The symbiosis of leftist sellouts and immigrants.

The Finnish article cited lays it out why European politicians and voters are stuck on stupid when it comes to the coming immigration catastrophe: power flowing to leftist politicians by immigrants wishing to protect welfare payouts, ghettoes of immigrants that are hellish places for the remaining locals but invisible to the rest of the native society, and a native society that is extremely stupid and naïve beyond belief. An excerpt:

The ruling Left milks the working Swedes to maintain a predominantly idle immigrant population, who thankfully vote for the Left. Swedish society has to support two parasites, each living in a symbiotic relationship with the other. . . .

. . . This eventually causes the system to collapse. Why should anyone support a policy that leads to a certain destruction?

. . . That is because a career politician never sets his sights 20, 50 or 100 years to the future but instead focuses on the next election. . . .

Why do the voters let all this happen? It is because Westerners like to be “good” people and believe that their fellow men are equally good people. It is because they have humane values. It is because, as I earlier stated, a human being would like nothing more than to believe in the good news, if he is given even the smallest opportunity to close his eyes to the bad. It is because half of the people are more stupid than average.

It is because the moral and ethical values of Western man have made him helpless in the face of wickedness and immorality.

"Multicultural Discourse Here and Across the Border." By Jussi Halla-Aho (emphasis added). Reprinted in "Multicultural Discourse in Finland and Sweden." By Baron Bodissey, Gates of Vienna, 8/30/06.

Change 1.

When the Colonel was in The Green Machine, "Change 1," "Change 2," etc., used to be a way of alerting the addressees of military correspondence to changes to previously announced decisions. Now, we think the correct term of art is "Radical Improvement upon Previous Inspired Plan of Action No. 1 [RIPIPA No. 1]," etc.

President Bush should issue his very own Presidential RIPIPA No. 1 so as to redirect U.S. policy toward Islam vaguely in the direction of sanity and national survial.

After 9/11, it was wise for the president to follow a basic principle of infantry operations that applies when a situation suddenly goes all to hell, namely, "Do something, do anything, even if it is the wrong thing." If Mr. Bush had arranged for 10 tons of No. 2 pencils to be air dropped by B-52s into Kabul, something good would have come out of it. This would have been viewed as something hugely sinister requiring vast amounts of imamical RAM space and processor time to interpret.

Heck, whether to take a shower after sex is a problem situation that actually requires a fatwa from Muslim holy men, but this is something they've at least had time to deal with since the intermittent availability of indoor plumbing in advanced Muslim societies.

Interpreting the sudden availability of No. 2 pencils would have been a huge new development in the interpretation of the sharia.

Huge!

As it was, opting to sending troops smack dab into the middle ages of the crazies in the Middle East and taking out a Level 5 Demon sent a wonderful message about U.S. capabilities. This scared the bejeezus out of Kaddafi -- the colonel in a diaphanous gown over in Libya (and no kin to the Colonel, thank you very much) -- and even gave the Iranians pause . . . until they figured out we weren't serious. (A serious policy toward state-sponsored terror would have been to put Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia in a world of hurt, wouldn't it have? And not have dragged North Korea, about whose abominations we {and the Chinese} intend to actually do zip, into the equation?)

Given that anything Mr. Bush could have done was the Right Thing, there's simply no shame at all in making a slight (180 degree) course correction and backing off this commitment somehow to democratize Iraq and turn the Sadr Militia into polite and trustworthy school crossing guards.

These folks point the way toward a better and more ballsy effective raison de faire:

Diana West:

We need to see the border as a cultural line also, a defining line of freedom against proponents of Shariah, which, I cannot emphasize enough, poses a direct threat to our founding principles of liberty and equality.^[1]

Lawrence Auster:

The fundamental premises of the civilizationist strategy are: (1) Islam—and not just the chimera of “radical Islam”—is totally incompatible with Western culture, and, if its power continues to spread, represents a mortal danger to it. (2) We do not have the ability to defend ourselves from Islam by changing its internal doctrines and beliefs, as President Bush and the neoconservatives seek to do via democratization. (3) We do have the ability to defend ourselves from Islam by stripping it of its external opportunities to extend its influence over us.^[2]

Notes
^[1] "Fighting Shariah." By Diana West, Washington Times, 8/25/06 (Part two. Part one of her article here.).
^[2] "A sensible Islam policy." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 8/30/06 (referencing Ms. West).

Open border madness.

And right now, two-thirds of births in Los Angeles County hospitals are to illegal-immigrant mothers.

Remember to thank your elected representatives for this revolutionary development.

"America’s Immigration Policy—Hitler’s Revenge?" By Peter Brimelow, Vdare, 8/22/06 (link omitted).

Fairy tale alert: Please! No! Anything but choice # 7.

Their certification as official experts about Islam is based on their skill in constructing politically acceptable ways of denying the reality of Islam. Muslims are violent because they don’t have laptops! (Give that man a Pulitzer Prize.) Muslims are violent because they are sexually frustrated! (Give that man an op-ed.) Muslims are violent because they are alienated! (Give that man an endowed chair.) Muslims are violent because they have not been integrated into our consumerist society! (Give that woman a publishing contract.) Muslims are violent because we have not made sufficient efforts to find and encourage moderates! (Give that man a think tank.) Muslims are violent because they hate freedom! (Give that woman a Cabinet post.) But if someone said that Muslims are violent because they are followers of a religion that commands violence as a sacred obligation, he would be certified, not as an expert, but as an extremist.

Author's comment in "Converted to Islam at gun point, kidnapped reporter reveres Islam." By Lawrence Auster, View from the Right, 8/27/06.

Terrorism's infrastructure.

Don Feder has written a wonderful piece about terrorism's infrastructure whose "auxiliaries number not in the hundreds, or the millions, but the hundreds of millions."

Those sure to win an Oscar:

• "mullahs and imams preaching hatred";
• "businessmen raising funds for jihad";
• "the Arab media inculcating anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism 24/7";
• "public opinion throughout the Muslim world . . . that believes the effort to establish democracy in Iraq is a war on Islam"; and
• "the apologists for holy war who equate Israel's fight for survival and the West's fight for civilization with jihadists plotting to blow up 10 airliners."

And there's this choice quote:

When a Christian is reborn, he usually does good deeds and begins witnessing about Jesus. A newly observant Jew might keep kosher, become Sabbath-observant or start studying Torah.

When a devotee of the religion of peace feels the spirit move him, he quite naturally starts planning ways to commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

Lest you doubt this latter point, kindly refer to our "Note to self: upon conversion, cease relations with infidels, plot mass murder," a chilling tale of Westerners with jello for brains.

"London Journal: 'Moderate' Muslims Behaving Badly." By Don Feder, FrontPageMagazine.com, 8/16/06.

Porretto on wishful thinking.

We're decidedly on the lazy side just now and what better substitute for thought is there but linking to some smart guy with a lot of insight? Francis Porretto has written a remarkable piece about wishful thinking and social engineering:

We love this particular excerpt (but recommend the whole post enthusiastically):

One of the fantasies being widely entertained at this time is that of a peaceful resolution of our nuclear standoff with the theocracy that rules Iran. Every syllable that drops from the mouths of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expresses an unalterable commitment to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and their use in the destruction of Israel. Western fantasists determined to find some path other than a prompt invasion and the decapitation of the Iranian regime have little to say on the matter except that "nothing could be worse than war" and "it's just bluster, they don't really mean it."

Mr. Porretto describes another fantasy ardently embraced by modern moonbats:

A remarkable number of non-engineers are afflicted with an "engineering mentality" with regard to society, economics, and general human relations. That mentality, which had its heyday in the Nineteenth Century among the Marxians, the Fabians, the Benthamites, and the Social Gospellers, held that the world can be remade to any desired degree, provided only that one starts from the right place and takes the right measures.

For the liberal there is never any need to sully oneself by initiating a messy affray; everything is resolvable by negotiations of the sincerest kind; and everything is fixable by application of enough rational thought and recruitment of enough bureaucratic twinks. People died by the tens of millions in the last century because of the earthly manifestations of the latter conceit but that 100,000,000 death toll is no more an obstacle to liberal dreamweaving than a caterpillar (the nonmetallic kind) inching across the highway on a summer day.

The acid test of an idea for the liberal is simply, "Does it sound like a good idea?" If the answer is "You bet!" then it's pour on the coals to the earthly social paradise.

The motto of realists out to be Murphy's Law; of moonbats, "What, me worry?"

"Reality Be Damned, Just Don't Disturb My Fantasies!" By Francis W. Porretto, Eternity Road, 8/23/06 (emphasis added).

A short lesson in taxation.

Some actual wisdom, author unknown, that bounces around the internet:

Tax his land, tax his bed, tax the table at which he's fed.

Tax his tractor, tax his mule, teach him taxes are the rule.

Tax his cow, tax his goat, tax his pants, tax his coat.

Tax his ties, tax his shirt, tax his work, tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco, tax his drink, tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his cigars, tax his beers, If he cries, then tax his tears.

Tax his car, tax his gas, find other ways to tax his ass.

Tax all he has then let him know that you won't be done till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers, then tax him some more, tax him till he's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin, tax his grave, tax the sod in which he's laid.

Put these words upon his tomb, "Taxes drove me to my doom."

When he's gone, do not relax, it's time to apply the inheritance tax.

• Accounts Receivable Tax   • Building Permit Tax   • CDL License Tax  • Cigarette Tax  • Corporate Income Tax  • Dog License Tax  • Federal Income Tax  • Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)  • Fishing License Tax  • Food License Tax,  • Fuel Permit Tax  • Gasoline Tax  • Hunting License Tax  • Inheritance Tax  • Interest Expense [?]  • Inventory Tax  • IRS Interest Charges  • IRS Penalties  &# 9787;Liquor Tax  • Luxury Taxes  • Marriage License Tax  • Medicare Tax  • Property Tax  • Real Estate Tax  • Service Charge Taxes [?]  • Social Security Tax  • Road Usage Taxes [tolls?]  • Sales Tax  • Recreational Vehicle Tax  • School Tax  • State Income Tax  • State Unemployment Tax  • Federal Telephone Excise Tax  • Federal Telephone Universal Service Tax  • Federal, State and Local Telephone Surcharge Taxes  • Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax  • Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax  • State and Local Telephone Tax  • Telephone Usage Charge Tax [?]  • Utility Taxes  • Vehicle License and Registration Taxes  • Vehicle Sales Tax  • Watercraft Registration Tax  • Well Permit Tax  • Workers Compensation Tax

COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

And I still have to press "1" for English

A fatally weakened political system?

Mr. J.R. Nyquist wrote an earlier piece about Thomas Gold's theory that oil is not a fossil-based fuel but it produced by an abiogenic process. In the article referenced below Mr. Nyquist writes that he is not worried about "peak oil," i.e., the world's oil production supposedly having reached its historic high, but about moral and intellectual mediocrity:

The West’s intellectual decline is also real. . . . The intellectual confusion we find today, and the collapse of general knowledge (as shown on the Tonight Show by Jay Leno [link omitted]), is not a myth. It is simple fact. . . .

If we are running short of oil, the fault does not lie in a scarcity beneath the earth, but a scarcity between our ears. . . . The leaders of our political system . . . do not seem to know what a nation is, what preserves or disintegrates social order, or how to recognize an enemy.

When will peak oil overtake us and send civilization spiraling downward?

The downward spiral has already begun. An economic crisis is upon us. The political fallout, and the growing weaknesses of the political system, will likely to bring revolutionary consequences.

The immediate political and popular responses to the recent oil price rises were, respectively, demagoguery and whining. The politicians hurled themselves in front of any video camera they could find between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol in their haste to excoriate (say bad things about) the oil companies (U.S. corporate Blue Meanies). The moratorium on off-shore and ANWR drilling, as well as the failure to build any new nuclear power generating plants in the last two or three decades were inconvenient facts lost on these prescient worthies and they stampeded in the direction of an "windfall profits" tax as fast as a bunch of jihadis rushing to sign up for a course in making explosives in a Cuisinart.

So far as the populace was concerned, something had to be "done" to bring the price of gas down to levels that Americans are "entitled" to enjoy. That higher prices would stimulate the opening up of marginal oil wells and more aggressive oil drilling, that they would make alternative fuels more profitable to produce, or that they would be the spark plug that would fire the entrepreneurial imagination to devise alternatives were not concepts willingly embraced by any but the most exceptional observers.

And just forget about a sensible discussion of oil company rates of return on investment over time.

Mr. Nyquist is right. Our leaders don't know what a nation is and they sure as heck don't know what an honest to gosh enemy looks like. If they knew what makes for a nation they would stop illegal immigration at the border without falling over themselves to reward the very people who have held our nation's laws in contempt and broken them with their first footfall on our soil. Their leadership attitude is identical to that of any individual homeowner who doesn't have the stomach to deny entrance to his home to all and sundry passersby. An individual unable to maintain a distinct boundary between (a) himself and his family and (b) all other humanoids would rightly be considered to be in the grip of a neurosis of some kind, or worse. Is a national leader who can't manage to deploy more than a few hundred National Guardsman on the border any different?

The latest word is that the Border Patrol is having to assign agents to . . . we are not making this up . . . protect the unarmed Guardsmen who do make it to the border. How utterly sick is this, all in the name of not militarizing the border? Heaven forbid that the national government, whose primary responsibility it is to protect the nation from invasion, should spend any "defense" dollars on, well, defending the $%#$^@* borders!

When it comes to recognizing enemies, our federal leadership is similarly out to lunch. If Muslims were confined to the Middle East, Iran, and Pakistan, is there any doubt that the ability of Muslim fanatics and Muslim losers would have an inordinately hard time operating in the U.S. and raising money from within the U.S.? No there is not. But, natch, our leaders have made it possible for huge numbers of Muslims to come to this country and take up residence. Their communities are safe havens for whatever visiting jihadi wants to drop by for a little terrorism.

Not to mention the fact that Saudi Arabia is still doing a yeoman's job of ensuring that the climate of Middle East fanaticism is fostered and nurtured right here at home. Saudi Arabia is funding the construction of Wahhabi mosques in the U.S. as you read this, Eighty percent of U.S. mosques are Saudi funded and all of those mosques are distributing hate literature.

There's certainly no need to have a little chat with the Saudis on that small point, now is there?

Just what we need in our country – lots and lots of people in thrall to a religion that has meant nothing but the death of innovation and free inquiry and the establishment of the vilest of oppressive domestic and national regimes, borderline failed states at best. Rotterdam in the Netherlands is presently 40% Muslim. Are our leader capable of doing anything to ensure that that never, ever happens to us?

Mr. Nyquist fears revolutionary consequences for our present course and that may be prophetic. We are not happy with Mr. Bush's maddening failure to stop the flow of illegal immigration and even as late in the day as yesterday he was almost incoherent on the issue of our involvement Iraq and the war's place in the war on Islam Islamofascism.

Nonetheless, we trust Mr. Bush's instincts. Like Ambassador John Bolton at the U.N. and Sen. Lieberman, he appears to have a visceral desire to safeguard the interests of the nation. Just as Mr. Bush does not delight us in all matters, Sen. Lieberman is a flaming liberal when it comes to matters other than Iraq. But one can depend on him to want to safeguard the nation at all costs.

It's extremely difficult to identify large numbers of such people in the Democrat Party, the "Mainscream Media" (as Larry Elder puts it), the academy, or the government schools.

While we are recording this litany of ways in which we are behaving short-sightedly, selfishly, ignorantly, and neurotically, we cannot not mention the colossal indifference or ignorance of the citizenry when it comes to the multitude of ways in which the original constitutional scheme of the country has been stood entirely on its head. The federal government has become the one preeminent government in the country with constitutionally unlimited powers; the states, no longer sovereign entities, act merely as administrative subdivisions of the federal government. Americans still like to speak of the home of the brave and the land of the free, but they effectively live under a government that is all but untouchable by the voters and election contests have the illuminating power of a candle in an abandoned spaghetti mine.

Nobody seems to much care.

Do you think this augers well for the country? Do any but a minority of U.S. citizens have that visceral, automatic, protective instinct when it comes to their country?

Are the majority of citizens too fixated on never, ever "offending" anyone? On seeing every Third World country -- no matter how benighted -- as the by-God equal of the U.S.?

It's hard for the Colonel to believe that Americans are a serious people and that they take their citizenship and their birthright seriously.

"Peak Oil Addendum and Errata." By J. R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 5/12/06 (emphasis added).

Guard the Border blogburst: U.S. Attorney madness.

There are only a few hours left to have some impact on the case of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who are being sentenced tomorrow for attempting to apprehend a drug smuggler who was fleeing across the border illegally. The charges against the Border Patrol agents were serious bodily injury; assault with a deadly weapon; discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; and a civil rights violation. Compean and Ramos also were convicted of four counts and two counts, respectively, of obstruction of justice for not reporting that their weapons had been fired. The Texas jury acquitted both men of assault with intent to commit murder, but found them guilty on all other charges. The recommended sentencing is 20 years in prison.

You can read the entire account of the case in this Daily Bulletin article written by Sara Carter, but there are a few things you need to know up front:

• Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who prosecuted this travesty of justice against the two BP agents, has successfully contended that BP agents are NOT SUPPOSED to apprehend or pursue illegals.

"It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing," she said. "The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone."

• Two weeks after the incident, a Homeland Security agent tracked down the drug smuggler in Mexico and offered him immunity to testify against the two Texas Border Patrol agents. They found the drug smuggler based upon a tip from another BP agent in Arizona! The connection between the Arizona BP agent and the drug smuggler is murky, though the prosecutor gets upset at any one who dares to question the unsavory connection.
• The drug smuggler was treated to free tax-payer funded medical care in El Paso in addition to his full immunity to testify against the BP agents.
• The drug smuggler changed his story, but the fact that he lied was never disclosed to the jury.

According to the memo, Aldrete-Davila told investigators the agents shot him in the buttocks when he was trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico. But according to Aldrete-Davila's later testimony and that of the agents, he was shot after trying to evade the agents upon his re-entry into Mexico.

The memo never was disclosed to the jury.

• The drug smuggler is now suing the Border Patrol for $5 million for violating his civil rights.
• Also, Ramos' extensive training and accomplishments in drug interdiction, which would be directly relevant to the actions he took during the incident with the drug smuggler, was deemed not admissible during his trial.

As a Border Patrol agent, Ramos has been involved in the capture of nearly 100 drug smugglers and the seizure of untold thousands of pounds of narcotics. He also was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year in March 2005, though the nomination was withdrawn after details of the Aldrete-Davila incident came out.

Ramos also had drug interdiction training from the Drug Enforcement Agency and qualified as a Task Force Officer with the Border Patrol. But Ramos' training in narcotics -- as well as the numerous credentials he had received for taking Border Patrol field training classes -- was not admissible during the trial, he said.

TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, just addressed the Congressional hearings here in Houston on August 16th, where this case was of great concern among all the law enforcement officials.



He said the Border Patrol's official pursuit policy handcuffs agents in the field. He also sees the prosecution of Ramos and Compean as part of a larger effort by the federal government.

"The pursuit policy has negatively affected the Border Patrol's mission as well as public safety. Part of that mission is to stop terrorists and drug smugglers," Bonner said. "They could be smuggling Osama bin Laden, drugs, illegal aliens, or it could have been just some drunk teenager out on a joyride. You don't know until you stop them."

"The administration is trying to intimidate front-line agents from doing their job," he added. "If they can't do it administratively, they'll do it with trumped-up criminal charges.

"Moreover, the specter of improprieties in the prosecution of this case raises serious concerns that demand an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation."

• Ramos and Compean and their young families have been living under threats of retaliation from criminals in the drug underworld.

The El Paso Sheriff's Department has met with the Ramos family to discuss continued threats against them from people they believe to be associated with Aldrete-Davila. The sheriff's department also has increased patrols around the family's home.

The only other organization that has responded to the Ramoses thus far, Monica Ramos said, is the Chino-based nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol, chaired by Andy Ramirez.

"This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen," Ramirez said. "This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."

This case has been virtually ignored by the press, which is why the American public only found out about it after the conviction of the two BP agents. But now that we know, we must take action. If, as TJ Bonner has said, this case is a dirty attempt by our government to intimidate law enforcement officers into leaving the borders wide open and unguarded, then the American people must speak out immediately.

You can do so by signing a petition that will be delivered to the President - but you must do so TODAY, it's the last day. The men will be sentenced tomorrow.

The goal is to collect 100,000 signatures asking President Bush to pardon these two men. So far, 97,589 people have signed the petition and there is no doubt in my mind that Guard the Borders readers can fill in the remaining numbers needed. The petition, to which you may add your own comment reads as follows:

To: President George W. Bush,

As a citizen of the United States I am outraged to learn that two U.S. Border Agents are facing twenty-year prison terms for doing their jobs-- pursuing illegal aliens who cross our border, and I’m calling on you to officially pardon them for their actions.

I am even more outraged to learn that this illegal alien (who was attempting to smuggle about 800 pounds of marijuana into our country), was tracked down by a Department of Homeland Security Investigator and granted immunity for his testimony against these two agents!

This is a terrible injustice, and I urge you to use your considerable authority and power to pardon these two agents and right this obvious wrong!

In addition to rallying your friends and family to take action with you, I would also ask that you call the White House Comments line, and leave a message on behalf of these agents. White House Comments line: 202-456-6213

Please do not hesitate to take this small action on behalf of men whose lives have been destroyed by a drug smuggler and corrupt government agents and prosecutors. It's the very least we can do for them - I wish there was more.

What if this was you? What will happen to these two men? What will be the fallout from such a miscarriage of justice?

"My husband is a good man, a loving father, and his devotion to his country and his job is undeniable," Monica Ramos said. "Prosecutors treated the drug smuggler like an innocent victim, refusing to allow testimony that would have helped my husband. The smuggler was given immunity. My husband is facing a life in prison.

"It's so frightening, it doesn't seem real."

COUNTING THE DAYS

About a week ago, feeling little hope, Joe Loya, Monica Ramos' father, took the family on what will be Ignacio Ramos' last fishing trip with his sons before he is sentenced.

"What kind of justice is this?" Loya asked. "What kind of nation do we live in when the word of a smuggler means more than the word of a just man?"

Monica Ramos says her hardest day is yet to come -- the day the authorities take her husband away.

"We just guard (our children's) hearts right now," Monica Ramos said. "I think about the last time he'll hug them as children, and maybe not get the chance to hug them again until they are grown men."

The sons are between 6 and 13 years old.

Ignacio Ramos was, if anything, even more emotional.

"Less than a month left with my family," he said, his voice choking, as though the air had been pulled from his lungs. "My sons," he whispered. Then silence.

It took several minutes for Ramos to summon more words. "All I think about at night is the day I have to leave my family. I can't sleep. I've always been with them."

Then he talked about the memories he would never have, "their first dates, high school graduation, sports," and the tears falling from his eyes were mirrored only by those of his wife, who took his hand into hers.

Families destroyed. A drug smuggler on the loose to threaten the lives of others and on the scam for $5 million dollars. And a government who won't do anything about either – unless we force it to.

The only ones left who can help are the American people themselves. That means you.

__________________________________________

This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

The fate of the anti-Soviet dissidents.

The Colonel has long been fascinated by the terrible events in the Soviet Union. That society, which went utterly mad and devoured its best people by the millions, is endlessly fascinating, especially for the lessons it teaches us about unchecked political power. Those who stood up to the men who ruled the U.S.S.R. were courageous and their struggle helped to educate Westerners to the realities of communist totalitarianism.

As this source relates, however, the fate of these brave people was not one where they were heaped with honors, provided with restitution for their sacrifices, or given roles to play in the government of the new Russia:

"Was it the fault of the dissidents that they didn't come to power?" she [Cathy Fitzpatrick, executive director, International League for Human Rights] asks. "No. They were up against terrible odds. The Russians dug up mass graves, millions of them -- a million Rwandas -- and they just put them back. They never did anything with them . . . . [Other countries did more than post-Soviet Russia.] But even more, perhaps, than the structural differences . . . was a human factor. "The difference is these people were mangled by the camps," she says, the way dissidents in other countries were not. "Physically and psychologically, the Soviet Union mangled them.

* * * *

"[Unlike the experience of dissidents in the U.S., the Soviet Union] society created a different persona. [It created] a person who was willing to go to jail, to be interrogated, to get beaten up. There are people here who did time, 30 days, 60 days. But nothing like five years labor, seven years exile."

* * * *

And there's another very good reason for [former dissidents now in the U.S.] not going back . . . . As Volpin said, people in Russia get killed. They get killed for saying too much or saying it to the wrong people or thinking too much, or they get killed randomly, for no reason at all. One by one, many of the people who have spoken truth to power have been killed. . . . . The mutant post-Soviet regime has realized that . . . business can be more efficiently handled if people are simply killed in the streets . . . . In the past 10 years, the only countries where more journalists have been murdered are Colombia and Algeria, both immersed in protracted civil wars. . . .. The violence in Russia has permeated every layer of its society. . . . It murders its poets and its prophets and its entrepreneurs. And it has ever been so: Russia has always been one of the dark places of the earth.

* * * *

. . . It seems a tawdry fate, for those who are here, to grow old in a country [the U.S.] where nothing seems to matter, when their great achievement, in the Soviet Union, was to declare that the way you conducted your public life did matter.

Go here if you wish to contribute to a fund for former dissidents living in poverty: the Gratitude Fund.

"Exiles on Main Street: Soviet Dissidents in the U.S. of A." By Keith Gessen, Johnson's Russia List # 4102, 2/11/00 (emphasis added).

Russian prognosis -- dismal.

Here are excerpts from an extraordinarily insightful piece by Mr. Jeffrey Tayler about the fate that will befall Russia. It's a masterful analysis of the legacies of the fall of Rome and Constantinople, the Mongol invasion, and the Soviet Union and the present-day impossibility of a vibrant commercial sector's ever developing in Russia:

In Soviet days [the state] lived off the sale of oil, gold, and gas to the West, often extracted from the earth with slave labor . . . . The hypocrisy of Soviet ideology and the slaughter of the Stalin era deadened respect for law and order. . . . No viable notion of common good had survived the Soviet decades, when neighbors betrayed neighbors, children betrayed their parents, and the state enslaved or murdered its subjects, justifying its actions with words about patriotism and peace on earth. . . .

* * * *

. . . [The deeds of the tax man] are glorified in TV police dramas modeled after Cops, and a special academy has been set up to train youngsters for a future in tax collecting-a profession that may be edging out contract killer in popularity among teenagers . . . .

* * * *

. . . The notion that Russia's path will always remain separate from that of the West has survived the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years. . . .

* * * *

Meanwhile, much of Moscow's political elite still views Russia as having a Great Power role to play vis-à-vis the United States-a role that, more than economic reform, seems to captivate the Kremlin. (Under both Yeltsin and Putin, Russia has striven to counter the United States by courting alliances with China and India, selling arms and nuclear technology to Iran, and supporting or at least dealing with Iraq, Serbia, North Korea, and Cuba.) . . . . Russia's gross national product today amounts to just four percent of the United States' GNP . . . . Thus policies aimed at the revival of the state and the pursuance of Great Power ambitions promise only further suffering, exploitation, and decay.

* * * *

. . . Overpopulation is pushing the Chinese into the Russian Far East . . . .

"Russia Is Finished. The unstoppable descent of a once great power into social catastrophe and strategic irrelevance." By Jeffrey Tayler, The Atlantic Monthly, May 2001, republished in Johnson's Russia List # 5210, 4/18/01.

Victims of September 11, 2001.

We ran across the site established to honor the memory of the victims of the satanic attack on America conceived in the sick Islamic minds of citizens of Saudi Arabia. We list the site now on our blog.

We defy you to read about just one -- just one -- of the people who lost their lives that day. You will be deeply moved, we guarantee you.

There is no excuse for this monstrous crime.

Belial.

Islam is responsible and Muslims worldwide have done nothing to distance themselves from it or to assist in preventing its reoccurrence. If anything, Muslims actively work to ensure that like attacks will take place in the West or they support those who do.

Islam is a crazed political doctrine bent on subjugating or exterminating infidels and their astounding cultures. It is the black hole of the modern world into which all that is humane, lively, creative, rational or just threatens to be drawn.

Modern Fascism.

Mr. J.R. Nyquist has a good piece on that slipperiest of all political concepts, Fascism, and the fascist aspects of Islam:

Fascism arises in times of great stress, when the modern democratic formula has failed. Those who wish to promote a tribal or sectarian interest are the fascist mainstay. They seek to unify a people. (In this case the Muslim Nation.) They vilify the enemy – the American and the Jew. It is a case of group narcissism, a mass identity disorder . . . .

"Islam and Fascism." By J. R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 8/11/06.

Pakistan and terror.

Prof. Ayers succinctly makes clear that Pakistan has gotten away with its utter fairytales for too long, and in the process she succinctly states the connection between terror and Muslim charities (hint: cherrorism):

Like Hamas and Hezbollah, Lashkar excels at both terrorism and humanitarian relief. The funds for the airline bombers are alleged to have been diverted from those gathered in British mosques after last year's massive earthquake in South Asia. This combination of jihadism with social work makes tackling such groups infinitely more tricky, but tackle them we must, and for that Gen. Musharraf's regime must be held to account.

Five years after 9/11, Pakistan remains a deeply problematic ally in the war on terror. . . .

. . . Gen. Musharraf presents himself as the last line of defense between the mullahs and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, but in fact, as has been amply documented by the Pakistani diplomat and scholar Husain Haqqani, the relationship between the army and the jihadists is symbiotic rather than adversarial. The army plays up the terrorist threat in order to consolidate its position in Western capitals, while at best turning a blind eye to the violence they export.

All this was bad enough. But now with the airline bombing plot implicating the LET specifically, this problem has arrived on our doorstep. A coordinated trans-Atlantic effort must make the closure of Lashkar -- and also the resurgent Taliban, which increasingly uses Pakistani bases to launch attacks on NATO troops in Afghanistan -- the highest priority. Pakistan must take responsibility for the activities of these groups that operate from its soil, and cosmetic gestures, such as the recent house arrest of Saeed and the arrest of low-level Taliban in a Quetta hospital -- will not suffice. For its own sake, the sake of the neighborhood, and indeed the security of our homeland, it is time Islamabad backed its platitudes about fighting terror with real action.

"Regional Terror Goes Global." By Alyssa Ayres, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/18/06 (emphasis added, subscription).

Subsidizing our enemies.

Our only quibble with the following from Eternity Road is that if Mr. Porretto has any negative thoughts about Islam he should just come right out and say so, instead of beating around the bush the way he does:

Islamic culture coheres around an evil religion and a conviction of inevitable triumph over the "infidels." The religion is so vile that intelligent persons cannot cleave to it; one must be mentally subnormal to accept its lunacies and savageries as the actual revealed will of God. The ugliness of the Islamic creed is nonetheless Islam's major advantage in maintaining insularity; it repels outsiders and their probes almost automatically. That makes it hard to attack directly so long as the Islamic states remain intact.

Islamic culture would not be dangerous to the rest of the world if it were required to survive on its merits alone. The West has not done this; rather, it has subsidized world Islam in both direct and indirect ways. Indeed, there have been occasions when we've embraced great hardship and expense to prop up states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, that they not fall to the fates their indolence and degeneracy had earned for them.

If the Islamic states had to subsist on their own productivity, in an ecology closed to imports and unable to export, they would degenerate to the stone-ax level in about two years and would be no further trouble to the civilized world.

"The Long War: Strategic Re-Focus." By Francis W. Porretto, Eternity Road, 8/18/06.

Ways to avoid Shi'ite death squads in Iraq.

Here's an item from a list of pointers to Iraqi Sunnis on how to avoid being a victim of Shi`ite death squads:

Learn how to curse Yazid and Mu‘awiya and Bani Umayya [early Sunni caliphs hated by the Shias] and in the way the Shias do.

The Umayyad Caliphate began in 661 A.D., the same year that Ali ibn Abi Talib was assassinated. Somehow this ignited Shia Muslim resentment that has lasted for centuries. Apparently Shias to this day go around cursing these early Umayyad Caliphs. This would mean that something that happened 1,345 years ago still requires Shias to go around cursing long-dead Muslims as part of their Muslim identity.

Wouldn't you think an American a little strange if he went around cursing Benedict Arnold for his treason back in the 18th century? And that was only about 227 years ago, over a thousand years shy of the Sunni depredations of 661. Equally strange would be Englishmen still cursing George Washington for his part in separating the Colonies from England, which transgression is still only like yesterday in the Grand Scheme of Things^TM from what we can see.

Forgive us if we take any form of Muslim "outrage" with a grain of salt. Making hatred of these guys an article of faith in your religion is as dumb as our being torqued over the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 642 A.D.

Which is not to say that Muslims can't have fresh grievances. However, there does appear to be something in the Shia soul, at a minimum, that doesn't grasp the concept "Get over it!"

"Passing." Daniel Pipes' Weblog, 8/15/06 (bracketed comments in original).

Iraq: the undeclared war against Islam.

Mr. J.R. Nyquist invariably has a half-mile head start on the rest of us in restating the obvious and his latest piece is no exception.

The Colonel strongly supports the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan because it pleases him to have a strong military presence smack dab in the middle of that pestilential area of the world as a vivid reminder of the power of The Great Satan, even if our satanic hordes are on a short leash in the present moment.

Once a war starts – we are at war, remember? -- the finish line rarely ends up where the combatants thought it might, except, of course, if you're fighting in Finland. There is even a Churchillian imprimatur for this stellar insight of ours.

We do not care to bust Pres. Bush's chops for his Excellent Eastern Adventure as it was, and is, A Step in the Right Direction^TM, even if it is more of a lurch than a Pas de Chat. It scared the bejeezuz out of a lot of people who needed to be scared (finnnnnallllly) and is deficient at this point only for its not involving a healthy mid-course correction and massacring 50,000 of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and assorted other toads.

Mr. Bush seems to have his father's genetic taste for half measures and the implications of his own policies, pointed out below by Mr. Nyquist, are likely to be lost on Bush the Younger, however much we appreciate his visceral dedication to the defense of America's interests. Even now he seems to be backpedaling from his (almost accurate) formulation "Islamofacists." (As you know, Dear Reader, we favor "Fuligo septica jihadi barbatus.")

Man of the cloth.

We especially like what Mr. Nyquist has written because we happen to believe that a great deal of the excessiveness of Muslim hatred of the West is founded in just this issue of the threat of female equality. The Muslim hatred of the West is not religious in any way. What is "religious" in appearance is actually "political." And underneath that is rank, raw Muslim male rage at losing the whip hand (sic) over women. And justifiable shame at being quite unable to match the West in science, technology, and hip hop:

The Left will not support the emancipation of Muslim women. . . . The Left ignores the brutality of Islamic law, its oppression of women and its incompatibility with basic freedoms. . . .

On its side, the administration is sufficiently intimidated by the Muslims and the Left to allow Muslims to make democracy their own way. But what will they make, in the end? One needs only refer to the statement of [former Centcom commander, General Anthony Zinni], who said the president’s advisors “didn’t understand the region and were going to create havoc there.” And havoc is what we have. How can democracy evolve among people whose traditions are authoritarian? “The patriarchal culture of that region,” wrote [Stephen Vincent, the first American journalist killed in Iraq], “is so irrational, so debilitating, so self-destructive – and so morally objectionable – that one senses it is no longer politically or historically sustainable.” And yet, there is no clear path from patriarchy and Islam to equality and democracy. If America made feminism the centerpiece of its Middle East Policy, the entire region would mobilize against President Bush – and that is what we have to look forward to. Regional democratization means feminism and feminism means the eradication of Islam. And so, you see, the democratic project in Iraq is an undeclared war against Islam. Only President Bush doesn’t realize the implications of his own policy.

* * * *

. . . [T[here is nothing for a massive invasion of the entire Middle East, on an unprecedented scale, to force an end to a medieval culture incapable of true modernization. At the same time, Islam isn’t likely to leave the West alone. One must remember the promise of Islam, that Europe will be exterminated and Islam will be triumphant. It is not the expression or feeling of all Muslims, but it is the teaching of the region’s leading celebrities.

"The Long Struggle Continues." By J. R. Nyquist, 8/18/06 (emphasis added).

Fem Dems.

Drew McKissick remembers.

George McGovern, that is, and how far it got him politically having a death wish on the issue of national defense.

Mr. McKissick appears to have a far better understanding of what it takes for toads to fear America:

Americans understand the importance of having the biggest stick in the global neighborhood. We know this instinctively to begin with, as it is part of our culture, but we also know it by way of over two hundred years of history. And nowhere do we find examples of where it has paid us to be weak, seem weak, or seem unwilling to defend ourselves and our interests with raw naked force if need be.

The fact is that national security is, now more than ever, the central issue of our time. Given current circumstances and the enemies arrayed against us, it is an issue of life and death.

The resurgent liberals are pulling the Democrat party further to the left on the issue, while the vast majority of the American people are to the right of where they are now, let alone where the new radicals want to take them.

The last time this happened in such a major way was in 1972 with the rise of George McGovern and his defeat of former Vice-President Hubert Humphrey for the Democrat presidential nomination. The anti-war left took a scalp then too, (Humphrey’s), and the victory sent the Democrats into a political wilderness that they didn’t begin to exit from until Bill Clinton came along.

The current Democrat leadership is allowing itself to be led into repeating history. . . .

* * * *

Off [the Democrats] go to do political battle in November, armed with a foreign policy that’s been double dipped in estrogen.

Bravo.

The Colonel likewise thinks foreigners should fear America. We could care less whether they respect us.

In point of fact, fear = respect. Grasp that simple equation – and it is simple indeed – and you can then easily appreciate the folly of the perennial Democrat quest for a warm blankie.

"The New McGovernism." By Drew McKissick, Conservative Outpost, 8/18/06 (emphasis added).

The supreme rhetorical importance of "racism" and "xenophobia."

Someone who is in a state of denial regarding his mortal illness, his wife's infidelity or his child's delinquency will turn angrily on the one who refers to the forbidden truth. Likewise, a political culture that is in denial about a serious social problem will condemn those who seek to discuss it, and try its best to silence them. For a long time now the European political class has been in denial about the problems posed by the large-scale immigration of people who do not enter into our European way of life. It has turned angrily on those who have warned against the disruption that might follow, or who have affirmed the right of indigenous communities to refuse admission to people who cannot or will not assimilate.

* * * *

[The] repudiation of the national idea is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the Second World War, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political elites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognized: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours'.

"Roger Scruton on Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Need to Defend the Nation State." By Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 6/24/06.

Jinnah On Multiculturalism.

Jinnah On Multiculturalism." Laban, UK Commentators - Laban Tall's Blog, 8/12/06.

Pretty powerful prosody.

Two droll pieces to be found over at Mish Mash:

"Viva le revolutione!" and "Death by Continental drift."

It's the religion . . . .

Thank heaven most Muslims don’t know too much of their own history and teachings, and it is best to keep it that way. Unfamiliarity and lack of dedication to the Torah and Bible prevents good Jews and Christians from becoming better men and women, but unfamiliarity and lack of dedication to the Qur’an prevents good Muslims from becoming terrorists.

Islamic Culpability in Islam Undressed (2005). By Vernon Richards.

Dhimmitude is a two-way street.

Most of the suspects [in the planned Aug. 16 airliner bombings] are second or third generation British citizens of Pakistani descent whose families hailed from war-torn Kashmir. U.S. officials believe the 29 members were divided into multiple cells and planned to break into small groups to board the nine planes.^[1]

Would it be fair to conclude that Britain made a huge mistake in allowing so many Muslims to enter the country?

These very young British Muslims with no other home than Britain have turned against Britain. Twenty-nine by the present count. The pathetic Mr. Stewart-Whyte is apparent the sole white Briton to sign on to this murderous plot, so maybe that makes it 28 foreign-origin Muslims involved.

The occasional Muslim who slips a mental cog doesn't condemn an entire community, but given the large numbers of young Muslims involved in this current abomination, the second-generation Muslims involved in the London transit attacks, and the sorry record of Muslim attacks around the world since 2001, isn't it madness not to consider Muslims a different and dangerous breed of cat?

Where are the second-generation Sikhs, Hindus, Jamaicans, and Chinese in Britain carrying out terror attacks and demonstrating in the streets proclaiming "Sikhs will dominate!"? It is unnecessary even to supply an answer to this question.

Q. What is it about Muslims that draws them to such awful violence?

A. Their religion.

Does any sane person doubt this?

We do not say that the entire British community is "condemned." We do say that we must forthrightly deal with the issue of a new legal presumption.

Normally, we commonly wrap ourselves around the axle in requiring special, rock-solid justification for cutting any dear citizen out of the fold for an official purpose. That is the right and proper approach -- for dealing with people whom. in crafting this approach, we implicitly assume are "us" and unjustly excluded from the benefits of the community of "us."

However, given (a) the scale of Muslim-inspired violence, intimidation, and dissembling and (b) the profound peculiarity, ignorance, anti-intellectualism, illiberalism, separatism, and hatred of the infidel that are inherent in Islam, a new approach is necessary to the problem that Islam poses for the modern world.

What is necessary is for the West, and any country in which there is a Muslim community, to establish the presumption that invidious legal distinctions made between Muslims^[3] and citizens of the host country are justified. The burden of proof that the distinction is unjustified should be on the proponent of the issue of justification and . . . be well nigh insuperable.

Non-Muslim nations are within their rights to treat Muslims in their midst in the same way that Muslims have treated and do treat infidels in their midst when they are the dominant group.

Dhimmitude is a two-way street.

Christians and Jews have been driven from their ancestral homes all over the Middle East by vicious Muslim conduct.^[4] Discrimination by the West should be instituted to achieve the same, no, an accelerated migration of Muslims from the West to their religious homelands.

Anything less is national suicide.

Notes
^[1] "Thwarting the Airline Plot: Inside the Investigation." By Brian Bennett and Douglas Waller, Time, 8/14/06 <-- Best of the Web Today, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/11/06.
^[2] "Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute." ~ Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, principal deputy of Osama bin Laden. Source.
^[3] "We are a blood-drinking people . . . ." Source
^[4] "At the age of thirteen I[, a Christian girl in Lebanon,] dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night waiting to be slaughtered and by the age of 20 I had buried most of my friends who were killed by Muslims." Source

Vindication of Pres. Bush.

Pres. Bush was much criticized by the ultrasqueamish for his arrogant arrogation of the right to surveil communications between foreign terrorist suspects and people with whom they were in contact inside the U.S. Presumably, these people in the U.S. were not the stockbrokers, spiritual advisers, psychotherapists, lovers, and business partners of those terrorist suspects.

From the chorus of hysterics, one could not but assume that intimate and private conversation between U.S. citizens wholly within the U.S. was a thing of the past.

The following is delicious, especially for the fact that the intercepts may have come from just such intercepts. It is not clear that they did, however, so we simply see now an example of what intercepts can do to locate terrorists or learn about their methods, plans, and actions.

Given the involvement of terrorists, the extremely low possibility of intercept of communications of U.S. citizens without a terrorist buddy, and the enormous tragedy that has been averted, how justifiable was the ultrasqueamish perseveration over the Fourth Amendment and the draconian, freedom-endangering presidential initiative in question?

Which is better? (a) [Visualize burning twin towers.] Or, (b) this:

MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications.

"Thwarting the Airline Plot: Inside the Investigation." By Brian Bennett and Douglas Waller, Time, 8/14/06 <-- Best of the Web Today, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/11/06.

Remember this one thing about Hezbollah.

One wonders if Westerners remember or know that, until Sept. 11, Hezbollah had killed more Americans than had any other terrorist organization.

Worry About the West -- Not Israel." By Victor Davis Hanson, Jewish World Review, 8/10/06.

Looking straight at the Medusa.

As in the legend of the Medusa, the modern world fears to stare directly into the face of the monster that threatens its destruction.

Were Islam to prevail in the heartland of the West, the ancient ways of those lands and their wondrous freedoms and intellectual accomplishments would wither under an ignorance that, in the 21st century, is almost inconceivable.

The west is threatened with the rule of toads and the elites of the West are somnolent, deluded, or bought off. They are besotted with harebrained notions of the inferiority of their own magnificent cultures and the equal status of cultures that could never conceive of the hula hoop, let alone lawn darts.

One man in Denmark, however, is brave enough to describe the situation there in straightforward terms. Ole Hasselbalch, professor, Doctor of Laws has written a warning for Danes about the danger of Muslim infiltration of their country and asks if they are willing at long last to confront their enemies:

Within the Arabic cultural sphere a feigned anger over an alleged offense is a well-known trait. Last winter there were many reasons to invent such an outrage: Egypt was facing a parliamentary election, and the regime needed a cause to boost their image. Iran needed a diversion from the Western attention to the nuclear ambitions of the country. Syria needed to have the pressure lifted after the involvement in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister. The negotiations about Kosovo’s future were imminent. The new Palestinian government needed legitimacy. Finally there was a need for tougher blasphemy laws to cap the increasing tendency in the Western European media to occupy themselves with the unacceptable parts of Islam — the British parliament was about to discuss “The Religious Hatred Bill”.

In short, the Mohammed Affair wasn’t set off by an offense. It was created in the expanding Muslim world in use for the conflict with the West.

This conflict is fundamentally about whether a political ideology clothed in a religious mantle will be allowed to force its dogma upon others, and even dictate that this must replace empirical knowledge. If this succeeds, we’re back to the times when Copernicus and Galileo were facing the Inquisition. On such a foundation no decent society can be built.

Prof. Hasselbalch makes these additional points:

• The primary mechanism of undermining the host society is demographic submersion (Gadaffi: “We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. They are a sign that Allah will give Islam victory over Europe — without swords, without cannons, without conquest.");


• A 2006 poll of Muslim immigrants already in Denmark showed that over one-half of them would not "distance themselves from the anti-Danish riots in the Middle-East";


• The number of "moderate" Muslims is insignificant and the moderates will "very likely be silenced in the long run";


• A minority can dominate a majority, as the Bolsheviks did in Russia and Cortez did in South America;


• Muslims invent fictitious offenses against them and stigmatize critics with the aid of Danish collaborators;


• Such efforts to stigmatize and divert attention must be ignored and the focus kept on the "deeply intolerant Middle-East, where in the last 100 years they have virtually succeeded in wiping out the Christian and Jewish societies";


• "Europe is about to be lost" because of European leaders who are either blind to the threat or "dislike taking the unpleasant steps now that will prevent something even worse later on" and so look the other way;


• A Middle-Eastern society with "corruption, nepotism and religious madness" is waiting to infest Denmark;


• Denmark's social structure will collapse when "Muslims’ family structure [and] their views on women’s place" becomes the norm, the consequence of which will be Danes will be a "suppressed minority" in their own land and will not be able to rebuild what they and their ancestors had enjoyed for centuries;


• There is no more time for temporizing and debate without action;


• There is no guarantee that the West will prevail;


• Danes have both a right and a duty to stop this;


• Muslims who do not respect Danish values must no longer be able to acquire citizenship and those who have already acquired it must be encouraged "to strike camp";


• "Eastern culture in the daily life of Danes must be opposed and not supported";


• Danes must understand how much petrodollars have bought and paid for journalists, bureaucrats (including former American ambassadors), and politicians (including an American president);


• Western leaders were unprepared for the scams and tricks behind the Motoons "uproar" and are doubtless just as unprepared today;


• Islam seeks control over others, just as with totalitarian ideologies; and


• "There is thus no basis for a dialogue with Islam, as long as this belief’s practitioners just consider such dialogue as a tool for deception."

There is no basis for a dialog with Islam. Period.

Muslim fanatics and the ummah that supports them or is cowed by them understand only force and the will to use it.

Anything less is just a prescription for more of the same, piled high and deeper: more and more Muslims digging in to Western countries until their numbers are large enough to defeat a West too feeble to protect itself. We are at war with Islam and must fight it with the ferocity with which we have fought our sworn enemies in the past.

Perseus was able to slay the Medusa by looking at its reflection in the shield held by Athena. But he only succeeded in doing so because he was willing to look at his enemy.

"Are We Ready for Confrontation?" Jyllands-Posten, 7/7/06. Translation at Gates of Vienna and comments of Baron Boddisey, 8/10/06.

Note to self: upon conversion, cease relations with infidels, plot mass murder.

Item about a white Briton who converted to Islam and is now under investigation for possible involvement in a plot to kill thousands of airline passengers:

Police swooped on Mr Stewart-Whyte's home in Hepplewhite Close, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, shortly after 10pm on Wednesday.

* * * *

Mr Stewart-Whyte, 19, had been a pupil at the prestigious Dr Challoner's Grammar School in nearby Amersham, where Sir Roger Moore once studied.

"He was always such a pleasant young man, always so polite, so very helpful," one neighbour said. "This is a real shock to many of us."

Another neighbour said Mr Stewart-Whyte had converted to Islam about a year ago, after which he noticed marked changes.

"He had grown a long beard and had shaved his head.

"The people he was hanging around with were different. Now he's with people who are religious, he doesn't speak to anyone around here since his conversion."

Mr Stewart-Whyte recently changed his name to Abdul Wahid.

Whether or not Abdul actually was involved in this plot we do not know at this time. However, we note with interest that within a year of this apparently pleasant, helpful, neighborly, comfortable white Briton's conversion to Islam, he came under suspicion for possible involvement in a stupendous act of religious terror. In sum, conversion followed by suspected involvement in huge terror plot.

UPDATE (5/26/08):

See picture. Maybe not so pleasant.

"The sneering rebel before he converted to Islam." Daily Mail Online, 8/22/06.

The very thought of Muslim involvement.

Shudder.

Item:

Muslim leaders reacted with shock and scepticism to the news of the arrests of 21 men, believed to be mostly British Muslims of Pakistani origin.

Police are facing pressure to prove they are acting proportionately and basing their operations on credible intelligence.

Fahad Ansari, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said many Muslims would be regarding the police with scepticism.

Shock and scepticism!

Why, the very thought that MUSLIMS might be plotting to blow multiple airliners out of the sky and slaughter thousands is outrageous on its face!

Only peopleofcolorism and religious bigotry can explain the actions of the British authorities.

Where was the police focus on disgruntled Presbyterians and C of E malcontents?

"Arrest in Pakistan led MI5 to airline terror plot suspects." Scotsman.com, 8/11/06.

Transformation of the Democratic Party.

Talk to a liberal today and you'll hear arguments on the irrelevance of the nation state, the irrelevance of borders, the common humanity of all peoples, the sick depravities of Christian history, the inequities inherent in the American system, the unique ineradicable racism of white America, the illegitimacy of America's founding, the subjugation of women in America, the profession of Christian faith in America as proof of a yearning after all manner of obscure and obscurantist doctrines, the hostility of the Establishment to honest debate of "real" issues (a debate always much improved by vulgarity), the crazed financing of all manner of military hardware when pressing social needs have not been met, etc., etc. Hip ennui is classy and military service is for dolts.

Absent is any sense that the liberal has a visceral wish to defend America. Never is there the immediate, dominant, wholehearted affirmation of his own country and its basic interest in simple continuity while all its egregious abuses and insults to tender sensibilities are ameliorated.

Mr. Barone discusses American "exceptionalism" but it is not necessary to go that far. Of course, only someone without the sense to pour water out of his boots can fail to see the exceptional aspects of America. But it is sufficient if a citizen has a sense simply of "us." As a starting point. With liberals, however, these defensive reactions are absent and "us" is no less than "all the world's poor." This latter concept, by itself, is not a starting place for debate; it's an end point. Never is there a sense of a "them" that lives and breathes to undermine the U.S. and take it over. JFK knew that domestic policy mistakes were reparable while mistakes in foreign policy are fatal. Democrats today think all problems can be worked out if one is but sufficiently committed to negotiations and compromise. If there is a foreign policy initiative that fails, then we simply try to find another initiative that is more sincere and try again.

Here is Mr. Barone on how far the Democrats have strayed from an appreciation of the need for a strong and aggressive defense of transnational interests:

[Sen. Joe Lieberman] has been an American exceptionalist -- a believer in the idea that this is a special and specially good country -- while his party's base is increasingly made up of people with attitudes that are, in professor Samuel Huntington's term, transnational. In their view, our country is no better than any other, and in many ways it's a whole lot worse.

Through most of the 20th century, American exceptionalism has been the creed of both of our major parties. . . .

* * * *

The Connecticut primary reveals that the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has moved, from the lunch-bucket working class that was the dominant constituency up through the 1960s to the secular transnational professional class that was the dominant constituency in the 2004 presidential cycle. . . .

* * * *

The working class Democrats of the mid-20th century voted their interests, and knew that one of their interests was protecting the nation in which they were proud to live. The professional class Democrats of today vote their ideology and, living a life in which they are insulated from adversity, feel free to imagine that America cannot be threatened by implacable enemies. . . .

In the mid-20th century the core constituencies of both the Democratic and the Republican Parties stood foursquare for America's prosecution of World War II and the Cold War. Today, as the Connecticut results suggest, it's different. The core constituency of the Republican Party stands foursquare for America's prosecution of the global struggle against Islamofascist terrorism -- and solidly on the side of Israel in its struggle against the same forces. The core constituency of the Democratic Party wants to stand aside from the global struggle -- and, as the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton at Mr. Lamont's side on election night suggests, is not necessarily on the side of Israel. It's not your father's Democratic Party.

"Primary Colors." By Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/10/06 (emphasis added; subscription).

ADDENDUM:

Ogre has an insightful thought on this:

Many liberals believe that terrorists are nice people. They honestly believe that all people are good and if we'd just be nice, they'd be nice in return. They believe that since people are good, only society is evil, and therefore incorrect society is what causes evil in people. Therefore, fix society and everyone will be happy.

Transnationalism refers to something that is ethereal. There is no "there" there.

The United Nations has proved over and over again to be anything but a panacea, let alone a way to deal with mundane things like Muslim depredations in Somalia, human trafficking, mass killings in Rwanda, nuclear proliferation, Cuban prisons, Chinese concentration camps, psychopathic government in Zimbabwe, and the like.

The important aspect of transnationalism is that there is no "here."

The here is confused, ambiguous, and stressful, and it offers up evidence of the nasty side of human nature. The liberal yearns to be set free from the mundane facts of life and, by magical thinking, transforms into an unshakeable ideology this wish to escape. Challenges to this ideology threaten to awake the powerful fear of personal vulnerability in the face of life's unpleasant facts. Hence the "Angry Left." And liberals, with their hyperfocus on individualism, cannot conceive of effective group action to deal with those unpleasant facts.

The Khmer Rouge hated parts of the "here" and literally moved people away from it into the countryside, and every bad thing of modern Cambodian urban life was indeed extirpated -- along with every good thing. That's an important characteristic of transnationalism. An ideal, untried "good thing" trumps preserving any alternative, and the issue of what good things might actually be lost by pursuing the ideal need never be addressed. (Read what we've written elsewhere about Pol Pot's desire to institute the "perfect democracy": Candy Cane Boats and Lemonade Seas.)

Tradition implicitly says, "What we have now is the best we can come up with so far." When that "best" is not perfect it is the fault of tradition. The problem is that our ancestors failed to choose the obvious good, whose bedrock virtue is compassion. Violence and criminality would not be necessary had not our ancestors and the capitalistic and paternalistic systems they chose lacked compassion as the organizing principle. "They Chose Greed" can be the next series on the History Channel.

The inherent difficulty of creating a just and rational society can neverbe acknowledged. The Founders' compromises on slavery at the outset fouled the whole enterprise from the beginning, never mind the huge benefit to their descendants and the world from their having crafted something "not bad" or even "quite good."

A sensible person not emotionally driven to escape mentally from reality knows that self defense is a necessary precondition to any attempt to institute a just government among men -- even if that attempt will fall short in many respects. A liberal can think of nothing from which we need to be defended. Nothing except our rotten post.

"Hezbullah and Peace." Ogre's Politics and Views, 8/10/06.

Humane and decent Muslims?

. . . Muslims who maintain their humanity and decency do so by compromising with their faith, by deviating from it in some way. As the Koranic scriptures and the Hadiths reveal, being a strict and pure Muslim requires that a person fill his heart with so much concentrated hatred for the “unbeliever” that most people simply don’t have the strength to keep up the daily routine of being an intolerant barbarian. So they quietly tell themselves that they will be good Muslims, but only up to a point. They will honor and revere the Koran, but they will not necessarily take it too literally. Much of what the Koran tells them to do they will silently ignore.

"My sweet Grandmother and the concept of 'Najass.'" By Keyvan Shirazi, FaithFreedom.org, 4/27/06 (emphasis added).

Be thee merciless to infidels.

According to the Muslim weasels who strive to "interpret" the Koran for the infidels infidels can't really understand the Koran or this and that inconvenient passage in the Koran is to be understood in the context of the defensive wars that Muslims had to fight.

Some defensive wars! They resulted in massive amounts of territory and wealth falling into Muslim hands. So many aggressors!

Any way you slice such "interpretations" they're still baloney and let us be guided instead by the actual words of the Koran:

Muhammad is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another.

Koran, 48:29.

Some other Koranic injunctions that should also make infidel swine just a littttttlllllle suspicious can be found here.

Nothing excessive, mind you. We're not after outright alarm, of course. Just read a few sayings from the Koran and see whether you experience that nascent, niggling little suspicion that all is not quite right in Six Flags Over Mecca.

Focusing on the fleas.

Wretchard has this quote on The Belmont Club today:

I think it's something new, in that a non-state organization has undertaken a major, sustained, broad-scale, and so far, the successful military offensive against a state," said William Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "What changes here ... is that non-state forces are able to challenge states militarily -- and win."

We reproduce our comments on Wretchard's post:

It obscures an important point merely to refer to "non-state forces [that] are able to challenge states militarily."

The vital concept upon which to focus is: "non-state forces that are supported by states."

Hezbollah wouldn't be able to do 1/1000th of what it's doing now without the support of Iran, directly and through its Syrian intermediary. And . . . with the income from its criminal activities in North and South America, although the income from these activities is merely the lagniappe to what Iran provides.

Ergo, the problem is Iran and this focus on "non-state forces" is an unhelpful distraction from the main point. The world is infected by fleas but the silly Westerners just can't bring themselves to do something about the dog right there in the living room.

If elephants harbored fleas, the image would be perfect.

The solution to the problem with Hezbollah is to deal with the real problem -- Iran. Surely, we could use those stealth bomber we spent so much money on to bomb every Revolutionary Guard barracks, vehicle park, headquarters, and supply dump and every intelligence facility in Iran. We could do this while we bomb their nuclear facilities as sort of a PS to that those other love notes.

Anything short of this is just to play a parlor game with Ahmadinejad and the priests.

"The Sling and the Stone." By Wretchard, 8/8/06.

Fidel – "man of the people" . . . and fat cat.

Who knew that "commie dictator" was a vocation that afforded such entrepreneurial opportunities for personal enrichment?

Fidel has cultivated his status as a left-wing icon since taking power in 1959. Remarkably, the fact that he has extracted from his impoverished and oppressed people a personal fortune -- Forbes magazine estimated it last year at over half a billion dollars for its World's Richest People list -- has done little to dent his image as a man of the people. The standard apologetics for the sorry state of the Cuban economy begin from the premise that America, not socialism, is responsible for Cuba's travails. But Castro's personal financial success suggests that in fact substantial revenue is sluicing through the island. . . . It's just that nearly all of it the income . . . goes to the ruling clique or to the military, bypassing the population. There are good reasons to question the embargo, but the notion that it is the source of all of Cuba's ills isn't one of them.

Fidel had his hand on the pulse of the nation, it turns out, and in its back pocket.

And the riot police and his Caribbean Cheka on speed dial.

Did we mention that? There were actually people who objected to being thrown into jail or having their relatives executed.

Real soreheads.

"Romancing Fidel." Wall Street Journal Online, 8/5/06 (emphasis added; subscription).

The left's passion for breaking eggs.

Lenin said it was necessary to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Let Bolshevism triumph!

Vladimir Bukovsky famously complained that he had seen the broken eggs, but no one he knew had ever tasted the omelet.^[1]

Mr. Bukovsky was someone who had some authority on this point. Jamie Glazov quotes from Bukovsky's To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter, on what happened when he went on a hunger strike in the Soviet Union:

[T]hey started force-feeding me - through the nostrils....they straightjacketed me, tied me down to a bed, and sat on my legs so that I wouldn't jerk. The others held my shoulders and my head....The feeding pipe was thick - thicker than my nostril - and wouldn't go in for love or money. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks....But they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked and something burst - enough to make you howl like a wolf....but she [the doctor] kept on shoving the pipe farther and farther down - you'd choke if it came back up....There had just been time for everything to heal during the night and the blood to stop flowing when the brutes came back and did it all over again.... Everything swelled up until it was agony to touch...As they say in the Soviet Union – like a razor across your balls.^[2]

You'd think left and right would be united in their determination to avoid handing power to human slime so they can inflict this kind of injury on real humans.

But . . . no. The left has an amazing indifference to such dirty little details of communism. Nobility of the object is what matters. "Good omelets for the People!"

For the left it's enough if you say you do what you do for the betterment of mankind. How you go about that betterment is a matter between you and your security forces or resident terror cell. Or: "Let me grind out my cigarette in the palm of your hand to demonstrate my contempt for pain."

By an amazing coincidence it's never the left's eggs that get broken. It's always someone else who gets to make the "necessary" sacrifice for the common good. There was a liberal college professor in North Carolina who was ardently in favor of mandatory school busing when that issue was just coming to a boil in the United States. No sooner than it was instituted in his district he enrolled his children in private school.

Q.E.D.

Nor for the left is there ever the need to deal with the inconvenience of researching the facts, making your arguments in the public forum, building a consensus for your position, and tolerating people to do whatever it is that unsupervised people do while this process is unfolding. That's why the left loves having the Supreme Court wave its magic wand and validate all those magnificent social and legal experiments. So much more convenient just to grind someone's nose in the dirt. Ignorant people make enlightened people impatient with their stupid resistance!

And the facts can be so inconvenient. The Soviets called people with actual knowledge of what problems were being created by state intervention in the economy "wreckers." It wasn't the party hacks put in to manage the enterprises who were at fault, but it was the experts who actually knew how to purify municipal water or generate electricity. They were the saboteurs of socialism.

So what if they had to be sacrificed? "Nine grams for you, swine."

The left's silence on the crimes of communism is one of the greatest moral failings of our age. How else could young people even think to wear a t-shirt with Che Guevara's picture? Only some monumental failing on the part of their teachers and guides could make them ignore Che's bloodthirsty nature.

Notes
^[1] "On Zizek and Trilling." By John Holbo, Philosophy and Literature, date unknown (link added).
^[2] "The West Lost The War: Vladimir Bukovsky." By Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com, 5/9/01.

Real fox.

Flower.

In the event of Islamic victory, cultural oblivion.

"Those who refuse to criticize Islamic fascism," according to the senator, "undermine the cause of freedom of religion because if the Islamic fascists win this war, no other religion will be permitted to flourish.

~ Sen. Richard Santorum, R-Pa.

"Santorum speech on Islamofacists: A turning point in defining the enemy?" By Wes Vernon, Renew America, 8/2/06 (emphasis added).

The dire threat of resident Muslim populations.

The intent to Muslims in Western nations to subjugate any of their host societies is conclusively show in Fjordman's extraordinary essay.

An excerpt:

[Emigrating Dutch] leave what was once their country in favor of people such as Dyab Abou Jahjah, founder "of the Arab European League (AEL). The AEL, founded in Belgium in 2000, now has branches in the Netherlands and France, and intends to spread across the EU. Jahjah, who has called the 9/11 attacks "sweet revenge," recruits Muslim youth to spread his ideology, which calls for the introduction of sharia in Europe. "We have three basic demands he says. "Bilingual education for Arab-speaking kids, hiring quotas that protect Muslims, and the right to keep our cultural customs." "Assimilation is cultural rape. It means renouncing your identity, becoming like the others." Jahjah has also demanded that Arabic should be made an official language in Belgium.

"Beheading Nations - The Islamization of Europe's Cities." By Fjordman, Dhimmi Watch, 7/12/06 (links in original, emphasis added).

Those wacky, devious Americans.

Item:

[U.S. Secretary of State Rice] wants the other 14 nations of the U.N. Security Council, many of whom are deeply distrustful of U.S. intentions in the Mideast, to sign onto her plan in a matter of just days.

Just what are those dastardly intentions? Free Iraqis from past and present tyranny? Give Iraqis a shot at some semblance of democracy? Neutralize a psychotic Iranian mullocracy with regional nuclear and global homicidal ambitions?

We wonder what would it take to have the members of the Security Council to express a smidgen of distrust of, say, Iran. If President Bush expressed his belief that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ were just around the corner, the world would collectively roll its eyes and write Mr. Bush off as delusional.

However, if it becomes evident that the Iranian President, Mr. Ahmadinejad and all the Iranian mullocracy believe in world chaos as an ok prelude to the imminent return of the 12th Imam, why no one would dream of marking that as grounds for distrust of the Iranians.

Nope. What we have to mistrust are U.S. intentions.

I guess.

It's almost enough to shake one's faith in the United Nations.

"U.S., Israel Start to Diverge As Casualties Mount." By Yochi j. Dreazen and Marc Champion, Wall Street Journal Online, 8/1/06 (subscription).

Up, up, Buttercup.

Many years ago, the Colonel visited Point Lookout in Maryland, where there is an obelisk erected in memory of the Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war in the Union prison camp there. (We tried to visit some of the remaining prisoners there but couldn't get past the gate guard.)

As we read the names and units of the men, we envied them their freedom to make a leisurely assessment of the danger to them and make a decision about how they would respond. This was still in the time of the Cold War with only a 20-minute ballistic missile flight time from the Soviet Union -- which allows only a somewhat abbreviated (and limited) assessment of one's survival options.^[1]

Today communism is not dead and the long-term danger of a revived and militarized China is not clear. Much ink will be spilled on that issue. (J.R. Nyquist's piece, The fatal Befuddlement, is a good start if you want to read about this issue.)

Nonetheless, the immediate threat of the Soviet Union has been replaced by the more insidious danger of cultural and demographic suffocation at the hands of Mohammedanism and the forces working in favor of complacency are as hard at work as before.

In his post referenced below, Fjordman mentions, among other things, the West's "sleepwalking middle class" and it remains to be seen whether Westerners will heed the tocsin that sounds every minute of the day in countless ways. Oriana Fallaci, in her "The Rage and the Pride, speaks of a Mr. Salvemini

who on the 7th of May 1933 speaks [in New York] against Hitler and Mussolini, shouting in despair [as he] addresses an audience that does not understand but will understand on the 7th of December 1941 . . . ."

Needless to say, Mr. Salvemini got nowhere.

Alas, given:

• the odious and obvious nature of our enemies and the threat they pose;
• the tepid response to that threat;^[2]
• the mind boggling unwillingness to close the U.S. border to illegal infiltration, let alone close off all Muslim immigration;
• the moronic treatment of Islam in the media;^[3] and
• the sinister ass kissing of the Saudis;^[4]

among other things, it is obvious that it isn't only Representative Patrick Kennedy who has trouble with his sleep meds.

Anyyyyyway, here is a disturbing extract from a hugely important piece by Fjordman, which does not at all allow anyone to entertain the option of business as usual:

If Muslim immigration continues, the impending fall of France could mark the starting point of the Balkanization of much of Europe, perhaps later even North America. I fear this is a world war. Maybe future historians will dub it the Multicultural World War. Just as WW1 was caused by Imperialism, WW2 by Fascism and the Cold War by Communism, this one will be caused by Multiculturalism. The term “the Multicultural World War” has been coined by Fjordman. I find this to be more accurate than “The Islamic World War” because what will cause this world war is Western cultural weakness, through Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, rather than Islamic strength. ^[5] 

Notes
^[1]  It was also a time of legions of addled leftist intellectuals on the home front eager to do their utmost to obscure the realities of communism and lull their fellow citizens into complacency about the cancer of communism. We suppose we have to grant that intellectual opinion in the Confederacy was probably solidly on the side of war with the persons not wanting to rush to war being at a disadvantage. The aforementioned intellectual opinion was not wrong. This is only to say that in any age humans must swim against the tide to some degree or another with respect to various issues. The real issue is, of course, who is in the right, and 20th-century liberal intellectuals were decidedly wrong in what they concluded and advocated vis-a-vis the Soviet threat. Today's pantywaist, lickspittle pussy apologists for Islamic depredations and goals are also wrong.
^[2] Witness the baffling formulations of "religion of peace," "war on terror," and the "axis of evil," and the apparent nervousness of President Bush about letting the Israelis "get 'er done."
^[3] "A recent MSNBC program on the Beltway Snipers, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo meticulously documented the killings and hunt for the snipers but did not mention one word of John Allen Muhammad's association with "Jamaat ul-Fuqra (Arabic for “community of the impoverished”), a terrorist organization founded by a notorious Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani." For this, see "Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Virginia, Part 1 ." By Baron Bodissey, Gates of Vienna, 10/10/05. We did miss some portions of the program and will correct our assertion here if there was any mention of this association (or of his prior membership in the non-Islamic Nation of Islam) but we saw the end where one might expect a discussion of motive and the body of the program was a death-by-death account of the snipings and the fevership activities of the police to find the sniper(s) and their public statements as the crisis dragged on. If the same producers had made a film about D Day, we would have seen troops landing, cliffs being scaled, the Navy bombarding the German positions, supply ships supplying, and Channel storms storming without any mention of National Socialism. (Our Wikipedia reference above does mention the NOI connection but limits its speculation as to motive to Mr. Mohammed's possibly wanting to extort money from the U.S. government.)
^[4] "Black Gold." By Baron Bodissey, Gates of Vienna, 7/30/06. There's a very interesting discussion of the economics of oil in this great piece as well as an outstanding picture of a man at a gas pump, which you must check out.
^[5] "The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War." By Fjordman, 4/18/06.