John McCain Is The Man

I'm not a big fan of his politics, or of the manner in which he rose to become the Republican Party candidate for the Presidency, but to read these stories is to admire John McCain as a human being:

Getting to Know John McCain

By KARL ROVE April 30, 2008; Page A17

It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.

As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because they told me things about him the American people need to know. And troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.

When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.

Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.

Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain's sermons. "He remembered the Episcopal liturgy," Mr. Day says, "and sounded like a bona fide preacher." One of Mr. McCain's first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn't ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.

Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can't raise his arms over his head.

One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.

Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. "He wasn't corruptible then," Mr. Day says, "and he's not corruptible today."

The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been written about, such as in Robert Timberg's 1996 book "A Nightingale's Song." But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is something admirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it.

Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up.

Americans need to know about his vision for the nation's future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign – but he can't afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential decency.

These qualities mattered in America's first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44th president.

In which Spengler solves ONE of Obama's problems as only he can

ASK SPENGLER
Hit the road

Dear Spengler,
I'm in big trouble over something I said to a private group that some busybody posted on the Internet. Just when I was about to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination, everyone is on my case because I said that small-town voters in Pennsylvania were bitter about losing their jobs, and cling to their guns and to God by way of compensation.

I've qualified, temporized, reorganized and sanitized my remarks, but the story just won't go away. What should I do about it?
Shivering in Chicago

Dear Shivering
Last time you wrote to me April 1, 2008) the best course of action seemed clear. This is a tougher one. Some
gaffes don't go away. You might consider emulating the legendary Abu Hussan, whose story is told in the Arabian Nights (as translated by Sir Richard Burton):

They recount that in the city of Kaukaban in Yemen there was a man named Abu Hasan of the Fadhli tribe who left the Bedouin life and became a townsman and the wealthiest of merchants. His wife died while both were young, and his friends pressed him to marry again.

Weary of their pressure, Abu Hasan entered into negotiations with the old women who procure matches, and married a woman as beautiful as the moon shining over the sea. To the wedding banquet he invited kith and kin, ulema and fakirs, friends and foes, and all of his acquaintances.

The whole house was thrown open to feasting: There were five different colors of rice, and sherbets of as many more; kid goats stuffed with walnuts, almonds, and pistachios; and a young camel roasted whole. So they ate and drank and made merry.

The bride was displayed in her seven dresses - and one more - to the women, who could not take their eyes off her. At last the bridegroom was summoned to the chamber where she sat enthroned. He rose slowly and with dignity from his divan; but in do doing, for he was over full of meat and drink, he let fly a great and terrible fart.

In fear for their lives, all the guests immediately turned to their neighbors and talked aloud, pretending to have heard nothing.

Mortified, Abu Hasan turned away from the bridal chamber and as if to answer a call of nature. He went down to the courtyard, saddled his mare, and rode off, weeping bitterly through the night.

In time he reached Lahej, where he found a ship ready to sail for India; so he boarded, arriving ultimately at Calicut on the Malabar coast. Here he met with many Arabs, especially from Hadramaut, who recommended him to the king. This king (who was a kafir) trusted him and advanced him to the captaincy of his bodyguard. He remained there 10 years, in peace and happiness, but finally was overcome with homesickness. His longing to behold his native land was like that of a lover pining for his beloved; and it nearly cost him his life.

Finally he sneaked away without taking leave and made his way to Makalla in Hadramaut. Here he donned the rags of a dervish. Keeping his name and circumstances a secret, he set forth on foot for Kaukaban. He endured a thousand hardships of hunger, thirst and fatigue; and braved a thousand dangers from lions, snakes and ghouls.

Drawing near to his old home, he looked down upon it from the hills with brimming eyes, and said to himself, "They might recognize me, so I will wander about the outskirts and listen to what people are saying. May Allah grant that they do not remember what happened."

He listened carefully for seven nights and seven days, until it happened that, as he was sitting at the door of a hut, he heard the voice of a young girl saying, "Mother, tell me what day was I born on, for one of my companions wants to tell my fortune."

The mother answered, "My daughter, you were born on the very night when Abu Hasan farted."

No sooner had the listener heard these words than he rose up from the bench and fled, saying to himself, "Verily my fart has become a date! It will be remembered for ever and ever.

He continued on his way, returning finally to India, where he remained in self exile until he died. May the mercy of Allah be upon him!

I suggest you change your name, move to a place where no one knows you, and stay out of sight. Spengler

Storm Track Intimidation: Murder - More From Those Moderate Muslims

For some Muslim fathers who have been ‘dishonored’ by their daughters, suffocation and dismemberment is not enough. The family itself must get involved – by spitting on the body.

Heard this on Fox New and found it at the Daily Mail.

An Iraqi teenage girl was brutally murdered by her father in an "honour killing" after she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra.

Seventeen-year-old Rand Abdel-Qader told her best friend how she had fallen for Paul, a 22-year-old she met at a charity where she worked as a volunteer.

When her father learned she had been seen speaking to a foreigner he rushed home and butchered her, strangling and stabbing her while screaming that he was "cleansing his honour".

Read the rest at The Gathering Storm.

CIA ..whoopsi, we changed our mind

or...Ignore that NIE behind the curtain

CIA's Hayden: Syria was on verge of becoming nuclear power

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. intelligence community, in an about-face from an assessment of less than a year ago, has concluded that Syria was close to becoming a nuclear power.

"In the course of a year after they got full up they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons," CIA director Michael Hayden said.

The new assessment was that Syria was weeks away from operating a North Korean-built plutonium production plant near the Turkish border.

That facility, the intelligence community assessed, could have produced up to two bombs in the first year of operation.

On April 28, Hayden said the Syrian reactor could have begun producing sufficient amounts of plutonium for an atomic weapon.

Speaking to reporters after an address at Georgetown University, the CIA director said information of the North Korean-designed nuclear reactor came from Israel and could not be shared with the IAEA until mid-April.

"We've made it clear we did not have complete control over the totality of the information because obviously it was the result of a team effort, Hayden said. "One has to respect the origin of the information in terms of how it is used."

Officials acknowledged that the U.S. assessment marked a near reversal of that in July 2007 when Israel provided aerial photographs of the plant and a video of the North Korean scientists inside.

At the time, the officials said, the CIA and State Department said the North Korean facility -- destroyed by the Israel Air Force in September 2007 -- was years away from being completed and even tested.

"Much of the revision of the CIA assessment came after the Israeli bombing when evidence of nuclear material was found," an official said. "We also learned a lot from the Syrian refusal to the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the site."

Officials acknowledged that the State Department, particularly Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to play down the Israeli evidence. They said Ms. Rice and her aides recruited CIA analysts who asserted that the Syrian facility, termed Al Kibar, was not designed for an atomic bomb.

Ms. Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill were said to have argued that any determination of a North Korean nuclear facility in Syria would torpedo U.S.-led negotiations for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Officials said Israel did not report any uranium shipments to Al Kibar.

And we'd much rather fool ourselves rather than look like fools for a moment. Is Rice then QUALIFIED for high office? If this is the response of a republican UNILATERALIST administration, a rogue outfit, what on earth will happen when Carter II takes office? And now we know why Israel was so silent, because the Bush administration DEMANDED it. FOR POLITICAL REASONS..to not destroy negotiations with a power that has never honored an agreement?

The U.S. intelligence community eventually agreed with the Israeli assessment of a North Korean nuclear program in Syria. Officials said Hayden agreed with analysts who determined that Pyongyang violated its February 2007 pledge to halt nuclear proliferation. The intelligence community suspected that North Korea had been helping Syria's nuclear program since 2001.

By June 2007, officials said, the CIA received information from Israel that North Korea was building a suspected nuclear reactor. Officials said the Israeli aerial and ground-based photographs overcame doubts that stemmed from satellite images of the facility.

At that point, Hayden said, the U.S. intelligence community dismissed arguments that the reactor could be meant for energy production. He said the Israeli photographs also showed that the building was a nuclear reactor.

"Our team effort on the Al Kibar reactor is a case study in rigorous analytic tradecraft, skillful human and technical collection, and close collaboration with our community colleagues and liaison partners," Hayden said on April 24. Our officers put in long hours on this issue for many months, and their hard work paid off by directly advancing our nation's security and that of our allies."

Jimmy Carter Is A Friggin' Idiot

Jimmy Carter is having so much trouble holding together the little fantasy world he has created that he actually gets angry at CNN's Wolf Blitzer in this interview.

From Prime Time Politics:





Let's inspect Carter's points. 1. Hamas is not an obstacle to peace in the region 2. Hamas would accept Israel as a Jewish state living alongside a Palestinian state 3. Hamas really wants a ceasefire, but Israel rejects their please for one, and so "the conflict goes on" The reality is the exact opposite on every point. Hamas has continuously launched rockets and other acts of terrorism aimed at Israeli civilians, they've never ceased, regardless of the phony "ceasefires" you hear the AP reporting from time to time. Approximately 30 seconds after good ole Jimmy announced that Hamas was willing to recognize a Jewish State of Israel alongside a Palestinian state, none other than Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas, contradicted him. It wasn't "spokespersons" for Hamas that contradicted him, it was the head of the terrorist organization himself.

Lastly, Hamas likes to choose very opportune times to offer "ceasefires." Namely, as their leaders start being targeted by Israeli helicopters seems to be the running theme. Of course, they cynically offer "ceasefires" knowing that it puts Israel in the position of choosing between targeting the terrorists that have just attacked their civilian population, or being labeled warmongers who don't want a ceasefire by their friends in the international media.

Sadly, a former President of the United States of America never fails to step up to the plate on behalf of the terrorists of Hamas.

Indonesia: Non Muslims to wear hijab and massageuses to wear padlocks in their pants

About the obligation for non-Muslims to wear hijabs:

In Padang, capital of the province of West Sumatra, the atmosphere is increasingly that of an Islamic state. Female students who do not wear the headscarf (hijab) are frequently suspended from school. The requirement to observe Islamic customs, sanctioned by the controversial regional law of 2005, is also imposed on non-Muslim girls, and has generated an atmosphere of strong pressure on religious minorities. The proliferation of local laws inspired by sharia (perda syariat) is a growing phenomenon in Indonesia, but the central government has chosen not to intervene for now, in spite of protests from religious minorities and human rights NGO’s.

About the massageusses:

Chastity belts are gaining popularity in Indonesian massage parlors as a way to stop clients and masseuses from getting too close, parlor owners say.
A number of massage parlors in Batu, Indonesia, are requiring female masseuses to wear padlocks over their pants zippers to prevent men from bombarding workers for sex, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

Indonesia has already a terrible history about Islamic fundamentalism, with campaigns which included sexual violence against Timorese females, recognised by UN, and more than 500.000 communists killed because they opposed Suharto, whose troops also carried abductions and mass killings in the mid-1980s.
Last year 100.000 people in Indonesia, asked for the coming of the Global Caliphate in an event. They were summoned there by Islamist group Hibz ut-Tahrir.

Peace deal ? Israel and Syria ? Wait till you see the terms

Stratfor has received an unconfirmed report that the U.S. administration is currently reviewing a peace agreement drafted by Syria and Israel.

Some of the terms of the alleged deal involve Syria regaining its military, political and economic influence in Lebanon in exchange for suppressing its militant proxies -- Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Syria and Israel also reportedly came up with a system to create a demilitarized zone along the Israeli-Syrian border in which Syria would pull back four miles for every one mile that Israel pulls back its forces. The Golan Heights would be returned to Syria, though Israel would likely retain full rights to the key water source in the territory.

This means Israel gives up the REAL asset of the Golan Heights which in 100% of the past, when held by Syria meant artillery onto the Israeli kibbutz's below, for the HOPE that Syria will 'suppress' (that's a real objectively measured quantity, isn't it?) HAMAS, Hizballah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

If this information is true, it would indicate the ongoing peace negotiations between Israel have reached a critical phase. Our first clue that these were not simply talks for the sake of talks came when the negotiations broke into the public sphere a little more than a week ago. The lack of denials followed by a public acknowledgment by both the Israeli and Syrian leaderships demonstrated that something serious was going on. The deal could just as well evaporate given the complexities surrounding the issue, but if the two sides have actually crafted together a peace agreement that is now being debated among U.S. officials in Washington, then the political map of the Middle East could undergo some major changes in the near future.

The west is DOOMED.

IMHO there is ZERO per cent chance that Hassan Nasrallah, the most popular man in the middle east for several years running, will be suppressed by anything other than the IDF.

England - Arab man stabs 2 orthodox jews at random, no hate suspected

TIMES:

Man charged over Golders Green stabbings

By Kevin Bradford

A man has been charged following a double knife attack on two Orthodox Jews in Golders Green.

Mohamed Jama Ahmed, 37, of North Circular Road, Cricklewood, was arrested after two stabbings which happened just meters apart in roads off Golders Green Road on Friday.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said the attacks, which happened at around 6pm, appear to have been random and unprovoked, but were not being treated as faith hate crimes.

Officers were alerted to a 47-year-old man in The Drive who was suffering from stab wounds to his arm and chest.

While at the scene, police were informed that a 43-year-old man had been stabbed in nearby Beverley Gardens.

Both victims were taken to hospital and are said to be in a stable condition.

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Ahmed was arrested on Sunday and charged with two counts of assault involving grievous bodily harm.

He is due to appear at Hendon Magistrates Court today.

Move along, no religious hatred here. The Quran and Hadith have nothing to do with this. Religion is not involved. Just a nut with a knife upset about his last batch of horseradish, for his gefilte fish, being too weak.

Obama’s desperate attempt at damage control

Feeling an intense heat and seeing how his presidential bid slips away, B. Hussein Obama decided to do a major damage control and dump on his pastor and mentor of 20 years Rev. Wright by kind of condemning his hate-filled, racist and anti-American views.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made, and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday," he said. "You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago."

He means to tell us that he's been listening to Wright's hate speeches for 20 years but it is now that he finds all his statements outrageous. Sure, I'll buy that.

But it gets even more interesting, with Wright saying that Obama only distancing himself from him to fool the whitey.

At Tuesday's news conference, Obama explicitly rejected Wright's statements as "ridiculous." He said he was particularly angry that Wright suggested he was only distancing himself from the comments for political purposes.

"And if Reverend Wright thinks that is 'political posturing', as he put it, then he does not know me very well," he added. "And based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either."

And after making this strongly worded statement he added:

Crossposted at Eye On The World.

Is He The One? - The Audacity of Denial

From Powerline:

The problem for Obama is that his books do not, in fact, support the conclusion that he is entirely out of sympathy with what we now know to be Jeremiah Wright's noxious views.

To be sure, Obama has never suggested that the federal government developed the AIDS virus. But Obama's own account of his first encounter with Wright's preaching, as related in his book Dreams From My Father, reveals that Obama knew of Wright's virulent racism from the beginning, and that it was a racist screed by Wright that initially drew Obama to his church.

Listen to Obama himself tell the story in the audio book of Dreams From My Father, by clicking here.

It is hard to see how a candidate who finds inspirational the claim that "white folks' greed runs a world in need" can fully distance himself from Wright's anti-white racism.

PAUL adds: As I've written before, the common thread that ties Obama's views to Wright's is black liberation theology, which sees the Christian mission as bringing justice to oppressed people through political activism, and emphasizes the racial aspect of oppression. In effect, it is an amalgam of Christianity, radical left-wing ideology, and black militancy. Obama's autobiography supports my view that, in all likelihood, "only this brand [of Christianity] could [have brought] a left-wing political activist like Obama to Jesus."

The existence of this common threas does not mean that Obama subscribes to the worst of Wright's views, and I'm confident he does not. But I believe it helps explain why Obama found so many of these views merely "controversial," not deplorable.

From Hugh Hewitt:

So, was Obama just as naive as a child for 20 years, or as disingenuous as any major political figure of the last forty years when he denied knowing the real Pastor Wright this morning?

Either way it creates a huge issue for voters. Is Obama a dupe, or just duplicitous? Do you want him in charge of the nation's security, making judgments about our enemies?

Follow-up reporting should focus on the depth of the relationship between Wright and Obama. In Philadelphia Obama described a deep, strong and personal bond. How deep? What did they talk about all these years? How could you miss the government-created-AIDS etc?

"I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency," Obama declared today. That's not the point. The point is Obama's judgment. Or his truthfulness.

One starting point --as Stanley Kurtz notes today, Pastor Wright attended the Million Man March. So did Obama. Obama writes about the Nation of Islam in his memoir, Dreams From My Father.

How can Obama possibly expect us to believe that he didn't know that Pastor Wright esteemed Louis Farrakan? This morning Obama used the Wright praise of Farrakhan yesterday as one of "ridiculous propositions" that led him to "denounce" Wright.

(When men from my church attended the Promise Keepers rally in D.C. in 1997, they went as a group. Do you think that either Obama or Wright traveled with others from their church membership to the rally? I hope a reporter asks Pastor Wright that follow up.)

Obama on Wright - I'm Shocked, Shocked I tell you, - round up the usual pastors

Yes after 20 years, 2 months, 12 hours, 43 months and 14 seconds...we believe you're just SO shocked.

Shocked at what?

Maybe that Wright is so egotistical he doesn't care if a parishioner is elected POTUS. I'm shocked at that.

But shocked that he said we inject black people with AIDS, as POLICY?
But shocked that he said US Marines are just like Christ's legionnaire executioners?
But shocked that he said we are a terrorist nation?
But shocked that he said Farrakhan is no enemy to him or his church, and that his statement about jews are correct?
But shocked that he said Farrakhan is listened to by all black people?
But shocked that he said attacks on him are attacks on the black church (as if there is some monolithic thing) and are racist?
But shocked that he said we are damned?
But shocked that he said we gave Saddam biological agents to kill his own people?
But shocked that he said 4000 Americans died for a lie?
But shocked that he said we are morally equivalent to Al Qaeda?

At least buy me dinner first, Barry

Bush lands on reporter ..'Look, is it in our interests to confront these jihadists?'

What the hell took you so long, George?

Life is what happens when you are busy making plans.... Azerbaijan blocks Russian nuke shipment to Iran

NICOSIA -- Iran has reported that a shipment of Russian nuclear equipment was being held in neighboring Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, an ally of the United States, has acknowledged the delay. The Azeri government said it has sought to determine whether the nuclear shipment violated United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran.

Iranian officials said their Foreign Ministry has demanded that Azeri authorities release the nuclear equipment. They said the equipment, intended for the Bushehr nuclear energy reactor, was held up at the Iranian-Azeri border.

"We have asked them to deliver the shipment as soon as possible," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Husseini said. Ali Husseini did not identify the nuclear equipment held in Azerbaijan. The spokesman said the nuclear shipment has been in Azerbaijan for three weeks.

Now wouldn't THIS be interesting. A provocation?

[On Monday, CIA director Michael Hayden said North Korea built a nuclear plant in Syria that could have produced enough plutonium to assemble up to two atomic weapons per year. Hayden said full production of the plant -- destroyed by Israel in September 2007 -- would have been achieved within a year of operation.] Iran and Russia have agreed to accelerate the 1,000 megawatt Bushehr reactor, scheduled to begin full operations in October 2008. But on April 21, Bushehr's prime contractor, Russia's state-owned Atomstroiexport, said one or two trucks carrying equipment for Bushehr were stopped in Astara, along the Azeri-Iranian border.

Atomstroiexport spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said the trucks contained what she termed heat-isolating systems. Ms. Yesipova said she did not envision additional delays to Bushehr.

Iran has also reported the construction of a second nuclear reactor. Officials said the facility was being built along the Iranian border with Iraq and would have a capacity of 360 megawatts.

"Now we need to think about the fuel for it," Iranian ambassador to Russia, Gholamreza Ansari, said.

State Department Goodthink

Guest Editorial by Edward Cline:

The Associated Press on April 24, under the headline, “’Jihadist’ booted from government lexicon,” announced that,

The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language.

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as ‘jihadists’ or ‘mujahedeen,’ according to documents obtained by [or “leaked” to] The Associated Press. Lingo like ‘Islamofascism’ is out, too.

So, here is another damning legacy being bequeathed to us by President Bush. He has claimed from the beginning that Islamic terrorism is perpetrated by people who have “hijacked” a “great religion.” But he himself has now hijacked and sabotaged language.

The “new front” is in reality a craven retreat from the old one, which is a costly, futile hit-or-miss campaign to capture or kill individuals responsible for terrorism, and not a campaign against states that sponsor terrorism. In this new development, the State Department, certainly with the sanction of the Bush Administration, will allow the Islamists or Islamofascists to advance and take more ground in their campaign to subjugate the West, and in particular, America.

The AP article claims that one document, “originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch of the National Counter Terrorism Center [called “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication”], was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said.”

What is the rationale for adopting a policy of surrender by expunging “offensive” terms from the nuance-sensitive pragmatist’s Newspeak lexicon? According to Matthew Lee, author of the AP article,

Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

For example, while Americans may understand ‘jihad’ to mean ‘holy war,’ it is in fact a broader concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, ‘mujahedeen,’ which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.

A Homeland Security report, called “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims,” claims that

“U.S. officials may be ‘unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims,’ says a Homeland Security report, which is discussed below.

Let us parse some of these statements in the memo and examine the terms they employ. I cannot determine from Matthew Lee’s report whether or not he is sympathetic to the report, so any criticisms here are meant for the report’s language and not his account of it.

Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offenseto moderates.”

Islam is radical. It means submission, specifically, to Allah’s will. It is a 24/7, 365-days-a-year creed, with no allowance for slackers or sabbaticals from it. Every Muslim is either a passive, rank-and-file adherent, or an active one engaged in applying its Islam’s tenets in one of two ways: in Arab societies or in insinuating Sharia in Western or non-Muslim societies – or by bomb. The radical activists already have a veneer of moral and religious credibility, which is based on the religion itself. They possess such credibility in the eyes and minds of all Muslims.

There are no moderates in Islam. One accepts the creed in toto, or one abandons or rejects it; there is no halfway agreement or technical dissension within Islam. Its clerics and scholars do not allow it, nor does the Koran condone it. Anyone who attempts to “reform” Islam risks being chopped by its most consistent practitioners.

Conclusion: One federal agency and one cabinet-level bureaucracy propose to “protect” the U.S. by blanking out reality and not identifying our enemies.

“It’s not what you say,” the AP article quotes from the memorandum, “but what they hear.” In other words, reality is what is in other people’s minds, not in what you might inadvertently be referring to out there in reality. A “jihadist” is merely someone who is “struggling” to “do good” and to “be good” in Allah’s eyes, and not an “extremist” who really isn’t practicing his beliefs, but who is “hijacking” a religion and giving it bad name.

The memo urges officials not to “take the bait” by actually saying, “A is A” when Osama bin Laden or al-Qada “affiliates” speak. Never mind that half the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims cheered when the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11 and bin Laden took credit for it, while the other half silently approved.

We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world.

Which means that instead of expressing moral condemnation of terrorists and their murderous acts, we should whimper quietly in a corner, perhaps in the company of a grief counselor. The enhanced “prestige” of the jihadists and Islamofascists is guaranteed if that is to be our “response” to terrorist acts.

The Associated Press goes on to note that Homeland Security’s Orwellian Newspeak report treats definitions and meanings as irrelevant.

Regarding ‘jihad,’ even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world.

Which means that accuracy is optional but basically undesirable and potentially embarrassing. Feelings might be hurt. The most astounding imputation is that using the terms “jihad” and “jihadist” (or any other possibly “offensive” defining term) glamorizes terrorism. The author (or authors, the report is very likely the product of a committee) of that document is someone who believes that “glamorizing” Bonnie and Clyde or Al Capone or Adolf Hitler or Yasir Arafat is wrong, not because these killers were evil and undeserving of any suggestion of good, but because it is impractical. After all, we want other bank robbers, gang leaders, dictators and terrorists to like us, or at least not hate us, and calling these killers killers would damage our relations with all the fools who admire them and who would emulate them if they could. What has morality to do with it?

Steven Emerson, commenting on the Homeland Security report on his Investigative Project on Terrorism site on April 25, noted that

Apparently the report does not say which American Muslims offered the recommendations. But it is virtually identical to a long campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamist groups….So the U.S. government is taking its cues from a group that emanated from a secret Muslim Brotherhood operation in America, one with a stated goal of being ‘a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.’

“’Don’t compromise our credibility,’” quotes the AP article from the Counter Terrorism Center memo, “by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.”

Given the gelatin principles and marshmallow ethics that govern the fantasy world of the White House, State Department and our foreign policy, what credibility is left to compromise? And who on earth ever ascribed benign motives to al-Qada, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, or Ahmadinejad’s Iran? These are not branches of Rotary International.

The Counter Terrorism Center memo, reports the AP, contains these pointers:

“Never use the terms ‘jihadist’ or ‘mujahedeen’ in conversation to describe the terrorists…Calling our enemies ‘jihadis’ and their movement a global ‘jihad’ unintentionally legitimizes their actions….Use the terms ‘violent extremist’ or ‘terrorist.’ Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy.” [Note that the term ‘violent extremist” implicitly concedes that Islamic terrorists are acting in the name of Islam, in its most “extreme” interpretation. Apparently the term is widely understood by everyone but the State Department and Homeland Security.]

So, our concern is not with defeating our enemies, but with denying them any “legitimacy” in the eyes of their passive co-religionists, not with destroying those who would destroy us, but with mentally segregating them from Islam. No such thing as a global jihad exists; it’s just a lot of bad guys with guns and bombs who claim they are obeying the will of Allah, but we don’t need to believe that. Not to worry.

One consequence of adopting this evasive anti-language policy is that it will enable our policymakers to dodge the issue of state-sponsored terrorism. It will permit them to negotiate with Islamic regimes that call for our destruction, not eradicate them. What it will not do is change reality.

One unsung hero who summed up the cause and consequence of that policy is Major Steven Coughlin, U.S. Army Reserve, Military Intelligence, author of a paper, “To Our Great Detriment: Ignoring What Extremists Say About Jihad,” [PDF format] submitted in July 2007 to the National Defense Intelligence College, In it, he establishes the crucial links:

Accepting assurances from moderate Muslims that Islam had nothing to do with the events of 11 September 2001, President Bush made policy statements holding Islam harmless for the actions done by ‘extremists.’…As it turns out, the jihadis are able to find a doctrinal basis for their notions of jihad in Islamic law….This legal definition of jihad remains consistent through the 1,400 year span that incorporates the contributions of the authorities relied on in the thesis….Because of our inability to understand the enemy stems from a decision not to know him, this thesis recommends the return to a threat analysis process as the methodology to analyze the enemy’s stated doctrine…. [Italics mine, to underscore the epistemological corruption of our policymakers]

One thing that will be learned if that doctrine is ever analyzed is that Islam is a pernicious, evil ideology that cannot be “reformed” without rendering it something other than Islam. Another thing that will be learned is that it must be defeated root and branch, militarily with retaliatory force, and philosophically, through reason.

Crossposted at The Dougout

BBC Says Don't Call Muslims "Moderate"

Gradually, we are being wedged in to an intellectual ghetto.

We are being told we can make no distinctions about Muslims. We are told we can not use the term Islamofascist. We are not to use the term "Islamic terrorism." And now, we are not allowed to make a distinction between

those Islamofascists

who would commit acts of Islamic terrorism

and those Moderate Muslims

who would not.

Think about how friggin' stupid that is. It is enforced stupidity.

The ability to make distinctions is the first step in critical analysis.

They are telling us they don't want us to analyze. They don't want us to think.

From the London Times:


The BBC is facing a High Court challenge over its decision to censor a party political broadcast in the run-up to Thursday’s local elections.

A Christian party has begun legal action after the corporation insisted on changes to a short film in which the party voiced opposition to the building of Europe’s biggest mosque next to the site of the 2012 Olympics.

Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic missionary group behind the £75 million Abbey Mills mosque, opposes inter-faith dialogue and preaches that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence. One of its British advocates has said that it aims to rescue Muslims from the culture and civilisation of Jews and Christians by creating “such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta”.

The Christian Choice election broadcast would have described Tablighi Jamaat as “a separatist Islamic group” before welcoming that some “moderate Muslims” were opposed to the mosque complex.

Alan Craig, the party’s candidate in the London mayoral election, also on Thursday, said that he was forced to change the wording at the insistence of lawyers at the BBC and ITV, which will also feature in the court action.

The BBC refused to accept “separatist” — the corporation asked for “controversial” instead — and barred the use of “moderate Muslims” because the phrase implied that Tablighi Jamaat was less than moderate.

Storm Track Infiltration: Turkey’s Ayatollah Khomeini?

When the Shah of Iran fell from power, Ayatollah Khomeini stepped in and turned Iran into the first fundamentalist Islamic state. If a man named Fethullah Gülen came to power in Turkey, that country might go the way of Iran.

Who is Fethullah Gülen? He is Turkey’s most prominent theologian and political thinker. The web site WMD – War to Mobilize Democracy – has a very good article that explains the man and the threat.

Here are some excerpts that will introduce you to Mr. Gülen. Keep an eye on this man. He just may be the future of Turkey. – and he has the support of West, just as Khomeini did at first.

Read the rest at The Gathering Storm.

Muslim Prisoners In Europe

From the Washington Post:


This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population.

On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the French figures are the most marked, according to researchers, criminologists and Muslim leaders.

In Britain, 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim in contrast to about 3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry. Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the research found.


The Washington Post articles offers up the usual Socialist economic determinism bullshit as an explanation for these high incarceration rates.

The truth is, it seems to me, that Islam teaches Muslims they don't have any reason to respect the laws of the countries into which they move. They are to respect only the law of Allah.

That's why they call a Muslim country Dar al-Islam (land where Allah's will reigns), while they call an Infidel country Dar al-Harb (land where war reigns).

If we were a society who actually ahered to our own laws, many more Muslims would be in jail for sedition, because to advocate for Sharia law, which many Muslims do in their Mosques, is to advocate for the overthrow of one's host government.

Peter Taylor: Algeria and the Rise of Islamist Extremism

BBC: Watch seven-year-old Abdelkahar Belhadj address a political rally
BBC: One of the most remarkable archive sequences we came across while researching the Age of Terror programme, features a seven-year-old Algerian boy called Abdelkahar Belhadj. He is seen addressing a political rally of thousands in 1991 with all the confidence and fire of a mature adult.

"There are a billion Muslims and we don't have a state that rules by God's Holy Law. Isn't that a dishonour and a shame on us?" he proclaims in the voice of a child.

He is cheered ecstatically and lifted on high. It was revelatory to hear the philosophy of jihad - the struggle to overthrow infidel regimes and replace them with Islamic states under Sharia law - emerging from the lips of one so young.

In 2007, 16 years later, we watched another clip, a propaganda video announcing the launch of al-Qaeda in North Africa featuring non other than Abdelkahar Belhadj, now a fully-fledged jihadi.

When I first saw the clip of the young Belhadj, I was instantly reminded of an interview I'd done in an IRA stronghold in Belfast in the mid-seventies with a little boy called Sean. I vividly remember he had the initials IRA inked on the back of his hand.

Sean told me he wanted to fight and die for Ireland. Years later I met him again, this time on an IRA wing inside the Maze prison. He had gone to jail after fighting for the cause he had embraced all those years ago.

Sean and Abdelkahar Belhadj illuminate the bigger picture of the Age of Terror: how the "cause", be it Islamist or Republican, Basque or Palestinian, flows from one generation to the next and on through the veins of history. Algeria and the Rise of Islamist Extremism >>> By Peter Taylor | April 29, 2008

BBC:
Age of Terror Website

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

But all we really ask is that you 'deal' in some way with those stiff necked Yahud al-Khaibar

Saudis to launch $5.3bn sovereign fund

By Andrew England, Middle East Correspondent

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is in the "final stages" of launching the kingdom's first sovereign wealth fund. But its early financial commitment will disappoint those hoping for another megafund.

Mansour Al-Maiman, secretary- general of the internally focused PIF, said an investment company wholly owned by PIF would be set up with initial capital of SR20bn ($5.3bn).

The move represents Riyadh's first tentative foray into this class of state-owned investment tool and follows months of debate at the highest level.

Some bankers outside Saudi Arabia had expected a far larger sum. Kuwait's sovereign fund is estimated at $200bn, Qatar's $60bn, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority's at $500bn to $850bn.

Mr Maiman added: "This does not preclude increasing the size of its capital . . . or otherwise broadening the size of assets under its management in the future as and when appropriate."

Saudi Arabia is the Gulf's largest economy and its declared official foreign assets have soared to more than $330bn, driven by oil.

Mr Maiman said that Riyadh was in the final stages of approving the formation of the investment company, which would be a "portfolio investor focusing on maximising long-term rates of return".

I'm sure the Rothschild Banks are not holding their breath. But what influence will be bought at Citibank or Wells Fargo, or.....suppose they buy US Treasuries and threaten to cash them in at an inopportune moment.

Where is my American developed hydrogen technology fuel cell vehicle?

Barry, John, Hill? Where's your Manhattan project?

If Hillary can't take advantage of Wright, she is not presidential material

When the Japanese destroyed the american battle fleet, and german subs were sinking US ships within sight of sunbathers on the east coast, FDR made Ernest J King Chief of Naval Operations. He had been relegated to the Bureau of Personnel because he could get along with no one, being too demanding, and suffering no fools. The personification of the admiral as son of a bitch. When recalled one of his telling comments was..when they get in trouble they call for the sons of bitches.

Well Hillary, your campaign is in trouble. Get out your inner son of a bitch.
.
Jeremiah Wright has confirmed to us all that the sound bites he complained so bitterly about as being "devious" are a perfectly accurate painting of Hillary's opponent's literally lifelong pastor. No matter what else can be said, it is inconceivable that Mr. Obama simply did not know yet he remained.

In a speech many foolishly labeled as Reaganesque, Obama in the near past tried to separate himself from SOME of the obnoxious opinions of this racist moron, Wright, but yet he defended the totality of the pastor.

If Barack Obama can remain as a member of that pastor's flock, as a future president of a US which is being described as a terrorist for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and do and say nothing, over a period of years, then Hillary Clinton is the hands down nominee.

If she cannot effect that transition from one to the other she ought to retire.

If the democratic party nominates Obama, McCain SHOULD eviscerate the Obama campaign, and tar every single democrat who doesn't go out of his way to denounce the Rev. Wrong. After all, the head of the party would then belong voluntarily to a congregation whose being hold the opinion that he would be commander in chief of 'roman murderers', and that we are all damned, and ought to be.

Wright and his church are way past blame America first, and no nominee belongs in it. PERIOD.

If this can come to pass, it will be a watershed in the American historical story

Outrage: DNC Ad Shows U.S. Soldiers Being Blown Up

DNC lowlifes use jihadist propaganda videos in their anti-McCain campaign.

(Newsmax) The Democratic National Committee has sparked outrage among veterans and others across the internet by running an anti-John McCain ad that shows U.S. soldiers being blown up.

After the new ad’s voice-over castigated McCain for suggesting that the United States may stay in Iraq for “maybe 100” years, the footage becomes shocking.

Continue reading "Outrage: DNC Ad Shows U.S. Soldiers Being Blown Up" »

British Muslim Converts To Christianity - Police Tell Him, "Stop Being A Crusader"

He called the police because Muslims were bullying him, and their answer to him was that he ought to bow down and kiss the feet of his Muslim masters.

This is an occasion where, "Fuck da police" is warranted.

Isn't that against his Human Rights, or something?

From the London Times:


A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

An indefatigable enemy of Islam

Guardian:

Barbie denounced as destructive by Iranian prosecutor

The blonde-haired, scantily-clad Barbie doll and other western toys will lead to "destructive and cultural consequences" for Iran, the country's leading prosecutor was quoted as saying today.

In a letter to the Iranian vice-president, published in the Mardom Salari daily newspaper, the prosecutor general, Dori Najafabadi, wrote: "The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," Reuters reported.

Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys, and suggested this posed a threat to the "personality and identity" of the new generation.

"The unrestrained entry of this sort of imported toys ... will bring destructive cultural and social consequences in their wake," he wrote.

He added that many toys were smuggled into Iran, accusing importers of concentrating on profits at the expense of cultural values.

This is not the first time Barbie has become the focus of Iranian disapproval. In May 2002, the Komiteh - the public morality police - cracked down on sellers of the doll, arresting shopkeepers and saying Barbie was improperly dressed.

At the time, one shopkeeper told the Guardian that the Komiteh had taken $11,000 (£5,534) of his goods during the raids. "Iranians love everything Barbie. I just can't understand it," he said.

An Iranian version of the doll, called Sara, was launched. She follows Islamic rules of dress and her brother, Dara - much like Barbie's boyfriend, Ken - is the male version of the doll.

Al Qaida's poison water plot

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in.
GERTZ:

BAGHDAD -- Al Qaida drafted a plot to kill tens of thousands of people by poisoning Iraq's water supply.

A letter written by a senior Al Qaida operative -- and found by U.S. troops -- detailed a plot to poison Iraq's water supply with nitric acid. The 11-page letter, intended for Al Qaida network chief Abu Ayyoub Al Masri, outlined a series of plans to expel the U.S.-led coalition, kill tens of thousands of Shi'ites and destroy the Iraqi security forces.

An Iraqi man is detained by U.S. forces for alleged links to Al Qaida in Iraq in Diyala Province, in March. AFP/David Furst

"This will lessen the pressure against us and the holy warrior brothers in all of Iraq when the enemies fight among themselves and weaken," the author of the letter, known only as Abu Safyan, said.

Abu Safyan was killed in a counter-insurgency operation in the province of Diyala on March 5. The letter was found on his body, translated and analyzed by the U.S. military and Iraq Army.

The U.S.-led coalition released all but two pages of the handwritten letter. Officials said the censored portion of the letter contained actionable intelligence.

"This document is just one man's articulation, one terrorist's views about instigating conflict and turning Iraqis against each other," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said. "But it is also quite consistent with the patterns of violence we see from AQI."

Abu Safyan proposed a reorganization of Al Qaida in Iraq. In his recommendation, Al Qaida would be divided into a unit of snipers, experts in assassinations and suicide bombers. The three groups, he wrote, would coordinate to "bring down the city or the area."

The document called for Al Qaida attacks on Iraqi oil fields and pipelines as well as sinking oil tankers and ships. The attacks would take place in Basra, Kirkuk and Baghdad.

"Attack all the targets that strengthen the enemy economically and militarily," Abu Safyan wrote. "Even the American Army will weaken since it depends on the Iraqi oil and gas wealth. The enemy will gradually drown step by step."

They believe their own propaganda? We're there for oil?

At the same time, Al Qaida must launch a chemical attack and contaminate Iraq's water supply. He said such a strike would convince the U.S. military that Al Qaida had acquired chemical weapons.

"But in fact it's a psychological war that places fear in the enemy," the letter read.

Another recommendation was that Al Qaida foment tension between the coalition forces and Iraqi groups, particularly the new Sunni-dominated auxiliary police force, termed Awakening movement. Abu Safyan called for the infiltration of the Sunni cadres before planting and detonating mines "in their villages and streets."

Bergner said the author's call for violence against the Awakening movement reflected its threat to Al Qaida. The auxiliary force has grown to nearly 100,000 and includes Shi'ites.

"These writings are further examples of the corrupt ideology that Iraqis are broadly rejecting," Bergner said. "We have seen about 100,000 men choose a different path and join local volunteer groups like the Sons of Iraq instead."

PIGMAN: SYMMETRICAL WARFARE

More at Bosch Fawstin

Europe, That Shitty Little Civilization

Shinkwrapped Ponders The Europe Question


A few years back Daniel Bernard, the French Ambassador to Britain, was famously overheard at a cocktail party, referring to "Israel, that shitty little country." A short while later, Newsweek questioned Israel's continuing viability as a state. Tony Judt also famously pondered the Israel question in his tract, published by New York Review of Books, "Israel, The Alternative."

In fact, it has become downright fashionable for leading intellectuals on the left to question whether Israel has a right to exist.

Not wanting to be outdone, now, it seems, leading bloggers on the right have decided to put the Europe Question on the table. Does Europe possess the cultural strength to ensure continuing viability in the face of Islam? If Europe refuses to pick iself up and fight off those who would assail them, is there any reason for us to help? Does Europe have a right to exist?

Shrinkwrapped throws his hat in the ring. His piece is (which diagnoses Gates of Vienna as suffering from a "regressive" reaction to the anxieity brought on by Islmization), ostensibly, a criticism of an article which appeared at Gates of Vienna, pondering the question of genocide as a response to Islamization in Europe. While I don't think genocide is a necessary, desirable, or excusable response, and while I do believe there is a campaign towards dehumanization of Muslims by certain forces in the counter-Jihad, I do not think Shrinwrapped arguments, in response to the Gates of Vienna piece, are credible.

In fact, why don't we take a look at Shrinkwrapped's arguments with the name of Israel replacing the name of Europe:

He posits Islam as an existential threat to Israel (Europe) and from that first
assumption, several other assumptions and their attendant conclusions
follow. A second assumption is that Israel (Europe) has specific cultural and
ethnic attributes that must be preserved at all costs. He then
assumes Israel (Europe) has no ability to defend itself culturally or
demographically.

Israel (Europe) is deeply troubled by the tensions between the native, now
cosmopolitan pan-Israelis, and the unassimilated and angry Muslims within their
midst. Yet if we have learned nothing from the war in Iraq, we should have
at least been able to recognize that Islamism does not represent the future of
Islam. Everywhere that the Islamists have been able to temporarily gain
control, they have quickly become hated and their religious views
repudiated. This is as true in Iran under the Mullahs as in Fallujah under
the tender ministrations of the butchers of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Islam will adjust to modernity or marginalize itself. Israel (Europe)
will recover its history and culture, begin to reproduce, or go the way of other
failed civilizations. Israel (Europe) may yet commit cultural suicide, but
genocide as a defense is indefensible.

Once again, my point is not to defend the Gates of Vienna piece, or to defend genocide as a solution. I believe that, as a civilization, we hold to the principle that all men are created by a God who has infused us with an equal dignity. As such, I am in agreement with Shrinkwrapped on his final point; that is, I do not believe that the wholesale rounding up and murdering of entire groups of people is defensable.

The problem is, Shrinkwrapped, here, posits the question of Europe's continued existence, and he frames the question upon a Darwinian notion of cultural natural selection, rather than on moral grounds.

The European people have a developed system of law. Their laws ought to be respected, whether Muslims outbreed them or not. To question Europe's continued viability on the grounds of Darwinian natural selection is to play politics by will to power. Nazis and Islamists play politics that way. Western Civilization is built on the idea that the one is as important as the many. That the weak deserve protection under the law, just as the strong do.

Furthermore, it seems to me Shrinkwrapped perspective here flies in the face of the case made by writers like Mark Steyn, Bruce Bawer, and Robert Spencer.

Shrinkwrapped criticizes the Gates of Vienna piece, saying, "He posits Islam as an existential threat to Europe and from that first assumption, several other assumptions and their attendant conclusions follow."

Islam is an existential threat to Western Civilization. To posit that idea as the first assumption of an argument is hardly basing one's case on sandy soil. The problem with Gates of Vienna's piece, is not its assumptions, but the conclusions it leaps to based upon those assumptions. The problem is one of logical syllogism, rather than foundational assumptions.

But, back to Shrinkwrapped. Shrinkwrapped, apparently, questions the idea that Islam is an existential threat. Have we rejected Steyn's thesis, that European civilization is existentially threatened by Islam, leaving America with the possibility of a future without its European allies?

Shrinkwrapped's re-presentation of the existential threat posed by Islam flies in the face of Mark Steyn's book America Alone. As such, it is, in my opinion, a paradigm shift, if we are to take his position seriously.

The truth is:

1) Islam is an existential threat.

2) Europe does have specific cultural and ethnic attributes that must be preserved at all costs. That is not to say that I believe industrialized genocide is needed, nor that it ought to be entertained as a solution. That is not how we would have to fight the war. However, I would say that I do believe it is likely that we will find ourselves having to fight this war as mercilessly as we fought World War II. We have often been accused of genocide for our prosecution of that war. Atomic bombs and firebombing of Dresden are cruel methods. But, that's what we believed we had to do to save civilization. And, there are people in the Pentagon right now who are working on such plans with regard to this war.

3) Europe does seem to demonstrate that it has almost no ability, at this time, to defend itself culturally or demographically. And, I am not willing to sit idly by and let it go the way of other failed civilizations.

Additionally, I have deep misgivings with Shrinkwrapped making statements such as the following:

1) if we have learned nothing from the war in Iraq, we should have at least been able to recognize that Islamism does not represent the future of Islam.

Oh really?!? If anything the lesson of Iraq is exactly the opposite. Iraq is now an Islamist government and the Iraqi Christians have been forced to flee the country. Does Shrinkwrapped not care that an Islamist government has tolerated, and likely even encouraged, religious cleansing?

2) Many Muslims around the world may cheer when Israeli, American, or European infidels are murdered in the name of Islam but the vast majority have no interest in entering an existential fight they know they would lose.

I don't think the lesson of the war, thus far, is that Muslims would lose. They have, instead, made progress. Muslims have considerably more power in Europe than they did a few years ago. And, in American, now Condi Rice and the State Dept won't even allow the word Jihad to be used. In the UK, in the span of one week,
a) the government declared that Islamic terrorism should be called anti-Islamic activity,
b) the government decided to pay welfare benefits to the multiple wives of Muslims, and
c) the Archbishop of Canterbury floated the idea of combining Sharia law with British law. Additionally, the EU is attempting to declare criticism of religion to be racist hate speech.

I could go on and on. You know the stories. You read them here.

How is it that Shrinkwrapped believes that his complacent paradigm ought to be the rule for all of us? If not, we are suffering from regressive response to anxiety? That is absolute unmitigated bullshit.

Islamophobia is a natural response.

I would remind you, there are no moderate Muslim political organizations, media outlets, academic institutions, or governments anywhere in the world of any appreciable size.

3) Fundamentalist Islam's rigidity means that it is fragile.

This is the kind of Natan-Sharansky-happy-talk that brought us to approve of the election of Hamas in Gaza. Furthermore, Islamic fundamentalist rigidity has allowed Islam to thrive as a source of fascist power for 1300 years, going so far as to have dominated Western civilization for about 600 years.

4) apostates are now routinely being spared the death penalty Islam has traditionally demanded, women who have been raped are not being stoned to death, and FGM (female genital mutilation) is being increasingly criticized from within Islam itself. Further, there is an immense fifth column living within the heart of Muslim populations that, once engaged and exploited, will destabilize Islam as never before.

I would like to believe this is true, but instead, FGM is gaining ground in Europe and the Americas.

5) Europe will recover its history and culture, begin to reproduce, or go the way of other failed civilizations.

Easy for him to say. Impossible for me to say, without choking on my own bile.

Shrinkwrapped is overstating his case as a reaction to El Ingles going over the line. That he says the things he says does not make them true. At the risk of indulging in the kind of cheap psychoalaysis by proxy of which Shrinkwrapped is guilty, only children and schizoids believe that their words have a magic power to create reality.

Shrinkwrapped has crossed the line, and I am here stating my case so that, hopefully, fewer people will buy his.

The phrase "existential threat" means that we may be extinguished. In this case, we are talking about the possibility that the entire European culture may be extinguished.

When Iran threatens Israel, saying Israel must be "wiped off the map," we understand that as an existential threat. Israel may go to war with Iran over just that threat. In fact, according to our President George Bush, the United States may go to war with Iran over the threat to Israel. "All options are on the table."

Were Iran to actually follow through on their threat, we would expect Israel to do whatever they had to do to avoid being decimated.

That's what we do in a war.

In World War II we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and we firebombed Dresden. In the Civil War, we burned Atlanta to the ground. Victor Davis Hanson has written on the subject of what kind of overwhelming force is needed to win wars.

That does not mean that we need to be planning a genocide where we round up and kill Muslims en masse. However, I believe we understand here that Islam is an existential threat to Western Civilization. The testimony of experts on our own Congressional floor has repeatedly told us that it is highly likely that America will be hit with nuclear weapons in the next twenty years.

I believe we would be fools to step back and say that Islamic conquest is not a mortal threat. And, if we are hit with ultimate weapons, I would hope that we would fight back in kind.
In my opinion, Shrinkwrapped is preparing us for a deadly complacency as surely as El Ingles is, apparently (I say "apparently" because I did not read El Ingles' essay), preparing us for genocide.

Since I started writing on this subject in April 2002, one of the things I have worried over is that Europe would go fascist in response to Islam. I worried that the longer they waited to start fighting back, the more likely fascism would arise as a response.

I believe that my worries are being confirmed in front of my eyes.

But, I must say, that the overriding theory behind all my worrying is that I consider Europe to be an indispensible ally. I believe Europe is the father and mother of the United States. We don't want to lose our heritage.

That Shrinkwrapped would say what he says in this essay, and that he would be quoted on it in a positive light, profoundly disturbs me.

I am quite as incapable of making my bed with people who would consider Europe to be dispensible as I am of sitting with people who think that Ethnic Nationalist parties are the solution to our confrontation with Islamofascism.

Shrinkwrapped has gone over the line. I believe he needs to be condemned as clearly as does the Gates of Vienna piece in question.

Doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon ?

That's the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

How many new mosques funded by wahabbi freakazoid money will that create? How many P-2 centrifuges will Iran buy?

And now what are we prepared to do?