Marque and Reprisal

The Framers of the Constitution, self-evidently Divinely Inspired, wrote the following into that document:

Article I

Section 8

The Congress shall have Power...To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; ...

So not only can (and should) Congress make Rules concerning Captures (i.e. jihadists go directly to Gitmo for coercive interrogation, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 ACLU lawyers), but they can also grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

That Power has not been revoked.

Though the Declaration of Paris of 1856 outlawed such Letters, the United States was not a signatory to that treaty.

What are these Letters?

A Letter of Marque and Reprisal was is [there, I fixed that for you. --RDS] an official warrant or commission from a national government authorizing the designated agent to search, seize, or destroy specified assets or personnel belonging to a party which had committed some offense under the laws of nations against the assets or citizens of the issuing nation...

The formal statement of the warrant was to authorize the agent to pass beyond the borders of the nation ("marque", meaning frontier), and there to search, seize, or destroy assets or personnel of the hostile foreign party ("reprisal"), not necessarily a nation...It was considered a retaliatory measure short of a full declaration of war...

A private ship and its captain and crew operating under a letter of marque and reprisal was called a privateer.

Outsourcing and privatization are nothing new.

If Congress granted such Letters, for, say, seizing Iran's oil exports or gasoline imports, to be taken and sold at a profit, any number of private ventures would find the best, most efficient way to do it in no time.

It would add real teeth to any weak "sanctions" that the UN will agree to on a nation-state basis.

Also note the target is "not necessarily a nation."

All this tizzy about our inability to deal with "4th gen" warfare and "non-state actors" as something dreadful and new is total nonsense. It's only a problem for people who think the world didn't really begin until around 1968.

We've got problems with cells of "terrorists"? Just commission cadres of "freedom fighters" to go after them.

There are thousands of Nepalese Gurkhas just itching to take such a job, now that the Brits have cut back on recruitment out of that hellhole. They love taking a shortsword to the enemy even more than Abu does.

That's our Congressman and Senators, letting this vastly powerful yet cheap and simple lever of power rust away, unused and forgotten.

We should remind them.

Article I.

Section 8.

And if they grant such Letters, with a simple majority, there's absolutely nothing the Courts, or the President, or the UN can do about it.

Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

Gimme some!

Go Canada

This deserves more hailing:

NATO assault leaves scores of Taliban dead

Dozens of Taliban insurgents were killed in fighting that began late Saturday in Panjwaii, about 30 kilometres west of Kandahar, and continued until early Sunday.

Between 60 and 72 Taliban fighters died, NATO said, although the death toll could not be independently confirmed.
...
It was the most significant victory for NATO since it took over control of international forces in southern Afghanistan July 31, killing nearly 10 per cent of the estimated numbers of Taliban insurgents believed to be in the south.

“Ten per cent losses on the enemy insurgent side is a very significant loss of their ability to conduct operations,” Col. Lavoie said.

“It should show the Canadian public the high degree of training that Canadian soldiers have.”

There were no casualties among the Canadians, members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF.

However, sources said as many as seven Afghan police died in the battles.

Bodies and body parts were found scattered throughout the area following the fighting, which was part of a “deliberate operation,” NATO said in a statement.
...
Afghan and Canadian forces deliberately moved into position around three known Taliban locations, making their presence known, hoping for a reaction, Col. Lavoie said.

When the Taliban moved on them, the Canadians and Afghan security forces were ready, he said.

“We were able to engage the enemy through fire and manoeuvre without ever having to have ourselves backed into a corner,” he said.
...
NATO ground forces used artillery and air strikes to subdue the Taliban fighters.
...
In an unusual move, NATO described the fighting as a Taliban defeat.
...
Canada currently has roughly 2,200 soldiers working under the NATO umbrella in the Kandahar region. Twenty-six Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed since Canada deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002. Of those, 19 have died during the past six months.

Step into the killbox!

Managing Savagery

An excerpt from an explanation of the islamist strategy found here.

All that is asked of us is to not lose our will to resist.

That is the whole strategy -- to get us to simply give up from exhaustion and constant negative news.

As Napoleon said, the morale to the physical is as three is to one.

In this case, it's everything!

The Islamic Resistance Movement (IRM), the Jihad, which includes Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all other like-minded folk, is much smarter about it than we are. It has turned the civility of the US, and Europe, into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. It has weaponized our desire for peace. It has recognized that our goodness is no match for its savagery, and will continue to exploit that fact until we lose and they win. However long it takes.

Centuries, generations, decades, years, months.

The soft underbelly of America in particular and Western Civilization in general is that it has become so excessively nice and decent and civilized that it is now loathe to rise to its own self-defense, loathe to kill civilians when necessary, loath to cause "collateral damages," loathe to fight and defeat other countries, even when its own survival is at stake. We have emasculated our will to rise to our own defense, to the defense of our interests, to the defense of our friends and allies, to the defense of our own civilization and its unique freedoms. We would rather die than kill. We are willing to martyr ourselves and our children and their children and our country to the conceit of our own goodness.

[...]

...it has calculated that although it lacks the massed military force to confront the United States directly in battle, by The Management of Savagery it can foment endless incidents of terrorism and theaters of seemingly inexhaustible savagery in many places all over the world, year after year, decade after decade, until the Americans, Aussies, and Brits, are worn down, exhausted, demoralized, and no longer have the political will to keep trying to defend Western Civilization from the savages.

At that point the IRM can begin to take things over with little objection or resistance, since they will promise peace - PEACE - the peace America is psychologically and politically obsessive about. They will offer peace with the right hand, an end to the savagery they have created with the left. And after years or decades of widespread savagery, peace will be welcomed.

The price for peace, of course, will be an Islamic Empire, an empire in which the unique freedoms of Western Civilization, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, will not exist, an empire in which one can be anything one wishes to be, as long as it is Muslim.

It's all in the mind.

It seems only a spiritual revival will save us. Belmont Club makes the contrast:

The Guardian describes the tide of young Muslim men coming to see an unnamed "prophet" in East London. It recalls if nothing else scenes from Christianity's apostolic age. It features a man discoursing in an exotic language simultaneously translated into many tongues for eager listeners. The gathering is thronged by a crowd from all walks of life, eager to start a pilgrimage about which little is known -- except that salvation lies at the end of it. Men who would never have acknowledged each other socially gather and share a makeshift meal together. This is radical Islam in the heart of the West.

The organisation - influenced by a branch of Saudi Arabian Islam known as Wahhabism - has already been linked to two of the July 7 suicide bombers ... The jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid is also known to have attended Tablighi meetings. ...

one person spoke admiringly about the "main man" ... "We can't call him a prophet," he said. "No one can be a prophet. But when you meet him you'll realize. He's helped a lot of people in Walthamstow to follow the right path, the path of the prophet. He'll talk to you openly this evening and everything will make sense." ...

The largest room was reserved for the main speaker, an elder from Preston who spoke in Urdu. His sermon was relayed through a microphone to five other rooms in which interpreters provided simultaneous translation into English, Arabic, Sinhala, Turkish and Somali.

[...]

Across town in posher part of London, Jenni Murray, presenter of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour is finalizing plans to kill herself when she gets seriously sick.

She is sealing a pact with two friends that they will assist each other to die if any of them is diagnosed with a debilitating and incurable illness. Methods they might use include injections or smothering with a pillow. This is despite a law outlawing assisted suicide, which Murray says is sustained by a religious minority. ...

Publicity material for the show says that Murray "does not want to look after her sick and aging mother, and plans to end her own life when she becomes a burden to those around her". The network said: "Jenni is angry that, having fought so hard to become liberated and independent, women are now being trapped into caring for dependent parents."

The contrast between the expectant, almost ecstatic Muslim gathering and sour bleakness of a middle-aged BBC presenter arranging her own suicide is striking. Where one sees the glimmer of life even in hardship and death, the other delivers a final judgment on the meaning of postmodern life: a pillow over the face in a musty room after the last glass of wine.

Who thought that radical Islam stood no chance against postmodern glitter did not know Islam. Churchill knew it and said "were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science -- the science against which it had vainly struggled -- the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

Science now alone is not enough.

We must have the will to use our weapons.

Bayesian Probabilities

hans ze beeman at LGF provides some mathematical calculations using Bayes' theorem.

He shows, using rough prior probabilities, that it's sixteen hundred times more likely that you are a terrorist if you are a muslim than if you are a Christian!

That's the math of rational profiling (I've corrected a factor of ten in the quotation below from the original text):

Screen all persons that appear suspect. And yes, unfortunately, most terrorists these days are Muslims.

/Starting statistical reasoning module (using Bayes' theorem)

Priors (rounded):
P(Muslim) = .20 (Probability that you are a Muslim, regarding world population)
p(Christian) = .40
P(Buddhist) = .10
P(terrorist) = .0001

Conditional probabilities:
P(Buddhist ¦ terrorist) = .001 (Probability that you are a Buddhist given you are a terrorist, regarding world population)
P(Christian ¦ terrorist) = .001
P(Muslim ¦ terrorist) = .80

--

P(terrorist ¦ religion) = [P(religion ¦ terrorist) x P(terrorist)] / P(religion)

(Probability you have a certain religion, given you are a terrorist)

--

P(terrorist ¦ Muslim) = .80 x .0001 / .20 = .0004
P(terrorist ¦ Christian) = .001 x .0001 / .40 = .00000025
P(terrorist ¦ Buddhist) = .001 x .0001 / .10 = .000001

--

P(terrorist ¦ Muslim) / P(terrorist ¦ Christian) = 1600

/end statistical reasoning module

Using the mentioned priors, the probability that you are a terrorist if you are a Muslim is 1600 times higher than if you are a Christian. The priors are assumptions in this case (e.g., 80% of terrorists are Muslim); it could be easily researched how many terrorists were Muslim, Christian or Buddhist (same goes for religious affiliation). If someone has the data, it could be recalculated.

Just think about it. And profiling.

Pork BBQ at Mo's!

Mmmm, ribs!

(no, it's not real... Yet...)

August 22

August 22 is supposed to be significant to islamic twelvers?

It's also significant to Crusading Christians.

On August 22, 725 AD, the Bishop of Nantes became the martyred St. Emilian while leading the French against the invading muslims:

St. Emilian of Autun, August 22

Muslim invasions, which began taking over Spain in 711, soon began to spread across the Pyrenees into various regions of France. In 725, an attack was planned against the city of Autun, rich in abbeys and monasteries. A reaction of the French Catholics rose in Bretagne, led by St. Emilian, Bishop of Nantes.

Born in a noble family of Armonica, he was famous for his courage and honor. Magnanimous, with keen discernment and a noble character, he had great intelligence as well as a faith worthy of a martyr and an ardent zeal for the interests of the Church. So, when he heard the news that the Muslims would invade Autun, the Bishop considered it his duty to take up the sword. He judged that it was necessary to fight rather than flee and see the things he loved the most destroyed: Catholicism and France.

He called the people to the Cathedral and made this appeal, which became legendary in the Middle Ages:

“O! All you strong men of war who are still stronger in the faith: take into your hands the shield of this divine Faith, mark on your foreheads the sign of the Cross, cover your heads with the helmet of salvation, and protect your chests with the armor of the Lord. Then after taking up this religious armor, soldiers of Jesus Christ, do yet more.

“Take your strongest weapons of war, your sharpest swords of the best steel, and come together to combat and smash the miserable enemies who like furious beasts slaughter our Catholic brothers. It is the moment to say with Judas Macabeus: 'Be strong and make you ready that you may fight with these people, which are agreed together to destroy us and our sanctuary. Better is it for us to die in battle, than to see our people and our sanctuary in such a miserable state.'”

Touched by the Holy Ghost and filled with enthusiasm, the crowd shouted: “Lord and Venerable Pastor, give the order and command, and where you go, we will follow.”

The Saint answered: “On this spot we shall gather and from the foot of this altar we will start out against the enemy. And I will have the honor to march at the head of the soldiers of Jesus Christ.”

On the arranged date, wearing his sacred vestments the Bishop said Holy Mass and gave Communion to the men who would fight with him. Then, they started their march to Autun. A series of marvelous victories followed the Breton army. They saved Autun at the great battle of Saint Forjand, and defeated the infidel army at the pass of Crès d’Aussi.

The enemy made another attack but was defeated at the battle of St. Jean de Louis. The Muslim chief, however, made another maneuver to reconquer Autun. To cut off his path, St. Emilian gathered a number of his subjects and said: “Dear and brave companions, I congratulate you for your great faith. The number of combatants is not important; the victory comes from Heaven.”

Then, making a sign of the Cross, he said, “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” and entered into the thick of the fight.

Tradition says that St. Emilian severely wounded the Muslim chief during the fight. When the Saracens saw their chief so near to death, many rallied to help him. The Saint Bishop fell to the ground, fatally wounded by many sword thrusts. He continued to shout encouraging his soldiers, but finally expired. It was August 22, 725.

The Muslim chief ordered St. Emilian beheaded. Later the Catholics gathered his relics, which were treasured as objects of great veneration. His cult was confirmed by Pope Pius IX.

[Seven years after the sack of Autun in 725, Charles Martel met Abd-er-Rahman outside of Tours and defeated and slew him. The Battle of Poitiers of 732 is considered one of the great turning points in History, which stopped the Islamic advance into Western Europe.]

Satan's Tactics

Jihad thrives on ignorance and brutal ideological enforcement.

In Afghanistan,

Militants have targeted schools, burning 144 to the ground over the past year and forcing another 200 to close following threats against teachers and students, according to officials. More than 200,000 children have been unable to continue their education as a result.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach secular subjects besides religion.

Found via Belmont Club, according to Die Welt,

Hezbollah’s barbarism is legendary. Gen. Effe Eytam, an Israeli veteran of that first Lebanon war, tells of how--after Israel had helped bring "Doctors without Borders" into a village in the 1980s to treat children--local villagers lined up 50 kids the next day to show Eytam the price they pay for cooperating with the West.

"Each of the children had had their pinky finger cut off."

None of the weapons in the IDF arsenal could level this disparity in will.

Children's TV is a source of indoctrination, according to translators at memri.org. Here are collected examples from tv for kids in middle eastern culture.

The videoclips have titles such as:

Mothers of Hizbullah Martyrs: 'We Are Very Happy And Want to Sacrifice More Children'

Jews Turn into Apes and Pigs in Claymation Film for children

Iranian Animated Film for Children Promotes Suicide Bombings

Egyption Cleric Tells Group of Children about Child Martyrdom

Tehran Children: 'We Came to Say Death to Israel, Death to America'

TV Special on the Culture of Martyrdom

Man of Peace

Cleric walks free:

An Islamic cleric who influenced at least one of the 7 July bombers and whose videos may have been seen by several of the terror suspects arrested earlier this month, is to be freed from prison in weeks.

Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal encouraged Muslims to attend training camps so they could wage jihad on the West. He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. Hundreds of Muslims attended his lectures in mosques across Britain, including Birmingham, London and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.
...
'You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks,' el-Faisal told those who attended his lectures. 'Jews,' el-Faisal said, 'should be killed... as by Hitler.'

He encouraged the use of chemical weapons to 'exterminate non-believers', and exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children to train them for jihad. He also suggested that nuclear power stations could be fuelled with bodies of Hindus, slaughtered for their 'oppression' of Muslims in Kashmir.

This Month in Jihad

Here is a collection of headline snippets concerning the global jihad, culled from LGF, just from the last 3 weeks of August alone!

To understand my views, imagine following such headlines (not even considering the commentaries and essays that "connect the dots") for five years...

And notice the odd reports of middle eastern men purchasing hundreds of cellphones recently in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Ohio.

BRITAIN - Baby and Bottle used for Bomb: A husband and wife arrested in the British terror raids allegedly planned to take their six-month-old baby on a mid-air suicide mission.

Scotland Yard police are quizzing Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his 23-year-old wife Cossor over suspicions they were to use their baby’s bottle to hide a liquid bomb.

------------------
BRITAIN - A five-year-old girl’s passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.

Hannah Edwards’s mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

[they were travelling to France. - ed.]

---------------
BRITAIN - Muslim leaders summoned to talks with the Government on tackling extremism in their midst called for public holidays to mark their religious festivals [and for Sharia law for family matters].

The Whitehall meeting was set up in response to last week’s airline bomb plot discovery.

Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly had prepared an uncompromising message on the need to tackle dangerous radicalism.

But, in what she admitted were ‘sharp’ exchanges, some senior Muslim figures turned the tables yesterday and made a series of demands which also included the introduction of Sharia law for family matters.

Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland, said: ‘We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.’

---------------
TEHERAN - Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez have formed a mutual admiration society in Tehran, bonding over their hatred for Israel and America.

Chavez: "I say today, “God, if there is any justice, send bolts of lightning from Your hands upon the monsters.” Allah willing."

Ahmadinejad: "Allah willing. [applause] [...]

America and England must answer for these crimes. [...]

Allah willing, the hand of divine power will emerge from the sleeve of the peoples and will avenge the blood that has been unjustly shed. It has become clear once again that all the slogans of human rights, peace, and democracy are nothing but a lie. [...]

They should know that they are nearing the last days of their lives. These crimes have disturbed the conscience of mankind. We too repeat the prayer of Simon Bolivar. We ask God to give the free peoples such power that will enable them to erase the rule of hegemony from the face of the earth.

That day is near. Allah willing."

---------------------------
BANGKOK, Thailand - Assailants carried out at least 40 bomb and arson attacks Tuesday night in Thailand’s three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces, police said.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in sectarian violence since a resurgence in January 2004 of a violent Islamic separatist movement in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, the only provinces with Muslim majorities in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.

[Thailand does not support Israel and is not in Iraq; what is the "root cause"??? -- ed.]

--------------------------------------
BRITAIN - A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was ‘just’.

Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the ‘greatest act of martyrdom’. The 51-year-old was speaking at the ExpoIslamia convention in Manchester. The Palestinian-born academic - who previously boasted he would carry out a suicide bombing in Israel - also repeated his public backing for Hamas, which remains banned in the UK.
...
Dr Tamimi claimed the war on terrorism was a war on Islam. “We are Muslims in Europe, not European Muslims,” he added.

------------------------
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Saudi Arabia warned against accusing Muslims of terrorism and fascism, in an apparent reference to US President George W. Bush’s claim that the United States is at war with “Islamic fascists”.

It “warned against hurling charges of terrorism and fascism at Muslims without regard to the spotless history of Islamic civilization”, the statement said.

---------------------
LONDON’S most influential former police chief has rounded on Britain’s Muslims, blaming them for the terrorist networks in the country.

“When will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is their problem?” wrote John Stevens, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in a Sunday newspaper.

In an inflammatory opinion column, he called on Muslims to “stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else’s problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims”.

-----------
CENTENNIAL, Colorado - A woman was sentenced to two months in jail Tuesday for effectively stealing the services of an Indonesian woman who prosecutors said was held as a virtual slave for four years.

Sarah Khonaizan, 35, a Saudi citizen who lives in suburban Denver, also was ordered on the theft charge to pay $90,000 in restitution and was ordered not to have any contact with the 24-year-old woman.

----------------------------
MONTREAL - (report) After having heard countless cries of “death to Israel”, “vive le Hezbollah” and once in Arabic “death to the Jews”, I addressed some of the protesters by shouting back “am Yisrael chai” (the people of Israel live) and “shalom aleichem” (peace to all). The incident then turned violent when a fanatic ran up to me suddenly, punching and strangling me quickly as I fell onto a parked car on Ste. Catherine St.

As the attacker was restrained and ushered away I then yelled “Are you crazy? This is Canada, so act civilized like everyone else watching you.” The unknown assailant was then reintroduced by protest-organizers into the crowd to avoid detection by the numerous members of the media and policemen who had witnessed the assault.

Other disgruntled anti-Israel protesters then attempted to enter my place of work where I sought refuge yelling “Jewish pig” and “down, down Israel” as police and bystanders sealed the entrance briefly, preventing the mob from breaking the storefront.

-------------------------------
AUSTRALIA -- The Government was on a collision course with its Muslim advisory group over its claim that Hezbollah should not be considered a terrorist organisation.

Mr Howard made it clear today the government had no intention of removing the militant arm of Hezbollah from its official list of terrorist organisations. “No chance, full stop. No chance at all (of removing Hezbollah from the list),” Mr Howard said. ...

Ameer Ali, chairman of the Muslim advisory group set up last year in the wake of the London terrorist bombings, says Hezbollah should not be lumped in with groups like al-Qaeda.

“They should not condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist group,” he said. “I don’t think they should judge that they are simply a terrorist organisation like al-Qaeda. It is part of Lebanese politics.” ...

--------------------
BOSTON -- Observer at "Justice for Lebanon" rally assaulted and spat upon when found to be Jewish in Coply Square.

-------------------
SEATTLE -- Naveed Afzal Haq is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Pamela Waechter, 58, director of the Jewish charity’s annual fundraising campaign. Five other women were wounded.

According to court documents, Haq talked to 911 operators from the office, identified himself by name and said: “This is a hostage situation and I want
these Jews to get out.”

He later added: “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”

--------------
BRUSSELS (EJP)—- The Brussels Jewish Memorial for Holocaust victims has been vandalized, in an attack described as “devastating” by the head of a Belgian Jewish association.

The gate of the Memorial’s crypt was pulled out, documents were destroyed, windows broken and an urn containing ashes from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp was desecrated and emptied.

Condoms and excrements were also found on the floor of the Memorial which is located in Anderlecht, a Brussels district with an important Arab population.

------------------
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has [said] the answer to the conflict in south Lebanon was the “elimination of the Zionist regime,” slamming
Israel’s “war against humanity”.

------------------
BANGKOK (AHN) - Four people are killed in two bomb attacks in southern Thailand, a stronghold of Muslim separatists.

-------------------
SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian government said it was investigating a claim that hundreds of Southeast Asian suicide bombers had been deployed to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel.

The claim was made by the leader of the radical Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM), Suaib Bidu, The Australian newspaper reported.

-----------------------
ITALY - One of Italy’s most popular Adriatic Sea resorts, Riccione, is set to open the country’s first beach exclusively for Muslim women.

The city administration has approved an unprecedented measure this week providing for a beach from which men will be banned and fitted with tents to safeguard the privacy of Muslim women who want to sunbathe and swim without having to do so fully clothed as Islamic custom prescribes. Female lifeguards will also be provided.

------------------------
EGYPT -- Judges in Egypt called upon the government to dissolve its peace agreement with Israel, on the grounds that it is inconceivable for Egypt to coexist peaceably with Israel while the IDF operates in Lebanon. The judges expressed support of popular resistance against Israeli advances, which, in their eyes, is the only way to protect the Arab ummah (greater nation).

The Egyptian judges called upon judges from around the world to do their duty and aid in imposing [islamic] values of justice and equality between human beings.

[we give $2 billion in aid to Egypt per year -- ed.]

--------
LONDON (AFP) - Iran will supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missile systems in the coming months, boosting the guerrillas’ defences against Israeli aircraft, according to a report by specialist magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly, citing unnamed Western
diplomatic sources.

----------
PAKISTAN - A girl participates in an anti-Israel protest with slogans painted on her face in Karachi, Pakistan August 4, 2006. The rally was organised by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) to condemn Israel’s air strikes on Lebanon and Gaza. The words on
the black headscarf reads ‘There is no one, only Allah is there and Mohammad is Allah’s messenger’.

[the photo also shows the words "Hate Israel" on her face in English -- ed.]

--------------
TORONTO - A special multi-agency police team has arrested an 18th suspect on terrorism-related charges, two months after 17 other suspects were arrested on charges that included plotting to bomb targets in Ontario.

And police are still looking at “other individuals” in the case, an RCMP spokeswoman said.

UPDATE: HOUSTON and TORONTO - Today the Globe and Mail reports that at least two of the suspects accused of plotting massive terror attacks in Canada were regular posters at ClearGuidance, self-described as “a resource guide for Muslim American teenagers,” where Muslim kids traded decapitation videos and jihad talk.

This was the first announcement at ClearGuidance from the administrators:

"We need youth to fight in the way of ALLAH in Kashmir, India, Chechniyah, Afghanistan, Philistine, and wherever we are being oppressed. Leave your plans of al wahn and adopt a new plan which will help the ummah, do not be selfish, this life is cheap, whereas the life of islam, will grant you your desires in this life and the next life."

-----------------
ISTANBUL - Thousands of Turkish Islamists gathered in an Istanbul square to protest Israeli attacks on Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The banner on the right that reads: ‘Everywhere Lebanon. We are all Hezbollah.’

-----------
GERMANY - A leak from the investigation into a pair of unexploded bombs found on trains in Germany this week has produced a strange detail — a bag printed in Arabic. German officials won’t confirm anything, but the case has ignited a national debate about rail security.

Two suitcase bombs found in German trains early this week have set off a debate on the safety of the German rail system.
[...]
The gas-canister bombs in both cases were professionally-built, according to Jürgen Kleis, head of the team of detectives on the case;

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IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.

A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

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LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah.

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LOS ANGELES - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has apologized to Muslim leaders who accused him of taking Israel’s side in the violence in Lebanon by going to a pro-Israel rally and ignoring their invitations to interfaith peace vigils.

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LEBANON - Time magazine stringer Christopher Allbritton, writing on his blog while reporting from southern Lebanon: “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.”

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BRITAIN - Almost a quarter of British Muslims say the 7/7 bombings can be justified because of the Government’s support for the war on terror, according to an opinion poll.

And nearly half of those polled, or 45 per cent, believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel.

A third of those questioned said they would rather live under Sharia law in the UK than British law.

The survey also reveals concerns among Muslims about Britain’s moral standards, with 40 per cent saying it is a country of bad moral behaviour.

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WASHINGTON, DC - a protest observer was physically assaulted by CAIR’s National Vice-Chairman, Dr. Ahmad Al-Akhras.

[CAIR is the Council on American Islamic Relations, a powerful jihad lobby. The D.A. will not prosecute in spite of video evidence. -- ed.]

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BRITAIN - As they launched raids on the alleged Islamic terrorists plotting to blow up a dozen airplanes with explosives hidden in baggage, British authorities reached out to the Muslim Council of Britain and other radical Islamic front groups to make
sure the police would be sufficiently sensitive to the needs of the Muslim community.

Mr Ahmed said that he felt the operation had been handled well but he warned that if the police failed to find any evidence to incriminate the people concerned then relations between the government and the Muslim community would deteriorate further.

------------
OHIO — Investigators in southeast Ohio said they were working to unravel how two Michigan men charged with supporting terrorism came to have airplane passenger lists and airport security information.

Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, 20, and Ali Houssaiky, 20, both of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, were being held at the Washington County Jail on $200,000 bond each, which could be raised at a Thursday afternoon court hearing. Each was charged Wednesday with money laundering in support of terrorism.

Deputies stopped the two on a traffic violation Tuesday and found the flight documents along with $11,000 cash and 12 phones in their car, Sheriff Larry Mincks said.
...
Abulhassan and Houssaiky admitted buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio, said sheriff’s Maj. John Winstanley. They sold the phones to someone in Dearborn, Winstanley said. Vessels declined to say how the phones, cash or flight information involved terrorism.

UPDATE, MICHIGAN:

both are graduates of Dearborn’s Fordson High School a/k/a “Hezbollah High.” Houssaiky was the star running back and co-captain of Fordson’s football team.

The school’s principal, Imad Fadlallah, is a relative of Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) on the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control terrorist list, used by the State Department. Imad Fadlallah’s wife, Susan, is the daughter of Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who was Hezbollah’s negotiator during the 1985 TWA flight 847 hijacking during which Hezbollah tortured to death Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem. Before that, he was the head of the Shi’ite Amal Militia, which has been absorbed into Hezbollah.

Another cousin, Majed Fadlallah, is Fordson’s Assistant Principal. And the school is a virtual one-stop employment shack for many of the cousins of Hezbollah’s Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah.

--------------
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim groups criticized President George W. Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a “war with Islamic fascists,” saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

--------------
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel’s Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources.

---------
MICHIGAN - Around 1:00am August 11th three men purchased cell phones from the Wal-Mart store on M-81 near the corner of M-24 in Caro. Wal-Mart places a limit on the number of cell phones that can be purchased at once, that number is three. The three men allegedly bought 80 by purchasing them three at time so that an alert wouldn’t be triggered by the cash register. They also paid cash.

An alert clerk grew suspicious and called Tuscola County central dispatch. The Caro Police Department sent a unit and stopped the rented van on M-81 just east of Caro.

The three men were described as being of Pakistani descent but live in Texas. Police say the three, ages 19, 22, and 23 appear to be naturalized citizens.

UPDATE 1: Authorities say the men had about 1,000 cell phones in their van.

Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark Reene said that investigators believe the men were targeting the Mackinac Bridge.

UPDATE 2: Sources tell DebbieSchlussel.com that the men are from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the group that works in concert with HAMAS in performing homicide bombings in Israel. The group once even considered merging with HAMAS, at the time that it was headed by University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, a founder of the group.

UPDATE 3: Tucson - Law enforcement sources confirm to News 4 that Tucson Police have issued an “attempt to locate” on two Middle Eastern men in their 20’s who purchased nearly 50 phones from Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart in Tucson.

Sources say the men made the purchases on Saturday and Sunday.

There’s been a number of arrests nationwide with very similar circumstances.

Arrests have been made in Michigan and Ohio and there are reports of large numbers of cell phones being sold to young men fitting the same description in Wisconsin.

------------
BRITAIN - British police claim to have found a “martyrdom video” in which one of the 24 British Muslims arrested over an alleged plot to destroy up to a dozen passenger aircraft sets out his reasons for joining the planned suicide attack.

British officials said the damning evidence had been found in the home of one of the suspects, who include a 23-year-old biochemistry student and a Heathrow security guard with an all-areas access pass.

The suspects are mostly of Pakistani origin but two are white converts to Islam.

------------
SYRIA - Syrian President Bashar Assad said his country is prepared for any war that may break out with Israel, adding that he is convinced that the chances for peace have decreased and that “the Golan Heights will be liberated by Syria.”

------------
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Islamic militant jailed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people was released from prison Thursday as part of Indonesia’s independence day celebrations, and 11 others linked to the blasts had their sentences reduced.

-----------
LOS ANGELES - Nicole Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism.

The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today’s Los Angeles Times newspaper.

It specifically targets “terrorist organisations” such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine.

----------
NORTH KOREA - There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

“It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is real possibility,” says a senior State Department official.

-------------
DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government’s warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, monitoring phone calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.

------------------
LONDON - A Suitcase filled with bomb-making material has been found by police teams investigating the alleged plot to blow up aircraft over the Atlantic.

The suitcase, containing chemicals and other equipment for a home-made bomb, was found in woods in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, close to addresses at which suspects were arrested last week.

------------
BRITAIN - The UK’s Muslim Public Affairs Committee saw nothing wrong when a Reuters employee sent a death threat to [website] Little Green Footballs in May. In fact, MPACUK invented a bizarre conspiracy plot to justify it, calling LGF “the most powerful enemies Muslims have faced in a thousand years.”

But when British blogger Inigo Wilson wrote some satirical comments critical of Islamic terrorism, MPACUK launched a successful drive to have him suspended from his job with British mobile phone company Orange.

How Many More?

Why does the West keep letting in these profoundly imcompatible cultures?

How many more women must die?

Notice it's almost always not just a lone nut, but a conspiracy within a family, with the support of the community.

Hina Saleem tried to get help from the Italian authorities for nearly 4 years, from the age of 17. Sharia law is apparently unofficially recognized out of deference to the noble 3rd worlders.

It can only get worse with muslim leaders in Britain now calling for official recognition of sharia law!

Sbai, who has studied the problems of Muslim women in Italy, asked how many more women would die in the name of Islam.

"We have seen from the episode of the young Pakistani woman murdered in Brescia how religion can become a state within a state and Islamic law be inculcated in the minds of many Muslim parents who live in our country by self-styled, uneducated preachers (imams), " Sbai stated.

Hina's father, Mohammad, apparently cut her throat last week in Sarezzo after she repeatedly refused an arranged marriage to a cousin in Pakistan. The 20-year-old woman was romantically involved with an Italian, had gone to live with him, worked in a pizzeria and wanted to become an actress.

"These imams are religious extremists who accord women no rights," Sbai stressed. For years, they have been operating from makeshift mosques in garages or Halal butchers' shops, have fanned misogyny, have terrorised immigrant Muslim communities and have retarded their integration, she said.
...
She claimed Muslim women's documents are being confiscated by their husbands or fathers when they get to Italy, which forces them to live clandestinely and prevents them from being able to bring domestic violence charges against male relatives. Sbai denounced the forced return of Muslim girls at 14 or 15 years of age to their countries of origin to become victims of arranged marriages.

"The objective is to prevent these girls from becoming Westerners, not just through gaining citizenship but above all through embracing Western societies's shared values of liberty and democaracy. These girls have no country that protects them: they are immigrants in Italy and foreigners in their countries of origin," Sbai stressed.
...
Hina disappeared last Thursday and last Saturday was found buried beneath the family home in Sarezzo, facing Mecca with her throat cut. Muhammad has been arrested in connection with her murder and has reportedly confessed to killing his daughter.

Police investigating Hina's killing are searching for her-brother-in-law and have also detained her uncle. They suspect Hina her father may not have acted alone in planning and carrying out her murder.
...
Hina's boyfriend, Giuseppe Tempini, a carpenter has reportedly tried to commit suicide since her death.

Speaking of cousin marriage, the degree of first-cousin marriage (consanguinity) in some of these countries is astounding (usually 40-50% in many Arab countries, and 60% in Pakistan, for example), and such inbreeding is not only detrimental to genetic development, but leads to intense tribalism to the detriment of national identity, which is why our ideas of free melting-pot republics may never fly in a primitive clan system:

Life in the Muslim Middle East has long revolved around family and tribe. In fact, that's what a tribe is — your family in its most extended form. For much of Middle Eastern history, tribal networks of kin functioned as governments in miniature. In the absence of state power, it was the kin group that protected an individual from attack, secured his wealth, and performed a thousand other functions. No one could flourish whose kin group was not strong, respected, and unified.

In the modern Middle East, networks of kin are still the foundation of wealth, security, and personal happiness. That, in a sense, is the problem.
...
Cousin marriage solves the problem of lineage solidarity. If, instead of marrying a woman from a strange lineage, a man marries his cousin, then his wife will not be an alien, but a trusted member of his own kin group. Not only will this reduce a man's likelihood of being pulled away from his brothers by his wife, a woman of the lineage is less likely to be divorced by her husband, and more likely to be protected by her own extended kin in case of a rupture in the marriage. Somewhere around a third of all marriages in the Muslim Middle East are between members of the same lineage, and in some places the figure can reach as high as 80 percent.

A chart with consanguinity rates in the arab world is at the Center for Arab Genomic Studies.

Europe's Guilt

Don't let it become ours!

Responding to a capitulatory article in the British press, wretchard of Belmont Club responds,

Max Hasting's striking phrase "yet we shall defeat them only when our Muslim community at large perceives that its interests are identified with Britain's polity" is as clever a case for surrender as I've ever heard. What of Britain's interests, the ones which presumably include Hindus, ethnic Europeans, Chinese and Jews. Might one not make an equal argument for saying that Britain's policy should never rest easy until it satisfies them too? And should those conflict with the interests of "our Muslim community" then is it simply a matter of satisfying the most violent petitioners?
...
Max Hastings is a brilliant writer but he's a European and as such he's acutely aware of how much of the Middle Eastern mess is Britain and France's fault. They created Syria and Iraq from maps. They promised the Arabs nationhood yet strove to subjugate them. Western Europe nearly exterminated the Jews then gave them a homeland in Palestine in recompense. France helped build Dimona and armed Israel. Then it went and helpled build Osirak. Hasting's weakness is to see the world through Europe's prism -- that supposedly sophisticated and moral vantage which poseurs adopt in lieu of thinking things out for themselves.

What he doesn't realize is that we are past Europe now; beyond both its sins and its conceits. Sam Huntington understood that the world had its own beefs against radical Islam independent of Europe's guilts. Israel, for example, wants to live. And they are a nuclear armed country with a population larger than Australia which is going to live, going to survive, whatever Britain and its "polity" make up their minds to do.

So when Osama Bin Laden swears he will convert the whole world to Islam, its wrong to regard it from the perspective of some world weary Briton. The Third World Christian, Hindu or Buddhist will not so gently go into this good night. If that creates problems for Britain, too bad. If America is not careful it will let Europe conn it into taking on the mantle of its guilt. That's the "We the West" part. When it comes to paying the bill for their folly let it not be the "You Americans" part.

Indeed!

Tonight at the gym I saw a small segment on CNN where they went into the street (in America) to find out about "muslim rage" and its roots.

Some expert or other told them that's where the problem was, in the streets.

Without much trouble they found a group of angry muslims standing on a corner, listening to a bearded American-born muslim whose name we are told translates as "father of the holy war" -- and that "he takes his name seriously."

The newsman asks why they are angry. I don't have a transcript but this is essentially how the exchange went:

[CNN]: Why are you angry?

[Mr. Jihad]: We are angry! We are tired of the media blaming all problems on the muslims! You are attacking islam! We will not turn the other cheek; we are not Christians!

[CNN, a little shocked]: Doesn't islam mean peace???

[Mr. Jihad]: Peace? Uh...oh yes! Islam is peace! Peace!

[martyrs-in-waiting chime in]: Peace! Peace!

[Mr. Jihad]: Islam teaches that when someone is laying their hands on you, you...(catches self from saying "strike off their heads")...uh, Islam teaches peace, but we are defending ourselves!

[human bombs]: Defending ourselves!

Interesting, isn't it, that an American-born person would identify as being personally attacked by our "policies" in the Middle East?

One wonders what justification there was for all the terror attacks -- including 9/11 -- prior to the Iraq war of 2003, which is apparently the current grievance. Rest assured some false grievance or other would be manufactured no matter what we do.

That's been the whole shakedown strategy of jihad for 1400 years.

Clearly, their identification is not at all with America, but with a pan-islamic transnationalism.

Such allegiances are antithetical to our whole way of life and system of values and government.

And must not be tolerated.

Stop mohammedan immigration now.

Religion of Peace

This fantastic article organizes every bit of evidence concerning the nature of islam, asking the tough question, is it really a religion of peace?

Or just the opposite?

It is thorough and comprehensive and covers all the angles, from the koran itself, to the "exemplary" life of the murderous mohammed, to the doctrinal abrogation of the "peaceful" verses in favor of the later "Sword" verses, to the deeds of the ideology, to the opinions of widely diverse thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, Salman Rushdie, and Winston Churchill.

Read it all. Study it, and disseminate it widely.

The author of the piece makes the following addendum to short-circuit the stupid (and common) counterargument to the effect that "well, the Bible is violent/repressive/whatever!"

Note also that my analysis in my article is not dependent on a comparative analysis to the Bible. I am not a Biblical scholar and leave that definitive analysis to others. However, the argument that Islam is a religion of peace because it allegedly contains verses that are no more violent than Biblical passages is not persuasive to me as that is not a valid defense. Would we say that the Nightstalker was peaceful because Ted Bundy was just as violent? When large numbers of people worldwide start committing acts of terrorism that they claim are mandated by the Bible, I will address that issue. Until then, we should focus on the problem at hand.

Besides, as noted above, while I am no Biblical scholar, I have read it and while there are passages in the Old Testament that are inconsitent with modern Western values, those passages seem limited to a certain time and place and are not open-ended commandments to make war until everyone submits to God. Moreover, the New Testament, and especially what is attributed to Jesus, is as peaceful as one could ever hope for. In fact, a strong argument can be made that Jesus was a pacifist and violence committed by Christians or Western societies is done in spite of Christian Doctrine, not because of it.

...

In any event, regardless as to one's opinion of Christianity, that opinion should not justify a failure to recognize the reality of Islam.

The Pattern

At LGF, commenter really grumpy big dog johnson recognizes the tiresome, transparent pattern:

It's always the same script, over and over. Never changes at all.

1. Muslims commit an atrocity or get caught before they can wreak violence on an unsuspecting society.

2. Muslims proclaim loudly that they are only a religion of peace, that "those" people could not be Muslims, that the mosques preach nothing but peace and love.

3. Accompanied by the above are all of the following: statements of extreme prejudice within the society targeted unfairly at them, that they are innocent victims; marches organized and held, loudly denouncing all acts of war as targeting Muslims, that the root of it all is found in Israel and the United States; demands for public apologies for the outrageous actions of the government; broad suspicions aired that those arrested have been framed; universal declarations among family and Muslim friends of all arrested that they were very good people and would never commit such a violent act; angry demands that the government provide special protections to Muslims and their mosques because of the claimed "backlash" against innocent Muslims; claims follow of harassment, threats, acts of violence against persons and property loudly claimed, with only the merest few of those ever justifiable by serious investigation.

4. If the drum noise and sabre rattling don't have the desired effect - that of putting the dhimis back in their shame boxes where apparently they belong - then resort to harsher acts: spontaneous and angry street demonstrations, smashing of windows and overturning and burning of cars, random beatings of passers-by to emphasize that they are right on the edge of coming completely unglued as a desperate and oppressed minority in society.

This is inevitably followed by the complete caving and total dhimmitude of the government and so-called responsible citizen's groups, religious faiths, and many others.

Mission accomplished. I'm sick of it, and it's as predictable as rain in Manila.

I mean, how many times to you have to kick a dog before he finally figures out that it's a trend and bites back, or else takes out his pent-up aggression on someone more capable of intimidation?

Islam is riddled with evil like swiss cheese has holes. The only answer is the destruction or reformation of the religion/society model espoused as the ideal state of highest societal advancement by the least-advanced societies on the planet.

The problem with the reformation idea is that one theory is that the reformation already happened, in the form of the Iranian revolution for the Shiites and the rise of Saudi-funded Wahabbism for the Sunnis.

"Moderate" muslims are moderate to the degree, it has been said, that they are ignorant of islam's teachings.

The "extremists" will always win the theological and doctrinal arguments, because they have all the evidence on their side.

Returning islam to its roots makes it more virulent. It amplifies the very worst of human nature, which is just the opposite of every other major world religion or philosophy.

Curious Headline

A curious headline caught my eye just now:

Man who discovered Van Allen Belts dies

And who is this mysterious "man" spoken of in the headline, that discovered the Van Allen Belts?

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Physicist James A. Van Allen, a leader in space exploration who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that now bear his name, died Wednesday. He was 91.

Quick, who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

Strategic Implications

It struck me as slightly odd to hear a little snippet that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be potentially tapped to deal with the outage of supply from Alaska due to the pipeline repairs.

Because in other past times of high prices or supply crunches, the Reserve was never touched.

But I didn't think further of what it might mean.

The blogger Aristides has some fascinating thoughts here:

BP, based in Britain, said late on Sunday that it had begun closing the Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska after discovering a small pipeline spill in a move that will slash production by 400,000 barrels per day.

Firstly, is it possible that we purposefully turned off a large supply of oil from oil fields we control?

Well, we know an Iran-related turn off would shock the system with Surprise and Uncertainty.
...
War with Iran would cause a major oil disruption. We could be adjusting in advance.

So we're preparing for war?

We could be. If we are, the strategic reserve would be an important step. And this way it doesn’t cause stress on public perception and doesn’t tip our hand to the Iranians.

I sure hope we're that devious.

Habit of Betrayal

Article at the American Thinker. After giving several examples of the Habit of Betrayal of the Left, it concludes:

It’s election time, after all, and a disaster for American policy in the Middle East is meat and potatoes to the Left. They will fake one if it doesn’t happen. How they hate their country.

Few civilized values have not yet been betrayed by the Left. Which is why the American people, bless them, see the weird old Boomer Lefties as increasingly alien to their own deepest beliefs and values. The habit of betrayal can only get you so far, before people start to take notice.

Read it all. It's not too long.

Intractable

"They" say the problem of Hezbollah in Lebanon is intractable.

It's a non-state organization.

It is entrenched in the community.

It has the support of 40% of the population.

This makes it totally immune to any possibly conceivable military solution; the only choice is to make a deal.

Ridiculous!

So Hezbollah has the support of a million people?

Then the obvious military solution is to kill a million people.

Guaranteed to work!

They'd probably give up after a few hundred thousand anyway.

Why is this so hard?

A mere 60 years ago that was business as usual:

IN THE LAST five months of World War II, American bombing raids claimed the lives of more than 900,000 Japanese civilians--not counting the casualties from the atomic strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [1] This is more than twice the total number of combat deaths that the United States has suffered in all its foreign wars combined. [2]

There was no other way.

Today the news was all aflutter with "heaviest day of casualties yet for Israel!!! The sky is falling!!!"

There were like 15 dead.

What is wrong with these reporters?

The bargain thrust upon us is as follows:

Submit to us...or else you'll have to kill our children!

Given the monstrous evil of such an attitude, submission becomes even more out of the question.

How innocent are the "civilians" if they buy into allowing their children to be used in such a fashion?

It's tragic, but that's the choice we've been handed.

My impression from surfing the web the last few days is that a Jacksonian hardening of attitudes has suddenly increased by an order of magnitude. The talk is all of LeMay, Sherman, and scorched earth.

Much more than usual.

And without the usual counter-arguments from Wilsonians.

Wilsonians -- and I think we all intuitively know what that is -- hold the belief in the United Nations, international law. The United States should be pushing our values around the world and turning other countries into democracies whether they like it or not. And the U.S. should also work multilaterally in institutions. We should be supporting things like the International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And we should not be unilateralist in our approach. We should put human rights ahead of trade, and so on.

Then finally, you've got a group called the Jacksonians, for Andrew Jackson. One way I describe them is to talk about an incident in American history that illustrates a lot of that school's values. When Andrew Jackson was a general in 1818, he was fighting a war against the Creek Indians in Georgia. Because Florida at the time was still under Spanish rule and there were two Englishmen in Florida selling arms to the Indians, who were then attacking U.S. forces in Georgia. Jackson took the U.S. Army across the international frontier into Spanish territory without any permissions or any U.N. resolutions. He went in there, arrested the two Brits, brought them back to the United States, tried them before a military tribunal and hanged them. And this did cause outrage in Europe. They said "These people have no respect for international law." But it made Jackson so popular in the U.S. that his election to the presidency was just a matter of time after 1818. [The idea is]: "Don't bother with people abroad, unless they bother you. But if they attack you, then do everything you can."

So in the 1930s, Hitler takes over Paris; we don't move an inch. He starts exterminating the Jews; we don't move an inch. Japan is [carrying out aggression] all over Asia. And on December 6, 1941, any opinion poll in the country would have said that most Americans wanted to stay out of World War II. Then December 7th, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and suddenly the polls change.

Jacksonians: when somebody attacks the hive, you come swarming out of the hive and you sting them to death. And Jacksonians, when it comes to war, don't believe in limited wars. They don't believe, particularly, in the laws of war. War is about fighting, killing, and winning with as few casualties as possible on your side. But you don't worry about casualties on the other side. That's their problem. They shouldn't have started the war if they didn't want casualties.

And these frustrations are all exacerbated by the insanity coming from the media and diplomats.

This is just a feeling.

But how much longer can the tension build?

Florentine Boar Update

In response to this post about the famous Florentine Boar statue not being replaced after restoration in a park in Derby, England, so as not to upset muslims, an anonymous commenter relays the good news that a petition drive in the community resulted in the statue's return to its proper place!

The Florentine Boar was replaced in Derby Arboretum in November 2005.
This followed a campaign and two thousand signatures demanding its return.

See the news and photos here.

Good news!

More Insanity Evidence

The insanity keeps coming fast and furious.

On the same day, we get two articles from the AP.

One laments, with incredulity, that fully half of Americans still believe Saddam had WMD, in spite of what the MSM has been telling them!

Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD
Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
...
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

The other article puts a neutral to slightly positive spin on the "9/11 as an inside job" conspiracy theories, revealing the "blackballing" going on against the brave inquirers for Truth!

9/11 conspiracy theorists thriving
Kevin Barrett believes the U.S government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the twin towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners.

These men aren't uneducated junk scientists: Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose mainstream academic job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists.

Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely discredited ideas about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, persists and even thrives. Members trade their ideas on the Internet and in self-published papers and in books. About 500 of them attended a recent conference in Chicago.

The movement claims to be drawing fresh energy and credibility from a recently formed group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
...
"Are you blackballed for delving into this topic? Oh yes," Wood said. "And that is why there are so few who do. Most contracts have something to do with some government research lab. So what would that do to you? The consequences are too great for a career. But I made the choice that truth was more important."

Notice any difference in tone?

The 9/11 conspiracy article presents the "official" version at best as equal with the conspiracy version.

The WMD article, however, comes down firmly that one side is established fact and the other is fantasy -- as if they could prove a counterfactual anyway:

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Never mind the banned long range missiles that Iraq indeed did have in abundance! How is that "no trace of banned arsenals"???

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Russian engineers secretly helped Iraq's long-range missile program in the years leading up to last year's Iraq War, in violation of a UN ban, The New York Times said quoting US officials.

The Iraq Survey Group, the US team looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, also found that Iraq had received assistance from sources in Belarus, Serbia and Ukraine, the US officials said.
...
Although the United States discovered the Russian engineers' activities after it invaded Iraq a year ago, it chose to keep it secret for fear of harming relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

Never mind the 1.7 tons of enriched uranium we removed from the country after the war! In 1999, the Nuclear Control Institute warned,

Washington---The new plan for resuming weapons inspections in Iraq, adopted today by the U.N. Security Council, fails to reform weak nuclear inspections and “leaves loopholes big enough to drive an atom bomb through,” the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) warned today.

“Under the new regime, nuclear inspections will still be run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which since 1991 has shown itself far too willing to trust and accommodate what it calls its Iraqi ‘counterparts’," said NCI President Paul Leventhal.
...
An immediate concern is that Iraq was permitted by the IAEA to retain enough low-enriched uranium for at least two nuclear bombs if Iraq were able to run the uranium through a small, clandestine enrichment plant to bring the uranium up to weapons grade. The re-enrichment could be accomplished within one year in a plant hundreds of times smaller than a commercial enrichment plant and needing only enough electricity to run a small office building. This uranium has not been examined by inspectors in over a year. The existence of a small Iraqi enrichment plant cannot be ruled out and is a matter of continuing concern.

We were only able to remove that uranium after removing Saddam Hussein.

It wasn't technically banned -- but it should have been.

Thus, they take a deliberately obtuse and hyper-literalist interpretation of the arguments.

Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.
...
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.

The condescension just drips.

Ok, which is the whackier theory, AP?

That the government secretly placed tons of explosives in the WTC and brought them down as an inside job?

Or that an evil dictator, known to have used chemical weapons, and known to possess them in 1991, and believed by everybody in 1998 to still have them (after all, what was Clinton bombing for 3 days?), might possibly have squirreled a few away for a rainy day after having spent billions in procuring them?

Perhaps he didn't, but is it totally insane to think that?

Versus being totally insane to accept the 9/11 conspiracy theory?

I think many who answered the poll saying "yes" were thinking that Hussein must have been up to something, though not being precisely sure what.

Imagine you're the dictator, and your goal is to get sanctions lifted by your buddies whom you've bribed with the Oil-for-Food program, and they assure you they will block any war.

You just have to keep the bumbling inspectors (who missed 500+ chemical shells, apparently) from finding any of your banned weapons.

But you want your rivals to all think you are not weak, and that you might still have these weapons.

What is more rational?

That you actually make yourself weak and destroy every last ounce of chem and bio munition -- but don't tell anyone about it?

Or that, in your paranoia (you've only gotten to where you are by killing hordes of people and have made many enemies), you hide some away for insurance?

I don't know.

But it's not obvious that one of those scenarios is completely implausible.

It's a bold step to claim to know in "reality", as the AP seems to, just what happened, isn't it?

And to then on the same day push the 9/11 conspiracy as something at least to keep an open mind about?

Pernicious, seditious nonsense!

-----------
Postscript: it is interesting to read Clinton's speech about the December, 1999 bombing campaign in Iraq, and its justifications:

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
...
Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM.
...
Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.
...
Iraq repeatedly blocked UNSCOM from inspecting suspect sites. For example, it shut off access to the headquarters of its ruling party and said it will deny access to the party's other offices, even though UN resolutions make no exception for them and UNSCOM has inspected them in the past.

Iraq repeatedly restricted UNSCOM's ability to obtain necessary evidence. For example, Iraq obstructed UNSCOM's effort to photograph bombs related to its chemical weapons program.

It tried to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site and photocopying documents and prevented Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions.

Prior to the inspection of another site, Iraq actually emptied out the building, removing not just documents but even the furniture and the equipment.

Iraq has failed to turn over virtually all the documents requested by the inspectors. Indeed, we know that Iraq ordered the destruction of weapons-related documents in anticipation of an UNSCOM inspection.
...
Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.
...
Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.
...
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort.
...
If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.
...
May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission and their families. And may God bless America.

Shrivel up and die, AP.

Blogroll and Random Thoughts

Some additions to the blogroll at the right.

First, the old New Spew is now the new Whiz Blog; thanks to Shep for pointing out the new link!

Recently I noticed I was being linked to by Canadian blogger Samantha Burns, who isn't really a political blogger but is clearly an anti-idiotarian.

I found some links to amusing things there, like this chart of the geek hierarchy. Note that many of the arrows go in both directions! I was definitely disturbed to see that Furries consider themselves the top of the geek hierarchy!

And I've also added One Cosmos, a blog by a psychologist (joining such names as Dr. Sanity, Neo-neocon, Shrinkwrapped, and SigmundCarlandAlfred as culture-war blogging shrinks. I should get around to adding all of them to the blogroll too!).

These psychoanalyzing bloggers become all the more relevant as, as many are noting, it seems logic and reason just don't matter anymore.

Left-wing progressivism and its MSM cohorts seem to be descending into irrational madness, and violent outbursts are starting to pop up more frequently as the cognitive dissonance becomes unbearable. For example:

LGF operative ciaospirit went to the Council on American-Islamic Relations anti-Israel rally on July 28 in Columbus, Ohio—and was physically assaulted twice by Dr. Ahmad Al-Akhras, Vice Chair of CAIR-National.

Not to mention the similarly thuggish behavior of pro-Hezbollah demonstrators in Boston. Or mobs attacking Prime Minister Howard in Australia. Or the muslim who, angry with Israel, killed a woman in the Seattle Jewish Center and shot several more.

All that in what, two weeks?

How else but through mental instability to explain portraying Lieberman in blackface, and calling Israel's existence a "mistake" in the Washington Post (and many places elsewhere like Daily Kos and New York Magazine)?

It's hard to tell the Left today from the President of Iran!

I won't even go into the several high-profile meltdowns and scandals from left-wing professors and bloggers in the last month.

In one of the most despicable leftist attacks ever, Deborah Frisch, psychology professor at the University of Arizona, has been threatening Jeff Goldstein’s 2-year old child. [“Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby”]

Ok, so I did go into it a little...

And similarly, more fabricated "news" will arise, such as this completely forged photograph that al-Reuters ran yesterday that purported to show heavy smoke billowing from Beirut -- except the heavy smoke was photoshopped in, clumsily, with the "cloning" tool.

This is what happens when you have a news agency with an agenda, that employs photographers from the enemy camp. The propaganda work of the photographer, Adnan Hajj, is well known, but he has now apparently graduated from mere "staging" of photos (and of being well-connected enough with terrorist groups to always seem to just be in the right place at the right time, if the events he has covered such as the Qana "massacre" weren't cynical set-ups from the get-go) to outright forgery.

It wasn't retouching (like the Condi "devil eyes") or editing, it was pure fabrication.

Did they think we wouldn't notice? Did they even care? Professionals say the photoshopping is so obvious that Reuters editors should have spotted it immediately -- but they didn't.

Who can ever believe anything that comes from al-Reuters again? It is an organ of enemy propaganda.

As is the NYT with cozy photos like this one.

Let that sink in: major news outlets are feeding you false information in a time of war.

Oh my, it looks like now there are several photos from Adnan Hajj that Reuters ran, that have been deliberately photoshopped to create outright lies, and then backed up with fabricated captions! Tip o' the iceberg...

By the way, have you seen that Hezbollah has media relations officers? Here are their cards. No, these are not photoshop jokes!





I decided to blogroll One Cosmos for this trio of articles I stumbled across, that delve into the psychohistorical and spiritual roots of the current convlict, and why the Judeo-Christian Way is better.

See here, here, and here.

I call those "Must-reads."

It's all about the children.

You are hopelessly historo-centric and ethnocentric if you fail to realize how rare this attitude toward children is. The monsters among us are attracted to children in an entirely different way. There is a deep psychological reason why child sacrifice was so ubiquitous in the ancient world, and why it is so pervasive, albeit in disguised form, among our enemies today.

The death-worshipping Palestinians--perhaps the most sick and evil culture since the Ancient Aztec--systematically poison the souls of their children with hatred of the light before sending them off to murder innocents on behalf of their sinister god. They use their children as “human” shields, for that is what they are: the little humans that the monsters hide behind, for some part of their twisted mind realizes that we value their children more than they do. And if one of them is accidentally killed, the monsters know how to play on our guilt. Although they cannot empathize with children, they intuit that we have a soft spot for them, and know that they can manipulate our sensibilities with the cooperation of the dupes of the Western media.

Years ago, I remember someone, in an argument with me over whether Israel or the Palestinians were in the right, claiming that "the Palestinians just want to be left alone to raise their children like everybody else", I had to reply, "no, they don't!" -- and ended up sounding like a loony.

But I was right.

Perverse Delight

Recently I got called by not one, but two lengthy opinion surveys!

I guess once you are noted as someone who takes the 13 minutes to answer the thing, they share your number.

I recall a while back enjoying telling a political survey I thought we were on "the right track."

This time, it was the nice people at Nielsen, wanting to know about movies.

Luckily I had just attended Pirates of the Caribbean, so the previews were fresh in my mind.

They asked aobut 17 specific movies.

I enjoyed telling them I would definitely not see Ricky Bobby, but definitely would see World Trade Center.

I strongly agreed that movies had gotten worse, and that I went less often.

And that no, the "theater and audience experience" was not sufficient compensation to get me into the seat.

In fact, I hated the audience!

No, I only go to movies that I think are good and I don't want to wait to see at home.

Because yes, I DO own a widescreen home theater system with surround sound, suckas!

The next survey was a little less exciting...at first.

It was about opinions regarding telecom company brands.

Basically I told them all the majors were about the same, and my opinion of their dedication to their customers and their technological nimbleness was rather low.

And that they try to hide their fees.

And that their branding messages weren't coming across.

But then I was asked if I'd heard about any mergers in the space recently.

Yes... AT&T and SBC? Correct!

And how did I feel about that?

I felt GOOD!

Why?

Because (and here the questioner took down answers verbatim, instead of it being multiple choice) "the government never should have broken up AT&T and the new combined company will be financial stronger and able to roll out newer technology faster and provide more uniform services over a larger geographical area."

As a long-suffering investor in the telecom equipment space, I have a vested interest in seeing CSCO sell more routers and such.

But I didn't mention that.

Then I was asked -- oh joy! -- if I had heard about the NSA's anti-terrorist information gathering program.

I said I had.

And did I know which telecoms cooperated with the NSA and which did not?

I said I thought Quest did not but the others did -- Correct!

And how did that change my opinions of these companies?

I told the questioner to clearly note that my opinion of Quest WENT DOWN but my opinion of its competitors who coooperated WENT UP!

BWAHAHAHahahaha!

August 6

Happy Hiroshima Day.

Never forget...

...how to win.