Jerusalem Post:

El Baradei: I am ready to lead protests in Egypt
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
01/27/2011 19:23

Pro-democracy advocate returns; Mubarak's party dismissive of protesters: "The minority does not force its will on the majority."

CAIRO — Egypt's ruling party said Thursday it was ready for a dialogue with the public but offered no concessions to address demands for a solution to rampant poverty and political change heard in the country's largest anti-government protests in years.

At the same time, the grass roots protest movement was getting a double boost likely to energize the largest anti-government demonstrations Egypt has seen in years. Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate and the country's top pro-democracy advocate, was returning to the country Thursday night and declared he was ready to lead the protests. The country's largest opposition group — the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood — also threw its support behind the demonstrations

Rioting and protests erupted for a third straight day and social networking sites were abuzz with talk that Friday's rallies could be some of the biggest so far calling for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak after 30-years in power. Millions gather at mosques across the city for Friday prayers, providing organizers with a huge number of people already out on the streets to tap into.

Safwat El-Sherif, the secretary general of the National Democratic Party and a longtime confidant of Mubarak, was dismissive of the protesters at the first news conference by a senior ruling party figure since the protests began.

"We are confident of our ability to listen. The NDP is ready for a dialogue with the public, youth and legal parties," he said. "But democracy has its rules and process. The minority does not force its will on the majority."

Mubarak not seen in public since protests began

The 82-year-old Mubarak has not been seen in public or heard from since the protests began Tuesday with tens of thousands marching in Cairo and a string of other cities.

Mubarak has not said yet whether he will stand for another six-year term as president in elections this year. He has never appointed a deputy and is thought to be grooming his son Gamal to succeed him despite popular opposition. According to leaked US memos, hereditary succession also does not meet with the approval of the powerful military.

Mubarak has seen to it that no viable alternative to him has been allowed to emerge. Constitutional amendments adopted in 2005 by the NDP-dominated parliament has made it virtually impossible for independents like ElBaradei to run for president.

Mubarak's administration suffered another serious blow Thursday when the stock market crashed. The benchmark index fell more than 10 percent by close, its biggest drop in more two years on the back of a 6 percent fall a day earlier.

The protesters have already achieved a major feat by sustaining their demonstrations for three days in the face of a brutal police crackdown. Seven people have been killed, hundreds hurt and nearly 1,000 detained.

The government has banned all gatherings and police have fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and used water cannons to disperse crowds. They have also fired live ammunition in the air at time to warn people and there have been many scenes of riot police in helmets and shields charging crowds and beating people with batons and plainclothes police beating demonstrators with long sticks.

Thousands protest in Cairo, other cities

Scores of protesters gathered in Cairo and other cities Thursday. In the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, east of Cairo, hundreds of protesters clashed with police who used tear gas and batons to disperse them.

Associated Press reporters saw scores of protesters outside the downtown Cairo offices of Egypt's lawyers' union, which has been one of the flashpoints of this week's unrest. About 100 people were also protesting outside police headquarters in the city of Suez east of Cairo, another hot spot.

There were two other small, peaceful protests by lawyers in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Toukh, north of Cairo. In the northern Sinai area of Sheik Zuweid, clashes between several hundred beduin and police left a 17-year-old man dead.

ElBaradei, who has emerged as a prime challenger to Mubarak's rule, told reporters at the Vienna airport on his way back to Egypt that he was seeking regime change and ready to lead the opposition.

"The regime has not been listening," ElBaradei said. "If people, in particular young people, if they want me to lead the transition, I will not let them down. My priority right now ... is to see a new regime and to see a new Egypt through peaceful transition."

A spokesman for ElBaradei, Abdul-Rahman Samir, said the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog was expected to join protests planned for after the Friday prayers.

ElBaradei urged authorities to exercise restraint with protesters expressing their "legitimate need" for an Egypt that is democratic and based on social justice.

ElBaradei returned to Egypt last year after living abroad for decades and has created a wave of support from reformists. But he so far insisted he would not run in this year's presidential election unless restrictions on who is eligible to contest the vote are lifted and far reaching political reforms are introduced.

His support base is primarily made up of youths and he is seen as untainted by corruption. But his detractors say he may be lacking a thorough understanding of life here because of the decades he has lived abroad, first as an Egyptian diplomat and later with the United Nations.

Muslim Brotherhood expresses support for protests

The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood also expressed support for the demonstrations, raising the prospect that members of Egypt's largest and best-organized opposition group could join Friday's demonstrations in mass. If they do, it could swell the numbers on the streets significantly. But the group has stopped short of an outright call for its backers to turn out.

The Muslim Brotherhood called on its website for protests to remain peaceful. It also called for new parliamentary elections under judicial supervision, the introduction of far-reaching reforms and the lifting of emergency laws in force since 1981.

The Brotherhood made a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections in 2005, when it won 20 percent of seats and served as the main opposition bloc in the legislature. In the latest parliament elections held in November, the Brotherhood failed to win even a single seat. It decried widespread fraud by the ruling party and boycotted the runoffs.

The vote gave the ruling party all but a small fraction of the chamber's 518 seats, an outcome that analysts say chipped away further at the regime's legitimacy and likely contributed to the discontent being vented on the streets this week.

"The movement of the Egyptian people that began January 25 and has been peaceful, mature and civilized must continue against corruption, oppression and injustice until its legitimate demands for reform are met," said the statement.

"We are not pushing this movement, but we are moving with it. We don't wish to lead it but we want to be part of it," said Mohammed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood leader.

The stock market crash, which brought year-to-date losses to almost 21 percent, hit at the core of some of the regime's main accomplishments. The president has built his legacy continuing and expanding the open market policies launched by his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, in the 1970s.

While Egyptian officials have boasted about healthy economic growth figures, critics have argued that ambitious economic reforms have done little more than make the rich even richer while poverty, unemployment and prices rise unabated.

British dhimmi David Hine continues on that very path

The British-born writer who wrote that whitewashy, morally equivalent story of Batman recruiting an Algerian Muslim in France gave an interview to the leftist Graphic Policy site, where he continues to be as insular as ever, and sees conservatives as merely manufacturing the news. He begins by defending his standings with the following:

I have lived in Paris and spent a lot of time there. My partner is French, my son attends French school here in London. So France, and specifically Paris, was the obvious location.

Well duh, plenty of British have spent time in France, and vice versa. The problem here lies within his political viewpoints, veering left on the superhighway at 900 miles per hour, and what he really thinks of the French as a whole. I've been to France too, but do I adhere to the kind of socialist leanings and contempt he probably has? Nope.

GP: During the creation of the character, was there any discussion at all as to how the public might react to him?

DH: Only within the fictional world of the story itself. There is a lot of hostility towards the French Algerian community from some sections of the French public and we planned to explore the complications that might arise. We certainly envisaged right wing and racist reaction to a character who, because of their prejudices, would not be regarded as a true Frenchman. We talked about a scene where Nightrunner would unmask and declare himself to be a proud citizen of France. For the moment he’s going to remain masked and anonymous. There’s an irony to his being viewed as part of the establishment by his own community. It makes for some interesting potential for the development of a conflicted character. Honestly though, it never occurred to me for a moment that the very fact of choosing a fictional character with French Algerian, or Muslim background would in itself be controversial.

Wow, he really thinks even I'd care if the character was Algerian. I don't care about his race and/or ethnicity. What I care about is his default religion, Islam, whose Koran/Hadith contains creepy verses like, "Your women are your fields, so go into your fields whichever way you like" - Sura 2:223. And, lest we forget, there's also the matter of "prophet" Mohammed's marriage to a 9-year-old girl, Ayesha. (See also this topic and this one for more insight). I assume Hine considers that "normal"? If this were an Algerian Christian, maybe even an apostate from Islam, who was the protagonist, all this disgust at Hine and company's subtle insult wouldn't have been.

His ambiguous reference to "some sections" of the French public is insulting, as is his dislike of conservatives, and it makes no difference whether "Nightrunner" is thought by his own community as a member of establishment; it's the whitewash of Islam that's concerning, not to mention how the story otherwise depicts the French law enforcement as the aggressor (shades of how anti-Israelists depict our own authorities).

GP: In another interview you said you’d like Nightrunner be a character the French would like to see. How’s their reaction been to him? Has there been any controversy over his introduction there?

DH: We’ve had a lot of very positive reaction. Most people in France are very pleased to see their country get its own hero and particularly its own Batman. It’s always tough to depict a country and culture, as an outsider. There will always be nit-picking about how accurate our depiction of Paris has been, just as we British always examine every element of a comic written by an American, set in the UK. I did my best to make sure locations were accurate, although I’m sure a few errors will have slipped through.

And what's that supposed to mean? That the French are stupid and have no knowledge of how to judge a story, and will take what's offered no matter what? It figures that such a Briton would be so murky and otherwise contemptible. I may not be French, but if I were, I can assure you I wouldn't take kindly to this, and it's got nothing to do with whether or not the character is indigenous. It's just his chilling religion.

GP: What’s your reaction been to the controversy surrounding the character?

DH: It was really unexpected. The character doesn’t strike me as particularly controversial. I thought we had moved on from a time when a non-white Anglo-Saxon character might be seen as unusual. I realize this is part of an anti-Muslim sentiment in a tiny segment of the online community, as much as a racial thing. I get the impression that there are people who spend their time trawling the internet to find any mention of Islam that they can get outraged about. But it feels like a manufactured outrage and I don’t take it too seriously.

Again, he fogs it all up as "racial", in his failure to distinguish between race and religion. A man or woman who cannot distinguish between race and religion is not a very well educated person, IMHO. He should also consider the rage manufacturing his own country's spent its time doing, like that there was ever a "palestinian Arab people" who existed. Or how about what may be the first anti-Jewish pogrom in Europe, which, as Melanie Phillips wrote in City Journal, took place in none other than England:

[...] Britain has always had an ambivalent relationship with the Jews. Medieval England actually led the European charge against them. The blood libel is thought to have originated in twelfth-century England; and in 1290, after numerous pogroms against its Jewish citizens, it expelled them altogether. It was not until 1656 that, for a variety of economic and religious reasons, Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews to return to England.

This occured during the time of King Edward I of the Plantagenets, well before Spain and Russia instigated their own pogroms. On a related note, is this horror not something that requires outrage? Maybe he should take some time to think before he says we're not supposed to be angry about what a religion and Koran he clearly hasn't studied teaches and leads to. But I doubt he ever will.

Oh, and I thought we'd moved on from a time when it seemed as though indigenous Bulgarians, Ghanians, and Armenians didn't exist in entertainment, but do you actually see them seriously emphasized in entertainment today? Not really. Not even the Ainu of Japan seem to get much attention; it's as though they don't exist either! What's so special about a religion like Islam that isn't so special about a race like the Armenians? And why is Mannix one of the very few protagonists of his background in showbiz ever since the series ended its 1967-75 run on TV?

Hine goes on to say:

GP: Have you been following the bloggers at all? Or do you ignore such comments?

DH: Normally I would ignore them, but once this started spreading across the net, I did have a look at some of the sites. So much anger, so much hate, so much unfocussed rage and fear. I found them profoundly depressing.

Is that also his opinion on 9-11 Families for a Safe & Strong America and their opposition to the Ground Zero mosque abomination? No surprise he would merely dismiss the movement against the whitewash of Islam so cynically.

GP: The coverage of the story has been worldwide. Where the most surprising place you’ve seen it covered or had to do an interview with?

DH: I’ve been approached by all kinds of people, from the BBC to Arabic radio and TV, French radio and TV and even The Daily Show in the USA. I’ve avoided most of it, because I don’t think this is a truly controversial topic and is best ignored. But I am fascinated by the viral nature of the story’s spread. It even made Wikileaks.

But it didn't make sales, and hasn't really spread in media coverage that widely either. Not for long anyway. But I think he did appear on BBC radio, that most awful of the apologists for jihad.

The following Q&A, however, is really disturbing:

GP: With the tragic events in Arizona fresh on everyone’s mind, have you received threats over the character?

DH: No. It’s all hot air. A few verbal ‘insults’ have been thrown my way, but being called ‘Leftist’ or ‘Politically Correct’ doesn’t bother me.

What is this supposed to be? What's the tragedy in Arizona got to do with this? Is this some sort of attempt to hijack something unrelated as part of the left's effort to demonize the right over something that leftist ideology actually caused? But if that's how he and they feel, what do they think of the cases of Tea Party members who've been receiving death threats? I'm really disappointed, but not surprised, at how contemptible they are of people who oppose violent mindsets and the trivializing of the same, which is just what this pretentious man from the UK has engaged in.

As it so happens, it's very fortunate that he hasn't recieved any threats. Let us be clear: it would be wrong to do what the Islamofascists have tried doing to Lars Vilks.

One more thing: about that claim they were thinking of introducing a French crimefighter called the Musketeer? I'll bet he and they contrived that as a defense because of how goofy it could sound. If I were creating a French vigilante for a book like the Dark Knight's, "Musketeer" wouldn't be at the top of my list; I'd want it to be something more straightforward. Speaking of which, "Nightrunner" is actually pretty weak for a code name too.

Having It Both Ways

click it

Front Page Mag:

Losing Egypt?
Posted by Stephen Brown

“An earthquake has shaken the region.”

The above headline from an Israeli newspaper describes with unfailing accuracy the pivotal events now taking place in the Middle East. In Egypt, the Arab world’s largest and most populous country of more than 80 million, massive demonstrations involving tens of thousands of people began on Tuesday in what was billed as a “Day of Anger” and are continuing despite a ban by a very rattled government. Smaller protests are likewise occurring in Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Algeria. The domino effect so feared by Middle Eastern strongmen after Tunisian protesters chased their president from power earlier this month after a 24-year rule may soon become reality in Egypt.

Inspired by events in Tunisia, demonstrators took to the streets in Cairo on Tuesday to protest against President Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt, authoritarian regime, demanding political freedoms and higher wages. During those demonstrations, which saw water cannon and tear gas employed, three people died in encounters with security forces. A policeman was also killed.

“With us, there has been a cautious reawakening of belief in our own strength,” an Egyptian journalist told the German newspaper, Die Welt.

According to the Egyptian newspaper, The Daily News, the demonstrations were organized by the National Association for Change, which contains various opposition groups, and the Popular Parliament. January 25 was chosen as the day to launch mass movement because it coincided with a national holiday that commemorates another famous protest in Egyptian history. On this date in 1952, Egyptian police rose up against the British occupation.

Mubarak has ruled Egypt for the past 30 years under a state of emergency, imposed in 1981, that has allowed him to deal harshly with dissent. Under this law, large anti-government demonstrations, like the ones currently underway in Egypt, were quickly ended. Like most other Arab countries, Egypt has also been badly ruled during Mubarak’s time.

Corruption, unemployment, a stagnant economy and a dishonest, inefficient bureaucracy were the time bombs that caused the current explosion in Egypt, as they did in Tunisia. But unlike Tunisia, which has a 78 percent literacy rate and a developed, although frustrated, middle class, the majority of Egyptians are illiterate and live in grinding poverty. Egyptian cities are crowded with the poor. Exploitation of workers and child labor are also common. What is worse, the small, well-off ruling class appears not to care and has done little to remedy this appalling situation.

“We undoubtedly have enough problems in order to justify a revolution,” the journalist said.

Arab governments like Egypt’s are not unaware of the grievances that caused the Arab street to explode. Nepotism and control of the economy by the rulers’ friends and families have led to economic stagnation and high unemployment. But Arab leaders have refused to introduce liberal reforms to address the problems, fearing an Arab “perestroika” would see them swept away like the communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

Traditional methods of maintaining civil control also do not appear to be working. Large security forces and handouts to the population, the traditional methods of quelling popular unrest in Arab countries, were ineffective in Tunisia and are proving similarly ineffective in Egypt. The police appear to have have lost their power to intimidate the Egyptian population and prevent the demonstrations from growing into a destabilizing threat. In the past, anti-government demonstrators feared to appear on Egypt’s streets. Now, in contrast, protesters are tearing up posters with Mubarak’s image, yelling: “Mubarak, you’re plane awaits you.” One Arab publication reported that Mubarak’s son and heir, Gamal Mubarak, took the protesters’ advice and left on Wednesday with his family for England.

Adding to the government’s current woes are modern communications. Although security forces have shut down Twitter in Egypt, the tool cited for its value in organizing the Tunisian revolt, the demonstrations are continuing, probably with the help of cell phones.

The official American response to the events in Egypt, one of its only allies in the Arab world, has been low-key. According to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton said the Egyptian government is “stable,” while American ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey called on Egyptian officials in a statement to “allow peaceful demonstrations.”

“The U.S. wants to see reform occur in Egypt and elsewhere to create political, social and economic opportunity, consistent with people’s aspirations,” the statement read.

Observers question, though, whether Arab states, after effecting changes in regime, can create the political, social and economic opportunities the United States government desires. It is hard to conceive of these countries reversing their appalling records regarding treatment of minorities and women and reorient themselves towards building the democratic institutions necessary for economic prosperity and cultural advancement. It is questionable whether the innovation and creativity needed to launch the Arab world in a positive new direction even exists.

Ali A. Alawi, an Iraqi Muslim, goes even further, stating in his book The Crisis Of Islamic Civilization, that Islamic civilization is a dying civilization, which has not created much of importance in centuries. And Alawi states there is no returning to its greatness since Muslims have distanced themselves so much from their Islamic roots. Overall, Alawi maintains, “[T]he Muslim innovative capacity has degraded in a fundamental sense.”

“In science and technology the statistics are truly daunting,” Alawi writes.

And things are not much better for Arab countries on the economic front. Except for a few oil and gas companies, the Arab world has no large corporations that could provide jobs for its 25 million unemployed young men (Unemployment runs at 20 to 30 percent in most Arab states). In total, when oil and gas are subtracted, the exports of the whole Arab world with its 350 million people equal in value those of Finland with five million.

The disappearance of Arab strongmen like Tunisia’s ruler, and now possibly Mubarak, opens up the ominous and dangerous potential for a Khomeini-style 1979 Islamist victory befalling Egypt — which would be a catastrophic development not only for American and Israeli security interests, but for the Egyptian people themselves. One need only recall Khomeini’s killing fields and his Islamic Republic’s vicious history, continued to this day, to understand the horrifying consequences of Islamists succeeding in exploiting the current strife in Egypt to their benefit.

However corrupt Egypt’s regime may have been or continues to be, Mubarak succeeded in keeping the Islamists and the religious radicals in check. The Muslim Brotherhood, a major fundamentalist Egyptian opposition group that Mubarak had banned, will definitely try to take advantage of any further economic frustration or breakdown to set up the longed-for Islamic state, probably by promising those who have nothing that they will create a Muslim utopia of social justice, patterned after the Prophet Mohammad’s rule. That is the bait to hijack the revolution, like the Bolsheviks promised “peace, land and bread” to the uneducated, downtrodden Russian masses to get their support, only to bring in the Red Terror in return.

As history warns, the Islamists, if successful in seizing power, will internally perpetrate a Khmer Rouge/Khomeini-type bloodbath the likes of which Egypt has never seen before. The first victims will most likely be the country’s religious minorities. Externally, they will involve Egypt in a jihad/war against Israel, Europe or the Shiites and, like Iran, strive to build nuclear weapons.

Thus, Western countries and Israel are, naturally, viewing the events in Egypt with grave concern. The West must be prepared to confront the fact that it may be faced in Egypt with an approaching hostile, failed state, similar to Pakistan and Somalia, where terrorists will be welcome. If Obama fails to play this precarious situation right, and drops the ball like Carter disastrously did in 1979 by pulling the rug from under the Shah’s feet in Iran, then this dire situation could coalesce into Islamists capturing Egypt. Sometimes, as with Mubarak, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.

Does Obama grasp the gravity of the situation and does he have the geopolitical know-how to deal with it?

The ensuing days of crisis will tell.

Peter Hoekstra at Newsmax:

Radical Muslims Murdering Christians
Thursday, 27 Jan 2011
By Peter Hoekstra

I met her in a small church in Turkmenistan. She was frightened and thought she was being followed. I met another in the slums of Cairo who was engaged in phenomenal work to educate poor children.

I wanted to visit others in Iraq but the U.S. military couldn’t guarantee my safety. It was just too risky. These people had one thing in common: They were all non-Muslims living in Muslim lands who were afraid for their personal safety. They are Coptic Christians, Chaldean Christians, Jews, and other minority religions living in fear because violent Islamic fundamentalists have declared war on them throughout the Middle East.

This focused effort by radical Islamists against religious minorities, specifically Christians, is real. The evidence is overwhelming. International Christian Concern, a human rights organization, recently released its “Hall of Shame” on global persecution of religious minorities and identified Islamic fundamentalists as the No. 1 persecutor of Christians, besting other notorious oppressors such as China, North Korea, and Cuba.

Egypt and Iraq were recently added to the list of countries with the highest levels of persecution joining countries like Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Islamic majority countries are not only quickly moving up the list, they have begun to dominate it.

In late October, violent Islamic extremists brutally murdered more than 50 people inside a cathedral in Baghdad.

The following day, al-Qaida declared Christians throughout the Middle East to be legitimate targets of the Mujahedeen. On New Year’s Day in Alexandria, Egypt, 23 people were killed outside a Coptic church.

Shortly thereafter, the Shumukh-al-Islam al-Qaida website published pictures, names, and addresses of Coptic churches around the world.

On Christmas Eve, dozens were killed and more than 100 injured in an attack on Christians in Nigeria. On Jan. 4, 2011, Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, was brutally murdered by a bodyguard. His offense? He dared to speak out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws that are being used to persecute minority religions in Pakistan.

The trend is clear and frightening.

Where is the international outrage? The Western news media could not contain itself over supposed bias against U.S. Muslims last fall due to popular opposition to the building of the ground zero mosque in Manhattan.

Muslim states are pressing the United Nations to ban the defaming of religions; that is, to help criminalize criticism of Islam. Meanwhile, what has the U.N. done about the violence against minority Christians in Muslim lands? Has there been a call by The New York Times to put diplomatic pressure against countries where this is going on? The answer to the questions is of course, nothing and no.

It is an inconvenient truth for the Western media that this religious war is not being conducted by American fundamentalist Christians or Sarah Palin.

Violent Islamic extremists created this religious war. Just because it is inconvenient, does that mean that it should be ignored?

The roar of silence on this issue is deafening. If it is not addressed, it will be a cancer that will undermine all efforts to successfully deal with the threat from terrorism we have faced since 2001.

We ignore the persecution and murder of minority groups at our own peril. Martin Niemöller, a German Protestant pastor and Nazi concentration camp survivor, expressed this in a famous poem:



First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Two leadership groups must address this problem.

First, the Obama administration must begin to speak forcefully on the need for governments to address this issue.

While the Bush and Obama administrations have spoken eloquently about building Iraq and Afghanistan into countries that would embrace and instill American and democratic values, they have sat on the sidelines as religious persecution has grown dramatically in both countries.

In Iraq there has been a dramatic deterioration of religious tolerance from that practiced during the regime of Saddam Hussein. America and the governments of our allies, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia must lead a global effort that embraces religious freedom.

The second group that must speak out forcefully is a broad coalition of religious leaders including Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders.

The soft persecution as evidenced by the boycott against Christian businesses in the West Bank leading to the subtle but real exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.

Religious leaders need to speak with the moral clarity that all kinds of religious persecution are unacceptable, especially that carried out in the name of God.

When I met poor oppressed Christians and Jews during congressional trips to the Middle East, one thought always went through my mind: We are next.

The West must face up to the fact that radical Islamists will focus on other targets once they have killed and driven out religious minorities in Muslim states.

Violent Islamic extremists are using religion as a strategy in their war against the world. Governments, governmental leaders, and religious leaders must unite in condemning this strategy.

If they remain silent, it will only grow in scope and impact. It must be confronted if it is to be defeated.

WESTERN FLEETS HEADED TOWARD LEBANON

From the Astute Bloggers:

The United States, European countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many other countries have been conducting around the clock consultations on the highest level to abort this vicious Syrian-Iranian scheme.

The Syrian-Iran full control of Lebanon will impose a dire threat to all the Arab countries, Israel, and Europe.

Gheriafi learned from reliable European Intelligence sources in Brussels that at least two well-equipped Western military fleets were urgently ordered to move from the Arabian Gulf to positions close to both Syria and Lebanon in the Mediterranean Sea.

... they comprise two nuclear aircraft carriers with 210 jet fighter planes on board, and more than 30 ships carrying about 5,800 marines armed with the latest technologies.

Go read the whole thing.

Video: The Big Speech (Dennis Miller)

With a hat tip to Mustang of Social Sense:

Humpday Blues

John Lee Hooker w/ Carlos Santana
The Healer

Engine on a chip promises to best the battery

From Good Shit:

One of the components of MIT’s micro gas-turbine engine. Photo courtesy: MIT
MIT researchers are putting a tiny gas-turbine engine inside a silicon chip about the size of a quarter. The resulting device could run 10 times longer than a battery of the same weight can, powering laptops, cell phones, radios and other electronic devices.
It could also dramatically lighten the load for people who can’t connect to a power grid, including soldiers who now must carry many pounds of batteries for a three-day mission — all at a reasonable price.
The researchers say that in the long term, mass-production could bring the per-unit cost of power from microengines close to that for power from today’s large gas-turbine power plants.
(Continued)

Fatwa: "It Is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl"

 

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Islamic apologists in the West routinely claim that Aisha was older at the time of her marriage to Muhammad and its consummation. Here is evidence that mainstream Muslims understand otherwise, and consider child marriage to be completely justified by the Sharia.

"Fatwa: 'It Is Permissible to Have Sexual Intercourse with a Prepubescent Girl,'" from Translating Jihad, January 14:

This is another fatwa from IslamOnline.net, which again is the sixth most popular Islamic website on the internet, according to Wikipedia. As the author of this fatwa points out, this ruling is entirely based on the Qur'an and the example of the prophet, who is considered the perfect example for Muslims in all ages.

Go read the whole thing.

A message for Tony Blair's idiot sister in law

From his recent testimony on the Iraq War:

Blair says that the reports “show beyond doubt what Iran was up to.” His testimony continued:

What nobody foresaw was that Iran would actually end up supporting AQ. The conventional wisdom was these two are completely different types of people because Iran is Shia, the al Qaeda people are Sunni, and therefore, you know, the two would never mix. What happened in the end was that they did because they both had a common interest in destabilizing the country, and for Iran I think the reason they were interested in destabilizing Iraq was because they worried about having a functioning majority-Shia country with a democracy on their doorstep, and for al Qaeda they knew perfectly well their whole mission was to try and say the West was oppressing Islam. It is hard to do that if you replace tyrannical governments with functioning democracies.

Blair concluded his testimony by saying that one of the most important lessons of the Iraq war “has to do with the link between al Qaeda and Iran.” The importance of that relationship has implications for security policy today, Blair said: The West cannot deal with al Qaeda without dealing with Iran. Let’s hope President Obama is paying attention.

Obama's Honest State of the Union Address

What Obama Wants: Music by Rammstein:




Crossposted at The Dougout

Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan = Iran 1978?

From Egypt (or forever Mitzrayim as some think of it) where the Muslim Brotherhood IS the opposition and has been since the 1920’s, to Yemen where we can’t find Awlaki we see a panoply of ancient tribal dictatorships, military dictatorships, and at best a corruptocracy whose simultaneous achievement of greatness was the destruction of it’s national education system, and a stockpile of nuclear weapons.

In some non arab nations such as Turkey where we HAVE representative voting the movement to Ismamism and Sharia is not just unmistakeable it is a wave seemingly resistable only in english language op-ed designed to calm people in the US State Dept.

Even reputable organizations such as Pew concern themselves with polls on the unfavorably held opinions (generally) on Bin Laden.

The real question is, would the populace move as they have in Turkey, are asking for in Tunisia, and as the ONLY viable opposition wants in Pakistan and Egypt, towards Sharia?

And does this necessarily mean some kind of confrontation with the USA as Sharia’s compulsory religious suppressions (no new church, temple, or anything ..for starters) become public policy.

What should US Policy be if it is the deeply held conviction of a solid plurality to majority of citizens in a majority of nations between Morocco and the Chinese border that their pursuit of happiness requires an adherence to a set of rules we find intolerant?

During the 1950’s the USA embarked on a series of national actions in support of clear dictators throughout Latin America and the world by reason of their opposition being Communists, a mortal threat to our way of life.

From Fulgencio Battista, and Somoza beginning in the 20’s, FDR, and Truman, to Trujillo, King Farouk, the actions in Iran in 1953 and the Shah, all the way thru Chile and Pinochet…supporting these sons of bitches has earned the enmity in these nations of all but the ruling and corrupt class.

But with the USSR gone, it is obvious that though we may be disliked for our choice, our system was superior and nations whose popular sentiment might have lead them to communism THEN are better off now, ARGUABLY. Unless it was your relative who got disappeared.

But today we see a series of sons of bitch dictators and backward tribal oligarchic systems holding back a flood of Islamic sentiment.

Iran is the archetype.

All revolutions change directions. From France in 1794 to Zimbabwe/Rhodesia, the USA is the only exception I can think of.

All revolutions also start with a political minority.

Now while the young have HAD IT across the muslim lands out of a lack of jobs we see something else … the minority, islamic bolsheviks SMELL BLOOD.

It may be that we are faced with a choice of backing some barely palatable people rather than the intolerable … Somoza or Chavez.

The Shah or Khomeini.

Some form of repressive semi Christian dominated Lebanese govt or …

Or perhaps we grit our teeth push for free elections and get ready to ensure that the result in Egypt, Lebanon and other places is not some Arab Mugabe?

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Tony Blair's sister-in-law turns against him

The Muslim convert Lauren Booth has actually declared she wants him tried for war crimes (via Big Peace):

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth, a rights campaigner and Muslim convert, said on Wednesday that he should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq.

Booth, the half-sister of Blair's barrister wife Cherie, is in Malaysia for lectures organized by Viva Palestina, a British-based organization associated with controversial politician George Galloway.

Asked whether Blair should be arrested and sent to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for war crimes, Booth replied: "Absolutely. He misled the British people and took Britain to war on a lie."

The conflict in Iraq was "an offense", she told reporters after a speech at a Malaysian university, saying it was organized well in advance between Blair and the United States leadership.

Booth has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, and a supporter of the Palestinian cause, and in 2008 travelled with other activists to Gaza by ship to protest against Israel's blockade of the territory.

And to top it all off, she lets out a backwards claim:

"Muslim women are not oppressed, it is Western women who are oppressed... Western women are bored, lonely and oppressed."

Somehow this doesn't surprise me coming from a British convert to the RoP.

And just look at that, lefty Blair can't please even his own relatives.

What will this graphic novel called "Habibi" really be about?

There's a graphic novel set to debut on Sept. 20, 2011 called "Habibi" that, according to what's on this page from Comics Beat, is going to be "an exploration of Islamic culture". But challenging question now: from what angle? If this interview on UGO says anything, it won't be a good one:

UGO: What's Habibi about?

CRAIG: For lack of better description, it is like an Arabian Knights tale of my own making. There's this harem, and there's camels and all this action but there's also a love story between a prostitute and a eunuch. There's an awful lot of Islam in it. It started with this intent to explore the beauty of Arabic calligraphy and culture and architecture and geometric design and all of that, but it's somewhat of an examination of three Abraham based religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and focusing on Islam.

UGO: What got you interested in that?

CRAIG: Part of it is again an extension of my Fundamentalist Christian upbringing, and I wanted to explore the core of that even more. Maybe it is also a post 9/11 sort of examination. It is also more out of shame of being American than any attack on Islamic society. My initial intent was to humanize that society by understanding it better.

Okay, I think this is a sign that not all is well. The bizarre first sentence highlighted is the giveaway to the likely mistakes that'll be made. He also tells at the end that he's read the works of Karen Armstrong, shady figure that she is. So this may very well be a very bad graphic novel in the sense that it likely downplays the seriousness of the subject of the Religion of Peace.