisoners, and inculcating

Australian Sergeant Leonard G. Siffleet New Guinea 1943.
(Source: note 2.)

in Japanese troops the duty to fight to the death. American and Australian troops quickly adapted to the realities of battle with Japanese infantry and obliged them by the thousands in their desire to die pointlessly.^[4] It really wasn't a big deal to adapt.

Japanese assassination politics benefited some in Japan in the short term. Eventually, they led to the earnest, systematic, and and ferocious retribution provided courtesy of Curtis LeMay and Paul Tibbets.^[5]

In Osama bin Ladin's case he was riding high for a few weeks before he ended up taking up permanent quarters in caves and nasty hovels, now ever captive to the twists and turns of primitive tribal political calculations. Make no mistake, whether by inevitable betrayal or military or police success, his fate parallels that of the Japanese fanatics.

A few Islamic terrorists may score marginal successes here and there in the West. Should they ever cause any catastrophic damage, however, those who live in the country of origin of the attackers will envy those who lived in the Japanese cityscape depicted at the top.

As infuriating as 9/11 was, it still didn't do much really to inflame the majority of Americans. The tidal wave of bumper stickers that followed were insipid, to say the least. "United We Stand." Whoa! When do we march? Well, on Tastee Freeze, week after next, maybe, but not any time soon to any recruiting station.

Oh, where oh where is the Great Disdainer, Sam Kinnison, now in our hour of need?

"Beware the Great Satan," "Stay tuned for the invasion nearest you" or "Now that we got an invitation, we'll be sure to drop by soon for a visit" are more the Colonel's style in bumper stickers. Perhaps, if the sad reality of hundreds of people in the Towers jumping to their deaths had been photographed and broadcast without censorship the outrage would have been greater and less transient. Visually, for the most part, it was an astounding architectural event. The real human losses were obscured from view. Fortunately, the cell phone conversations with the other planes could not be downplayed.

Beeee thattttt as itttt mayyyy, another such strike, or a worse one, will positively end debate on the goals of U.S. foreign policy (hint: white hot revenge), leaving dispute only over the "how" of our retribution. The orchestrators of the kiddie bombers and the occasional pinprick here and there really ought to think this deal through.

And may God bless and keep Sergeant Leonard G. Siffleet and his loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. He took a horrible death like a man and we owe him better than what we are doing now.

Notes
^[1] The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes. By Edward Frederick Langley Russell Russell of Liverpool, Lord, C. B. E., M. C. Russell.
^[2] Murder and Cannibalism on the Kokoda Track. In Japanese War Crimes. By James Bowen, Pacific War Historical Society,
^[3] UNIT 731. Human Logs Light Military Research Fires. By David Guyatt, 1997.
^[4] Touched with Fire: the Land War in the South Pacific, By Eric M. Bergerud, 1996.
^[5] From statement by Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets (USAF, retired) at the Airmen Memorial Museum, June 8, 1994:

Most writers have looked to the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to find answers for the use of those atomic weapons. The real answers lay in thousands of graves from Pearl Harbor around the world to Normandy and back again.

That ol' narcissistic assertion of entitlement.

The inestimable Patrick al-Kafir (Clarity & Resolve) has been let loose to post again, with excellent results in elucidating

• the near impossibility of Islamic reform from within and
• Western governmental pussilanimity.

This crafty kafir is supplying the clarity, dear friends.

It's up to us to provide the resolve. Alas, I'm not sure we're up to it, given the lock that the mewling pantywaists have on academia and the fact that the populace doesn't rise up en masse over even that happy nonsense.

I'm not sure what would get the mass of citizens into the streets. A cartoonist in Hong Kong had a clever strip about pre-turnover Hong Kong. No political depredation whatsoever even registers on the cartoon character's radar scope, but he goes ballistic when he reads about the possible banning of horse racing!

I have a feeling that banning NASCAR or Monday Night Football are the U.S. equivalents.

We're not much above flat lined, amici. Our dear compatriots were drawn to nonentities like President George H.W. Bush and John Kerry. Rampant self-authorized immigration floods the country with only the faintest, feeble peeps of protest. One of our recent posts relates to the cultural decline evidenced in the celebration and recent presidential candidacy (so help me God) of the "Rev." (so help me God) Al Sharpton, charlatan and liar, who, by emergency constitutional amendment, should be permanently restricted to minimum-wage work cleaning cages at animal shelters owned by "white interlopers."

We can't seem to raise the volume high enough on our respective cable boxes to recognize mediocrity and sleeze when it's right before our eyes. Even 9/11 wasn't enough to keep the general anger level at "seethe" or above. (It does, however, seem to provide the necessary "X" factor that keeps the nation basically behind the President's policies. That we grant.)

Beyond that, the Colonel thinks there might be a fatal national and civilizational preference for barbeque, Fourth of July sparklers, vanilla ice cream, and puppies over reaching for Old Betsy top the fireplace. The fact that there are some people in the world who are desperately in need of an ass whipping doesn't seem ever to make it into routine national debate. ("Oh, that. What was I thinking? Of course. Thanks for reminding me, man. For a moment there I was thinking we needed to have a meeting at Camp David.")

Maybe the Pajama Janissaries will be like Paul Revere and save the day. Recent Australian governmental horse sense is cause for celebration. Ditto watered down British sheikh shipping ("When you absolutely, positively must return to your desert of origin.").

But with even my current most favorite president talking about the freaking ROP (gak!), it's not encouraging overall.

No, it isn't.

Cheery defense factoids.

Quote #1:

North Korea is deploying new land- and sea-based ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and may have sufficient range to hit the United States. Communist Korea had acquired the know-how during the 1990s from Russian missile specialists and by buying 12 former Soviet submarines which had been sold for scrap metal but retained key elements of their missile launch systems, Jane's Defence Weekly said Wednesday.

Quote #2:

The USAF is going to replace 2,000 F-15s and F-16s with 200 F-22s.

That's right, 200.

U.S. Army/Air Force Aviation Journal, 9/04.

"Peak Oil."

"Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon."

Welllll . . . maybe in a month or two.

. . . [N]othing fundamental has changed in the oil outlook in the last decade.

Freakonomics <--- Greenie Watch.

Easter Island -- What REALLY happened.

Of all the vanished civilisations, no other has evoked as much bafflement, incredulity and conjecture as the Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). This tiny patch of land was discovered by European explorers more than three hundred years ago amidst the vast space that is the South Pacific Ocean. Its civilisation attained a level of social complexity that gave rise to one of the most advanced cultures and technological feats of Neolithic societies anywhere in the world. Easter Island's stone-working skills and proficiency were far superior to any other Polynesian culture, as was its unique writing system. This most extraordinary society developed, flourished and persisted for perhaps more than one thousand years - before it collapsed and became all but extinct.

Why did this exceptional civilisation crumble? What drove its population to extinction?^[1]

Hint: right wing, fundamentalist, Christian, trailer trashs.

Notes
^[1] "From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui." By Benny Peiser <--- John Ray, Greenie Watch, 8/29/05. Check out Mr. Ray's excellent blog Dissecting Leftism. He has several.

Slow news day.

F-bomb dropped on Fox's Shepard Smith.
Hurricane hostage uses obscene word in Katrina coverage.

From: WorldNetDaily.

Anti-Chavez Demonstrations.

A little visual reminder of what the far (fascist) left likes to do. See photo at source above.

You know, people everywhere want to be free. It's innate.

No one likes to have the jackboot breaking their teeth.

But the Left never tires of painting Castro and the other fascists as heroes. Pinochet rates a "666" rating, even though the Left offloaded tons of arms and ammunition into Chile and made an attempt on his life that killed some of his bodyguards. For acting like he had a right to be mildly pissed off about this, he makes it into the Munster Mansion a la Môde Gauche for all eternity.

The gentleman in our referenced photo is just a mild example of what the Left had in mind in Chile if it had gotten as far as Chavez has in Venezuela. And it will get worse in Venezuela.

It would be nice if Leftists could be held to account one day. Say, being chained to a tree in Minnesota in the summer in their underwear and being forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh radio program rebroadcasts.

The Colonel would consider it an honor to check out with the sounds of the EIB Network ringing in his ears. Minus the part about the forest in Minnesota, of course, for our life has been free of sin. But it sure would be great to be there to see the Left get a rush from Rush.

From: Cheat-Seeking Missile.

Btw, did you know that Max Eastman characterized Nazis and Communists as Black Fascists and Red Fascists, respectively? In other words, stand them together and you couldn't, in Bill Buckley's great formulation, run a length of dental floss down the gap between them.

Symptoms of decay.

As just one example, think of Al Sharpton. When, after the Tawana Brawley affair in the late 1980s, Sharpton did not become persona non grata for his vicious lies that had been exposed but instead became a major political celebrity in this country, that was one of the things that signaled to me that our civilization had died. It might still exist physically and be very successful materially, but spiritually it had died and would soon die physically as well.

"Seeing the truth of what has happened to America." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 11/25/00.

Great moments in scurrilous politics - II: Bush lied.

Never let it be said that the extreme Left/Socialists are fair.

As anyone knows who paid even slight attention to the public debate prior to the successful invasion and counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq of Coalition forces, Hussein had a clear history of dabbling in exotic weaponry and employing it, in the case of the gas killings of the Kurds in Iraq.

The issue of Niger yellowcake was a limited one as cursory textual analysis shows. The important point being made by the U.S. administration was that Hussein had played an endless game about allowing an accurate assessment of his pursuits and capabilities to be made.

Allowing this active and determined deception to continue unpunished was clearly a dangerous option, particularly when it was not the Soviets with whom we were dealing (bad as they were for other reasons) but a human throwback to the Plasticene era. What Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV would find out about purchase of yellowcake in Niger had little potential to add to or detract from these facts. Niger yellowcake was not the sine qua non (the eggs in the scrambled eggs, for the guys at Texas Tech) of the President's justification for going in.

With this modest precis (précis for the ladies at Bryn Mawr) of the lead up to the war in mind (drafted with, as it were, one-half my brain tied behind my back™), consider the following -- about President Clinton's nightmares -- so that you can understand that this problem posed by Hussein was one that already had some whiskers on it by the time it reached Pres. Bush:

These [biological] weapons were, after all, what Secretary of State Colin Powell years earlier proclaimed to be the most worrisome of all. And in January 1999, President Clinton confessed to two New York Times reporters, Judith Miller and William Broad, that the thought of a biological attack "keeps me awake at night." Not even nuclear or chemical weapons were as frightening as germ warfare, he told the reporters. Nuclear and chemical arms are "finite," he said. But someone infected with a contagious biological agent could continue to infect others--a "gift that keeps giving," as the president put it.

* * * *

Further into the book, the authors describe the gradual and painful U.S. enlightenment about illegal Iraqi and Soviet germ-related activities. By the end of the 1980s, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had secretly developed a formidable germ arsenal and American intelligence had no notion of its extent. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, military commanders were frenzied about how to protect their troops from a danger whose dimensions they did not fully understand.

* * * *

As the breadth of the Soviet program became clear, U.S. officials were dismayed to find themselves on another surprise learning curve. After the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq had agreed to give United Nations inspectors a full accounting of its germ-weapons program. From the outset, however, the Iraqis lied and obfuscated. Only in 1995, when Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan, did the inspectors realize how massive the cover-up was. Kamel had been in charge of the program, and his defection prompted the Iraqis to acknowledge much that they had previously denied. They claimed sudden discovery of hidden documents confirming earlier production of thousands of gallons of anthrax and botulinum toxin. They acknowledged development of bombs and missile warheads to deliver them. But the Iraqis continued to block United Nations inspectors from visiting certain locations and in 1998 prohibited further inspections of any kind. Many experts believe the Iraqis [c. 11/01] are rebuilding their germ arsenals.

"Pox Americana." By Leonard A. Cole, The American Prospect, 11/5/01. Review of Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad.

Considering the above, the extreme Left's attempt to discredit the president was scurrilous and a mark of its desperation to find a political theme that would allow it to gain some traction as a credible opposition.

The smart set’s ultimate concern is not national security but whether President Bush can make a speech without a dangling modifier in it or goes to bed at night without a Halliburton teddy bear.

Granted, nothing was ever dangling during the Clinton years, and we do have Mr. Clinton to thank for the consummate policy formulation and execution that (1) entrenched the Islamofascists in the Balkans and (2) gave the Europeans the option to bow out gracefully from dealing with a problem practically begging for the direct expenditure of European blood, treasure, and political capital.

Nope. It just had to be those crass GIs again who got the job done. (If "blood for oil" is a slogan that captures your imagination, consider the purposes for which American blood was put at risk in our Balkan venture.)

And while Mr. Clinton rearranged several tons of sand with a couple of $10,000,000 cruise missiles directed at Osama and his camel troopers, Mr. Bush has, with courage and common sense, focused in the real problem in Iraq, leaving it to Al Jazeera and Harvard to deal with the split infinitives.

The real problem is that we stand today where we stood in 1920 in Russia, 1949 in China, 1979 in Iran, and 1991 in Iraq – within spitting distance of permanently dealing with various certifiables who went on from military and political weakness to cause suffering and death on a scale impossible to predict and difficult even now in hindsight to grasp. We owe it to the 100,000.000 innocents who were fed to the toves and Bandersnatches to implement what we should have learned about not applying the horsewhip in a vigorous and timely fashion.

The Left is wont to decry the fall of every sparrow (when it suits them to indulge in that skewed compassion that is their hallmark -- "Welfare for the poor but poverty courtesy us guys.").

No family ever wants its offspring to be the ones to fall, but the choice is not that none shall fall if only a humane, non-ethnocentric, inclusive, esteem-building policy can be implemented. The choice is between a smaller loss of some now versus the loss of millions and civilization itself later.

Perhaps WWI was the last war of the modern age where it probably didn't matter that much if any side had prevailed. There was civilization on all sides. Since then, it made a very big difference who prevailed and for the Islamicists to prevail the world would be plunged back into a barbarism and a degree of ignorance made more detestable for its inability to know the true meaning of ignorance.

No soldier wants to be part of a force expended to achieve a greater strategic goal. But all soldiers must pray for generals who will do what it has been historically proven necessary to do to achieve a decisive victory.

We are at a time when we must lift up such men.

Florida beach January.

Beloved kinsmen.

Beslan's aftermath.

Is it conceivable that this Russian mother would celebrate her son's becoming a suicide bomber? No. It's utterly inconceivable.

But Arab mothers celebrate a child's becoming a bomber and honor the swine who put them up to it. In Iran, the military have organized a special unit to recruit the sons of Persian mothers.

Millions for symbolism. Not a penny for a real fight.

Possibly closest thing to actual Arab destruction of Israeli tank since 1967 war.

All that Hamas effort to build a paper tank so all onlooking "Palestinians" can feel good about . . . . well, burning a paper model of an Israeli tank.

Arafat's 1973 murder of U.S. diplomats in Sudan.

Covered up by Congress and Executive.

"American diplomats murdered by Arafat? 30 years later, 'smoking gun' still hidden by U.S, says ex-NSA op." By Art Moore, 3/2/03.

Naughty boy.

"The events of the past week have made it necessary to announce it. It has been announced now so that all the people of Iraq understand that Muqtada al-Sadr is not a hero, a great religious leader or a man of peace, but a criminal and a thief."

U/I "legal adviser to the US-led occupation"

Arrest warrant in Iraq issued August 2003 for Iraqi Shia religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr.

• Accused of: April 2003 "assassination of Abd al-Majid al-Khoei, stabbed to death in the central Shia city of Najaf, along with two other people."
• Accused of: stealing donations to mosques and shrines from worshippers "worth a few hundred dollars."
• Wanted for questioning: "deaths four months ago of three people, including a pregnant woman."

"US charge list against al-Sadr grows." Aljazeera.Net, 4/7/04.

Other idiosyncracies:

• Attacks: Ordered attacks on Coalition forces in Iraq.
• Attacks: Ordered attack on "supporters of moderate Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani."
• Damage to religious site: Imam Al-Mahdi Army (outlawed as of 2004) caused battle damage at Imam Ali shrine in Al-Najaf (the, er . . . "holy" city of Najaf).
• Use of thugs: Recruited most of his Imam Al-Mahdi Army from criminals whom "Saddam released from prison weeks before the March 2003 invasion."
• Pursuit of revenge, use of torture: Imam Al-Mahdi Army occupied a court building in which Iraqi police found bodies of people "taken by the Moqtada militia for speaking out against Moqtada al Sadr." Some of the prisoners had eyes and ears drilled out and others had their limbs and heads cut off. Some males had genitals cut off and shoved in their mouths. There was evidence of rape to men, women and children."
• Control by/cooperation with terrorists: Receives aid from Iranian Revolutionary Guard and terrorists in Hezbollah.
• Rabble rousing: Ran newspaper that called for killing of al-Sadr opponents.
• Mental illness: Wraps self in a white funeral shroud meaning -- are you ready for this? -- that he . . . is . . . ready . . . for . . . death. (Talk about the road less traveled!)

This post is a bit disjointed. But from it the Colonel hopes that the themes of murder, hypocrisy, theft,

Un-rival.

terrorism, and treason shine brightly through.

We always especially love the drone about the holy city of this or that, or the holy shrine of the Grand Woofti of Possum Flats. That's for foreign consumption. But if the need arises to mount an armed attack on or in a mosque, well, it's just never a problem.

Finally, note that this gent is (1) a religious leader, a cleric, third highest possible rank in the Shia religious hierarchy, and (2) allied with, beholden to, or actively cooperating with the worst of the Iranians. Some religion.

Post screech (PS) -- The Iranians want nuclear weapons, did you hear? Sure. Let's suck our collective thumbs till that happens. Shirley, even we in our present significant yearning for a risk-free, compassionate, all-caring daddy government are not so stupid as to fail to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to make sure they never get them.

Cultural differences.

From: Sacred Cow Burgers.

Again with the beetled brows, already!

ROPMA

From: Sacred Cow Burgers.

One of the greats.

From: Sacred Cow Burgers.

Truth in advertising applied to protestors.

From: Sacred Cow Burgers.

Two, now four, corruptions of free society.

The fundamental truth of capitalism is that you get what you want by providing what someone else wants, and he gets what he wants by providing what you want.

It's a system built on serving the needs of others.

But yes, there are some people who believe that they are sufficiently privileged that others should supply them with what the want, without the burden of providing anything of value in exchange. And there are a few who are so enamoured of their own intellect that they are convinced that they are better suited to determine what we need than we are.

Most of them are children. Some are adults who never grew up.

Neither have arguments that are worth listening to.

Jeff Dege commenting on Bjorn Staerk's interesting "Pro-democracy, anti-politician" provided the above excellent insights.

According to his (correct) view, in a democratic capitalist system the system functions best when everyone gets what they want by providing something of value that others want. Two unfortunate exceptions are:

1. opt-out parasites: citizens who determine that they are not responsible for providing their share in this complex balance of energies and desires (welfare state/socialist clients); and
2. elites who pursue political power for its own sake and justify it by dishonest or sick pursuit of socialist or communist goals.

These two groups work together and constitute a sad pathology in an essentially fair and productive system, socialism and communism being, of course, theft-justifying and power-centralizing systems.

The new addition to this pathology is gooneybird Islam, which has been imported willingly into the western body politic -- ironically by the aforementioned elites who are indifferent to, or lack basic understanding of, the intricate balance and moral underpinning of free societies.

Thus, we have a voluntarily acquired a new subset of the deranged elite whose lodestone is not the familiar western historical revolutionary effluent but the impenetrable pre-medieval puerilities and ambiguities of the Koran and sharia.

Gooneybird Islam and the nuttiness of the besotted multiculturalists and levelers have now added to (1) the pathology of wannabe socialists and communists (and their nonparticipating clients), (2) the oozings of rigid and changeless 7th-century misogynistic desert tribal society allied with a rapidly growing and restive rejectionist western-resident subpopulation.

It would be nice to think that those who bear responsibility for this fouling of their own nest (which includes the enormous death toll of the last century justifiably laid at their feet) would be permanently denied their tofu and free range chickens or, even, have their pony tails summarily cut off by roaming patrols of senior citizen combat vets.

It really would.

Green.

White.

Pink.

Manifesto for the 21st century.

Got backbone.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law have been told to get out of Australia.

A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.

Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament.

"If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television.

"I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false.

"If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to

Not amused.

go to another country which practises it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked move to the other country.

Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off".

"Basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off," he said.

Muslim schools will have to denounce terrorism as part of an effort to stamp out home-grown extremism under measures announced after Howard's meeting with 14 Islamic leaders Tuesday.

The prime minister called the meeting in the wake of last month's London bombings by British-born Muslims, amid fears that Australia could be the target of a similar attack by disaffected members of its small Muslim community.

"The purpose of the meeting was to identify ways of preventing the emergence of any terrorist behaviour in this country," Howard told commercial radio Wednesday.

"You won't change the minds of people who are hardened fanatics and hardened extremists. You have to identify them and take measures to ensure that they don't become a problem."

Asked if he was prepared to "get inside" mosques and schools to ensure there was no support for terrorism, Howard said: "Yes, to the extent necessary".

(Emphasis added.)

What else does anyone need to say?

Let's get down on our knees and thank God for Westerners with courage to tell it like it is.

From: LGF.

The one-time supreme religious leader of Iran's thoughts on sodomizing infants.

From Khomeini's book, "Tahrirolvasyleh", fourth volume, Darol Elm, Gom, Iran, 1990 :

A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However he should not penetrate, sodomising the child is OK. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the [girl's] sister.

Dr. Homa Darabi Foundation.

Ten-second analysis: sexual indulgence on the part of an adult male with an infant is ok -- sodomy but no penetration. However, if you happen not to have heard what the Great Khomeini just got through saying about "no penetration" it's no big deal. You just have to take care of the "subsistence" of this infant female for the rest of her life. But only if you damage her.

If you don't, well, then drop trou and sodomize and fondle away, Bro.

But, even if you do damage the child and have to take care of her, never fear, pardner. The only cost to you will be her subsistence (it's not, like, a criminal offense).

Sodomy, good;
adultery, death.

 Not a thing will subsequently get in your way of marrying and having four wives. And the kid you split open doesn't have to be one of the four! Dude, is this a great religion, or what?

Oops. Sorry. We forgot. Biiiiig penalty: sodomizing and injuring a child prevents you from marrying her sister. Depression City.

It's really amazing. This guy was the religious leader who ran Iran till he died and this is the kind of pathetic drivel that he came up with. Now keep this in mind and recall our earlier post about the religious leader who announced that the earth is flat but whom the Saudis made the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia.

In Iran you have moral bankruptcy. In Saudi Arabia you have intellectual bankruptcy.

Why Islam can never permit a critical tradition.

One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred . . . [yada, yada yada].

Apostates of Islam.

RTWT.

No wonder the mufitis, mullahs, and maestros of Islam are so hyper about any criticism of the Prophet or of themselves. Imagine if just the basics of Mohammed's life were discussed without the threat of being beheaded, having one's throat slashed, being hanged, or being stabbed. Discussion of Mohammed is limited to slavish veneration in the best tradition of servile Soviet practice under Stalin. (If you doubt this, kindly call to mind Khomeini's fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie.)

Patrick al-Kafir at Clarity and Resolve (see Blogs of Excellence on sidebar) says the options are pretty much (1) praise or (2) fawning deference. Man, only children put up with that kind of a "choice."

The implications are stupefying. Men are so feeble minded and is so perennially on the very knife edge of sexual excitability that they must be shielded from women's tresses, ankles, lips, eyes, wrists, arms, or knees. Yet these weak, fallible men are the ones who recorded the Koran and the Sunnah and there's no whisper that they might have gotten it wrong in ANY respect. Every semicolon and diacritical mark is just EXACTLY as it fell from the Prophet's lips. The passage of a century or two did not dim the memories or powers of transmission of anyone involved in the chain of evidence upon which the doctrinal body of Islam rests.

And at the pinochle of it all is human perfection itself, He and Him, dispensing judgments of unquestioned coherence, consistency, and logic. (The principle logic being, of course, that Allah always revealed whatever it was that was necessary for Mohammed to indulge himself.) The least bit of critical examination of what Mohammed actually did should be enough to make any sane person doubt that Mohammed could have an iota of moral authority.

But Islam requires absolute fidelity to the concept of the perfection of the Prophet and it is no wonder that the ummah must be kept cowed, silent, and servile for any intimation of the exercise of independent critical examination of the tenets and practices of Islam is a frightful danger to its extraordinarily rigid structure.

Thus, in essence, Islam requires servility and uncritical acceptance of the most laughable of human conceits, human perfection.

Christian wacko suicide bombings.

• Lebanon (1981)
• Kuwait (1983)
• Argentina (1992)
• Panama (1994)
• Israel (1994)
• "Palestine" (1994)
• Pakistan (1995)
• Croatia (1995)
• Saudi Arabia (1996)
• Tanzania (1998)
• Kenya (1998)
• Yemen (2000)
• Chechnya (2000)
• USA (2001)
• Kashmir (2001)
• Afghanistan (2001)
• Tunisia (2002)
• Indonesia (2002)
• Algeria (2002)
• Morocco (2003)
• Russia (2003)
• India (2003)
• Iraq (2003)
• Turkey (2003)
• Uzbekistan (2004)
• Spain (2004)
• United Kingdom (2005) ("possibly"?)

Actually, . . . it was Buddhist fanatics intent on randomly killing various complete strangers because of China's illegal occupation of Tibet.

From: Daniel Pipes <-- "Landmark Islamic Ruling Unequivocally Condemns Suicide Bombings." The Hijacked Caravan, Ihsanic Intelligence, 7/10/05.

Synopsis of the U.N.

From: Sacred Cow Burgers.

Makes you think - I.

They are taught to be great neighbors and obey the laws of the countries in which they reside until they are called up," the man is quoted as saying. "Then, they will slice your throats as easily as they came to your barbeques.

Muslim responding to question whether Muslims in the U.S. can be trusted.

HOMELAND INSECURITY. Symposium on Islamic terror resisted. Organizer finds opposition to event from politicians, media, bank." By Ron Strom, WorldNetDaily, 8/16/05 (emphasis added).

Practical Sharia - IX.

Video of Iranian execution by stoning. Gruesome, but educational.

From: The People's Truth Forum.

Honor killings.

The rich, educated and seemingly western-oriented men are in to it as well.

The cancer is alive and well in Jordan, presumably one of the better places in the Arab world.

RTWT: Honor Killings, Up Close and Personal. Terrorism Unveiled, 11/30/04.

Practical Sharia - VIII.

Punishment for adultery, Iran.

Guess what they are about to do.

Picture from Atlas Shrugs.

Question [#14312]:

Is it permissible to execute a married adulterer by some method other than stoning, such as killing him with a sword or by shooting him?. [sic]

Answer :

Praise be to Allaah.

It is essential to stone the married adulterer until he dies, following the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), as it is proven that he said that, did it and enjoined it. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) stoned Maa’iz, the Juhani woman, the Ghaamidi woman, and the two Jews. All of that is proven in saheeh ahaadeeth narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

* * * *

Based on this, it is not permissible to replace stoning with killing by the sword or shooting, because stoning is a more severe punishment and a more effective deterrent to the sin of zina, which is the most grave sin after shirk and killing a soul whom Allaah has forbidden us to kill. The hadd punishment of stoning for a married person who commits zina is one of the matters that is determined by the Qur’aan and Sunnah and there is no room for ijtihaad or personal opinion.

Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah, 22/48-49. (http://www.islam-qa.com/)

Islam Q & A (emphasis added).

There it is, Pilgrims. Authoritative guidance on how to dispatch Mrs. Faruk and Mr. Sayid.

I hated it so when things were up in the air and all. Man alive, this is a one religion to die for.

It's pretty rich when you think about it. The man who started all this stoning for adultery business wasn't above taking the wife of one of his followers after making it abundantly clear to her husband it would be in his interest to divorce her. Not to mention taking the wife of the man he'd just had slaughtered.

Yes, this is a man who believed in the sanctity of marriage, unless it interfered with his own personal pleasure.

Note, in closing, how the guidance on stoning some souls to death is strangely silent on the issue of who is going to get the festivities underway and who gets to do it. Do we have any kind of a religious leader making the decision to go ahead? Taking any responsibility? Or is there just a spontaneous taking up of rocks by the closest registered voters after the mob decides what the facts are? How do the mechanics of this barbaric, medieval proceeding get handled?

And heaven forbid that such a practice -- with its origins in backward, pig ignorant, desert tribal society -- should ever @#$% be CHANGED or anything. Holy Lex Talonis. Not that!

Wahhabism's gift to the world. Alive and well, regnant, and resplendent in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Dearth of females in Muslim countries.

Twenty of the thirty nations with severe imbalances -- which cannot be explained by natural forces, but which are most [likely] the result of direct, human intervention -- are Muslim. Another indication that there is a connection between this imbalance and Islam is the fact that . . . of thirty (30) nations with imbalances which FAVOR women, only ONE (1) is predominantly Muslim or as a significant Muslim minority.

If there were no correlation between this imbalance and Islam then we would expect that there would be fewer Muslim nations on the chart which shows the nations with imbalances which favor men, and more on the chart which shows nations with imbalances which favor women. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that there is some relationship betweeen Islam and gender-imbalances in the national populations which favor men.

Could it be female infanticide? Or "honor killings?" Some people think so -- at [least] they think that the horrific practice is very widespread. These charts lend credence to them. ALSO: this imbalance may reveal what is at the core of the current "clash of civilizations." The propensity of certain nations and cultures and religions to produce disproportionately more terrorists, and specifically the propensity for Islam to produce jihadoterrorism might be related to the fact that their culture promotes the devaluation [of] females and femininity and subjugates women -- turning them into [chattels], making them the property of husbands who have many wives.

What's causing Muslim nations to have serious gender-imbalances in their populations? The Astute Blogger, 8/14/05.

Missing U.S. Iran policy; eery silence.

The seemingly inescapable fact is that Iran is waging war on us, we are well aware of it, and we are not responding, even though most Iranians are dreaming of the day that the United States supports them against the mullahs.

Hardly a day goes by without anti-regime demonstrations in one Iranian city or another, involving students, workers, intellectuals, and even some very important clergymen. The number of Iranian dissidents on hunger strike is growing. Akbar Ganji hovers between life and death in a hospital in Tehran.

Yet, aside from occasional statements of compassion, there is no hint of action from the Bush administration.

British intelligence officer quoted by Time, as reported in Do not, I repeat, DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE BALL." Atlas Shrugs, 8/19/05 (emphasis added).

American Library Association: spineless appeaser.

As of the end of 2004, there were 10 librarians sitting in Castro's prison for lending out books of which Castro disapproves (1984 was one of them).

* * * *

As of today, the American Library Association (ALA) has refused to condemn Castro for his actions in jailing librarians and banning/burning books, although such an action is within their charter. For every one totalitarian dictator, there are thousands of appeasers, apologists, and enablers who make that dictator's life so much easier and more pleasant.

"Book Burning in the Socialist Paradise." By Dr. Sanity, 8/21/05.

Intimidation. Torture. Rape. Assassination. Murder.

Read about the interrogation of an Ansar al-Islam jihadi.

In short, to the "fighter" in question the title of this post (big green letters above) = "Jihad."

Note the participation of Mullah Al-Raikan. Col. Bunny hope's he goes back to divinity school to learn that Islam and terrorism just . . . don't . . . mix!

From: The Fourth Rail, 8/20/05.

Religion of Peace - VI.

See Abdul's nice new M-16.

Think Saudi financing.

Believe in Abdul's wasted life to come.

Sauce for the Goose.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last month that local towns and cities can seize homes and private businesses through eminent domain and turn the properties over to private developers for no other reason than the fact that it would result in higher tax revenues for the municipality.

A few days after the ruling, [Logan] Clements faxed a request to Chip Meany, the code enforcement officer of Weare, seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road, the present location of [Supreme Court Justice David] Souter's home.

"This Land Was Your Land. Eminent domania! Another Supreme home scoped for confiscation." By Joe Kovacs, WorldNet Daily, 7/29/05.

From: CommonSenseAmerica.

You have got to love this guy.

Yeah, I guess that in today's social climate of tacitly accepted compulsory dhimmispeak, any remarks about Islam outside of praise and fawning deference are now considered blunt.

Patrick al-Kafir, Clarity & Resolve.

The Empty Core of Multiculturalism.

This is from an excellent article about tolerance as the summum bonum (#1 top deal) of society whereas it's really the most visible sign of societal breakdown, viz., its failure to know and respect its core values:

The proposed law against incitement to religious hatred is another bad example of intolerant tolerance. In order to 'champion our values of freedom and tolerance', it seems, we can no longer tolerate people having the freedom to ridicule or offend Islam or other religions. Yet surely that is one of the hard-won liberties of our genuinely tolerant, secular society.

The meaning of tolerance has mutated in recent years. First, it became a central plank of the official doctrine of multiculturalism. As examined elsewhere on spiked, the celebration of multiculturalism and 'diversity' has served as a substitute for any more coherent worldview within the British elite (see The price of multiculturalism, by Michael Fitzpatrick). That is why, when they try (and generally fail) to define what British values might mean today, politicians will invariably emphasise the importance of tolerance. In this context, it always ends up sounding as if they are saying, 'Our central value is that we tolerate the values of others'.

More recently, however, and especially since the bombings of 7 July, it has become clear that this emphasis on tolerance is more than a vacuous retreat into non-judgementalism. It is also a threat. In order to maintain the fragile status quo in our fragmented society, the authorities are telling us not to rock the boat. Their idea of tolerance thus involves suppressing opinions or ideas that might cause offence or controversy. This is the doctrine of what we might call illiberal liberalism, summed up by the trite phrase 'I can tolerate anything except intolerance'. Or as New Labour's Welsh secretary Peter Hain put it after the bombings, 'We will not tolerate people abusing Muslims' (with 'abuse' now being so widely defined as to mean anything you don't like). The message to all of us is 'Be tolerant - or else!'

The authorities are trying to use the doctrine of intolerant tolerance to keep the lid on things and hide the empty hole at the heart of the debate about British values.

* * * *

What we need instead is more genuine tolerance. . . . Let everybody freely express their views - and let us all have the freedom ruthlessly to question, criticise and interrogate everything that is said, about everything from religion to race, from suicide bombings to British values. Now more than ever we need freedom of speech for a frank and 'broad-minded' debate about the sort of society we live in and where it is heading (see Defend free speech - now more than ever, by Mick Hume). Instead, the doctrine of intolerant tolerance aims to stop anybody pointing out the embarrassing fact that the emperor of multicultural Britain has no clothes.

"The age of intolerant tolerance. The meaning of tolerance has mutated in recent years." By Mick Hume, Spiked, 8/19/05.

"Die Welt" scores Europe's appeasement of radical Islam.

What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation", but is actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent American Presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.

His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against democracy.

His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China.

"Europa - dein Name ist Feigheit." By Mathias Döpfner, Die Welt, 11/20/04 (emphasis added).

English translation: "Europe -- Thy Name Is Cowardice."Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos (GEES) and at Snopes.

Caveat: Snopes points out the the translator of the article added some thoughts of his own (not quoted here) regarding the Oil for Food scandal and the number of Iraqis killed under Saddam.

46 Iranian brigades on Iraq border; defecting Saudi officers.

The defeat of Iraq has opened the way for Iran. . . . Even now, Iran has deployed 46 brigades near the Iraq border. These are positioned to support Iraqi Shiites who want to form their own Iranian-backed state. Meanwhile, Saudi military officers have been defecting to the Iraq insurgency at the rate of 100 per month. According to Geostrategy-direct.com, 6,000 Saudi nationals may have already joined the anti-American side. Surviving fragments of Saddam’s army continue to fight the coalition (with Syrian support). It now appears that President Bush’s plan for Iraq cannot succeed unless Syria and Iran are overrun and pacified. Of course, such a plan is politically and militarily impractical. The United States Army is too small and the American people would not approve.

* * * *

. . . Since the Shiite majority dislikes America and cannot grasp the fundamentals of democracy, America’s democratizing effort amounts to the establishment of a new totalitarian theocracy (with a democratic veneer). The fall of Saddam has benefited Tehran, not Washington. . . .The coalition merely destroyed one totalitarian regime in favor of another.

* * * *

Strategically, the hour is late. It is not a question of holding the line against Iran. . . . It is a question of stopping Iran’s leading sponsors – Russia and China.

"The Iraq Diversion." By J. R. Nyquist, Geopolitical Global Analysis with J. R. Nyquist, 08/19/05 (emphasis added).

It will be interesting to see if the defecting Saudi officers are prosecuted. Col. Bunny's reckless prediction: Definitely, after Saudi men stop wearing dresses.

As for the part about overrunning and pacifying Iran and Syria, Mr. Nyquist is right. Failing decisively to defeat those who unequivocally declare themselves to be our enemies and, and act like it as well, will doom us to yet another war in which we content ourselves with half measures and tolerating cross-border sanctuaries that prolong the war (e.g., Korean War, Vietnam War).

Mr. Nyquist says Americans won't tolerate going after Iran and Syria. Tragically, that is probably so, although it is equally true that Mr. Bush will assume this to be true and will not make an honest effort to make the case to Americans for the necessity of painful sacrifice to ensure national survival.

Remember, that suitcase nuke is out there somewhere.

After it detonates in Washington, we will belatedly go after the real sources of terror. (Add Saudi Arabia to the list, by the way.)

Taking out, taking over, or punishing these three countries will do more to benefit the world than any other imaginable foreign initiative.

Why not now?

Mr. Nyquist sees the main enemy as "the old Communist machine." Even if he's right, the surrogates of Russian and China are a danger in its own right and the baleful influence of the Wahhabis causes untold diversion of material and intellectual resources. The Vietnam War was against a surrogate of the Russians and the Chinese and yet served a salutary purpose. The only error that underlay that war was the intellectual bankruptcy of the American political establishment that had before it the undisputable record of communist slaughter and terror and could not articulate an effective justification for a steel-based opposition to communism. President Johnson, no penetrating thinker it's true, thought he had to cook up the thinnest of Tonkin gruel for the rubes to justify his expansion of the war.

Shamil Basayev.

Chechen terrorist. Awaiting issuance of very own Virgin Voucher.

Abu Dzeit.

Now, because Allah has willed it, history.

Preferred targets of misguided Muslim terrorists.

Beslan, North Ossetia school tragedy, 9/1/04.

• 1,100 hostages.
• 330 killed, of whom 180 were children.
• Terrorists: 20, of whom nine from Arab countries.
• Terrorists trained by: Kuwaiti Abu Dzeit (FSB-supplied Virgin Voucher dated 2/16/05).
• Responsibility claimed by: Chechen Muslim Shamil Basayev (as yet without voucher).

The perpetrators read the Koran and decided that there was no contradiction between it and what they wanted to do.

When are Muslims going to open up enough madrassas to teach that Islam and terror simply don't mix?

Sources:

"Beslan Gunmen Planned Other Attacks — Suspect." MosNews.com, 6/2/05.
"School Siege in North Ossetia." MosNews.com, 6/2/05.
"Chechen rebels Planned “Second Beslan” - Prosecutor." MosNews.com, 6/2/05.

Murderous, ungrateful twerp.

Since the bomb attacks in London, there has been an increased focus on extremist groups in Denmark. Only last week, the spokesman for the Danish branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Fadi Abdullatif, was charged with calling for the killing of the Danish government.

* * * *

On a flyer distributed in Denmark, Hizb ut-Tahrir said: "So, travel to help your brothers in Falluja and exterminate your rulers if they block your way".

"Denmark targets extremist media." By Thomas Buch-Andersen, BBC News, 8/17/05.

Since the Danish government has not prevented any Danish citizen or resident from traveling to the country or countries of his choice, Mr. Abdullatif's hysteria is a bit strange. He wasn't satisfied with just encouraging his pals to head to Fallujah, he figured his message JUST WASN'T RIGHT without a suggestion that exterminating "your rulers" is an option in case something should go wrong at the airport.

What is it in the psyche of these yoyos that causes their minds to gravitate inexorably to jihad, extermination, throat slashings, and beheadings? All this dumb ass had to do is say, "Go to Fallujah." End of story.

"Go to the post office to check the mail, my brothers. Exterminate all those who block you." The sheer narcissim of these clowns. Consider this just a taste of the rational governance in store for the fools who allow themselves to fall under the sway of Arab Muslim rulers.

That said, the Danes are going to screw up by going after this guy when his invitation to extermination would apply only to those actually deciding to go to Fallujah and being blocked in some way. Since we can safely assume (1) there's not going to be a stampede to Iraq (dangerous place for jihadis) by the Danish mujahadin (very small minority) and (2) that no Danish "ruler" is going to stop anyone from leaving Denmark who wants to go (even if they leave wearing t-shirts with "Muj to Falluj" on them), this is not one of those flyers that requires official attention.

American First Amendment learning doesn't need to apply to the whole world (with the exception, of course, of the part about nude dancing being sacred protected speech) but all of these nervous, pussy European governments need to take the very workable concept of "clear and present danger" to heart. Which is to say, let people say what the heck they want unless it's to incite an immediate pogrom, necktie party, or insurrection.

But, no. They're truly pathetic in their approach to speech. The Dutch city of Rotterdam rushed out and forcibly erased what a local artist had painted on a wall near a mosque: "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

Now that kind of speech, Pilgrims, is a three-alarm assault on decency.

From: Fjordman.

From a Tang dynasty statue.

Heroic people.

This is a great photo of Finnish troops in the field against the Soviets, who had invaded their country in World War II. The story of their resistance has few equals in modern warfare.

Check out Mr. Sami Korhonen's link ("The Battles of the Winter War." 30 November 1939 - 13 March 1940. The epic battle of Finland against the Soviet Invasion) for the truly inspiring story. Definitely one of the underappreciated stories out of that war.

Current Finnish immigration policy: Don't bother.

See any parallels?

Or is it just me who thinks a tenacious preservation of one's territory and national identity is a good thing? Very few people practicing santeria, voodoo, honor killings, or polygamy in Finnland these days.

Right-wing parochialism run wild!

Shock and awe -- II.

Non-improvised ED.

From: Military.com.

The blogging experience.

The animation at this site is incredibly clever.

From: "Malaysian Blogs and their influence level," Brand New Malaysian, 8/13/05.

Term limits for Supreme Court justices.

John Fund makes some excellent points about the Supreme Court, how it was seen at the start of the Republic and what it's grown into now.

Do we really want lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices? . . . 220 years ago life expectancy wasn't what it is today and the courts had yet to claim the power of "judicial review," . . . For the Founders, the courts did not exercise the sweeping, unaccountable power they do now. That's one reason why many people are now coming around to the notion of instituting an 18-year term limit on Supreme Court justices. . . .

[M]any justices stay long past their prime. . . . Chief Justice William Rehnquist was unable to attend oral arguments this past winter and spring.

. . . William O. Douglas . . . refused to leave after an incapacitating stroke. . . . A weakened Thurgood Marshall often looked to his fellow octogenarian William Brennan on how to vote because he no longer could hear well enough to understand the arguments other justices made during their conferences.

RTWT.

"18 Years Is Long Enough It's time for term limits for Supreme Court justices." By John Fund, Warped Street Journal, 7/25/05 (no emphasis added).

Sensible immigration policy -- Indian example.

If only the Republicrats could consider the national interest for 15 minutes instead of groveling for votes 24/7/365 they could come up with a sensible immigration policy.

India leads the way:

India has categorically made it clear that it will not tolerate illegal immigration into India and covert militant bases in Bangladesh that try to export terrorism into India.

"India and Bangladesh military exchange fire over India’s building a fence to restrict illegal immigrants overflowing into India." By Sanjiv Sinha, India Daily, 3/10/05 (emphasis added).

From: "The Open Borders Crowd at the WSJ Gets Religion." By Steve Sailer, Vdare, 8/14/05.

Norwegian, British and Dutch genius.

We earlier published the link to the fantastic Dutch military take on ""(Is This the Way to) Amarillo." Which we found at Zacht Ei, a blog written by a Dutchman who writes perfect English.

Here's that link again: http://www.kicken.com/2005/www.kicken.com-amarillo.army.wmv

Here's the British version: http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=way_to_armadillo

The and Norwegian version is based on a different song but extremely clever with the wording, considering they composed it in English rather than Norwegian: http://www.big-boys.com/articles/kosovo.html!

Sometimes I feel like the Englishman who wrote a letter to The Times decrying the study of foreign languages in Britain.

"If you want to speak a foreign language," he said, "go to France and speak English."

Solution to most international problems?

OK. That's @#* IT! - Update.

Ever since Jimmy Carter's failed foreign policy with Iran over the Iranian seize of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the Iranians must think that the USA is a paper tiger. They keep pulling the tiger's tail in Iraq, over nuclear arms development, in human rights failures, and much more -- but the American tiger continues to demonstrate that it has no teeth when it comes to Iran.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has publicly accused Iran of allowing weapons to be “exported to insurgents in Iraq who use them to kill U.S. troops, coalition forces and civilians.” Yet he can only say that weapons, “…clearly, unambiguously, from Iran have been found in Iraq," in comments in his press Conference on the hard-line Islamic regime in Tehran. "It's notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to cross the border."

That kind of tough talk surely must be of some concern to the Iranians.

"US a Paper Tiger?" By H. Thomas Hayden, Military.com, 8/12/05 (emphasis added).

As the late, great sage, seer, swami and soothsayer, Sam Kinnison, used to say, "It never quits. It never @#* quits!"

How about just one Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters. Just one. Just one . . . little . . . old . . . head shed to get their attention?

I say, do you want some of THIS?

Mess with the Brits and, sooner or later, you realize it was a biiiigg mistake.

OK. That's @#* IT!

How much longer do we have to tolerate a bunch of jumped up goat herders?

The Saudi elite on this earth are dedicated to

• maintaining an absolute monarchy,
• ensuring that oceans of blood are spilled for nothing, and
• ensuring that vast numbers of unfortunates live in thrall to what is the very opposite of enlightenment, decency, and reason.

Read this:

In July 2005, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey stated that “even today, we believe that Saudi donors may still be a significant source of terrorist financing, including for the insurgency in Iraq.”^[1]

Now tell me if the only thing wrong with the Great War on Terror (GWOT) is that it started in the wrong country and is WAY too unambitious. Saudia Arabia is, simply stated, an indecent excresence that needs to be dealt with, whether 51st state, colony, joint suzerainty, nuclear waste disposal site, feminist exile and reeducation ashram, penal colony, missile test range, or vassal state, Col. Bunny pretty much doesn't care. No, seriously.

We could really get revenge by having Saudi Arabia made into a U.N. trusteeship. No. Wait. . . . There are some things that decent human beings simply can't do.

It has to be one of the supreme ironies in this life that so many Western people have strived so earnestly, so bravely, and with such genius to improve the lot of humans on this earth and yet it is the inheritors of that magnificent, complex culture who today kiss the ass of moral cretins, whose co-religionists scurry, scurry this very moment for the means to obliterate us.

In comparison to what has been wrought in the West, there is the meager intellectual contribution of the Arabian subsubcontinent amounting pretty much to algebra, a cool number system, stunning advances in the basic sciences (just kidding), integrated circuits (just kidding), polyphonic music (just kidding), open heart surgery (just kidding), the Dhow-Jones stock market index, and a slime mold variant of Islam known as Wahhabism that elevated absolute male dominance, intransigence, sterility, infantilization, and obscurantism to social ideals. Other than that it was a major advance in human history.

And the lode star of that Wahhabism is, you guessed it, the Koran -- variously but never more accurately described than by this writer:

In some Westerners it [the Koran] engenders other emotions. For Gibbon it was an "incoherent rhapsody of fable," for Carlyle an "insupportable stupidity," while here is what the German scholar Salomon Reinach thought: "From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time absorbing it."^[2]

This was the inspirational document for the Arab scourge that advanced upon Europe directly in centuries past (aided by liberal policies regarding war booty for the troops) and that inspires pathetic terrorists and vicious malcontents today.

The Islamic assaults of previous centuries were turned back or reversed by men with steel in their backbones. If the news of continued Saudi financing of operations against our own troops now afield doesn't enrage you, maybe there's no steel in yours. Or is rage beneath you? Do you intend to shrink from every challenge? Do you intend to cower before any insult? When will you ever put it on the line?

The takeover of the American embassy in Teheran was an act of war -- and we did nothing. Giving aid and comfort to our enemies in the field is an act of war -- and we do nothing.

It appears that as a nation we simply don't have it in us: Haliburton! Bush lied! No exit stategy! Missing art treasures! Stop the war! Bases covered. It's Miller time.

Bruce Thornton said it brilliantly:

Increasingly we Westerners resemble the Eloi of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, beautiful, gentle, highly civilized hedonists whose fate is to be devoured raw by the brutal Morlocks. We are the beneficiaries of a culture created by those before us who forged European civilization in the fires of resistance to Islamic jihad: in Spain, in Sicily, in Eastern Europe, in Greece--the plunder, rape, slaughter, massacres, sacks, kidnapping, and enslavement perpetrated by the armies of Allah were for centuries fought by those whose names now most Westerners have forgotten or would be embarrassed to claim as their own. Don John, Charles Martel, Leo the Isaurian, Prince Eugene, Montecuccoli, Andrea Doria, El Cid, Sobieski, Charlemagne, Suvorov, Boucicaut, Hunyadi, Fernando II of Castile, Alfonso I of Aragon, Guiscard, Harold Hardrada--who among us knows anything about the men who fought and killed so that Europe, and Europe's offspring America, today looks like Europe and America instead of looking like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Syria?

Because of the brutal violence of those warriors against jihad, we in the West today enjoy the luxury of cynicism, cheap irony, effete tolerance, and hedonism. We moral dwarves stand on the shoulders of those giants and spit on their heads, thinking our ingratitude is really an intellectual sophistication superior to the primitive superstitions and naïve ideals that have made our lives of freedom and prosperity possible.

Meanwhile jihad by other means--demography, immigration, terrorism, the oil weapon--continues apace, at least until the time when a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon falls into the hands of a modern jihadist and we are returned to the sort of slaughter our ancestors suffered for centuries.”^[3]

Notes
^[1] CAIR Founded by 'Islamic Terrorists'?" By Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, FrontPageMagazine.com, 7/28/05 (link in original; emphasis added).
^[2] The Origins of the Koran, Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book. Ed. Ibn Warraq. Prometheus Books (emphasis added).
^[3] We The Moral Dwarves. By Bruce Thornton, 5/18/05 (emphasis added).

CAIR-terrorism link.

Ghassan Elashi-- founder and board member of Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Convicted April 13, 2005 on federal terrorism charges.

Third CAIR leader thus convicted between 9/11/01 and 5/10/05.^[1]

Anti-CAIR reports:

[D]uring the month of September 2001, just after the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9-11, the CAIR website contained a section titled “What you can do for the victims of the WTC and Pentagon attacks”- that solicited contributions to the “NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund.” Only problem is, this so-called “Relief Fund” did not ever exist…the link provided by CAIR led a contributor directly to the Holy Land Foundation web site.

And just who was the head of the Holy Land Foundation?

Elashi!^[2]

Anti-CAIR's Andrew Whitehead was sued in 2004 by CAIR as "part of what seems to be a policy of using the legal process to silence or chill critics."^[3]

Here's more on the CAIR-terrorism link. According to this, two of CAIR's founding directors were formerly officials of an Hamas front group, the Islamic Association for Palestine:

Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, former officials of the Islamic Association of [sic] Palestine (IAP), founded the organization, while IAP’s president, Rafeeq Jabar, was (according to Steve Emerson) one of CAIR’s founding directors.

Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver “Buck” Revell has described the IAP as “a front organization for Hamas.” This linkage between the IAP and Hamas was decisively established in 2004, when a federal judge in Chicago found it partially liable for $156 million in damages for its role in aiding and abetting Hamas in the murder of David Boim, a 17-year-old American citizen.^[4]

Notes
^[1] National Review and the Muslim Lobby. By Sherrie Gossett, Associate Editor of AIM Report, AIM Media Monitor, 5/10/05.
^[2] CAIR & Ghassan Elashi ; Partners in Islamic Terrorism? Anti-CAIR, 5/2/05.
^[3] "CAIR Founded by 'Islamic Terrorists'?" By Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, FrontPageMagazine.com, 7/28/05 (link in original).
^[4] Id.

UN to world: "What, me worry?"

The imperialism of Ngolandia, by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch, weighs in with an excellent analysis of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

It's extremely good and illustrates that you can get a better handle on what an organization, politician, or bureaucrat is about if you pay attention to what they ignore.

Read it and weep.

The Religion of Peace's analysis, to which we wrote a modest panegyric, is also a good example of this analytical technque: CAIR skewered. But good.

Magicians distract their audience with talk and hand gestures. Why wouldn't political grifters do the same?

Skewering CAIR. But good.

The Religion of Peace (and white knuckle terror) masterfully sets out the problems with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It's as delicious as Joseph Heller's Catch 22 where the MPs rush up the stair and arrest Yossarian for being AWOL. (RIY.)

Forty-six months after 9/11, the notorious CAIR (and other Muslim-American groups who have thus far refused to join the war on terror) issued a “fatwa” against “terrorism.” (Click here for Steve Emerson’s excellent analysis of what the “fatwa” strategically omits).

TROP would love to believe that CAIR will no longer discourage law enforcement investigations, no longer include leaders with ties to terrorists, and no longer stir up anti-American rage by publicizing obscure grievances… but let’s be realistic. More than one hundred innocents have lost their lives in dozens of Islamic terrorist attacks in just the seven days following the “fatwa,” yet CAIR’s primary concern has been to see that an American radio talk show host loses his job for daring to suggest that we take terrorists at their word when they tell us that they kill in the name of their religion.

Is the “fatwa” another public relations smokescreen meant simply to deflect criticism and provide cover for the “5th column” activities that the group has been actively engaged in since its founding? The four year lag between 9/11 and a religious edict against terrorism is hardly encouraging. Over 2700 Islamic terror attacks have occurred during this time, consuming the lives of tens of thousands, yet a spokesman for the group said that a fatwa never crossed their minds after 9/11 because it is “obvious” that Islam forbids violence.

This Week in Islam. Weekly Column for 8/08/05 (emphasis added).

Republicans stay focused on campaign essentials.

GOP Senate GOP Senate Hopeful Offers to 'Pinch Hit' for Hillary. Scrappleface.

More NASA problems: accidental "Discovery" launch; "Heads will roll" -- Dubya.

President George W. Bush, incensed over the loss of U.S. prestige from last month's accidental launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, has ordered the immediate execution of NASA's Chief Mission Controller at Cape Kennedy, a Zionist agent.

His wife will be thrown on his funeral pyre and his children will be sold into slavery to the Mormon church.


Execution squad for Chief Mission Controller
(L-R: Kalil Gonzalez, Mahmud Sverenson, Abdul al-O'Leary, Yasir Smythe-Wilson, and Rashid al-Ibaba [squad spiritual adviser and Imam, S. Pompano Beach "Surf's Up" Full-Gospel Mosque].)

Video of runaway Shuttle: (Windows) -- (Real)

Deer hunting.

From The Museum of Hoaxes.

Substandard Canadian health care system.

Ho hum. The usual proof positive of the failure of socialized medicine -- delay, inefficiency . . . .

From: Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

Dufus don disses Hebes.

Here's a story of an Egyptian professor . . . just hold that thought for a sec . . . who goes on (government-controlled) Saudi Arabian TV and makes these points:

1. the Empire State building was attacked on 9/11.
2. The Empire State building consists of two buildings.
3. They are the tallest building in New York.
4. No Arab or Muslim had anything to do with the attack.
5. The attack was fabricated to attack Islam and Muslims.
6. The real purpose behind the attack was to gain control over world energy sources by force.
7. Muslims are not used to lying.
8. A "dirty Zionist hand" was behind the attack.

Of course, all of these are FILTHY LIES (except maybe #2).

To be as charitable as possible, Professor Abd Al-Sabour Shahin doesn't have the sense of a grown possum.

If someone like this rises to be a professor at an Egyptian university, what does that tell you about the quality of that university? Or the university that conferred a degree on him?

If this worthy is one of the best and the brightest of Egypt, then why would anyone be surprised that Egypt is a third world pile of sand.

And, once again, the Saudis put him on their government TV channel thereby demonstrating their dedication to truthful and reasoned discourse. (Remember the guy they made their Grand Mufti after he'd declared his belief that the earth is flat?)

Better Pee Wee Herman should pilot 747 flights to New York and Paris than than the professor should teach origami at Karnak Kinder Kare Karnival.

From: MEMRI TV <--- Clarity and Resolve.

It gets better. The professor has the same name as the fellow reported to have said that homosexuals should either be thrown from a mountain or buried alive under a wall.

Source: Behind the Mask.

The professor is from Egypt's Al-Azhar U. A lecturer on Islamic law.

What were we THINKing!

A couple of items report that the U.S.

1. sent anthrax spores to Saddam in the 80s and
2. asked the Netherlands not to prosecute former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan for stealing nuclear technology from a Dutch company.

The latter request was made by the CIA.

Even if it was sweet revenge to have Saddam bleeding Iran from 1980-88, one has to ask what dimwit thought up the idea of sending him anthrax to play with.

It was also incredible blindness to let scientists in backward Islamic states get their hands on anthrax and nuclear technology. What could the Dutch have been thinking, for that matter?

By the sacred blood of teen suicide bombers of all nations and creeds! Give the third world engineers access to medical, agricultural, and other such technology but not the keys to the NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) city.

Ouch wiedersehn nonproliferation.

Let's see . . . . If we actually tried to limit access here the ACLU would file suit in a heartbeat to ensure that no religious or national origin group was being discriminated against. "Equal access to inappropriate technology for all."

By golly. What could be better than that?

Sources:

"Saddam's germ war plot is traced back to one Oxford cow." By Dominic Kennedy. Times Online.

"Dutch Twice Abandoned Plans to Prosecute A.Q. Khan at CIA Insistence, Former PM Says."

Thanks: Global Security Newswire, 8/9/05, published by Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Serious side of Scrappleface.

The normally tongue-in-cheek Scott Ott weighs in on the beneficial results of bombing Hiroshima and with this report of a plea to the UN to actually do something:

The hibakusha [A-bomb suvivors in Hiroshima] called on the U.N. to "rise up and live out the true meaning of its charter: collective preemptive action to ensure peace by removing threats to peace."

Stonehenge explanation.

Bruce Bedlam's vision of Stonehenge is completely unlike anything you would imagine.

His idea on how the builders moved the heavy stones is sheer genius. (Hint: very cold Egyptian immigrants).

From "Summer solstice 2005," at Dancing Elegantly, with its own interesting discussion.

Religion of Peace - V.

Father to son, uncle to nephew, mother to daughter, neighbor to neighbor, mufti to mooncalf, ayatollah to aardvark, jihadi to juvenile,^[1] mofo to martyr, demented to immature . . . .

Celebrating life and all its possibilities.



Notes
^[1] "The [Sunday Times of London] reporter witnessed one of the [radical Islamic Saviour Sect's] leading figures, Sheikh Omar Brooks, telling a young audience, including children, that it was the duty of Muslims to be terrorists . . . ."

"Focus: Undercover in the academy of hatred," Sunday Times of London <--- Buzz Machine <--- Zacht Ei (emphasis added).

Israeli terrorist, Israeli response.

Good point about the vast difference in approach to home-grown terrorists by Israel:

An update on the Jewish terrorist[:] Heard that the Jewish terrorist that killed three people the other day was refused a military funeral and that many cities refused to allow him to be buried in their cemetaries. His home town finally agreed to let the family bury him there.

No maryterdom, no hero's funeral, no stipend for the family, no songs or videos about him, no pictures of him at the local school. . . . .

From: thewiz commenting on The Big Pharoah's post, 8/7/05 (emphasis added).

Dictator of the mind.

The Big Pharaoh has this great insight:

I have a daily habit of checking the news headlines on Yahoo every morning. Around one week ago, I logged on to Yahoo and saw this headline “NASA sends Discovery to space”. Right underneath this headline was another one “Iraq constitution might undermine women’s rights.”

“Wow, what a difference” I said. Here are NASA women sending a shuttle to space while Iraq’s Shia parties and their women puppets in parliament are trying to unfairly use religion in suppressing the rights of women.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the main reason for the ailments of this region. Besides the dictatorial regimes governing us, we have another dictator: the dictator of the mind. . . .

* * * *

The US, which has tremendous influence in Iraq, must exert maximum pressure on the Shia religious parties in order to prevent this disaster from happening. If Iran is interfering in the political dynamics of Iraq, then the US should do so as well. And it is not only me who is asking for this, Iraq’s women activists found no one to raise their concerns to except the American ambassador Khalilzad!

From: 2 Worlds Apart, The Big Pharaoh, 8/7/05

Spiritual dimension to liberty.

While the legal structure of liberty has taken a beating from the rubber backboned Brahmins of the Supreme Court from the 1930s on, elites in love with the crazy ideas of socialism (public ownership of property) and communism (political dictatorship [of wise and virtuous elites], and Abraham Lincoln, there's a (mostly) intact spiritual dimension to liberty that Ms. Kim du Toit nails, thus:

The early emancipation freed man from speaking to G-d through intermediaries. Once man had a direct relationship with his creator, not through Pope or Rabbi, he was able to think about other forms of emancipation--beyond his spiritual self. Free Will was the conceptual result and Western Religions transformed as well (or they’d have lost all their members).

The idea that G-d put the world in motion and filled it with temptations that a good man must resist is uniquely Western.

The Middle East is still mired in the cultural mindset that man must make man resist temptations, by removing them. Hence, women are still shrouded because man is not capable of resisting her temptations.

The terrorists may have adopted the war matériel of The West--they may even understand our technology and financial habits, but they do not understand that we have 600 years of deviation in the path of man’s relationship with G-d and himself.

You cannot re-shackle the mind of a culture that chose freedom 600 years ago.

Rtwt, natch.

Is this tradition intact? Hate speech and sexual harassment laws chip away at this aspect of freedom. We'll no doubt get to those topics some rainy day.

But as to Muslim minds being in thrall to priests see these earnest inquiries from the faithful (here, here) regarding the most minute details of existence that hour-by-hour non-Muslims answer for themselves with the application of their own common sense.

PS -- Here's an answer to the second conundrum posed: do what you want with your hands in the mosque if you would feel comfortable doing the same thing in visiting a restaurant, riding a bus, or being questioned and tortured by the religious police.

Ahh. The robust internet debate that we love.

mika. 2005-08-06 20:13 Link

When you call someone out as a liar, it's advisable to have a minimum of information to offer as support for your accusation.

Ok. You write like a queer.

Russian sub lifted to surface. All hands safe?

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian mini-submarine that was tangled in cables 600 feet down in the Pacific, has resurfaced, Russian news agencies said on Sunday.

Interfax said the AS-28 vessel was lifted to the surface with all seven crew members, quoting the Russian Pacific Fleet Command.

A British Scorpio, an unmanned undersea rescue vehicle that rushed at Moscow's request to Russia's far east Kamchatka peninsula, had earlier dived down and started work cutting the stricken vessel free, Russia's Pacific Fleet press service said.

"It (the Scorpio) arrived at the AS-28 mini-submarine and at 0305 Moscow time (1905 EDT) started to cut the main cable keeping the underwater machine in the deep," Interfax quoted Alexander Kosolapov, the head of the press service, as saying.

The report doesn't say in so many words that the crew was alive when lifted to the surface. We hope that they are and bravo to the Brits for cutting the sub loose.

Culture of death -- MMXI.

Iran Focus.

Tehran, Iran, Jul. 22 – A military garrison has been opened in Iran to recruit and train volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations”, according to the garrison’s commander, Mohammad-Reza Jaafari. Jaafari, a senior officer in the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), told a hard-line weekly close to Iran’s ultra-conservative President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the new “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” . . . would recruit individuals willing to carry out suicide operations against Western targets.

From: Iran opens garrison to recruit suicide bombers against West. Iran Focus, 7/22/05 [emphasis added].

Regretably, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officer Jaafari states that, while he normally likes to "lead by example" in all matters, he himself will not be able to participate directly in martydom brigade operations due to prior, pressing, priority personal projects, among which is installation of a hijab-friendly Turbo-Jihad^® Danish hot tub at his revolutionary, infidel-proof summer cabana.

Accordingly, he will serve in more of a managerial, oversight capacity in martyrdom operations but stated categorically that he will definitely employ a "hands on" style and have an "open door" policy for the anticipated 15- and 16-year-old disturbed, depressed, destitute, and friendless youth who will be the backbone of the Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison.

"I want them to know that I care."

Muslim insecurity - MCCXCI.

"The [Indonesian] government continues to investigate, arrest and prosecute Islamic terrorists. But religious conflicts continue as well. More moderate Moslem leaders, while helping the government by preaching against the Islamic radicals, also want government help to stem the growth of Christianity. Missionaries, both Indonesian and foreign, have been successful in converting an increasing number of Moslem Indonesians. The Islamic clergy want the government to intervene. By law, only five religions are allowed in Indonesia, and the government has a tradition of getting involved in religious affairs. While 85 percent of Indonesians are Moslem, most of the remainder are Christian. On some islands, the population is half, or more, Christian. On those islands, many Moslems see Christianity as a more “modern” religion. Christian clergy and missionaries are generally better educated than their Moslem counterparts, and the Christians tend to be more successful economically as well."

[Begin Mr. Rajan's commentary on the above:] Is their faith in their own religion so weak they require the help of the government to block those meany, nasty, evil, blue-blooded, unscrupulous, wild-eyed Christian missionaries from preaching?

In murtad-related news, apparently there is [sic] 50,000 [link in Malay] of Muslim youth within the Klang Valley conurbation [in Malaysia] applying to leave Islam (just for comparison, there is [sic] 3-4 million people living in Klang Valley, half of them Malay-Muslim). Even the strict restrictions placed on their freedom of religion isn’t enough to keep them at bay, eh?

I know, we should execute all of them.

From: "Freedom of religion in Indonesia." By Rajan Rishyakaran, 7/28/05 [emphasis added].

Practical Sharia - VII.

Another khalwat (close proximity) [ . . . shudder . . . ] case rocks Malaysia to its core. Is there NO outer limit to the sinful nature of mankind?

[Toh Puan Heryati Abdul Rahim, 45, an ex-deputy prime minister's wife, was found with three Bosnian male students, in the same luxury apartment she owned. The students ] - Admir Mehinovic, 23, Izudin Mulalic, 27, and Mrza Trako, 25 - were studying at the International Islamic University.

They were together when a team from the Federal Territory religious department raided the apartment following a complaint from neighbours.

According to the facts of the case, the students were renting the condominium from Heryati - the second wife of former Malaysian deputy prime minister Tun Ghafar Baba.

She made headlines when she married the then-68-year-old politician when she was only 35 in 1993. They have a 5-year-old daughter.

* * * *

[Her lawyer] insisted: 'I understand from my client that nothing immoral or illicit went on. They were fully-dressed and watching television. If that is an offence, then it is a technical offence in the Syariah law, nothing more.'

* * * *

BROAD DEFINITION

IN MALAYSIA, khalwat is a law passed by the Malaysian Parliament and applicable only to Muslims, including foreigners.

According to Dr Muhammad Arifin, a lecturer in Syariah law at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, the definition of khalwat can be 'very broad'. [E.g., being in different villages together.]

Said Dr Muhammad in a phone interview: 'Basically, khalwat is committed when a man is found with one or more than one woman, who is not his wife or relative [e.g., husband, wife, and non-relative street harlot], in a situation that can cause suspicion [OMG] of illicit activity. [E.g., backgammon, Scrabble, spin the bottle.]

'If found guilty, they can be fined not more than $3,000, jailed not more than two years, or both.' [No flogging, though.]

He added: 'There are several things to consider, like the way the parties were dressed when they were found. Or if they take a long time to open the door when religious officers are knocking, that also raises suspicion.' [Now do you see why Muslim societies are so moral?]

The officials usually act on complaints from other people.

Dr Muhammad explained that in Islamic law, there are three categories: Hudud, qisas and takzir.

'Takzir laws are those where the offences and punishment are not clearly mentioned. Khalwat falls under this category,' he said. 'So the way the law is (used) can differ from state to state. It is up to the Syariah court of each state to look into each case and decide the appropriate punishment.' [That is to say, application of khalwat is 100% arbitrary and dependent only on the whim of the official, his own personal sense of justice, and his level of education or lack thereof.]

"Khalwat is like not braking at a traffic light." The Electric New Paper, 1/3/03.

So we have officers of a secular or sharia administrative agency raiding a private residence to enforce a law applicable only to Muslims. There's no hint of a warrant and therefore there's no independent judicial involvement to restrain overzealous or oppressive police ["police"?] conduct.

And . . . no one seems to know what the law proscribes. In the U.S. such a law would be struck down as unconstitutionally void for vagueness, in that a person of ordinary intelligence could not read the law and know what he or she is proscribed from doing. It would also be unconstitutional for being overly broad, in that the law covers conduct that would not criminal as well as conduct that would.

And we also see here the institutionalzed infantilization of Muslims. (You read it here first.) A simple thing like proximity for legitimate, adult social purposes (i.e., friendship) cannot be left to individual judgment. With Islam you have to obtain a fatwa to know when to change your socks or, so help me God, whether you can shave your beard or not, even temporarily to fool the gullible kuffar (actual fatwa).

Note the imam's view in the referenced fatwa that for "those of high position" a "little harm" (a mild beating?) may be a humiliation "and it is like a severe beating for someone else who is of lower status." So a high-status Muslim can skate with an excuse of "compulsion" that forced him to do the haraam thing but a low-status Muslim has to be whipped like rented mule before he can claim compulsion. Yes, folks, this is the legendary sharia that makes Muslim society so attractive and guarantees the equality of all before the law.

It's much worse than that and the Colonel can document this sad fact, push come to shove and, knock on wood, he's not assassinated by a local representative of the American All-معتوه [Idiot] Paradise Accelerated Visitation Brigade.

Practical Sharia - VI.

KUALA TERENGGANU: The 45 followers of the banned Sky Kingdom charged with violating a state fatwa are apparently facing problems getting syariah lawyers to defend them.

* * * *

She [ Kamariah Ali, 51] was charged under the Syariah Criminal Offence Enactment (Takzir) Terengganu 2001 for humiliating Islam by claiming she was not a Muslim on July 20.

No counsel for Sky followers, By K. Suthakar, 8/5/05 [emphasis added].

See our earlier post on this story.

So what we have in Malaysia is a tradition of legal representation that has lawyers fearful of representing clients because of a possible backlash, that . . . wait for it . . . "might create a misunderstanding among the public.” What's next from the out-of-control citizenry -- letters to the editor?

The best that can be said about this is that Malaysia has a feeble legal system and a bar that is a bunch of pussies.

Then you have the problem of two separate legal systems with one lot of lawyers, the regular ones (I know), not knowing anything about the sharia side of the law, although the sharia is sort of engrafted onto the Malaysian statutes. One assumes these were enacted by the legislature, not a conclave of califhs.

Then we have the usual painfully obvious Muslim religious insecurity evidenced by the criminal code punishing conduct that humiliates Islam. Considering that the authorities are doing a terrific job of doing just that themselves, one wonders what the fuss is over this poor woman.

Then you have the means of humiliating Islam, namely, claiming you are not a Muslim. The source doesn't say she was a Muslim before, so presumably the Colonel could be taken into custody upon arrival in Malaysia for saying the same thing:

Malaysian Immigration official: "Are you a Muslim, Colonel?"

The Colonel: "Uh, no, I'm not. Why do you ask?"

Malaysian Immigration official: "Spread 'em, Colonel. You're going downtown for humiliating Islam."

The Colonel: "I demand to call a lawyer!"

Malaysian Immigration official: "It's no use, Kufr Kolonel. It will only create a misunderstanding."

That is one pathetic country.

Oh, and there's a "state fatwa declaring the Sky Kingdom teachings as deviant."

Yup, look to Malaysis for the next wave of scientific discoveries.

Ray of Light Department: "The mess we are in." By Salbiah Ahmad, Malaysiakini, 8/4/05.

The Uncertain Trumpet Redux.

For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

I Corinthians14:8 (KJV). Online Parallel Bible.

This is a brilliant article on President Bush's Middle East strategy: "Are the Jacksonians Sated?" By Michael J. Totten.

Thanks to Mr. Totten and Walter Mead the Colonel finally knows what to call himself -- notwithstanding years of helpful suggestions.

We title this post as we have because Pres. Bush straddles two two schools of foreign policy -- or at least gives lip service to the Jacksonian school. And Wilsonianism has a built in drag chute, just like multiculturalism, because it needlessly factors in a calculus relating to internationalism and its historically proven airy fairy assumptions. Mr. Bush thus adheres to Wilsonianism, which detracts from, or prevents, a clear assessment of America's sole and individual national interests. Ergo, confusion and paralysis.

In this respect only, Iraq may resemble Vietnam.

The Colonel hopes that Mr. Totten is not quite correct, though it would appear that he is, that the Jacksonians are in repose, and presumably that is also so with regard to the issue of border control. That seems like an issue as clearcut as tanks rolling north through Tuscon, so it does appear they Jacksonians don't get lit up by the feds tolerating a porous border.

Here's a suggestion to Jacksonians everywhere: vote against ANY public official, incumbent or candidate, Recorder of Deeds or Governor, who does not publicly make this statement at the time of filing for (re)election:

I oppose illegal immigration and demand that our borders be sealed.

Remedy for "bad" speech.

U/I Muslim preacher on United Arab Emirates TV 7/8/05.

[The 7/7/05 London bombings are] the kind of criminal act that serves only those who wish to destroy mankind, and to thwart civilization and progress. Igniting civil strife and using the tools of war and destruction is the habit of the despicable Jews and Christians of the ancient nations, and the Koran has already deplored them for that.

From: MEMRI.

Bearing in mind that the bombings were perpetrated by Muslims, consider the views of this Muslim relgious authority in a Muslim country speaking on a Muslim-owned and operated television station:

1. Jews are despicable.
2. Christians are despicable.
3. Jews and Christians wish to destroy mankind.
4. They wish to thwart civilization and progress [that would otherwise be taking place in Muslim lands].
5. It is the habit of Jews and Christians to ignite civil strife and use the tools of war and destruction [not involving war].
6. The Koran has already deplored Jews and Christians for item 5, above.
7. Jews of the "ancient nations" must mean Jews in Israel. Therefore, Israel must have a claim for existence extending back into ancient times contemporaneous with or prior to the compilation of the Koran.

This kind of swill is what conclusively proves the point that the remedy for "bad" speech is more bad speech. Didn't Jefferson say that? It's GREAT that these guys stand up and say this sort of stuff on tv and in print. What better way to learn how their Maddrass-stunted, Koran-addled brains deny them access to basic tools of analysis and logic. This guy ought to have his own 24-hour sattelite channel. Along with this scholar.

The putative concern for the "feelings" [gag] of the various sods being rankly raked, ridiculed and rejected is just a way of shutting down people who are telling the truth. This kind of junk appears night and day in writing in U.S. mosques but will NEVER be the focus of any courageous CAIR crusade to crucify the calumnifying criminals. Buuuuuut . . . let someone tell the TRUTH about some Arab assininity, Islamic idiocy, fatuous fatwa, or mufti madness and those boys will be on it like white on rice.

Jackass alert - II.

One has a shaky grasp on the Great Grisly Greased Guidepost of Ghastly Grim Reality when one is the 2005 President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and thinks that "the global war on terror" is

not a war. It is counter-insurgency. . . .

* * * *

As for the jihadis, who do wish us harm, former CIA analyst Marc Sageman estimates the number of radical Muslims who can and would do significant harm to the US in the hundreds.

That's right. The old "war on terror" was a war of the world's sole superpower on a few hundred people.

Michael J. Totten sugggests it's actually more like, you know, a war, dude:

Fisking Juan Cole: A Photo Gallery <--- Michael J. Totten.

Demograb hypocrisy.

Check out these delicious stories of Democrass hypocrisy and cashing in on their official positions.

The basic deal with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) looks like this:

________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. real estate developer
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. real estate developer
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. local government
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. local government
Sen. Reid: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. local government
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. industry
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. industry
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. institutions
________: Sen. Reid relative: Nev. law firms

Sen, Reid represents Nevada, btw. At least, parts of it.

The basic deal with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) looks like this:

Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) ---> $3 million ---> transportation research org. ---> salary $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ---> org. president ---> $$$$$$$ ---> Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) political action committee AND European trip for Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) policy advisers.

These are unbelievably sophisticated schemes that unfortunately require the artful color coding by the Colonel you see here. (No. You don't see the Colonel actually, just the coding.)

But that is why we are here. To simplify, explain, sanction, inspire, and console. (Rich, lonely widows or divorcees are encouraged to contact the Colonel if they require consolation. Large-breasted heiresses will receive preferential treatment. Must be over 16. If you are not over 16 but live in an Arab country or Iran, Afghanistan, or Pakistan have your mommy contact the Colonel.)

Read it all . . . .

Howling Hypocrites <-- American Daughter, a blog that is fast gaining on Intergalactic Source of Truth in popularity.

Albino fawn

See pictures of subject critter at American Daughter (an excellent blob).

Kinda makes you want to reach for your .303½ full-auto bullet launcher with a Zeiss electro-optical subarctic-certified, laser-tuned, nitrogen-cooled M1A1 IR telescopic sight; slam in a full magazine of Eyetalian match grade, steel jacket musket balls; get you a camouflaged tree stand; bolt on ye trusty Krupp-Enfield vibration damper, rangefinder, and target movement compensator; hoist you some Karlsberg-Tuborg poptop prescription huntsman pacification and mood elevating payload delivery units; and blast away at that bad boy.

Talk about "make my day!"

The Art of Science Competition.

Second prize.

Cyngus nebula.

Fallopian tube from uterus.

Strange crystal.

Culture of death -- Iran.

Very grisly. Not for those with weak stomachs.

Much more at American Daughter.

Now deny that these pigs enjoy this. And they're working on atomic weapons.

What price is too high to solve the problem of this regime?

Practical Sharia - V.

These photos are NOT for anyone with a weak stomach.

A hideous punishment is inflicted on a man in Iran. A hideous legal punishment.

The islamofascists would have the sharia replace the U.S. Constitution and all other of our law. In 1789, our ancestors knew to proscribe cruel and unusual punishments. In modern Iran they are prescribed.

Iranian persecution of Baha'is -- lack of Islamic confidence.

Several score Baha'is, including women and teenage girls, were imprisoned in the fall of 1982 because of their faith by the Islamic Revolutionary authorities in the Iranian city of Shiraz. The prisoners endured months of abuse, interrogation and torture as the Islamic judges and their revolutionary guards attempted to force them to deny their religion. All refused.

Particularly shocking . . . was the execution of ten of the women who were Baha'i children's school . . . teachers. They were secretly sentenced to death by hanging on June 18, 1983. In a final effort to break their wills, the authorities hanged the women one by one as the others were forced to watch.

The youngest was a beautiful sixteen year old girl named Mona Mahmudnizhad. Mona asked to be the final victim executed so that she could pray for the strength of each one who was hanged before her. When her turn came, she kissed the rope and put the noose around her own neck. Before she died, Mona said, "What makes me happy is that I see that we have been chosen by God to be strong." . . .

While Mona was still in high school, she wrote an essay protesting the persecution of her family's Baha'i faith. School authorities promptly confiscated the paper, her home was raided . . . . First Mona's father, and later Mona herself, were hanged by the authorities. But her first notes for the essay were smuggled out of Iran by members of the Baha'i community and published in the west.

[Emphasis added.] Read her message here: American Daughter.

And oil and clean your 9 mm. after you check out the pictures there of these brave, brave women condemned to die for their faith.

One is struck by the pathetic lack of self confidence in these perpetrators of judicial murder. They simply cannot tolerate an alternate viewpoint. The size of the ummah must not be allowed to diminish and the ultimate sanction of death -- even vigilante execution -- must be employed to keep adherents from leaving.

Nor can criticism from without or within be tolerated:

These are the results of the anti-blasphemy law, which has been in force in Pakistan since 1986. The law punishes those who offend the Koran with life in prison, and foresees the death penalty for those who insult Mohammad. Since its enactment, dozens of Christians have been killed for having slandered Islam . . . .

From: "Anti-blasphemy law: harassment and violence for all religions alike," Asia News.

Iranian justice.

Do you believe that this man enjoyed any semblance of due process at the time his guilt was determined?

Does this execution suggest that the sharia, as implemented in Iran, is arbitrary and places important reliance on grisly spectacles?

Was his crime something like "criticizing the Prophet"? Was he a Baha'i? Did he not want to be a Muslim any longer?

How much of a chance do you want to take that Muslims in your country will gain enough power to institute sharia?

Rule Britannia (earlier model).

Daniel Pipes observes that "the ultimate issue is not defeating terror but saving Western civilization."

He discusses the Daily Telegraph editorial^[1] that lists five core values of British culture:

1. Supremacy of the law of the courts and the legislature. Sharia irrelevant.
2. Citizens determine political legitimacy not priests purporting to know the will of Allah.
3. Only the state may use force. Force in the service of jihad is illegal.
4. Every citizen's primary loyalty is to the state, not his religion.
5. Secular state not a theocratic one with absolute freedom of conscience.

This is a paraphrase of a paraphrase so read the Telegraph's own words for yourself.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, I believe, criticized anticommunism during the Cold War as being an empty position. One cannot define oneself merely in opposition to something. Mr. Pipes makes the same point. We can't defeat Islamic delusionaries without knowing why we have the moral authority to take a stand on anything.

On this precise point see Mr. Pipes's fascinating update:

Anthony Browne takes up similar profound questions in "The Left's war on Britishness," where he asks why Britain became "the first country in the developed world to produce its own suicide bombers" and replies with a scathing analysis:

"the real answer to why Britain spawned people fuelled with maniacal hate for their country is that Britain hates itself. In hating Britain, these British suicide bombers were as British as a police warning for flying the union flag.

"Britain's self-loathing is deep, pervasive and lethally dangerous. We get bombed, and we say it's all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over "the other," but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London's internationalism -- in other words, that there is little British left about it."

[Emphasis added.]

Internationalism and multiculturalism are the obverse of being anti-Jihad or anticommunist. They are are an embrace of otherness -- invariably linked with rejection of one's own. Just as with the essence of Islamic martyrdom so ably distilled by Dr. Sanity, internationalism and multiculturalism come inextricably packaged with that rejection of one's own people and culture.

There's a grand photo somewhere of a Catholic priest in China in the 19th century. He sits at his dining table with a fork by his plate instead of chopsticks.

Eating with chopsticks is a novelty that certainly gets the job done. But there's nothing in being in or around another culture that prevents one from appreciating its good and bad aspects while still holding fast to familiar things that are functionally equivalent or superior.

Of course, if they are inferior, only a fool does not adopt the better instrument or concept.

The Wahhabis -- and my personal hero -- are determined to cling to every antiquated and brutish feature of seventh century Arabian culture. Actually, that may have been relatively better. Make that seventh century Arabian culture as changed by the ascendancy of Mohammed.

P.S. - Ghandi, now, was more of a hypocrite than being terminallycommited to life in reverse gear. He wouldn't allow his wife to avail herself of Western medicine when she was ill but he was sure to get his shots when he was a bit under the weather. That spinning wheel and loin cloth stuff had its practical limitations, you see.

Notes
^[1] "The fundamentals of law in this country..." Editorial, Daily Telegraph, 7/14/05.

Coming soon to a mosque near you.

The jihadist enemy, on the other hand, is operating on principles and values squarely in the tradition of Islam, and . . . is expressing a spiritual need and an orthodox religious mandate: to fulfill by force the will of Allah that all the world be subject to Islam and an Islamic state, the caliphate, ruled by sharia, Islamic religious law. Those conquered infidels who refuse to convert are reduced to dhimmi, subordinated and humiliated peoples whose restricted rights, diminished lives, and circumscribed behavior testify to the superiority of their Muslim overlords and their divine right to oppress the infidel and exploit him economically. This dynamic of jihad and dhimmitude has been extensively documented by Bat Ye'or and other scholars, and is apparent on every page of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and history from the eighth century to today.

Those who . . . suggest otherwise are contradicting not just that history but also the beliefs and sentiments of millions of contemporary Muslims, who understand clearly what their own religion teaches and how it should be practiced. How else do we make sense of the continued widespread support for homicide bombings and Al Qaeda visible in poll after poll of Muslims worldwide? Even so-called “moderates” and Westernized Muslims can't help letting slip their true beliefs even as they try to spin the latest terrorist murder.

Doublespeak UnveiledMuslim “moderates” are true to spirit of Islam, by Bruce Thorton, VDH Private Papers, 7/26/05 [emphasis added] <-- Dr. Sanity.

It's absolutely crystal clear what Islam requires. To be a Muslim is to sign on to this program. It is so clear, in fact, that the burden of proof is on each and every Muslim to prove to every infidel that they renounce unequivocally this aspect of Islam as false and pernicious doctrine.

Among others of its aspects.

Islamic martyrdom diagnosed by Dr. Sanity.

Traditionally -- in Christianity, at least--a "martyr" was someone persecuted and killed by others for their religion's sake. In the lives of many martyrs, their shining love for their religion was so inspiring that it might even convert those who were responsible for the martyr's death.

Read her excellent comparison with Islamic martyrs . . . .

Militant dumbness.

Government regulations demand a militant dumbness and a pretense not to know what everyone does know - that the would-be hijackers come overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, from the ranks of militant Islam. They send the unfortunate signal that it is politically easier to send troops to Afghanistan than to confront the fact that the enemy has certain characteristics.

[Not Profiling:] A Deadly Error. By Daniel Pipes
New York Post
January 21, 2002

Profiling, ban on Muslim immigration, preemptive strikes.

Personally, I see next-to-no possibility of reform within Islam. It's tainted and perverted from the get-go. During my post 9/11 research, I tried very hard not to come to the awful realization of what's facing the world today. It is so difficult for a Westerner, especially a Christian Westerner, to accept such pure evil. I'm done with the apologists for Islam. The fact is that jihad is an Islamic mandate; note that I said "Islamic" and not "Islamist."

The followers of Islam (moderates included) owe first allegiance to the Nation of Islam, a nation without borders. Sufficient study of the history of Islam will show that they unite against the infidel; once the infidel is subjugated, tribal warfare breaks out. . . .

The only answer is profiling (Watch the Muslims) and a ban on Muslim immigration. Pre-emptive strikes remain the best strategy.

Comment from Always On Watch at The Sick Man in Europe , Gates of Vienna, 7/22/05.

And what will fill that void?

But it is not unfair to assert that the greatest scar inflicted by the totalitarianisms of the 20th century was not on the material landscape, but on the soul of the West. The Communism and Fascism which abolished God and disabused civilization of the sacredness of human life in the name of enlightened progress also destroyed much else. If we are lucky Islam is simply progressing through a Western vacuum that has not yet been filled, stepping over a population still mesmerized by the illusions of the 20th century.

From: "City of the Dead." By Dr. Sanity <-- "Metropolis," The Belmont Club, 8/1/05 [emphasis added].

The Colonel once got into a minor political argument with a good friend that got a tad heated. His friend remarked at the end that what really was bothering him was the absence of community in America. (The Colonel's not suggesting he was the soul of reason during the argument, btw.)

My friend raised no small point. I remember living in a community in Northern Virginia and going to eat in a crowded restaurant one Saturday by myself. It was amazing to me that after eight years in this community I could not find one person there whom I recognized. Apart from one family next to me in my townhouse, I had no daily contact with anyone other than tradespeople, and even the checkers at the grocery store were only occasionally someone I recognized.

One must be proactive in this life and I found considerable pleasure in learning to dance and acquiring hanger on status at a local church. That filled many a void. But if one does not or cannot find such an outlet, especially if one is without a mate, daily existence can easily be a soul sapping experience. And television is just digitally enhanced bread and circuses for the most part (though the Colonel always will enjoy a good T&A movie with plenty of fights and car chases with Sly Stallone, Arnold, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker).

Joseph Sobran once said that the opposite of faith is not unbelief, but crassness. In that brilliant statement is encapsulated the signpost for any age. God is what what man searches for as the most distilled repository of the sublime. Zealotry of any flavor is tawdry and the Western Left rails against religion, Christianity chiefly, as having been used as a justification for oppression in our past. Yet its substitute gods have been vapid (New Age, multiculturalism, hedonism) and homicidal (communism [red fascism] and National Socialism [black fascism]). If you think religious fundamentalism is bad, just think about what secular fundamentalism^[1] has wrought. (And the Left is maddeningly and completely oblivious to the nuts and bolts of maintaining liberty [e.g., limited governmental powers, laws not changed at the whim of judges] and energized only by compassion contests, i.e., who can provide the most goodies to "the underprivileged.")

The 19th century saw great spiritual experimentation in America. Perhap the reinvigoration of the national debate in the non-MSM -- and the greater clarity that is now possible now that liberalism is increasingly sidelined -- will permit us at least to stop doing the the things that are insane.

Asking what is and what is not sublime is a good first step.

Having teenagers blow themselves up in restaurants is probably not something sublime, though the Colonel knows it's a close call and hates to go out on a limb on this issue.

See also along these lines our "Maybe it's not just the "mad mullahs, " below.

Notes
^[1] Dr. Sanity, Narcissism and Society - Part II, 4/17/05:

The second type of evil is more subtle . . . . This side also does not see other people as individuals either; and instead sees them only as fodder for the expression of an IDEAL or as pawns for an Omnipotent Object (e.g., a dictator).

Shock and awe makes it happen.

But except in news reports, the war in Iraq has been going poorly for al-Qaida. . . .

* * * *

[al-Qaida] targets have shifted in emphasis from American forces to Iraqi forces to Shiite civilians to, most recently, Sunni Arabs who are cooperating with the government. This does not suggest growing capability or rising support. Nor do the increasing number of gun battles between al-Qaida and its ex-Baathist allies in the insurgency suggest harmony in the resistance.

* * * *

Strategic Forecasting, a private American intelligence service, thinks al-Qaida is engaged in the terrorist equivalent of the Tet Offensive: ". . . to turn the tide in a war it has been losing."

* * * *

If al-Qaida is indeed shifting personnel out of Iraq, expect to hear more about Iraq as an "incubator" for terrorism. But what, pray tell, do the promoters of this theory imagine Zarqawi and his minions would have been doing these past two years if there had been no war in Iraq? Origami?

Iraq has indeed proven to be a quagmire. But not for us.

[Emphasis added.]

From: Dr. Sanity <-- Quagmire for al-Qaida. Terrorists are feeling the heat in Iraq. By Jack Kelly, "Pittsburgh Post Gazette," 7/31/05.

Great Carlton Beer ad.

From: Marketingfacts.

Fatawa power.

How do these various eminences in Islam get the authority to issue fatawa? The Colonel's not aware that Osama bin Laden has any standing as a cleric entitled to interpret or pronounce the sharia. Both he and Ayman al-Zawahiri seem rather to have spent their time mastering the skills of guerrilla warfare and curdog terrorism. "I'll get back to you on applying to seminary school, Mom."

Yet, here they are with the power to just announce their personal little ditty and have it invested with the authority of a Papal Encyclical. Coooowll.

And, as with ALL such announcements from on high, there's no way of knowing just where this glittering star to shine down on suffering humanity is located in the Firmament of the Fiqh (FOF), fiqh being Islamic jurisprudence. Or is it jurisimprudence? There's no popular assent to laws, such as where an elected legislature declares the law. Nope, it appears to be Charlie and Mo and Abdul and Suharto and Heinrich who can dispense their personal jewels and "their followers" get with the program. Thus, it appears fiqh is really a vast collection of insular imamical interpretations and Shaytaan take the hindmost when it comes to saying what is really "the" Islamic dernier cri on any issue.

What you have then is a great system of plausible denial. "Oh, that's Uncle Aziz. He's such a jerk off. WE don't believe anything like that. WE don't believe that apostates should be put to death or that adulterers should be wrapped in a bag and stoned to death." It's why CAIR can pretend to take the high road but actually support the very evil they declare they abhor.

Anyway, here's the quote that got Col. Bunny all vexed up:

Five years later, from their refuge in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, announced their merger to create the "World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders". They issued a fatwa declaring that "to kill Americans and their allies, civilians, and military is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able."

[Emphasis added.]

That's what I love about these guys. They just come right out and say, "Let's waste the civilians." How noble. What warriors. What examples of manhood. No doubt hiding out in some cave or hovel in Waziristan eating grubs.

In point of fact, they are a significant degeneration from the early-17th century Turkish officer in Transylvania who became bored with the siege of a particular town and challenged any of the defenders to meet him in single combat.^[1] Now there was a warrior.

More about him later . . . .

Notes
^[1] “Heroes in the Age of the Antihero.” By Thomas Fleming, “Chronicles,” July 2005, p. 10.

PLEASE STOP!

Mr. Michael Graham was suspended by radio station WMAL in Washingtoon, DC, after the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) complained about his islamophobic comments.^[1]

Mr. Graham's plea as of this moment is that everybody PLEASE STOP sending email and calling WMAL to express support.

He estimates about 10,000 emails supporting him were sent to the station.

Read his comments at the above link and be happy for -- and note -- the power of Blogville to make a difference.

Notes
^[1] WMAL Suspends Talk-Show Host for Comment on Islam. By Paul Farhi, Washington Post, 7/29/05.