Saturday, September 09, 2006

Won't employ force

Jerusalem Post reported France announced on Friday that the international naval force designated to patrol Lebanon's territorial waters would not be authorized to employ force to stop ships from entering or leaving Lebanon.

What in the heck do they think the purpose of the force is? It is to stop Hezbollah from rearming.
A spokesman for the French defense ministry said that the international craft would only provide assistance for Lebanese ships, and would not interfere with other nations' boats, Israel Radio reported.
This is because the French are suh cowards that they fear that if they did their jobs, and tried to stop Hezbollah from rearming, they might shoot at the French military. How did France ever win a war, with a military that was afraid of a fight.
Earlier Friday, Israel began to remove its naval blockade of Lebanon, imposed almost two months after Hizbullah launched its cross-border raid and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.

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Friday, September 08, 2006

Saddam saw al-Qaida as threat

Yahoo! News reported Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat

That just means that he was smart, not that he did not work with them. Russia worked with Hitler until he attacked them too, and then Russia worked with the Allies, but not because he was buddy buddy with Roosevelt and Churchill.
rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Iraq. The report also newly faults intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion.
Gee, thats news.
As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi.".. It said al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad from May until late November 2002. But "postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi
Saddam had such an iron grip on his country I doubt Zarqawi could have been there and avoided being caught if he was looking very hard.
and that the regime did not have a relationship with
I know the Dems support Gay Rights, but did Saddam and Zarquawi have to swap body fluids for them to be considered in a relationship.
, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
He did not try very hard to find him. And what about the al Qaeda training camp in northern Iraq. He could not have bombed them because of the No Fly Zone, but if he really felt Al Qqeda was a threat, do you think he would have allowed that threat to have training camps on Iraqi soil?

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Islam Haters

Ralph Peters wrote in New York Post Islamist fanatics attacked us and yearn to destroy us. The Muslim civilization of the Middle East has failed comprehensively and will continue to generate violence. The only way to deal with faith-poisoned terrorists is to kill them.

All three points are absolutely true. This does not mean that all of Islam is bad.
And the world's only hope for long-term peace is for moderate Muslims - by far the majority around the globe - to recapture their own faith.
Absolutely true.
But a rotten core of American extremists is out to make it harder for them. The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn't the irresponsible nonsense on the left - destructive though that is. The really ugly "domestic insurgency" is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism. How? By insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith's primary agenda - and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman.
Christianity should not be measured on what happened during the Spanish Inquisitions, and Islam should not be measured on what these Islamofascists are saying.
I've received no end of e-mails and letters seeking to "enlighten" me about the insidious nature of Islam. Convinced that I'm naive because I defend American Muslims and refuse to "see" that Islam is 100 percent evil, the writers warn that I'm a foolish "dhimmi," blind to the conspiratorial nature of Islam.
If we ignore the threat posed by Islamofascism we run the risk of being dhimmis, but if we help the moderate Muslims get rid of the violent proponents of their faith, and bring it from the seventh century to the 21st century all will be o.k.
Web sites list no end of extracts from historical documents and Islamic jurisprudence "proving" that holy war against Christians and Jews is the alpha and omega of the Muslim faith. The message between the lines: Muslims are Untermenschen.
There certainly are violent verses in the Koran, and initially it was spread by the sword, but there are peaceful verses as well, and even the violent verses do not call for some of the things the Islamofascists have done and are doing.
We've been here before, folks. Bigotry is bigotry - even when disguised as patriotism. And, invariably, the haters fantasizing about a merciless Crusade never bothered to serve in our military (Hey, guys, there's still time to join. Lay your backsides on the line - and send your kids!). It's time for our own fanatics to look in the mirror. Hard. (And stop sending me your trash. I'll never sign up for your "Protocols of the Elders of Mecca." You're just the Ku Klux Klan with higher-thread-count sheets.) As for the books and Web sites listing all those passages encouraging violence against the infidel, well, we could fill entire libraries with bloody-minded texts from the Christian past. And as a believing Christian, I must acknowledge that there's nothing in the Koran as merciless as God's behavior in the Book of Joshua.
Perhaps, but I don't recall anything in Joshua about blowing themselves up to kill others of their own faith, and any way it was God doing it; and what he told Joshua to do at a particular point in time, in a particular place; he did not command believers into doing it forever and to anyone whose land they coveted. God specifically said I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. 13 So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.'
Another trait common among those warning us that Islam is innately evil is that few have spent any time in the Muslim world. Well, I have. While the Middle East leaves me ever more despairing of its future, elsewhere, from Senegal to Sulawesi, from Delhi to Dearborn, I've seen no end of vibrant, humane, hopeful currents in the Muslim faith.

I'm no Pollyanna. I'm all for killing terrorists, rather than taking them prisoner. I know we're in a fight for our civilization. But the fight is with the fanatics - a minority of a minority - not with those who simply worship differently than those of us who grew up with the Little Brown Church in the Vale. Does Islam foster practices that inhibit progress or integration into the modern (and postmodern) world? Yes, as practiced in the greater Middle East, from the Nile to the Indus. Our "allies," the Saudi ruling family, are the embodiment of evil - but they've done far more damage to the Muslim world than to us. Elsewhere, Muslims are struggling to move their faith forward in constructive ways. And all religions are what living men and women make of them.
I would prefer to look at it as what the religions make of the living men and women. Man does not create religion; religion molds man.
In our own country, we should respect our fellow citizens who happen to be Muslims - instead of implying that they're all members of a devious fifth column. More than 3 million Americans profess Islam. How many have strapped on bombs and walked into Wal-Mart?
None that I am aware of, but several have bought a lot of untraceable cell phones in Wal Mart.
Sure, bad actors will emerge. But every immigrant group has produced its gangsters, demagogues and common criminals. Fools who insist that "Muslims can't be good Americans" insult both Muslims and America - whose transformative genius should never be underestimated. The problem isn't the man or woman of faith, but cultural environment. Once free of the maladies of the Middle East, Muslims thrive in America. Like the rest of us.
Amen
We are in a knife-fight to the death with fanatics who've perverted a great religion. But those who warn of Muslims in general are heirs of the creeps who once told us Jews can never be real Americans and JFK will serve the Vatican. Obviously, there's a moral reason for not condemning all Muslims. Real Americans judge men and women by their individual characters and actions, not by the color of their skin or the liturgy they recite on their respective Sabbaths. Sorry, all you bigots: You'll never get the Wannsee Conference, Part II, at Lake Tahoe. But even for our inveterate haters, those whose personal disappointments have left them with a need to blame others (sounds like al Qaeda to me . . . ), there's a Realpolitik reason not to insult all Muslims: In the serious world of strategy and the military, you don't make unnecessary enemies. We've got our hands full in the Middle East. Why alienate the Muslims of Indonesia or West Africa (or California)? A wise strategist seeks to divide his enemies, not to recruit for them. Some of the bigots out there might like to try to kill a billion Muslims, but I'm not signing up for their genocidal daydreams - nor will my fellow Americans. Ultimately, our military actions can only buy time. The long overdue liberal reformation within the Islamic world can only be carried out by Muslims themselves. Those who believe in Islam with all their hearts will have to be the ones who defeat those who hijacked their faith.
They must wage the true Jihad, the struggle within themselves to follow the true will of God, not the will of some nutcases that want power.
Do we have to fight? Yes. But let's fight our true enemies, not the innocent.

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Sick Democratic Humor

Greg Gutfeld wrote on Huffington Post 30 Amazing Things About America Once It Becomes Part Of The New Caliphate!

The name alone shows that the Dems really do not take Islamic Fascism seriously, yet they would be as upset, if not more so, than Republicans should the IslamoFascists establish Sharia Law on the United States. I am only going to list a few of the 30 items; if you want to see all 30, you will have to go to the site.
  • Finally decent halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl (beheadings)
    He makes fun of it, but the people the Taliban beheaded or shot in the soccer stadiums in Afganistan were not laughing
  • The Fahrenheit 9/11 ride at Universal Studios.
    Maybe they will have a Path to 9/11 ride as well (the ABC movie the Clinton administration is trying to block)
  • Queer Eye for the Vengeful Allah features the public blinding of all those who lay with men. You will also get a complete makeover.
    He makes jokes about it, but homosexuals are not treated well in Islam.
  • In the Pretty Woman remake, Julia Roberts is stoned to death.
    This man's humor is SICK
  • Global Warming is will of Allah. Al Gore beheaded for blaming science.
    Now that is one I find funny

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Yank Propaganda

The All Spin Zone blogged Two days ago, I wrote about Scholastic Books catapulting the “Path to 9/11” propaganda. More than 400 comments were made at a crossposting that I did on Daily Kos, the vast majority of the comments containing excellent suggestions for action, and outrage that Scholastic would be supporting this crock-u-mentary with propaganda reinforcement.

In other words Scholastic should know that Democrats control the school system, and only left wing propaganda is acceptable in the schools.
Scholastic was flooded with calls and emails of protest and righteous indignation. Tonight, the material is no longer on Scholastic's website. Poof. Disappeared. From a comment in this subsequent DKos diary, the commentor tried to click through on the link to Scholastic's resource website earlier this evening. This is the link we were all hitting yesterday for our research. Tonight, the link comes up to a blank search page.

Blue Crab blogged I think this is both interesting and revealing. Back when Fahrenheit 911 was the talk of the blogosphere, all the criticism I read was about its accuracy. There were quite a lot of bloggers that were tearing it apart for its twisting of fact. A lot of bloggers wanted to set the record straight, but to my knowledge not one of those people I was reading at that time before I started blogging myself was calling for it to be silenced. They only wanted the record straight.
Republicans just want to get the facts out there; Democrats want to silence facts.
Now we have a new "docudrama" about 9/11 coming out. And the left side of the blogosphere and mainstream Democratic politicians are calling for it to be radically changed or silenced. Some are gloating that they think they have silenced some voices. Have you noticed the difference here?
Yes it is apparently ok to distort what Republicans do, but you can't even point out the truth about Democrats.
One group decries the accuracy, the other decries the existence. Who is in favor of silencing the opposition again? Who is in favor of curtailing the free speech of others? Have you noticed?

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The Path to 9/11

WaPo reports Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike against an ABC-TV "docudrama," slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama bin Laden.

Do you mean we cannot believe everything we see on TV? What a shock!!! Actually the shock is that this one time, media distortions may be making Dems look bad.
Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright called one scene involving her "false and defamatory." Former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said the film "flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions." And former White House aide Bruce R. Lindsey, who now heads the William J. Clinton Foundation, said: "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known." ABC's entertainment division said the six-hour movie, "The Path to 9/11," will say in a disclaimer that it is a "dramatization . . . not a documentary" and contains "fictionalized scenes." But the disclaimer also says the movie is based on the Sept. 11 commission's report, although that report contradicts several key scenes.

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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Hezbollah doubtful over German role in UN force

Expatica reported The Shiite Hezbollah militia has expressed "reservations" about Germany's involvement in the multinational UN force deploying for Lebanon, owing to German demands that its troops be allowed to stop and search boats bound for the country.

In other words Hezbollah has no intention not to rearm, and with even bigger weapons.
"Our reservations are regarding the German demand to search boats as they enter Lebanon," Hezbollah member of parliament Hussein Haj Hassan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Tuesday. "Such a demand stands against the sovereignty of Lebanon."
Having an armed Hezbollah is a worse threat to the sovereignty of Lebanon. Iran can tell Hezbollah to involve Lebanon in another war anytime they want to.
Hezbollah "is not against the German government and has great respect for the German people," Haj Hassan stressed, "but they want the German government to review its stand towards Lebanon." Haj Hassan additionally accused Berlin of bias towards Israel's policies in the region.

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Nine held in Danish terror raids

BBC News Danish police have arrested nine suspected terrorists, the country's security intelligence service says.

Are they still ticked off about the cartoons?
The suspects, believed to be all men under the age of 30, were picked up during overnight raids in Odense, Denmark's third largest city. The country's Justice Minister, Lene Espersen, said it was likely they were planning an attack in Denmark. The men had been under surveillance for months and were detained on suspicion of planning terror acts.

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Monday, September 04, 2006

Target rewriting history

Betsy' Newmark blogged Oh, dear - more history lessons needed

Poor Target - they really need some remedial history lessons. Take a look at their Franklin Roosevelt doll. Franklin's out of his wheelchair and wearing the bifocals that he invented right after he responded to the day of infamy. Probably ready to charm the ladies and the French while he's at it.

Next will be the brave Lincoln Chafee doll that kept our country together during the Civil War. Or, as one commenter suggested, the Napoleon Dynamite doll that conquered Europe. Or that feisty Harry Reid doll that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. And the William Clinton doll that built the Erie Canal. Perhaps, the Martin Luther King doll that reformed the Catholic Church. And who wouldn't want the Tom Daschle doll that wrote the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence. The marketing possibilities are practically endless.

Enjoy the comments at the Target site. Their customers are having some good fun. Their catalog programmer is obviously not a history major. Hat tip to Amy Wellborn- read the comments there, too.


As George Santayana said "those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it." But it appears that those that don't know history, are likely to confuse details.

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Target rewriting history

Betsy' Newmark blogged Oh, dear - more history lessons needed

Poor Target - they really need some remedial history lessons. Take a look at their Franklin Roosevelt doll. Franklin's out of his wheelchair and wearing the bifocals that he invented right after he responded to the day of infamy. Probably ready to charm the ladies and the French while he's at it.

Next will be the brave Lincoln Chafee doll that kept our country together during the Civil War. Or, as one commenter suggested, the Napoleon Dynamite doll that conquered Europe. Or that feisty Harry Reid doll that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. And the William Clinton doll that built the Erie Canal. Perhaps, the Martin Luther King doll that reformed the Catholic Church. And who wouldn't want the Tom Daschle doll that wrote the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence. The marketing possibilities are practically endless.

Enjoy the comments at the Target site. Their customers are having some good fun. Their catalog programmer is obviously not a history major. Hat tip to Amy Wellborn- read the comments there, too.


As George Santayana said "those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it." But it appears that those that don't know history, are likely to confuse details.

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Help! Help! We're being oppressed!

Jay Tea at Wizbang blogged When Muslims in America are anywhere near as endangered as, say, a Jew in Saudi Arabia or A Dane anywhere in the Muslim world (remember, all Danes were guilty because one newspaper published cartoons depicting Mohammed, and that was later extended to all Westerners who didn't join in condemning the newspaper -- and quite a few who did), then I'll take CAIR's whining semi-seriously. Or, at least, pretend to. Until that day, all I have to say to them is to ask how many of their past leaders have been arrested and/or deported on charges of supporting terrorists. I've lost count.

They probably feel that having their past leaders get arrested and/or deported on charges of supporting terrorists is a form of oppresssion. They would say they were just exercising their free speech. However the Constitution is not a Suicide Note.

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I get it now!

Deb blogged I realized something this weekend that has probably been obvious to the rest of you for a long time: The reason a lot of these “I’m ok, you’re ok” people are so eager to say they are ok with homosexuality, living together before marriage, cheating, abortion, etc. is because it excuses them from being held to the same standards. I think in their heads if they have no standard or expectation from anyone else then no one should have any expectations from them either.

That is a very good point
I think the next time someone says “not that there’s anything wrong with that” I’m going to have to speak up and say something!

Seen on bumper sticker: “Abortion doesn’t make you unpregnant, it makes you the mother of a dead baby”
I would love to have that bumper sticker. Anyone know where I can get one?

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Masked man with firebomb attacks Montreal Jewish school

CBC News reported Surveillance video recovered by Montreal police shows a masked man throwing a firebomb at the door of an orthodox Jewish school in an attack early Saturday. The attack damaged the front entrance of the Taldos Yakov Yosef school in Montreal's Outremont neighbourhood. (CBC) The attack damaged the front entrance of the Taldos Yakov Yosef school in Montreal's Outremont neighbourhood. (CBC) .... Although officials of Jewish groups disagree, police have been unwilling to declare the attack a hate crime. In the absence of graffiti or other other evidence, it is being treated as an unexplained case of arson.

And there certainly is no one willing to sugest it might have been a Muslim.
Even so, it has stirred memories of a firebomb attack that destroyed the library of Montreal's United Talmud Torah school in 2004. The library of the United Talmud Torah school in Montreal was destroyed by another firebomb attack, in 2004. (Canadian Press) The library of the United Talmud Torah school in Montreal was destroyed by another firebomb attack, in 2004. (Canadian Press)
Was it carried out by a Muslim?
A note left at the school said the fire was in retaliation for the Israeli army's killing of a leader of the Hamas militant group.
There is a good clue.
The following year, a 19-year-old man who worked part-time at Canadian Tire was sentenced to two years in prison for the attack. Police tracked the man down through evidence left at the scene, including long wooden matches, kerosene and four plastic fuel containers made exclusively for Canadian Tire.
What was his religion? Perhaps another clue might be had from the fact that his name was Sleiman Elmerhebi and his mother's name was Rouba Elmerhebi Fahd, even though his religion was not stated in that story either.

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Hizbullah's Most Dangerous Weapon

Newsweek reported Hizbullah's chief, Hassan Nasrallah, spent the past two years bragging about a remote-control aircraft that could carry an explosive device to strike a target anywhere inside Israel. He finally put that threat into action a few weeks ago, during the Lebanon war, launching three of the pilotless planes toward Israeli targets—including two on the war's last day.

And Israel shot down all three.
They were Iranian-built Ababil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), capable of carrying an 88-pound warhead for up to 150 miles. The Israelis say Hizbullah received at least 12 UAVs from Iran before the war—meaning that Nasrallah may still have a small arsenal of them hidden away for future use. How dangerous could terrorist UAVs be? Some analysts doubt that the pilotless planes are a real threat. Ephraim Sneh, a retired Israeli general and a Labor Party member of Parliament, says a UAV's relatively small payload gives only "limited" capacity to inflict damage—although it still packs significantly more explosive power than any of the unguided Katyusha rockets that pounded northern Israel until the fighting stopped. All three UAVs launched by Hizbullah during the 33-day war were shot down by Israeli jets before they could do any harm. It's easy if you know how, says Israel's outgoing chief of military intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser.

Still, many U.S. and Israeli defense experts are worried. What if terrorists crashed a UAV into a petrochemical facility? Or detonated it inside a packed sports stadium? "I suspect they would have loved to hit one of our national symbols," says another Israeli source, asking not to be named discussing sensitive military matters. The vehicles, especially models with sophisticated guidance systems like the Ababil's, can fly close to the ground, making them tough to detect by radar.
Tough, but not impossible.
The Pentagon saw the risk even before Lebanon erupted. This past January, NEWSWEEK has learned, the U.S. Air Force ordered a classified study of the UAV threat. The Air Force's Scientific Advisory Board is still working on its report, which is expected to suggest ways to disable the planes—possibly by jamming their remote signals—without affecting America's own communications. In laying out the study's "terms of reference," Air Force officials warned that the "total number of UAVs, including those that have the potential to be used against U.S. interests, is proliferating exponentially." U.S. analysts have particular qualms about the Tehran regime. "If the Iranians supplied UAVs to Hizbullah, there's no reason they couldn't supply similar capability to elements of the insurgency in Iraq," says Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official on the National Security Council.
But would they be that stupid? Our troops can track them, so they would not do any damage, and we would know for certain that they came from Iran, and this would give us an ideal excuse to bomb not just the plant where they produce them, but also their Nuclear facilities.

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Daniel Pipes says thanks but no thanks

Daniel Pipes blogged In a statement today, Al-Qaeda's American rep, Adam Gadahn (né Adam Perlman, whom the FBI seeks "in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States"), has this to say:

If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam
Which is it, hate or counter-Islam?
consultants like Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer, Steven Emerson, and yes, even the crusader-in-chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam."
That does not mean they would not still try to kill them. Despite the fact that Surat an-Nisa,093 (Quran 4.93) says "If a man kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (For ever): And the wrath and the curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful penalty is prepared for him." these nutcases seem to have no problem killing fellow Muslims.
So, Al-Qaeda wants me and my "sword" (a reference, presumably, to my computer keyboard) to join its efforts. My response to Gadahn:
I note your offer for me to change sides in the current war. But I am faithful to my own religion, to my own country, and to my civilization. I will do my part to defeat radical, totalitarian Islam and to usher in the emergence of a modern, moderate, and good-neighborly Islam in its place.
From your lips, to God's ear.
By way of postscript, Gadahn praises three Westerners: Seymour Hersh, George Galloway, and Robert Fisk. This is in keeping with Osama bin Laden's praising William Blum.

Michael van der Galien blogged Marvelously said

Pamela blogged Daniel Pipes is so very excellent here. Maybe Centanni and Wiig could learn something. As Mark Steyn so eloquently and succicntly wrote, " to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead." I really love what Pipes wrote. And while he has more faith in the will of moderate Islam, I pray he is right.

Robbie blogged After carefully considering your offer and all that Islam has to offer, I have decided to decline your invitation to join your death cult — which at the end of the day, is exactly what Islam is.

In fact, instead of converting to your death cult, I vow to fight you, denounce you, and resist you as long as I am alive. You will have to kill me before you could get me to join you. But then again, that’s your plan anyway.

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Sunday, September 03, 2006

Militants Vow to Target Non-Muslims

ABC News Palestinian militants who held two Fox News journalists hostage for nearly two weeks threatened in a statement posted online Saturday to abduct non-Muslims visiting the Palestinian territories and kill them unless their demands were met.

Why don't you try killing Palestinian Muslims. If a dog bites a man, it is not a story, but if a man buites dog....
The statement, posted in the name of the Holy Jihad Brigades on a Web site frequently used by militants, said the group would kill any hostages it takes unless they converted to Islam, paid a ransom or Muslim prisoners were exchanged for their release.
Why don't you try to find a real job.
"Any infidel blood will have no sanctity," the group said in the statement.
There are two definitions of sanctity. Do you mean "The quality of being holy or sacred" or "The quality or condition of being safe from assault, trespass, or violation".
It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, which was dated August 27 the day militants released American journalist Steve Centanni, 60, and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36. They were seized Aug. 14 in Gaza City.

The militant group had demanded the release of Muslim prisoners held by the United States in exchange for freeing the journalists. During their captivity, the journalists were forced at gunpoint to declare that they had converted to Islam, Centanni told Fox News after he was released. The group said in its statement that the journalists' declaration saved their lives. "Nothing but Islam gave their blood sanctity and prevented their slaughter," the group said.
So you are stupid enough to think they really converted to Islam.
It added, "We are not the sort of people who are fooled … but only God knows intentions."

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Sticking your head in the sand

Telegraph reported I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war, warns Shia leader. By Gethin Chamberlain and Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad

Hmmm, wasn't it Chamberlain that led Britain into appeasing Hitler to the point that he almost took over Europe?
The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.
But there is something he can do. Call Muktada Al Sader in to see him, and slit his throat, then behead him and display his head on a pike outside your mosque.
Aides say Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is angry and disappointed that Shias are ignoring his calls for calm and are switching their allegiance in their thousands to more militant groups which promise protection from Sunni violence and revenge for attacks.
Well I see from this that a coalition of 300 Iraqi tribal leaders on Saturday demanded the release of Saddam Hussein so he could reclaim the presidency. And the Democrats are screaming at Bush to withdraw our forces. How would Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani like it if we freed Saddam, and pulled our forces out. Would he hope that Muktada Al Sader's Iranian supported forces prevailed, turning the country over to Iran, or would he prefer that Saddam prevailed, and turned the Shia back into second class citizens. I wonder if he would wish that he had pressed a little harder for an Iraq in which the Shia were free to practice their religion, but not as it was interpreted in Iran.

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Why abduct us? We cede our values for free

Mark Steyn wrote in Chicago Sun Times Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.

I don't fault Centanni and Wiig because they were forced to do what they did. I like to think I would have done differently, and perhaps even made the effort to take advantage of my knowledge of the Koran, and the captors lack of theological sophistication, and shown them some of the inconsistencies in their knowledge of the Koran, and tried to lead them to Christ, but I do not blame Centanni and Wiig. But I will agree with you that the rest of the Journalistic Community, who do not have guns pointed at them, certainly treat Islam with more reverance than they treat Christianity.
Consider, for example, the bizarre behavior of Reuters, the once globally respected news agency now reduced to putting out laughably inept terrorist propaganda. A few days ago, it made a big hoo-ha about the Israelis intentionally firing a missile at its press vehicle and wounding its cameraman Fadel Shana. Shana was posed in an artful sprawl in a blood-spattered shirt. But it had ridden up and underneath his undershirt was spotlessly white, like a summer-stock Julius Caesar revealing the boxers under his toga. What's stunning is not that almost all Western media organizations reporting from the Middle East are reliant on local staff overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side in the conflict -- that's been known for some time -- but the amateurish level of fakery that head office is willing to go along with.
This is similar to the many examples of FauxPhotography that were published in the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Down at the other end of the news business, meanwhile, one finds items like this snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"A 16-year-old girl was tailed by a car full of men before being dragged inside and assaulted in Sydney's west last night, police say . . . "The three men involved in the attack were described to police as having dark 'mullet-style' haircuts."
Three men with "mullet-style" hair, huh? Not much to go on there. Bit of a head scratcher. But, as it turned out, the indefatigable Sydney Morning Herald typist had faithfully copied out every salient detail of the police report except one. Here's the statement the coppers themselves issued:
"Police are seeking three men described as being of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance, with dark 'mullet-style' hair cuts."
That additional detail narrows it down a bit, wouldn't you say? The only reason I know that is because the Aussie Internet maestro Tim Blair grew curious about the epidemic of incidents committed by men of no known appearance and decided to look into it. One can understand the agonies the politically correct multicultural journalist must go through, distressed at the thought that an infelicitous phrasing might perpetuate unfortunate stereotypes of young Muslim males. But, even so, it's quite a leap to omit the most pertinent fact and leave the impression the Sydney constabulary are combing the city for mullets.
This is not the only time, just the most recent time, when the media have obscured the fact that Muslims were guilty of killing or hurting people. if they were Jews or Christians, they certainly would not be reluctant to reveal that.
.... [F]or the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.

But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade.... In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.
As Patton said "It's not your duty to die for your country, It is your job to see that the other S.O.B dies for his"

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