The foggy outlines of a Baker-Botts Iraq settlement look like an umbrella?

Thugs to USA - let's talk...
If you want to escape without massive slaughter in Iraq the price is:
Lebanon goes to Hizballah
Free Hand to Syria
Iran gets nukes
Israel is handcuffed in all its dealings, and goes on the problem country list..
and the leader of the Baker Botts legal firm (which also REPRESENTS SAUDI ARABIA AGAINST AMERICANS CITIZENS FOR $$) is hired to create the response to reality:

Just a look at a few points...we will return here I am certain.....

Syria set its price for cooperating with the US in Iraq when it murdered Gemayel. That is, in addition to pressuring Israel to give up the Golan Heights, the US will be expected to accept the reassertion of Syrian/Iranian control over all of Lebanon through a new government controlled by Hizbullah and its allies which will replace the Saniora government. The fall of the Saniora government will also spell the demise of the Hariri murder tribunal. Iran and Syria also demand that the US abandon its policy of regime change in both countries.

Another similarity between Israel's retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria last year, its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, and the proposed US retreat from Iraq today are the obvious consequences of such a retreat for the US, the region and the world. Far from bringing peace and stability, as the champions of the withdrawal policy mindlessly claim, a retreat will cause more war, more instability and more suffering in Iraq, in the region and throughout the world.

Continue reading "The foggy outlines of a Baker-Botts Iraq settlement look like an umbrella?" »

Viva Las Vegas (Gaza Edition)

Crossposted at Eye On The World.

They Can Run but They Can’t Hide

There’s nothing like the power of information. No matter how much the Islamic civilization tries to hide from the 21^st century, it’s like emptying the ocean with a spoon.

Google Earth Spurs Bahraini Equality Drive

Since Bahrain’s government blocked the Google Earth website earlier this year for its intrusion into private homes and royal palaces, Googling their island kingdom has become a national pastime for many Bahrainis. The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom. A senior government official told the Financial Times that Google Earth had allowed the public to pry into private homes and ogle people’s motor yachts and swimming pools. But he acknowledged that the government’s three-day attempt to block the site had proved counterproductive. It gave instant publicity to Google Earth and contributed to growing sophistication among Bahrainis in circumventing web censorship. It also provided more ammunition to democracy activists ahead of parliamentary elections this Saturday, the second since King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa began introducing limited political reforms in 2001.

And of course, it’s us bloggers again.

Mahmood al-Yousif, a businessman whose political chat and blog site Mahmood’s Den is among Bahrain’s most popular, says that in the tense run-up to the polls, few Bahrainis have not surfed over the contours of their kingdom, comparing vast royal palaces, marinas and golf courses with crowded Shia villages nearby, where unemployment is rife and services meager. For those with insufficient bandwidth to access Google Earth, a PDF file with dozens of downloaded images of royal estates has been circulated anonymously by e-mail. Mr Yousif, among others, initially encouraged web users to post images on photo-sharing websites. “Some of the palaces take up more space than three or four villages nearby and block access to the sea for fishermen. People knew this already. But they never saw it. All they saw were the surrounding walls,” said Mr Yousif, who is seen in Bahrain as the grandfather of its blogging community. He and other activists believe creative use of the internet – connectivity in Bahrain is among the highest in the Arab world – is forcing the country to confront awkward realities and will speed the march towards a more egalitarian society.

You got that right.

A Little History Lesson From The LA Times

There are three very important things to note in the LA Times front page article on the Pope's visit to Turkey.

1) The first thing is something I knew, but which the Christian Church seems blissfully unaware of. That is that Christianity is dying in Turkey which is often billed the most moderate of Muslim countries. Think about it, my fellow Christians, if Christianity is dying in Turkey, it will die everywhere that Muslims gain control. This is why Christians must join the fight to save Western Civilization.

2) The second thing to note is that Turkey does not recognize the Catholic Church. This goes to further make clear that even the most moderate of Muslim countries does not tolerate Christianity.

3) And finally, the third thing is something I think all the Infidels hear will be interested to know. That is, during the time of the fall of the Ottoman Empire the Greeks deported 1,000,000 Turks from the land of Greece:


... before and during World War I, Western powers collaborated with Christian and other minorities to bring down the Ottomans. In the carnage that followed, as many as 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered, a similar number of ethnic Greeks expelled and 1 million Turks deported from Greece.


Well, what do you know? You learn something new everyday.

Muslim Man Kicked Out Of Mosque For Writing Article Criticizing Al Qaeda

Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs.

Yes, you read that correctly. He criticized Al Qaeda, so he got kicked out of his Mosque.

And, this is no small Mosque. This is the Islamic Center of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Go here to see the video. And, if anyone knows how to download video to YouTube, will you please do so with this video, so we can put it up here?

Are there any Muslim organizations, media outlets, academic institutions, or governments, of any appreciable size, anywhere in the world?


The poor man said the letter was anti-Al Qaeda. He said he was disturbed by terrorists killing in the name of Islam. He called al quaeda leaders cowards for using young Muslims to carry out attacks.

So they threw him out of the mosque and he has been threatened by fellow Muslims at the mosque.

The only way he can come back to worship is if he must apologizes and "takes his article back."

Winds of War: Britain Should Learn from Orwell

From The Gathering Storm

Hat tip to Cranmer.

“Mr Paul Goodman MP, in a speech in the House of Commons last week, has articulated perfectly the threat posed by Islam to the peace and safety of this Realm. His constituency is High Wycombe (11% Muslim) which was the focus of the plot to simultaneously bomb a number of transatlantic flights in a terrorist spectacular that would have equalled the bombing of the World Trade Centre. He referred to this plot, the Dhiren Barot conviction, the Abu Hamza affair, the bombings of 7th July, and the attempted shoe-bomb atrocity by Richard Reid, to remind the House that UK security is under threat.”

I suggest to the House that that missing something is the ideology of Islamism. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) said, Islamism is not Islam. Islam is a religion-a great religion at that and one, it seems to me, as various, as complex, as multi-faceted and as capable of supporting a great civilisation as Christianity. Islamism, however, is an ideology forged largely in the past 100 years, and that word ‘ideology’ should help to convey to the House a flavour that is as much modern as mediaeval.

See my post “Did the Islamic Reformation Already Happen?”

Like communism and like fascism, those other modern ideologies, Islamism divides not on the basis of class or of race, but on the basis of religion. To this politician, it has three significant features. First, it separates the inhabitants of the dar-al-Islam - the house of Islam - and the dar-al-Harb - the house of war - and, according to Islamist ideology, those two houses are necessarily in conflict. Secondly, it proclaims to Muslims that their political loyalty lies not with the country that they live in, but with the Umma - that is, the worldwide community of Muslims. Thirdly, it aims to bring the dar-al-Islam under sharia law. I am not an expert on Islam, but I have learned enough about it since I was first elected to this place in 2001 to recognise that its view, and our inherited view of the difference between the sacred and secular, diverge. In our inherited view, the sacred and the secular are separate. The Christian tradition from which our inherited view springs has always acknowledged a distinction between what is God’s and what is Caesar’s. In Islam, that distinction is harder to perceive.

He ends his speech with this. More references to the 1930s and the Gathering Storm. (Unabashed plug)

George Orwell once wrote of the ‘deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.’ On 7/7, we heard the roar of bombs in London. I sometimes worry that the deep, deep sleep that Orwell described in the 1930s is still here in relation to Islamism in sections of the Government, parts of the political and media establishment, the House and the country. This is one of the most urgent problems facing us, and if we are in that deep, deep sleep, it is time for all of us to wake up.

Can We Build Good Minds Able to Meet The Big Challenges?

Howard Gardner is a prolific author, Psychologist, and Harvard Professor. Gardner is perhaps best known for his tendency to multiply intelligences beyond what most experts feel is necessary. (apologies to Occam) Gardner's latest work, Five Minds for the Future, might at first seem to be following in the footsteps of his previous Multiple Intelligences work. Here is the distinction:

The five minds—disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful, and ethical—differ from multiple intelligence in working in a more synergistic fashion as opposed to separate categories of intelligences.

Source.
If you look at the graphic above, you will see that Gardner is actually describing the way "one good mind" would function at its integrated best. Gardner seems to have hit on some valuable principles of mind formation here.

The mind must be DISCIPLINED in three senses. The person must be able to think in terms of the major scholarly disciplines (history, mathematics, science, and the arts); he/she must have at least one area of expertise; he/she must have those habits of continued application so that learning can continue throughout life.

Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann argues that in the 21st century, the most important mind will be the SYNTHESIZING MIND. Individuals are subjected to huge amounts of information. We must be able to decide what is important; how best to organize it for ourselves; how best to communicate it to others. Almost everything that can be automated will be.

The last frontier for the mind is that of CREATING New Ideas.... thinking outside of the box. Such thinking presupposes a certain discipline and considerable synthesizing ability but it cannot be constrained by what has been thought or done before.

The first three kinds of minds are cognitive. The last two relate to the world of other individuals, and are thus more social and affective.

The RESPECTFUL MIND goes beyond mere tolerance. Respectful persons welcome human diversity, seek to understand and work with others, and cultivate an atmosphere of openness and reciprocity.

The ETHICAL MIND builds upon respect but entails a more abstract attitude. Ethical individuals ponder their roles as workers and citizens. They carry out good work... work that is excellent, ethical and personally meaningful. They consider their roles as citizens of their community, their region, and the globe and act in constructive, non egocentric ways.

Source.

Gardner heads up Harvard's Project Zero educational research group. Certainly if the abysmal failure of government education in North America is to be salvaged, new ideas and approaches will be vital. It appears that government education has failed in developing every single one of the five minds that Gardner highlights. Instead, schools develop the resentment mind, the entitlement mind, the addicted mind, the dependent mind, the lazy mind, indiscriminate mind, and the credulous mind. There is certainly a lot of work to be done, and one hopes that Gardner and his group will lend a hand.

Gardner's 11/10/06 (11 October) 5 Minds lecture on audio and transcript (scroll halfway down)
Five Minds Power Point Slides

Hat tip The Mouse Trap blog.

Cross posted on Al Fin blog.

More on Tariq Ramadan

Excerpt from my latest posting, a follow-up to this one:

...From this source, quoting Tariq Ramadan:

"Only Islam can achieve the synthesis between Christianity and humanism, and fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West" ("Islam, le face à face des civilisations," Tawhid, 2001).

And again: "The Koran confirms, completes, and corrects the messages that preceded it" ("Les messages musulmans d´occident"). Some Christian personalities whose charitable works cannot be misconstrued - Mother Teresa, Sister Emanuelle, Abbé Pierre, Fr. Helder Camara - are exceptions who show only that all good people are implicitly Muslims, because true humanism is founded in Koranic revelation. Thus, both directly and through this humanism, the "Muslim City" can be founded upon the earth. "Today the Muslims who live in the West must unite themselves to the revolution of the antiestablishment groups from the moment when the neoliberal capitalist system becomes, for Islam, a theater of war..." ("Pouvoirs," 2003, n. 164).

Tariq Ramadan is the Islamic expert to whom Time Magazine turns and presents to its readers as the European voice of reformist Islam?

Read the entire posting at Always On Watch.

PASDARAN- Iran's Revolutionary Guard emerges as a formidable military power

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Maj. Gen. Yahya Safavi has become one of the most important men in Iran, responsible for the nation's increasingly powerful military arsenal. Safavi has developed a force of up to 10 million soldiers that is separate from Iran's regular military and responsible only to the ruling mullahs.

Over the past three years, the IRGC has been given the best of Iran's weapons and platforms. The force has developed and maintained control over Iran’s entire strategic arsenal and was responsible for securing the nation's nuclear program.

"The IRGC began as a buffer against a military coup," a Western intelligence source said. "Today, it is far superior in strength to the regular military and can conduct the bulk of the fighting against any enemy, including the United States."

This has made Safavi one of the most powerful men in Iran. Under his tutelage, the IRGC, backed by the paramilitary Basij, has become a formidable fighting machine, capable of conducting sustained missile and rocket attacks throughout the entire Gulf and against the U.S. military presence in Iraq

Time to have something wonderful prepared for these sons of bitches

Continue reading "PASDARAN- Irn's Revolutionary Guard emerges as a formidable military power" »

These are all separate issues, right? Bad guy roundup..Iran, Syria, and

Iran, Syria synchronizing air defense, signals intelligence to counter any U.S. attack

LONDON — Iran and Syria have begun an effort to ensure military interoperability.

Western intelligence sources said the effort is meant to ensure that the two militaries could coordinate attacks, share information and launch joint ground and missile operations. The effort began in 2005 and was formalized in a defense cooperation accord signed last November.

"The effort is being financed by Iran and is meant to ensure that a U.S. attack on Iran would be countered by attacks on the U.S. military presence in Iraq from both east and west," a source said.

Iran and Syria operate medium-range Scud-class ballistic missiles, with weapons jointly produced.

The two countries have also consolidated their signals intelligence network. The source said Iran has provided technology and financing to establish two SIGINT stations in Syria.

One station is in the Jazirah region in northern Syria near the Turkish border. The other is in the Golan Heights near Israel.

The source said two additional stations were planned with all four to be completed in 2007. Iranian and Syrian personnel will staff the stations.

The two countries also plan to cooperate in air defense. Under two agreements signed over the past year, Damascus and Teheran pledged to make their air defense batteries interoperable, allowing for either country to help the other during an emergency.

Over the past year, Iran has ordered the TOR-M1 short-range air defense system from Russia. Syria has purchased the SA-18 Igla-S system.

Continue reading "These are all separate issues, right? Bad guy roundup..Iran, Syria, and" »

Future Member States Watch

TWO Christian men from Turkey went on trial yesterday for allegedly insulting "Turkishness" and inciting religious hatred against Islam.

The trial opened days before a visit to Turkey by Pope Benedict, during which the pontiff is expected to discuss improved religious rights for the country's tiny Christian minority, who complain of discrimination.

Hakan Tastan, 37, and Turan Topal, 46, are accused of making the insults and of inciting hate while allegedly trying to convert other Turks to Christianity.

The men were charged under Turkey's notorious Article 301, which has been used to bring charges against dozens of intellectuals, including the Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.

The law has been widely condemned for severely limiting free expression and European Union officials have demanded that Turkey change the law as part of its bid to join the EU.

Prosecutors accuse the two of telling possible converts that Islam was "a primitive and fabricated" religion and that Turks would remain "barbarians" as long they remained Muslims.

The pair, who deny the charges, could face up to nine years in jail if convicted.
Link...

Come to think of it, if insulting Islam can get you thrown in Jail or at least put on trial, then Turkey really would fit right in with the rest of the EU Dhimmis.

Aren't critics grand?

David Ignatius in Real Clear Politics and the WaPo tells us :

We Can't Save the Mideast

OK so? His Rx?

1) The sickness must end.
2) Syria has an opportunity to leave behind its drab Cold War trench coat and become a modern, prosperous Mediterranean nation; Hezbollah, the militia that represents Lebanon's dispossessed Shiite population, has a chance to lead its followers into political power and prosperity.
3) The Middle East needs the rule of law
4) Now the United Nations must find a way to make the rule of law real

The idea that America is going to save the Arab world from itself is seductive, but it's wrong.
The hard work of building a new Middle East will be done by the Arabs, or it won't happen.

Continue reading "Aren't critics grand?" »

Why Is Tampa's Station "Fox13" Marching for CAIR?

The above is just one example of local Tampa Bay Area Channel 13, now the local Fox affiliate, showing extreme bias against anyone willing to attack Islamic beliefs, in this case Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite. This is the piece of MSM trash that will be analyzed bit by bit tonight. This outrageous bit of local journalism also shows the limitless extremes that the station will go to, particularly reporter Craig Patrick, to smear people like Ms. Brown-Waite, even using the absurd tactic of inserting clips of a KKK rally and a historical Nazi clip into the piece. Patrick also seems to, along with his colleagues, Anchors John Wilson and Kathy Fountain, need little prompting to praise and feature CAIR-Florida's Ahmed Bedier. These individuals and the news team at Fox 13 are obviously either suffering from an overdose of political correctness, or are getting something out of their obvious brown-nosing to the local Muslim community. There is simply no reason for a news station anywhere to give airtime to some of the absurd claims that Mr. Bedier has tried to champion, and which he has conveniently uploaded to YouTube for the world to see. Most would ignore some of these issues, and certainly wouldn't feature Mr. Bedier in so many interviews. Yet other local affiliates also feature Bedier, such as Channels 8 and 9, Channel 9 even featuring Bedier for their segment "On the Soapbox". However, of Bedier's 78 uploaded videos on YouTube, (no joke) 13 are from appearances on Fox 13, most with the same on-air "talent" appearing, usually not to do any hardball type of interview, but rather to offer segways for his manipulative statements.

I offer this not as a conclusive statement, but simply as an opportunity for Channel 13 to prove me wrong, and for CAIR to publicly state that they have made no contributions to media outlets in this country. This information can be obtained with an investigation, which I hope this all comes to, but for now I think the evidence as shown in the video above proves either bias based on the views of the staff of Fox 13, which is appalling as the report clearly smears a member of Congress in a rather dangerous way, or that there must be something going on under the table. I do not think that CAIR is above such a move, though I have no evidence in this case. Who knows, perhaps the news team and Bedier are just great golfing friends. There is something amiss here though, and if you cannot see it then you are either blind, deaf and dumb, or a subscriber to CAIR's newsletter.

First, this clip, point by point.....

Read it all at WWCMD?

Women Love Gender Apartheid

Shariffa Carlo unleashes the Muslim woman. Hear her whimper!

This excerpt beautifully showcases the blindness of some Muslim women and the low value that is accorded to work by Arabs:

During the Gulf War, a Western reporter interviewed a Saudi woman. The reporter, trying to make her feel inferior, asked her, "Doesn't it bother you that you are not able to go and get a job as a waitress, if you wanted to?" This woman, may Allah bless her, answered, "Are you joking? I am a woman with maids and servants, why would I want to lower myself to such a task."

Never mind the fact that the maids are likely Muslim as well! But since they're from the third world, they don't matter.

Note the interesting choice of words:

Think about it, the job of waitress is a glorified servant. No woman actually aspires to it, most are forced to do it because there is nothing better for them. And, many of these waitresses are nothing more than cheap entertainment for men. When questioned about not being able to drive, Saudi women point out that having a driver is a luxury that most Westerners aspire to, why is it a humiliation only for Muslim women? In the same vein, the Western woman hopes for the ability to be a stay-at-home mother. It is a status symbol, yet they try to make us feel inferior for making that choice the most common and preferred one.

[Emphasis mine.]

A waitress is not forced to do her job if she doesn't have a better option in the short-run. By that logic anyone who aspires for a higher-paying job is being forced to perform his/her current labor.

A woman can be a waitress because she is earning money for college or maybe just because she likes her work. She can gain some valuable experience and later on search for a different job in an almost infinite labor market in the West.

However, those options simply do not exist for women in Saudi Arabia. In all my time there, I saw cabbies, bus drivers, gas station attendants, peons, sale clerks, grocery store managers, waiters, chefs, visa officers, cops, and the religious police. Guess how many of them were women?

Zero.

How can Arab women make a choice between work and motherhood in a culture that offers them no jobs and that, in addition, has a retrograde and noxious view of labour?

Thanks to Wonder Woman for the link.

The Hills Are Alive.....

I felt like captioning this one finally; CAIR's Parvez Ahmed, Omar Ahmad and Dougie "Ibrahim" Hooper in stunning new roles. OK, the pic is old, but I used one of my only Photoshop talents today and added some type to it, and it was about time.