Ted Kennedy was on Meet the Press on Sunday, balancing, (maybe overbalancing) John McCain’s segment explaining his support of the President’s strategy for fighting the war in Iraq.
The following are excerpts from Kennedy’s remarks, defending his party’s near-unanimous decision to slouch eventually to Vietnam-style de-funding of the Iraq war.
“And I must say, if we have a president that is going to effectively defy the American people, going to defy the generals, defy the majority of the Congress of the United States in Republicans and Democrats, then we, I think, have a responsibility to, to end the funding for that—for the war.”….
“If that is going to be the case. I hope that that is not the case. But if that is going to be the case, if the president is going to defy the military leaders, the American public, and a bipartisan is going to be contemptuous of those actions, I think we have a constitutional duty, a constitutional duty to take those steps.”….
“As I mentioned before, you’re going to have the generals, the American people and others that are going to be opposed. But at the end of the day, we can—we are a constitutional democracy. All power is not just with the executive. We have a power in the Congress as well. And if this president’s going to defy the military, the public and a bipartisan majority in the Congress, then we have a responsibility….”
At which point I must apologize for the truncated quotation, but Senator Kennedy hopelessly digressed mid-sentence to another talking point entirely.
To sum up Senator Kennedy’s reasoning, the President of the United States has to do whatever the generals, “the American people,” and “the majority of the Congress” tell him he has to do. If he doesn’t, Congress has a “constitutional duty” to cut off funding for the war.
Senator Kennedy surely understands that, under our Constitution, civilian control of the military is a mandate, and the President is the civilian Commander in Chief, and owes no duty to obey the directions of any generals or any other military leaders. As a Constitutional entity, a general doesn’t even exist, except to take orders from the Commander in Chief. One would expect, and I myself prefer, an executive who understands leadership as making decisions based upon principles, and not hiding behind the second-guessing of his generals.
Of course, when Kennedy refers—as we see he did repeatedly—to the “generals”—he is referring to the generals and military leaders who agree with the Democratic party view of the Iraq war, and wants to create the image of a unanimous body of military experts who are chanting “Get out now”. By no means are the majority of the generals saying this, and most of what Congressional leaders have quoted actual generals as having said about the war, have consistently been almost the opposite of what those generals have actually said.
Senator Kennedy also ought to understand that, when he protests that we are a “constitutional democracy,” (whereas he must mean we are a constitutional republic), that does not mean that “the American people” are a Constitutional entity whose instructions to the executive branch can be discerned through opinion polls or, God forbid, presumptuous press-conference summaries by the likes of Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi about what “the American people want.”
Rather, the people speak through their elected representative, which, in this context, does indeed mean the US Congress.
But that said, people need to bear in mind that, as of today, every time Congress has spoken on the Iraq war before now, it has agreed with the President and voted its approval that he should go to war in Iraq, continue fighting the war in Iraq, and finish the war in Iraq. The President has never defied Congress. Just because he doesn’t collapse when the opinions of the American people collapse, or when his craven political enemies do a 180 on their own former votes and speeches, doesn't make him defiant of the Congress. It only makes him a leader worthy of his office. (For a leader not worthy of the office, see Jimmy Carter).
On the other hand, the nation has now saddled itself with a new Congress solemnly committed to defying the Executive branch on the Iraq war. Democratic senators and representatives who voted to authorize the war are renouncing their votes, as if that makes any difference to the historical existence of what they voted for and why. Comparison of the pre- and post-war rhetoric of all of these folks is among the best-documented examples of hypocrisy in recorded history. Even Republicans are getting diarrhea and trotting along from fear of their misinformed constituencies. (This is one reason we don’t want a President who takes his orders directly from Congress and the "American public").
No matter. The President is standing firm, as are many of his generals, and the vast majority of the fighting men and women who are actually doing the fighting in Iraq.
That will leave the Democratic Congress no choice than either to temper their opposition to the war, or try to cut off funding. It is unimaginable that they could muster the courage, or the wisdom, to do the former. Out of unmitigated hatred for George W. Bush they have created the anti-war monster, and now must feed it with something or face being gobbled up in its maws themselves.
Ted Kennedy’s older brother, on ascending to the presidency, famously declared, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Compare that with Ted Kennedy’s policy towards the struggling democracy in Iraq, (or as it is known to staffers by its pet name, “Kennedy to Iraq: Drop Dead!”) For that matter, compare it with JFK's ability to speak:
“We should help them. And the best way to help them is to de-escalate. I’ve listened to my friend and colleague, Senator McCain, say “Well, we don’t—the Democrats don’t have a policy.” We haven’t tried a policy of de-escalation. They all say, “Look, let’s just have escalation, let’s have surge, let’s increase. Because if we don’t, we haven’t got a policy.” The fact remains, as we heard from General Abizaid before the Armed Services Committee, after consultation with the General Dempsey and military officials, that they didn’t believe that they had any additional troops. They thought that this would increase the cycle of violence. They point out that we’re a further crutch for the Iraqi government. Let’s have a—the policy that we haven’t tried, which is de-escalation. That’s a policy which I believe then will require the Iraqi government to assume responsibility for their security, rather than now sending additional troops which will be an additional crutch for the Iraqi government in delaying their judgment decision in order to take the security.”
Alas. So much for bearing any burden, paying any price, and supporting any friend for the survival of liberty. Vive le de-escalation!
All President Bush needs for his spot in history is to stick by his principles. On this issue, he has never once wavered. This doesn’t mean he’ll win in the end. Nor that we’ll win in Iraq. Congress can simply vote to ruin it all, as they did once before in Vietnam, with Ted Kennedy’s substantial contributions.
But no matter what happens now, these Democrats were doomed to lose from the day they made their compact together to set sail on this foolish course--set sail in a ship without any rudder.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Nasrallah: We Always Thought He Was a Tool
If Hezbollah is the Party of God, Allah must really hate Lebanon.
As noted earlier here, Hezbollah has been staging a public camp-in near the Lebanese Parliament as part of its strategy to topple the Saniora government. When that didn’t work after nearly two months, Hezbollah called for its supporters to engage in a “general strike.” A strike implies public workers withholding their labor to illustrate to the general public what important jobs they do, and how much they would miss the buses, or the taxis, or the subways. The Lebanese learned about general strikes from their one-time colonizers, the French, who engage in general strikes whenever some segment of the French workforce has reached a breaking-point of ill-treatment--say, about every two weeks.
In this case, Hezbollah’s minions are mostly unemployed and don’t provide Lebanon any services, unless you consider having someone firing RPGs at Israeli gunships from your driveway a service. So because the would-be strikers weren’t doing anything but increasing Beirut’s sanitation problems, the next nearest thing to striking would be to burn tires, block roads into and out of the city, fight with police, and make sure there were a lot of injuries and some fatalities, which there were. Unlike its European counterpart, this sort of “general strike” is designed to make the public realize how much they miss streets that aren’t blocked by violent mobs, and air that isn’t choked with the stench of burning rubber. Like all undemocratic initiatives in the Middle East, success isn't meant to be gained by persuasion or even direct violence, but by slow, steady, unrelenting annoyance of the dominant population. The nicer media coverage always refers to Hezbollah in this situation as “the opposition” to the Saniora government, as if mob violence is just one more form of parliamentary procedure. The harsher coverage goes so far as to call it a “protest.” It is neither. It is a slow-motion coup.
Whether Nasrallah actually has a plan that involves months of Hezbollah squatting in Beirut, intermixed with gradually more violent outbursts, or whether he’s making it all up as he goes along, really doesn’t matter. All that matters is his object, which is the installation of a Hezbollah government that will reduce Lebanon to an Iranian satellite. It is likely his Iranian handlers have restrained him from a traditional armed coup because it will make Iran—whose hand up Nasrallah’s backside goes unnoticed by only the most doctrinaire Israel-haters—look worse when they’re trying to dodge out from under international sanctions for their crash bomb-building program.
Nasrallah’s pattern in his Beirut campaign has been to engage in some low-level violence, (that is, low-level for the Middle East), and then threaten the legitimate government with something worse if his demands aren’t met. First the Hezbollah members of Parliament boycotted the government. Then Nasrallah ordered mass street protests. Then someone came up with the bright idea of throwing up a tent city in downtown Beirut. Nasrallah’s plan was to stay there (or make his supporters stay there), “more or less until we eventually impose by our peaceful, civilized and democratic means the toppling of an illegitimate and unconstitutional government."
Could Nasrallah really be so oblivious to the inner conflict between “peaceful, civilized, and democratic means,” and mass street demonstrations, toppling governments and imposing one’s own by means of progressively more violent means? Or is he just paying the lip-service to “democracy” that the media and European intellectuals need so they can later rationalize a coup as an unlooked-for popular eruption climaxing Hezbollah’s patient requests for a seat at the table? Did I mention that the Hezbollah MPs already walked out of Parliament?
So far Saniora has met every one of Nasrallah’s threats with defiance, including the phony general strike on Tuesday. Late on Tuesday Hezbollah “lifted country-wide roadblocks but threatened ‘more effective’ measures if the government refused to meet its demands.”
(One bright spot is that Hezbollah's threatened "general strike" didn't deter Saniora from traveling to Paris, whereas heads of state who feel a coup is imminent usually would not dare leaving the country).
The Lebanese government is limited right now in its ability to respond with force to the mob in Beirut because so much of it army is tied up in southern Lebanon making sure Hezbollah down there doesn’t provoke another war with Israel.
The media, ever-helpful, reports many of the facts of what's happening, then draws completely unrelated conclusions, such as that Tuesday's street violence was a “glimpse of how quickly the confrontation between Saniora’s government and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies could spiral out of control, enflame tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians and throw Lebanon into deeper turmoil.” Except tracing the causes of all this back to tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians makes no sense, when it is clearly a staged challenge by Hezbollah of Lebanon’s elected government. Yes, there are tensions among all Lebanon’s numerous religious groups, but that has nothing to do with Tuesday's unrest. As soon as Hezbollah’s goon squads took their burning tires back to their tents, everybody immediately went back to their normal activities, i.e., back to work and school. Does that sound as if ordinary Lebanese are enflamed over religious differences?
When the war with Israel ended, it was with no thanks to Hezbollah. The Party of God was prepared to fight to the last civilian life, and conducted its operations to bring down maximum destruction on the Lebanese population just so it could make Israel look bad. Only Israel’s agreement to withdraw and abide by a cease-fire ended the war, a cease-fire by which Hezbollah very publicly refused to be bound. Once the IDF was safely over the border, up from his hole like a prairie dog popped Nasrallah, barking about how many Qassam rockets he still had left, and how he’d beaten Israel after all.
Even Hezbollah’s former secretary-general Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili isn’t buying that, complaining bitterly that Hezbollah’s abduction of the Israeli soldiers was “an unsuccessful adventure,” and a pretty stupid one at that. He also said that Hezbollah these days is nothing more than a “tool” of Iran leading Lebanon into a civil war for no higher purpose than to accomplish Tehran’s regional goals at Lebanon’s expense. (Well, that was always the case. But this is Hezbollah’s own secretary-general saying it now.)
Lebanon is now in need of money and stability to rebuild and recover from the war damage brought on by Hezbollah’s unprovoked war against Israel. Still, it has to commit military and other resources just to hedge against trouble-making in both the south and in Beirut caused not by Israel, nor by warring religious sectarians, nor any other internal or external enemy, but by Hezbollah. No one, even those who are most virulently propagating it, buys the lie that Lebanon’s biggest threat is Israel. No one seriously claims that the ancient “tensions” between Lebanon’s numerous religious sects are a significant threat to political stability right now, except where those tensions are being enflamed deliberately by Hezbollah.
Right now, Lebanon’s biggest threat is Hezbollah, a “tool” in the hands of Iran and Syria.
Why are so many of Dearborn’s Lebanese committed to this organization?
As noted earlier here, Hezbollah has been staging a public camp-in near the Lebanese Parliament as part of its strategy to topple the Saniora government. When that didn’t work after nearly two months, Hezbollah called for its supporters to engage in a “general strike.” A strike implies public workers withholding their labor to illustrate to the general public what important jobs they do, and how much they would miss the buses, or the taxis, or the subways. The Lebanese learned about general strikes from their one-time colonizers, the French, who engage in general strikes whenever some segment of the French workforce has reached a breaking-point of ill-treatment--say, about every two weeks.
In this case, Hezbollah’s minions are mostly unemployed and don’t provide Lebanon any services, unless you consider having someone firing RPGs at Israeli gunships from your driveway a service. So because the would-be strikers weren’t doing anything but increasing Beirut’s sanitation problems, the next nearest thing to striking would be to burn tires, block roads into and out of the city, fight with police, and make sure there were a lot of injuries and some fatalities, which there were. Unlike its European counterpart, this sort of “general strike” is designed to make the public realize how much they miss streets that aren’t blocked by violent mobs, and air that isn’t choked with the stench of burning rubber. Like all undemocratic initiatives in the Middle East, success isn't meant to be gained by persuasion or even direct violence, but by slow, steady, unrelenting annoyance of the dominant population. The nicer media coverage always refers to Hezbollah in this situation as “the opposition” to the Saniora government, as if mob violence is just one more form of parliamentary procedure. The harsher coverage goes so far as to call it a “protest.” It is neither. It is a slow-motion coup.
Whether Nasrallah actually has a plan that involves months of Hezbollah squatting in Beirut, intermixed with gradually more violent outbursts, or whether he’s making it all up as he goes along, really doesn’t matter. All that matters is his object, which is the installation of a Hezbollah government that will reduce Lebanon to an Iranian satellite. It is likely his Iranian handlers have restrained him from a traditional armed coup because it will make Iran—whose hand up Nasrallah’s backside goes unnoticed by only the most doctrinaire Israel-haters—look worse when they’re trying to dodge out from under international sanctions for their crash bomb-building program.
Nasrallah’s pattern in his Beirut campaign has been to engage in some low-level violence, (that is, low-level for the Middle East), and then threaten the legitimate government with something worse if his demands aren’t met. First the Hezbollah members of Parliament boycotted the government. Then Nasrallah ordered mass street protests. Then someone came up with the bright idea of throwing up a tent city in downtown Beirut. Nasrallah’s plan was to stay there (or make his supporters stay there), “more or less until we eventually impose by our peaceful, civilized and democratic means the toppling of an illegitimate and unconstitutional government."
Could Nasrallah really be so oblivious to the inner conflict between “peaceful, civilized, and democratic means,” and mass street demonstrations, toppling governments and imposing one’s own by means of progressively more violent means? Or is he just paying the lip-service to “democracy” that the media and European intellectuals need so they can later rationalize a coup as an unlooked-for popular eruption climaxing Hezbollah’s patient requests for a seat at the table? Did I mention that the Hezbollah MPs already walked out of Parliament?
So far Saniora has met every one of Nasrallah’s threats with defiance, including the phony general strike on Tuesday. Late on Tuesday Hezbollah “lifted country-wide roadblocks but threatened ‘more effective’ measures if the government refused to meet its demands.”
(One bright spot is that Hezbollah's threatened "general strike" didn't deter Saniora from traveling to Paris, whereas heads of state who feel a coup is imminent usually would not dare leaving the country).
The Lebanese government is limited right now in its ability to respond with force to the mob in Beirut because so much of it army is tied up in southern Lebanon making sure Hezbollah down there doesn’t provoke another war with Israel.
The media, ever-helpful, reports many of the facts of what's happening, then draws completely unrelated conclusions, such as that Tuesday's street violence was a “glimpse of how quickly the confrontation between Saniora’s government and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies could spiral out of control, enflame tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians and throw Lebanon into deeper turmoil.” Except tracing the causes of all this back to tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Christians makes no sense, when it is clearly a staged challenge by Hezbollah of Lebanon’s elected government. Yes, there are tensions among all Lebanon’s numerous religious groups, but that has nothing to do with Tuesday's unrest. As soon as Hezbollah’s goon squads took their burning tires back to their tents, everybody immediately went back to their normal activities, i.e., back to work and school. Does that sound as if ordinary Lebanese are enflamed over religious differences?
When the war with Israel ended, it was with no thanks to Hezbollah. The Party of God was prepared to fight to the last civilian life, and conducted its operations to bring down maximum destruction on the Lebanese population just so it could make Israel look bad. Only Israel’s agreement to withdraw and abide by a cease-fire ended the war, a cease-fire by which Hezbollah very publicly refused to be bound. Once the IDF was safely over the border, up from his hole like a prairie dog popped Nasrallah, barking about how many Qassam rockets he still had left, and how he’d beaten Israel after all.
Even Hezbollah’s former secretary-general Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili isn’t buying that, complaining bitterly that Hezbollah’s abduction of the Israeli soldiers was “an unsuccessful adventure,” and a pretty stupid one at that. He also said that Hezbollah these days is nothing more than a “tool” of Iran leading Lebanon into a civil war for no higher purpose than to accomplish Tehran’s regional goals at Lebanon’s expense. (Well, that was always the case. But this is Hezbollah’s own secretary-general saying it now.)
Lebanon is now in need of money and stability to rebuild and recover from the war damage brought on by Hezbollah’s unprovoked war against Israel. Still, it has to commit military and other resources just to hedge against trouble-making in both the south and in Beirut caused not by Israel, nor by warring religious sectarians, nor any other internal or external enemy, but by Hezbollah. No one, even those who are most virulently propagating it, buys the lie that Lebanon’s biggest threat is Israel. No one seriously claims that the ancient “tensions” between Lebanon’s numerous religious sects are a significant threat to political stability right now, except where those tensions are being enflamed deliberately by Hezbollah.
Right now, Lebanon’s biggest threat is Hezbollah, a “tool” in the hands of Iran and Syria.
Why are so many of Dearborn’s Lebanese committed to this organization?
Monday, January 22, 2007
La Shish Owner Sought as Deadbeat Dad
Detroit News columnist Laura Berman, who has been wringing her hands on behalf of women’s issues at that once-great newspaper as far back as I can remember, is chagrined that federal fugitive and Hezbollah money-launderer Talal Chahine is not being made to pay child-support on behalf of his illegitimate daughter, Aliyah.
Ms. Berman writes that Chahine dated the child’s mother, Wendy Whitelaw, while he “was between two marriages,” and the result was Aliyah, now 7. When Chahine absconded last year in advance of arrest for tax evasion and fraud, he apparently failed to make provisions to continue the $1800 monthly support and additional condo payments he agreed to pay his baby mama in lieu of court-ordered child support. Now that he’s no longer sending checks, she is now living back with her parents in St. Clair Shores, struggling along on food stamps and Medicaid.
Ms. Berman frames the story of Ms. Whitelaw as that of a single mother victimized by yet one more deadbeat dad. Ms. Berman is particularly displeased that Chahine left owing “$20 million in back taxes,” while the restaurant chain he had to abandon is still making scads of money, and yet “no government entity has tried to help Whitelaw get help for her daughter -- not the Macomb County Friend of the Court, not the state attorney general and not the U.S. Attorney's Office.” Ms. Berman stopped short of blaming President Bush, but we all know that goes without saying.
(By the strangest coincidence, $20 million was the amount of the bond ordered when another of Chanine’s offspring, Khalil Chahine, (this one produced “between divorces”), was being held in the Wayne County Jail on charges he had murdered romantic rival Paul Hallis in Dearborn in May 2004. Dad didn’t pony up his son's bond, either, and he hadn’t even fled to southern Lebanon at the time. It turned out not to matter, as Khalil was convicted of second degree murder and sent to prison.)
Anyway, Ms. Berman manages to look past the whole Hezbollah money-laundering angle at work in the Chahine saga to the real story of a single mother struggling somewhere whom society needs to feel collectively responsible for. As she sizes things up, there simply must be “a way to get Chahine to pay for shoes, books and a place for a 7-year-old girl to live out of $20 million, and leave plenty for taxes. If anyone cares to try.”
Ms. Berman seems to have misunderstood that $20 million wasn’t the amount of taxes Chahine owed, but the amount of profits he funneled to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to the federal indictment that caused Chahine to take to his heels last year.
She also seems to have missed, even though the facts are contained right there within her own column, that, as long as Chahine remains in Lebanon beyond the reach of the law, there is no way to make him do anything, even if you’re the Macomb County Friend of the Court.
Without a doubt the whole situation is unfair to Aliyah and her mother. But is it more unfair than the countless other cases where single mothers and their children face reduced circumstances and struggle because fathers are dead, in prison, absconded, disabled, drunk, or run off with their gay lovers to be consecrated as bishops of the Episcopal Church?
And, considering how son Khalil and Chahine’s second wife turned out, (she’s his ex-wife now, and in the joint, too), the young girl may be better off growing up away from the old man and the unseemly influence of La Shish.
Still, if Ms. Berman really feels she has to challenge “anyone who cares to try” about helping mother and daughter, she should forget about the IRS and the feds—who don’t have Chahine’s money, anyway--and start calling around Dearborn to some of the local Hezbollah supporters. They may even be holding a Hezbollah fundraiser this weekend on some pretext or other at the Bint Jubail Center.
Who knows if they may not arrange to get Sheik Hassan Nasrallah (known locally here in Dearborn as “Our Leader” ), to send a generous chunk of that $20 million back to help out the mother and child of one of their devoted soldiers?
Ms. Berman writes that Chahine dated the child’s mother, Wendy Whitelaw, while he “was between two marriages,” and the result was Aliyah, now 7. When Chahine absconded last year in advance of arrest for tax evasion and fraud, he apparently failed to make provisions to continue the $1800 monthly support and additional condo payments he agreed to pay his baby mama in lieu of court-ordered child support. Now that he’s no longer sending checks, she is now living back with her parents in St. Clair Shores, struggling along on food stamps and Medicaid.
Ms. Berman frames the story of Ms. Whitelaw as that of a single mother victimized by yet one more deadbeat dad. Ms. Berman is particularly displeased that Chahine left owing “$20 million in back taxes,” while the restaurant chain he had to abandon is still making scads of money, and yet “no government entity has tried to help Whitelaw get help for her daughter -- not the Macomb County Friend of the Court, not the state attorney general and not the U.S. Attorney's Office.” Ms. Berman stopped short of blaming President Bush, but we all know that goes without saying.
(By the strangest coincidence, $20 million was the amount of the bond ordered when another of Chanine’s offspring, Khalil Chahine, (this one produced “between divorces”), was being held in the Wayne County Jail on charges he had murdered romantic rival Paul Hallis in Dearborn in May 2004. Dad didn’t pony up his son's bond, either, and he hadn’t even fled to southern Lebanon at the time. It turned out not to matter, as Khalil was convicted of second degree murder and sent to prison.)
Anyway, Ms. Berman manages to look past the whole Hezbollah money-laundering angle at work in the Chahine saga to the real story of a single mother struggling somewhere whom society needs to feel collectively responsible for. As she sizes things up, there simply must be “a way to get Chahine to pay for shoes, books and a place for a 7-year-old girl to live out of $20 million, and leave plenty for taxes. If anyone cares to try.”
Ms. Berman seems to have misunderstood that $20 million wasn’t the amount of taxes Chahine owed, but the amount of profits he funneled to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to the federal indictment that caused Chahine to take to his heels last year.
She also seems to have missed, even though the facts are contained right there within her own column, that, as long as Chahine remains in Lebanon beyond the reach of the law, there is no way to make him do anything, even if you’re the Macomb County Friend of the Court.
Without a doubt the whole situation is unfair to Aliyah and her mother. But is it more unfair than the countless other cases where single mothers and their children face reduced circumstances and struggle because fathers are dead, in prison, absconded, disabled, drunk, or run off with their gay lovers to be consecrated as bishops of the Episcopal Church?
And, considering how son Khalil and Chahine’s second wife turned out, (she’s his ex-wife now, and in the joint, too), the young girl may be better off growing up away from the old man and the unseemly influence of La Shish.
Still, if Ms. Berman really feels she has to challenge “anyone who cares to try” about helping mother and daughter, she should forget about the IRS and the feds—who don’t have Chahine’s money, anyway--and start calling around Dearborn to some of the local Hezbollah supporters. They may even be holding a Hezbollah fundraiser this weekend on some pretext or other at the Bint Jubail Center.
Who knows if they may not arrange to get Sheik Hassan Nasrallah (known locally here in Dearborn as “Our Leader” ), to send a generous chunk of that $20 million back to help out the mother and child of one of their devoted soldiers?
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Dinesh D’Souza on ‘The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11’
“The Islamic radicals and the American left are polar opposites in the kind of society they want. One wants sharia and the other wants a libertine society with abortion on demand and gay marriage. And yet, the two have a common interest in defeating Bush’s war on terror…. Basically the left hates Bush more than it hates Bin Laden. Bin Laden is a foreign threat, but Bush is a domestic threat. In the last couple of decades the left-wing agenda has become increasingly dominated by social and sexual concerns. So who threatens abortion rights in America? Not Bin Laden, Bush. Who is blocking gay marriage? Not Al Qaeda, Bush’s court appointees. While Bin Laden wants sharia in Baghdad, Bush and the religious right are, in the leftist view, trying to impose sharia in Boston. Consequently the left is quite willing to ally with the lesser evil, the Islamic radicals, in order to defeat the greater evil, Bush and the conservatives.”
Read the rest of the interview at Townhall.com.
D'Souza also took part in a Q&A with NRO, which you can read here.
I expect D’Souza is going to get some criticism from other opponents of Jihad, (on Friday I heard Robert Spencer express great displeasure with the book), because D’Souza says he believes the majority of Muslims would be open to making common cause with social conservatives. D’Souza suggests to the NRO that “they’re not asking us to live like them. They’re asking us not to attack their religion, which conservatives do with depressing regularity.”
Personally, I think they do want us to live like them, though it is true they are not asking us to live like them.
But I could not agree more with D’Souza’s statement quoted above, that the left has made common cause with Islamic radicals because “the left hates Bush more than it hates Bin Laden” As a matter of fact, I was working on a similar idea myself, in a slightly altered version, before I ran across the interviews with D’Souza.
In my version of the hypothesis, the left hates Bush--not more than they hate Bin Laden--but more than they love their country. This enables them to defend, or even engage in, objectively treacherous activities without running afoul of their undoubtedly genuine affection for the land of their birth. They are in no way guilty of treason, because the object of their activities is not bringing harm to country, but bringing harm to the Bush administration. And, as almost every Democrat and virtually every member of the media on 7 continents will tell you, George W. Bush is the focus of evil in the modern world. You can provide al the examples you want of the ruthlessness of Islamic Jihadists: Bush is so much worse!
Commenting last summer on Peter Beinart’s [former editor of New Republic] book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, had this related observation on how the “McGovern revolution” in the Democratic party still has not yet run its course, and was still energizing the destructive partisan hatred that prevents liberals from being able to govern:
“If anything, the intensity of partisan anger against the person and the policies of the president seems to grow and grow. To speak of “our president” or of “our foreign policy” or even of “our troops” is to invite outraged reaction. What Peter Beinart knows, and yet, perhaps admirably, refuses to accept is that many of those whom he is trying to persuade have somewhere along the way decided that this is not their country. Which is not to say that they are not patriotic, but they are patriots of another America – an America of their preferences, an America at peace, an America without enemies.”
Read the rest of the interview at Townhall.com.
D'Souza also took part in a Q&A with NRO, which you can read here.
I expect D’Souza is going to get some criticism from other opponents of Jihad, (on Friday I heard Robert Spencer express great displeasure with the book), because D’Souza says he believes the majority of Muslims would be open to making common cause with social conservatives. D’Souza suggests to the NRO that “they’re not asking us to live like them. They’re asking us not to attack their religion, which conservatives do with depressing regularity.”
Personally, I think they do want us to live like them, though it is true they are not asking us to live like them.
But I could not agree more with D’Souza’s statement quoted above, that the left has made common cause with Islamic radicals because “the left hates Bush more than it hates Bin Laden” As a matter of fact, I was working on a similar idea myself, in a slightly altered version, before I ran across the interviews with D’Souza.
In my version of the hypothesis, the left hates Bush--not more than they hate Bin Laden--but more than they love their country. This enables them to defend, or even engage in, objectively treacherous activities without running afoul of their undoubtedly genuine affection for the land of their birth. They are in no way guilty of treason, because the object of their activities is not bringing harm to country, but bringing harm to the Bush administration. And, as almost every Democrat and virtually every member of the media on 7 continents will tell you, George W. Bush is the focus of evil in the modern world. You can provide al the examples you want of the ruthlessness of Islamic Jihadists: Bush is so much worse!
Commenting last summer on Peter Beinart’s [former editor of New Republic] book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, had this related observation on how the “McGovern revolution” in the Democratic party still has not yet run its course, and was still energizing the destructive partisan hatred that prevents liberals from being able to govern:
“If anything, the intensity of partisan anger against the person and the policies of the president seems to grow and grow. To speak of “our president” or of “our foreign policy” or even of “our troops” is to invite outraged reaction. What Peter Beinart knows, and yet, perhaps admirably, refuses to accept is that many of those whom he is trying to persuade have somewhere along the way decided that this is not their country. Which is not to say that they are not patriotic, but they are patriots of another America – an America of their preferences, an America at peace, an America without enemies.”
Will 'Walid' End Up Saving Jack Bauer?
Here's an interesting point of view on what in past seasons has been a great show, from our sister blog, Right Truth:
"24" Silences CAIR
The television series "24" is loved by viewers because the plots are realistic and could actually happen here in the United States. I've often wondered why Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has not come out against "24". Now my friend Glen Reinsford, editor of The Religion of Peace website and author of the book Age of Tolerance tells all in an article at Family Security Matters (emphasis mine):
"24" Silences CAIR
The television series "24" is loved by viewers because the plots are realistic and could actually happen here in the United States. I've often wondered why Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has not come out against "24". Now my friend Glen Reinsford, editor of The Religion of Peace website and author of the book Age of Tolerance tells all in an article at Family Security Matters (emphasis mine):
Two years ago, CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations) threw an infamous tantrum over the Fox television drama, “24”, even before the season began, describing the portrayal of Muslims as terrorists to be “shocking”, “insensitive”, “offensive”, “heart-sinking” and “hurtful.” The so-called civil rights organization (which feels no need to denounce the Islamic Republic of Sudan for sponsoring the real-life genocide of hundreds of thousands of black Africans in the name of Jihad) organized protests over the television show and asked its members to watch “24” solely for the purpose of pressuring Fox afterwards.
On Thursday (three days after the second episode of the new season aired), CAIR posted an article from the Boston Herald which constituted its first public remarks on the current “24” script. The article describes the show as “exciting television”, and even quotes CAIR spokesperson, Rabiah Ahmed implying that it is “a good show and good drama”, although he does go on to say that he has “concerns,” given that Muslims are still being portrayed as terrorists.
The contrast between the two reactions is all the more striking considering that CAIR’s original complaint two seasons ago concerned a terrorist sleeper cell disguised as a normal Muslim family. The Washington-based organization apparently feared that Americans - only three years removed at the time from the mass murder of 3,000 innocent citizens by real Muslims - would suddenly devolve into raging bigots if they saw a Muslim terrorist portrayed in a fictional television series. (Either that, or CAIR just wanted to feel relevant… you decide.)
Yet, the first four hours of the new season have delved even deeper into the theme of typical Muslim neighbors concealing dark intentions. In the new plot, a progressive American family goes to bat for their Muslim neighbors, who are being harassed by stereotypical bigots (the kind that everyone is sure exists, but no one seems to know personally). In a surprising plot twist, one of the Muslim neighbors actually does turn out to be a terrorist, and the non-Muslim family pays dearly for their generosity by being held hostage so that the father will be forced into delivering a nuclear device component (he is eventually killed).
So why isn’t CAIR in volcanic eruption mode again this year? Did the lead character in the series, Jack Bauer, convert to Islam, or did the “24” producers find some other way of CAIR-proofing their product?
For now, it’s the latter.
In what will probably become the model for future dramas looking to sprinkle a small dose of reality in amidst all the neo-Nazis, East European villains, and lethal corporate CEOs that dominate prime time and the box office, Fox has realized that keeping CAIR relatively quiet means balancing Islamic terror with Islamic fiction.
In this case, the writers injected into the plot an imaginary organization called IAA - Islamic-American Alliance - a self-described civil rights advocacy group dedicated to the narrow interests of Muslim-Americans. Now that has a familiar ring to it, eh?
Yes, but then things go Hollywood in a big way.
In the script, the head of CAIR… pardon… the head of IAA is an upstanding, patriotic Muslim named "Walid" who is hounded and even physically assaulted by federal agents, yet never wavers in his remarkable loyalty to "American values.” Inevitably, he winds up incarcerated along with fellow Muslims ...
Yet, so honorable is Walid that when he overhears fellow Muslims plotting to harm Americans, he elects to stay incarcerated in order to learn more about the plot and perhaps stop the extremists from doing harm to his beloved United States. (Unlike his real-life counterparts, Walid's rhetoric of religious tolerance is something other than a self-serving tool of convenience.) As an added bonus, the writers have also given Walid a hot, young American girlfriend (although, to be fair, she is also a lawyer). The unexpected kiss between the two probably has Ibrahim Hooper, the National Communications Director of CAIR, rubbing a dab of Rogaine into his scalp while winking at the mirror and saying, "You old devil, you!"
Obviously, this over-the-top fantasy is what the network feels is necessary to keep CAIR from busting another hemorrhoid, but at this rate CAIR may need to trade in that Preparation H for a case of Chap Stick. How long before Fox starts referring to Ahmed Bedier as 'His Excellency' and replaces Brit Hume with Steve "no god but Allah" Centanni?
Back in the real world, despite all of those curious ties to terror supporters, there doesn't seem to be an actual case of CAIR preventing a terror attack or even providing authorities with a single security tip. In fact, the organization declines to acknowledge and denounce over 99 percent of deadly Islamic violence, and its contribution to the War on Terror thus far has been effectively to fuel anti-American passion on the part of Muslims while making it harder for security officials to do their jobs.
Certainly, there are decent and loyal Muslim citizens in Western countries who would tip off authorities in a heartbeat if they knew of a plot to kill in the name of their religion. And, of course, there have also been many in the Muslim world who paid the ultimate price battling Islamic extremism long before America got involved in the fight. Honoring these patriots in the media and in fiction is perfectly appropriate, even if it does mean digging up John Galt on occasion and draping him in a galabeya….
But please don’t slap a CAIR sticker on the collar on this invention. Self-consumed peddlers of grievance and group identity deserve neither honor nor appeasement – even if it does buy their silence for the time being.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
CAIR - 40, Northwest Airlines - 0
As discussed here yesterday, CAIR-Michigan's Dawud Walid and Imam al Qazwini have taken a principled stand that, when Pilgrims returning from the Hajj show up late for an international flight, hadn't checked in, and lack boarding passes, it is anti-Muslim profiling to refuse to hold up a planeload of passengers while getting it all sorted out. CAIR and Qazwini demanded compensation and an apology.
Northwest Airlines, which 24 hours ago had taken the perfectly correct stance of denying any wrongdoing, has today collapsed, apologized, and made an open-ended offer of compensation, thus restoring my low opinion of that organization. More important, it snatched a defeat for the airline industry, (and airline security), from the jaws of victory already won by USAir when they stood up to the 6 imams in Minnesota.
Northwest spokesman Dean Breest continues to state that Northwest did nothing wrong, but unfortunately that statement comes attached to the airline's sincerely apologizing for any inconvenience. Only the apology matters now. That, and the offer of compensation. Only $150 a piece for the transfer fees for catching late flights home, but the amount doesn't matter.
According to the Detroit News, because the 40 passengers were late, allowing them to board would have meant delaying the flight, and "the complications encountered were so significant that the flight would have been delayed for too long -- complicating scheduled departures as well as other connecting flights at Detroit Metropolitan Airport." This is only common sense.
Rather than inconvenience hundreds if not thousands of other passengers on connecting flights, (many of them other Muslims trying to get home from the Hajj, including all the Muslims already on the Frankfurt plane), it's better to require the 40 tardy passengers to catch a later flight. Andrea Newman, a senior VP at Northwest, is hoping that CAIR will be more understanding. "We try very hard to make sure that everyone is treated the same, and this is an important community to Northwest, as are all communities." She must not be familiar with CAIR. This isn't about being treated the same. It's about being treated better.
One of the world's largest airlines has just signaled CAIR and every other aggressive opportunist Islamic organization that reverse profiling--special disregard of the rules for Middle-Eastern looking passengers--is now company policy, enforceable at the cost of apologies and financial compensation.
No one really believes this has anything to do with profiling, starting with Imam Qazwini. It has to do with successfully winning special rights for Muslims.
It is one of the smaller injustices of life: you find yourself strapped into your seat, after obediently arriving at the airport 2 hours early, and only finally allowed to board your plane after an unexplained delay, now to find yourself and your fellow passengers sitting on the runway going nowhere for 45 minutes. You probably are all waiting for the arrival of an extremely late passenger, who somehow was granted a flight delay. Next time that happens to you, try to get a look when the straggler finally comes aboard. If he is dressed in Islamic clerical robes and wearing a satisfied smile, say hello to Imam Qazwini.
Northwest Airlines, which 24 hours ago had taken the perfectly correct stance of denying any wrongdoing, has today collapsed, apologized, and made an open-ended offer of compensation, thus restoring my low opinion of that organization. More important, it snatched a defeat for the airline industry, (and airline security), from the jaws of victory already won by USAir when they stood up to the 6 imams in Minnesota.
Northwest spokesman Dean Breest continues to state that Northwest did nothing wrong, but unfortunately that statement comes attached to the airline's sincerely apologizing for any inconvenience. Only the apology matters now. That, and the offer of compensation. Only $150 a piece for the transfer fees for catching late flights home, but the amount doesn't matter.
According to the Detroit News, because the 40 passengers were late, allowing them to board would have meant delaying the flight, and "the complications encountered were so significant that the flight would have been delayed for too long -- complicating scheduled departures as well as other connecting flights at Detroit Metropolitan Airport." This is only common sense.
Rather than inconvenience hundreds if not thousands of other passengers on connecting flights, (many of them other Muslims trying to get home from the Hajj, including all the Muslims already on the Frankfurt plane), it's better to require the 40 tardy passengers to catch a later flight. Andrea Newman, a senior VP at Northwest, is hoping that CAIR will be more understanding. "We try very hard to make sure that everyone is treated the same, and this is an important community to Northwest, as are all communities." She must not be familiar with CAIR. This isn't about being treated the same. It's about being treated better.
One of the world's largest airlines has just signaled CAIR and every other aggressive opportunist Islamic organization that reverse profiling--special disregard of the rules for Middle-Eastern looking passengers--is now company policy, enforceable at the cost of apologies and financial compensation.
No one really believes this has anything to do with profiling, starting with Imam Qazwini. It has to do with successfully winning special rights for Muslims.
It is one of the smaller injustices of life: you find yourself strapped into your seat, after obediently arriving at the airport 2 hours early, and only finally allowed to board your plane after an unexplained delay, now to find yourself and your fellow passengers sitting on the runway going nowhere for 45 minutes. You probably are all waiting for the arrival of an extremely late passenger, who somehow was granted a flight delay. Next time that happens to you, try to get a look when the straggler finally comes aboard. If he is dressed in Islamic clerical robes and wearing a satisfied smile, say hello to Imam Qazwini.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
"WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION"
Imam Qazwini speaks on behalf of 40
They called for Northwest to apologize, compensate them, and discipline the employees they said profiled them. "Otherwise," Al-Qazwini said, "if Northwest will not do that, then probably we have to call all Muslim organizations to encourage Muslims from not flying on Northwest.” With tens of thousands of Muslim customers, Northwest could be hurt financially by such a boycott, Al-Qazwini suggested, adding that "I hope Northwest will be wiser."
Michigan CAIR leader, Dawud Walid wants to offer us education about Islam and says he prefers education over litigation. Well done Mr. Walid, I am sure I am learning my lessons.
Apparently now, any enforcement of safety rules for those of the Islamic faith is considered profiling. And profiling we all know, is racism.
This is what I have learned:
* When Muslims fail to obey safety rules and regulations it is because those who are enforcing
the rules are racist? No, that doesn’t make sense.
* OK, when Muslims break a rule or fail to show up at the airport gate within the required
time it is because of a language barrier. They are exempt from the consequences of their
failure to follow rules and be on time. Because somehow, if we enforce the consequence on a Muslims it is profiling and that is racism.
So they can’t suffer any consequence of their own mistakes. We will have to suffer the
consequence for them. Gee, that’s pretty twisted.
* If we don’t compensate them and promise never to do it again – we are racist? I ’m sorry
but, these lessons are just too tricky. I don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept – so sue me!
I will remember next Thanksgiving to be especially thankful the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on time for their special voyage and did not have to suffer the same bad treatment. This saved them the time and money of having to sue the Virginia Company – whew!
I ’m sorry but, these lessons are just too tricky. I don’t seem to be able to grasp the concept and I find myself humming the tune “Another Brick In The Wall” from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” 1979.
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom”
Check out this link from Debbie Schlussel regarding the Dearborn Pilgrims. http://www.debbieschlussel.com/
Hometown Boys
Debbie Schlussel has this link (here) with some background information on
Saturday, January 13, 2007
CAIR Exploits Dearborn Vandalism
We at Dearborn Underground send our warmest congratulations to all of Dearborn’s and Detroit’s Iraqis on the recent dispatch of Saddam Hussein.
According to some recent press accounts, there was some vandalism along Warren Avenue in Detroit last week, probably related to the street celebrations by some Iraqi Shias:
“Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone vandalized at least nine businesses and three mosques, all but one Shi'ite, according to Ali Zwen, manager of the Kufa Cultural Forum, a mosque at Warren and Archdale that sustained $4,000 in damage.
“Detroit police have not made an arrest for the vandalism that occurred between Greenfield and a few blocks west of the Southfield Freeway. Most of the area's businesses with Arabic script on their signs were undamaged.
“Many of the spared businesses are owned by Iraqi-American Christians, Lebanese Americans and others with Middle Eastern roots. The evidence is largely circumstantial that Shi'ites were targeted, but some of the victims say it is too coincidental.”
Immediately, Dearborn’s own CAIR spokesman, Dawud Walid, commenced a shuttle diplomacy tour up and down Warren, meeting with Sunni and Shi’ite leaders to urge unity and calm. A follow-up report next day in the Detroit Free Press said,
“As Iraqi-American Shi'ites seethed over the trashing of several of their businesses and mosques in Detroit over the weekend, leaders in the Shi'ite and Sunni sects of Islam worked Tuesday to try to defuse animosity between the two sides that has existed for years but was amplified with the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in December.”
It seems elementary enough. Dearborn is home to many Iraqis, and some of the Sunni Iraqis were upset enough about the Shi’ite celebration of Saddam’s hanging that a tiny group made some threats and committed some vandalism. Though I harbor no sympathy for any of the late dictator’s supporters, (in fact, Mrs. Clancy and I were eyewitness participants in some of the local celebrations), I understand the emotions of seeing one’s enemies getting the upper hand. For instance, last November Mrs. Clancy had to intervene forcefully to keep me from breaking out the windows of the nearest Starbuck’s, an institution I identify closely with the politics of Nancy Pelosi. Regardless, the situation between the Sunnis and Shia never escalated beyond vandalism, and no one was injured.
But where CAIR and the usual Muslim spokesmen are concerned, even Muslim-on-Muslim violence is best explained as persecution of Arabs by non-Muslims. Dawud Walid used the press attention over this vandalism to repeat his unending demands for government investigations and hate-crime prosecutions.
"’We're going to call on the federal authorities to investigate this because this is pure hate to attack a house of worship,’ Walid said. ‘Our community has been under siege since 9/11.’”
Walid has a capacity for non sequiturs that a Wellesley co-ed would kill for. That’s what enables him to connect up what were almost certainly acts of Sunni vandalism of a Shi’ite mosque as but one more example of the “siege” against the Arab community by America’s non-Muslims. In his view, even vandalism should be a federal case. “’No matter where the road leads, there should be prosecution,’ he said.” No matter where? Isn’t this how Mike Nifong got into so much trouble?
Similarly, Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Arab-American News, was quoted as saying, “I don't believe it's the Arab community that has done this.” The article doesn’t say why he doesn’t believe it, nor whom he believes really did do it, if not other Muslims.
Imad Hamad, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's regional office, also wondered how the vandalism could be an example of Muslim-on-Muslim vandalism, when “we’ve never witnessed a retaliation” in Detroit’s Middle East community before. I’m not sure if that statement is completely accurate, but then again, there have been so damned few executions of Middle Eastern dictators it’s hard to make a comparison. Maybe we can hang al Sadr and give the Sunnis a chance to pass out some candy.
I don’t think it really matters to Hamad or Walid who broke those windows last week. Whether it was intra-Muslim retaliation or not, they aren’t going to let it shake their focus on the big picture, which is that Arab Muslims are “under siege” and victims of daily persecution by—me!, that is, any non-Muslim, non-Arab American. That's right, we're all potential persecutors these days! What else would possess Hamad to say something as ludicrous as, “’During a time like this, people are likely to target Iraqi Americans, who should report all threats to police.’”
The viciousness of a statement like that is beyond telling, though its lack of logic is self-evident enough.
By way of targeting Iraqi Americans in response to Saddam's execution, Mrs. Clancy and I drove over to east Dearborn that night and stood around for a while amidst a throng of some very happy Arabs. Mrs. Clancy even took a few photos, but that was the extent of our aiming anything at Iraqi Americans, that, and our sincerest best wishes. If anyone reported us to the police for targeting Iraqi Americans, we weren’t aware of it, and there were certainly plenty of Detroit and Dearborn cops around, mostly directing traffic, and all wearing their relaxed, Tigers-won-the-pennant faces.
It isn’t that Hamad, Walid, and Siblani are always crying wolf just to get attention. It’s that the Muslim-as-victim scheme they require to give them something to be in charge of requires a scheme to create victimizers, too, even if the accused victimizers are innocent.
How prosaic and ineffective it feels to write, simply, that there is no “siege” against the Arab community in Dearborn, not since 9/11, nor ever. The very suggestion is an insult to every resident of the area, Arab, Muslim, or non-Muslim.
And this kind of inflammatory rhetoric isn't helping anybody.
According to some recent press accounts, there was some vandalism along Warren Avenue in Detroit last week, probably related to the street celebrations by some Iraqi Shias:
“Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone vandalized at least nine businesses and three mosques, all but one Shi'ite, according to Ali Zwen, manager of the Kufa Cultural Forum, a mosque at Warren and Archdale that sustained $4,000 in damage.
“Detroit police have not made an arrest for the vandalism that occurred between Greenfield and a few blocks west of the Southfield Freeway. Most of the area's businesses with Arabic script on their signs were undamaged.
“Many of the spared businesses are owned by Iraqi-American Christians, Lebanese Americans and others with Middle Eastern roots. The evidence is largely circumstantial that Shi'ites were targeted, but some of the victims say it is too coincidental.”
Immediately, Dearborn’s own CAIR spokesman, Dawud Walid, commenced a shuttle diplomacy tour up and down Warren, meeting with Sunni and Shi’ite leaders to urge unity and calm. A follow-up report next day in the Detroit Free Press said,
“As Iraqi-American Shi'ites seethed over the trashing of several of their businesses and mosques in Detroit over the weekend, leaders in the Shi'ite and Sunni sects of Islam worked Tuesday to try to defuse animosity between the two sides that has existed for years but was amplified with the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in December.”
It seems elementary enough. Dearborn is home to many Iraqis, and some of the Sunni Iraqis were upset enough about the Shi’ite celebration of Saddam’s hanging that a tiny group made some threats and committed some vandalism. Though I harbor no sympathy for any of the late dictator’s supporters, (in fact, Mrs. Clancy and I were eyewitness participants in some of the local celebrations), I understand the emotions of seeing one’s enemies getting the upper hand. For instance, last November Mrs. Clancy had to intervene forcefully to keep me from breaking out the windows of the nearest Starbuck’s, an institution I identify closely with the politics of Nancy Pelosi. Regardless, the situation between the Sunnis and Shia never escalated beyond vandalism, and no one was injured.
But where CAIR and the usual Muslim spokesmen are concerned, even Muslim-on-Muslim violence is best explained as persecution of Arabs by non-Muslims. Dawud Walid used the press attention over this vandalism to repeat his unending demands for government investigations and hate-crime prosecutions.
"’We're going to call on the federal authorities to investigate this because this is pure hate to attack a house of worship,’ Walid said. ‘Our community has been under siege since 9/11.’”
Walid has a capacity for non sequiturs that a Wellesley co-ed would kill for. That’s what enables him to connect up what were almost certainly acts of Sunni vandalism of a Shi’ite mosque as but one more example of the “siege” against the Arab community by America’s non-Muslims. In his view, even vandalism should be a federal case. “’No matter where the road leads, there should be prosecution,’ he said.” No matter where? Isn’t this how Mike Nifong got into so much trouble?
Similarly, Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Arab-American News, was quoted as saying, “I don't believe it's the Arab community that has done this.” The article doesn’t say why he doesn’t believe it, nor whom he believes really did do it, if not other Muslims.
Imad Hamad, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's regional office, also wondered how the vandalism could be an example of Muslim-on-Muslim vandalism, when “we’ve never witnessed a retaliation” in Detroit’s Middle East community before. I’m not sure if that statement is completely accurate, but then again, there have been so damned few executions of Middle Eastern dictators it’s hard to make a comparison. Maybe we can hang al Sadr and give the Sunnis a chance to pass out some candy.
I don’t think it really matters to Hamad or Walid who broke those windows last week. Whether it was intra-Muslim retaliation or not, they aren’t going to let it shake their focus on the big picture, which is that Arab Muslims are “under siege” and victims of daily persecution by—me!, that is, any non-Muslim, non-Arab American. That's right, we're all potential persecutors these days! What else would possess Hamad to say something as ludicrous as, “’During a time like this, people are likely to target Iraqi Americans, who should report all threats to police.’”
The viciousness of a statement like that is beyond telling, though its lack of logic is self-evident enough.
By way of targeting Iraqi Americans in response to Saddam's execution, Mrs. Clancy and I drove over to east Dearborn that night and stood around for a while amidst a throng of some very happy Arabs. Mrs. Clancy even took a few photos, but that was the extent of our aiming anything at Iraqi Americans, that, and our sincerest best wishes. If anyone reported us to the police for targeting Iraqi Americans, we weren’t aware of it, and there were certainly plenty of Detroit and Dearborn cops around, mostly directing traffic, and all wearing their relaxed, Tigers-won-the-pennant faces.
It isn’t that Hamad, Walid, and Siblani are always crying wolf just to get attention. It’s that the Muslim-as-victim scheme they require to give them something to be in charge of requires a scheme to create victimizers, too, even if the accused victimizers are innocent.
How prosaic and ineffective it feels to write, simply, that there is no “siege” against the Arab community in Dearborn, not since 9/11, nor ever. The very suggestion is an insult to every resident of the area, Arab, Muslim, or non-Muslim.
And this kind of inflammatory rhetoric isn't helping anybody.
CAIR's Got Friends in High Places
Andrew C. McCarthy of NRO Online has something quite interesting to report on the cozy relationship between the TSA and CAIR:
"As if snuggling up to CAIR, coercing our law-enforcement and intelligence professionals to endure CAIR’s Islamic 'sensitivity training,' and inviting CAIR to weigh in on our nation’s foreign policy were not enough, we now have a Bush-administration agency publishing an unedited CAIR press release on publicly subsidized, official government Internet space.
"In this instance, right under TSA’s emblem and a memorial banner depicting the late President Gerald R. Ford, Americans were treated to a news announcement beneath the big blue headline, 'CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training.' If you have the stomach for it, compare this TSA posting to the official CAIR press release from which it cribbed. They are identical."
Read about it here.
"As if snuggling up to CAIR, coercing our law-enforcement and intelligence professionals to endure CAIR’s Islamic 'sensitivity training,' and inviting CAIR to weigh in on our nation’s foreign policy were not enough, we now have a Bush-administration agency publishing an unedited CAIR press release on publicly subsidized, official government Internet space.
"In this instance, right under TSA’s emblem and a memorial banner depicting the late President Gerald R. Ford, Americans were treated to a news announcement beneath the big blue headline, 'CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training.' If you have the stomach for it, compare this TSA posting to the official CAIR press release from which it cribbed. They are identical."
Read about it here.
It Must all Depend on Whose Theocracy Is Being Gored
Credit to Standfast at One Eternal Day for the following example of separation of church and state, Democratic style:
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Theocracy looming
Is this sort of thing only OK when it's about Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, or Harold Ford, or, in this case, Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan? How would the press report the story if the religious service were celebrating the election of a conservative? Surely this is clear evidence of an impending theocracy:
GRAND RAPIDS -- In a rousing three-hour gospel service, 1,400 worshippers praised Gov. Jennifer Granholm as a leader anointed by God to lead the state into a new era of justice and prosperity.
At an inaugural prayer service, preachers compared her to the biblical heroine Esther, a Persian queen who saved her fellow Jews from slaughter.
Granholm may be God's instrument to help save the state from unemployment, poorly funded schools and other evils, ministers said in the packed service at Renaissance Church of God in Christ, 1001 33rd St. SE.
"Governor, I don't believe it was an accident. I believe it was the providence of God that you as a modern-day Esther were called to the throne at a time like this," said Bishop Nathaniel Wells II, head of the Church of God in Christ denomination in West Michigan.
The Rev. William Wyne, of Battle Creek, said she may even be a "modern-day Mary of Nazareth, who will give birth to a fresh vision, a fresh hope, a fresh renewal for all people in Michigan."
Read the rest here.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Theocracy looming
Is this sort of thing only OK when it's about Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama, or Harold Ford, or, in this case, Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan? How would the press report the story if the religious service were celebrating the election of a conservative? Surely this is clear evidence of an impending theocracy:
GRAND RAPIDS -- In a rousing three-hour gospel service, 1,400 worshippers praised Gov. Jennifer Granholm as a leader anointed by God to lead the state into a new era of justice and prosperity.
At an inaugural prayer service, preachers compared her to the biblical heroine Esther, a Persian queen who saved her fellow Jews from slaughter.
Granholm may be God's instrument to help save the state from unemployment, poorly funded schools and other evils, ministers said in the packed service at Renaissance Church of God in Christ, 1001 33rd St. SE.
"Governor, I don't believe it was an accident. I believe it was the providence of God that you as a modern-day Esther were called to the throne at a time like this," said Bishop Nathaniel Wells II, head of the Church of God in Christ denomination in West Michigan.
The Rev. William Wyne, of Battle Creek, said she may even be a "modern-day Mary of Nazareth, who will give birth to a fresh vision, a fresh hope, a fresh renewal for all people in Michigan."
Read the rest here.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
'W' Gets His Man
Detroit newspapers know a good story when it falls on their heads like a ton of bricks.
Take the Detroit News, which on the day Saddam was going to be hanged buried a one-and-a-half inch news brief about it on page 7A.
The Detroit News’s above-the-fold front page was instead reserved for an unremarkable photo of some people laying mementoes at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids (“Ford’s Last Journey”), and a windy news analysis on how Wall Street will do in 2007.
Today, now that Saddam is dead, the Detroit News and the rest of the media have noticed, because they can't help but notice, and the News has a lurid “SADDAM HANGS” headline in second-coming type.
Before Saddam actually became Dead Man Walking the press were all set to do their part covering the protracted ceremonies burying Gerry Ford. This was in hopes of lecturing America, (nobody in journalism reports any more—it’s all about “raising awareness”) that Ford was the great Republican president, in contrast to those other two guys whose names we won’t mention.
But then the Iraqis had to go and hang Saddam, completely bogarting the planned news cycle away from Gerry Ford’s funeral, (“Now there was a real leader. Remember how gracefully he presided over the rout of Saigon?”)
Even the Western media is not going to be able to keep people from involuntarily smiling at the all-too-rare occurrence in this world of actual justice taking place, instead of just being demanded and lied about by people who don't know the meaning of the word.
But that doesn’t mean the media won’t work mightily to keep the good fact of Saddam’s execution as far away as possible from the role played by the one man who is almost single-handedly responsible for getting him.
This is by no means a denigration of the role of the coalition forces, Iraqi interpreters and fighters, and countless other mostly unknown persons, thousands of them, who assisted in hunting him down, many of them at the loss of their lives.
But if you follow back the chain of events that led to Friday night's hanging of this war criminal, it is inescapable to conclude that the coalition forces and liberated Iraqis did not dispatch themselves to accomplish this goal, someone had to dispatch them; nor did the US Congress bestir themselves to support (briefly) this goal, someone had to lead them; nor did the UN, Chirac, Putin, Blix, Annan et al shame themselves to oppose and obstruct it, but that someone had to defy them; nor did the Western media almost universally lie, sabotage, and confabulate in an effort to accomplish the failure in Iraq they had themselves prophesied, but someone had to ignore them like the gnats and houseflies after whom they have closely patterned their behavior. The decision to depose Saddam Hussein and bring him to justice didn’t make itself, some leader had to make it.
Category 5 hurricanes are the results of blind forces and it is silly to blame them on policitical enemies. Liberating nations and bringing war criminals to justice takes human decision, and someone deserves credit.
When US Special Forces dug him out of his spider hole in December 2003, Saddam, disoriented and afraid, still had to try brassing it out. "My name is Saddam Hussein,” he said. “I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."
US Special Forces, the smartest and best warriors the world has ever seen, knew exactly who had brought them all together that day, and who had earned the respect. They told Saddam, "Regards from President Bush."
Take the Detroit News, which on the day Saddam was going to be hanged buried a one-and-a-half inch news brief about it on page 7A.
The Detroit News’s above-the-fold front page was instead reserved for an unremarkable photo of some people laying mementoes at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids (“Ford’s Last Journey”), and a windy news analysis on how Wall Street will do in 2007.
Today, now that Saddam is dead, the Detroit News and the rest of the media have noticed, because they can't help but notice, and the News has a lurid “SADDAM HANGS” headline in second-coming type.
Before Saddam actually became Dead Man Walking the press were all set to do their part covering the protracted ceremonies burying Gerry Ford. This was in hopes of lecturing America, (nobody in journalism reports any more—it’s all about “raising awareness”) that Ford was the great Republican president, in contrast to those other two guys whose names we won’t mention.
But then the Iraqis had to go and hang Saddam, completely bogarting the planned news cycle away from Gerry Ford’s funeral, (“Now there was a real leader. Remember how gracefully he presided over the rout of Saigon?”)
Even the Western media is not going to be able to keep people from involuntarily smiling at the all-too-rare occurrence in this world of actual justice taking place, instead of just being demanded and lied about by people who don't know the meaning of the word.
But that doesn’t mean the media won’t work mightily to keep the good fact of Saddam’s execution as far away as possible from the role played by the one man who is almost single-handedly responsible for getting him.
This is by no means a denigration of the role of the coalition forces, Iraqi interpreters and fighters, and countless other mostly unknown persons, thousands of them, who assisted in hunting him down, many of them at the loss of their lives.
But if you follow back the chain of events that led to Friday night's hanging of this war criminal, it is inescapable to conclude that the coalition forces and liberated Iraqis did not dispatch themselves to accomplish this goal, someone had to dispatch them; nor did the US Congress bestir themselves to support (briefly) this goal, someone had to lead them; nor did the UN, Chirac, Putin, Blix, Annan et al shame themselves to oppose and obstruct it, but that someone had to defy them; nor did the Western media almost universally lie, sabotage, and confabulate in an effort to accomplish the failure in Iraq they had themselves prophesied, but someone had to ignore them like the gnats and houseflies after whom they have closely patterned their behavior. The decision to depose Saddam Hussein and bring him to justice didn’t make itself, some leader had to make it.
Category 5 hurricanes are the results of blind forces and it is silly to blame them on policitical enemies. Liberating nations and bringing war criminals to justice takes human decision, and someone deserves credit.
When US Special Forces dug him out of his spider hole in December 2003, Saddam, disoriented and afraid, still had to try brassing it out. "My name is Saddam Hussein,” he said. “I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."
US Special Forces, the smartest and best warriors the world has ever seen, knew exactly who had brought them all together that day, and who had earned the respect. They told Saddam, "Regards from President Bush."
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Shall They Overcome Some Day?
And speaking of civil rights heroes, DU readers from out of town may not be aware that Dearborn’s very own Henry Ford Museum, in recent years, obtained and now has on display the very Birmingham bus to the back of which the late Rosa Parks refused to move.
And now we have become aware that, right after the incident in Minnesota of the six imams having to be forcibly de-planed, one incisive MSNBC interviewer managed a comparison between the imams' refusal to exit the plane when ordered and the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on the Birmingham bus. Even interviewee Ibrahim Hooper had to choke on that one.
Still, DU has heard rumors, unconfirmed, that farsighted Henry Ford Museum curators seeking to expand their “civil-rights heroes” collection, have been negotiating with US Air for the purchase of the six unassigned seats from which the courageous imams refused to be removed (except by means of police escort).
Nor have we been able to confirm rumors that Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR is calling on all Muslim Americans to boycott US airlines and begin crossing the country on foot, in silent defiance of the airlines’ discriminatory policies.
And now we have become aware that, right after the incident in Minnesota of the six imams having to be forcibly de-planed, one incisive MSNBC interviewer managed a comparison between the imams' refusal to exit the plane when ordered and the refusal of Rosa Parks to give up her seat on the Birmingham bus. Even interviewee Ibrahim Hooper had to choke on that one.
Still, DU has heard rumors, unconfirmed, that farsighted Henry Ford Museum curators seeking to expand their “civil-rights heroes” collection, have been negotiating with US Air for the purchase of the six unassigned seats from which the courageous imams refused to be removed (except by means of police escort).
Nor have we been able to confirm rumors that Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR is calling on all Muslim Americans to boycott US airlines and begin crossing the country on foot, in silent defiance of the airlines’ discriminatory policies.
CAIR Awarded for Free Speech on Thursday, Silences Blog on Friday
According to CAIR’s website, CAIR-Michigan’s very own Dawud Walid was honored by the Detroit ACLU on Thursday for “courageously defending the Bill of Rights and helping to protect our civil liberties.” What the ACLU had in mind was congratulating one of its co-plaintiffs, CAIR-MI, in their ridiculous, and doomed, lawsuit against the NSA, which is on its way to being eviscerated by real judges at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. We took a look at that case in September.
But I really got a kick out of the article's description of CAIR's mission “to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”
The article, datelined December 15 and entitled "CAIR-MI Executive Director Honored By ACLU For Protecting Civil Liberties,” is listed on national CAIR’s website. Take a look and you'll see that, immediately above thatheadline trumpeting the award for protecting civil liberties, and with the same dateline of December 15, is another article entitled "CAIR-FL: 'Kill All Muslim Kids' Hate Site Shut Down ."
CAIR Florida succeeded in getting a blog-hosting site to shut down a blog that had posted a parody encouraging violence, something, as we all know, that neither CAIR nor any of its supporters would ever support. You can read another version of what happened at Free Republic.
As far as I'm concerned even if the Florida blogger went too far, (and I haven't taken time to try to find out), there is still this business about the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech, which is paramount. Isn't that what the ACLU just gave Walid an award for "couraegously defending"? and didn’t CAIR just claim its mission was defending civil liberties? And weren’t both the ACLU and CAIR championing the protection of speech, even hate speech with terrorists over international telephone calls, in their lawsuit against the NSA, claiming it was protected by the Bill of Rights even in the face of legitimate concerns about national security?
It just isn’t right that CAIR can be this unaware of its own hypocrisy.
But I really got a kick out of the article's description of CAIR's mission “to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”
The article, datelined December 15 and entitled "CAIR-MI Executive Director Honored By ACLU For Protecting Civil Liberties,” is listed on national CAIR’s website. Take a look and you'll see that, immediately above thatheadline trumpeting the award for protecting civil liberties, and with the same dateline of December 15, is another article entitled "CAIR-FL: 'Kill All Muslim Kids' Hate Site Shut Down ."
CAIR Florida succeeded in getting a blog-hosting site to shut down a blog that had posted a parody encouraging violence, something, as we all know, that neither CAIR nor any of its supporters would ever support. You can read another version of what happened at Free Republic.
As far as I'm concerned even if the Florida blogger went too far, (and I haven't taken time to try to find out), there is still this business about the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech, which is paramount. Isn't that what the ACLU just gave Walid an award for "couraegously defending"? and didn’t CAIR just claim its mission was defending civil liberties? And weren’t both the ACLU and CAIR championing the protection of speech, even hate speech with terrorists over international telephone calls, in their lawsuit against the NSA, claiming it was protected by the Bill of Rights even in the face of legitimate concerns about national security?
It just isn’t right that CAIR can be this unaware of its own hypocrisy.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Dearborn, Michigan: Where Hezbollah Gets Its Laundry Done
Just last week in greater Dearborn there were two barely reported money laundering-related stories. First, Elfat El Aouar, the wife, or possibly former wife, of federal fugitive and LaShish restaurant owner Talal Chahine, pleaded guilty to helping Chahine hide restaurant revenues from the IRS when she was financial manager for the chain.
The intended beneficiaries included Hezbollah. Chahine is believed hiding in southern Lebanon.
According to the Chicago Tribune, “[u]sing a double set of books, the owner of La Shish chain of 15 restaurants evaded taxes while funneling some $20 million to the Lebanese militant force Hezbollah in recent years.”
In a related story, Imad Majed Hamadeh, of neighboring Dearborn Heights, also was just convicted for his part in a multi-million dollar smuggling ring operating in the area handling contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig-Zag rolling papers, and counterfeit Viagra.
Profit beneficiaries included Hezbollah.
According to federal authorities, members of the ring (18 arrested in all), “charged a ‘Resistance Tax’ in excess of the contraband cigarettes’ black market price to fund Hezbollah.” Paying the tax enables Dearborn customers to smoke knowing they aren’t only killing themselves and evading a state tobacco tax, but are helping Hezbollah kills Israeli Jews and maybe even some American military men and women in Iraq. And every now and then some Lebanese civilians.
Meanwhile, “Federal prosecutors in Michigan say Hezbollah gets more support in their area than any other Mideast terrorist group. That may have drawn Mahmoud Kourani, a Hezbollah money man, to Dearborn, Mich. after slipping into the U.S. illegally through the Mexican border. The brother of a Hezbollah general, Kourani hosted fundraisers for the Party of God before he pleaded guilty last year to materially supporting the group. He will be deported after he finishes a 54-month prison sentence.” Read more about it here, and here.
Another article in the Chicago Tribune from last summer, “They’re 100% American, and Pro-Hezbollah,” describes how in Dearborn the “community leaders say Lebanese-Americans are not supporting terrorism against the United States. Even though the U.S. government has linked Hezbollah with the deadly attack on the Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s, Hezbollah has never attacked America at home, they argue, and has shown no interest in doing so.”
Not supporting terrorism? That's a pretty weak argument, since just because Hezbollah has never attacked America at home doesn't mean Hezbollah has never attacked America. Hezbollah’s slogan is “Death to America!,” and always has been. Hezbollah has been murdering Americans since its first year of existence. Here's just part of their long record of trying to live up to it.
And a report last week from Beirut only last Sunday described “more than a half-million pro-Hezbollah demonstrators chanting ‘Death to America!'’and ‘Death to Israel!’ in the heart of downtown,” so that “the Lebanese capital seemed more like a vision of Tehran.”
Nor is Hezbollah limiting itself to Lebanon. American intelligence sources report that Hezbollah is actively assisting in training the Mahdi army in Iraq, killing, by the way, a lot of Americans.
Another report has said “that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.
“This should come as no surprise, really, since many of Baghdad’s Shiites were out on the streets chanting 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' …in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.
“…’Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah,’ the crowd chanted.
“’Mahdi Army and Hezbollah are one. Let them confront us if they dare,’ the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq.”
No one needs to pretend any more that Hezbollah isn't getting Lebanese civilians killed, too. A new war crimes report shows how Hezbollah’s use of civilian cover, (as was reported in tiny media whispers in July and August and therefore widely ignored), was a key part of Hezbollah's strategy in its recent war against Israel.
"’[The organization's operatives] live in their houses, in their schools, in their churches, in their fields, in their farms and in their factories,’ said Mr. Nasrallah in a TV interview on May 27, several weeks before the war. ‘You can't destroy them in the same way you would destroy an army.’
“Exactly what Mr. Nasrallah means is illustrated in the testimonials of the captured fighters. Asked why Hezbollah would risk the destruction of civilian areas by firing from them, [Hezbollah fighter Hussein Ali Mahmoud Suleiman] replied that while in theory private homes belonged to ‘the residents of the village . . . in essence they belong to Hezbollah.’
"....Islamists seek to use the restraint of Western powers against them. They shoot at our civilians from the safety of their own civilian enclaves that they know we are reluctant to attack. Then if by chance their civilians are killed, they call in CNN and al-Jazeera cameras.... ”
The intended beneficiaries included Hezbollah. Chahine is believed hiding in southern Lebanon.
According to the Chicago Tribune, “[u]sing a double set of books, the owner of La Shish chain of 15 restaurants evaded taxes while funneling some $20 million to the Lebanese militant force Hezbollah in recent years.”
In a related story, Imad Majed Hamadeh, of neighboring Dearborn Heights, also was just convicted for his part in a multi-million dollar smuggling ring operating in the area handling contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig-Zag rolling papers, and counterfeit Viagra.
Profit beneficiaries included Hezbollah.
According to federal authorities, members of the ring (18 arrested in all), “charged a ‘Resistance Tax’ in excess of the contraband cigarettes’ black market price to fund Hezbollah.” Paying the tax enables Dearborn customers to smoke knowing they aren’t only killing themselves and evading a state tobacco tax, but are helping Hezbollah kills Israeli Jews and maybe even some American military men and women in Iraq. And every now and then some Lebanese civilians.
Meanwhile, “Federal prosecutors in Michigan say Hezbollah gets more support in their area than any other Mideast terrorist group. That may have drawn Mahmoud Kourani, a Hezbollah money man, to Dearborn, Mich. after slipping into the U.S. illegally through the Mexican border. The brother of a Hezbollah general, Kourani hosted fundraisers for the Party of God before he pleaded guilty last year to materially supporting the group. He will be deported after he finishes a 54-month prison sentence.” Read more about it here, and here.
Another article in the Chicago Tribune from last summer, “They’re 100% American, and Pro-Hezbollah,” describes how in Dearborn the “community leaders say Lebanese-Americans are not supporting terrorism against the United States. Even though the U.S. government has linked Hezbollah with the deadly attack on the Marine barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s, Hezbollah has never attacked America at home, they argue, and has shown no interest in doing so.”
Not supporting terrorism? That's a pretty weak argument, since just because Hezbollah has never attacked America at home doesn't mean Hezbollah has never attacked America. Hezbollah’s slogan is “Death to America!,” and always has been. Hezbollah has been murdering Americans since its first year of existence. Here's just part of their long record of trying to live up to it.
And a report last week from Beirut only last Sunday described “more than a half-million pro-Hezbollah demonstrators chanting ‘Death to America!'’and ‘Death to Israel!’ in the heart of downtown,” so that “the Lebanese capital seemed more like a vision of Tehran.”
Nor is Hezbollah limiting itself to Lebanon. American intelligence sources report that Hezbollah is actively assisting in training the Mahdi army in Iraq, killing, by the way, a lot of Americans.
Another report has said “that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.
“This should come as no surprise, really, since many of Baghdad’s Shiites were out on the streets chanting 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' …in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.
“…’Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah,’ the crowd chanted.
“’Mahdi Army and Hezbollah are one. Let them confront us if they dare,’ the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq.”
No one needs to pretend any more that Hezbollah isn't getting Lebanese civilians killed, too. A new war crimes report shows how Hezbollah’s use of civilian cover, (as was reported in tiny media whispers in July and August and therefore widely ignored), was a key part of Hezbollah's strategy in its recent war against Israel.
"’[The organization's operatives] live in their houses, in their schools, in their churches, in their fields, in their farms and in their factories,’ said Mr. Nasrallah in a TV interview on May 27, several weeks before the war. ‘You can't destroy them in the same way you would destroy an army.’
“Exactly what Mr. Nasrallah means is illustrated in the testimonials of the captured fighters. Asked why Hezbollah would risk the destruction of civilian areas by firing from them, [Hezbollah fighter Hussein Ali Mahmoud Suleiman] replied that while in theory private homes belonged to ‘the residents of the village . . . in essence they belong to Hezbollah.’
"....Islamists seek to use the restraint of Western powers against them. They shoot at our civilians from the safety of their own civilian enclaves that they know we are reluctant to attack. Then if by chance their civilians are killed, they call in CNN and al-Jazeera cameras.... ”
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Carolyn Glick on Freedom of Speech
“This is the nature of our times. We are at war and those who warn of its dangers are being systematically silenced by our enemies who demand that nothing get in the way of our complacency with our own destruction.
“If journalists, intellectuals, social critics, authors and concerned citizens throughout the world do not rise up and demand that their governments protect their right to free expression and arrest and punish those who intimidate and trounce that right, one day, years from now, when students of history ask how it came to pass that the Free World willingly enabled its own destruction, they will have to look no further than the contrasting fortunes of Al-Jazeera and Dyab Abou Jahjah on the one hand and Le Figaro and Robert Redeker on the other.”
She’s tough on Tony Blair, whom I admire, but her article on freedom of speech is worth reading.
“If journalists, intellectuals, social critics, authors and concerned citizens throughout the world do not rise up and demand that their governments protect their right to free expression and arrest and punish those who intimidate and trounce that right, one day, years from now, when students of history ask how it came to pass that the Free World willingly enabled its own destruction, they will have to look no further than the contrasting fortunes of Al-Jazeera and Dyab Abou Jahjah on the one hand and Le Figaro and Robert Redeker on the other.”
She’s tough on Tony Blair, whom I admire, but her article on freedom of speech is worth reading.
Propaganda Islam Style
They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water,
it will leap out right away to escape the danger.
But, if you put a frog in a kettle that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant,
and then you gradually heat the kettle until it starts boiling,
the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late.
The frog's survival instincts are geared towards detecting sudden changes.
This story illustrates the importance of watching slowly changing trends in the environment, and not just the sudden changes.
The
The jump should not be the move out of
The Islamic Jihad is not just about bombs and physical destruction. Jihad by sword is one method but, there is also jihad by pen.
How many readers out there are aware that ACCESS (
I believe that our fundamental right to safety was somehow violated here. Our country is at war with so called Islamic Extremists. These terrorist don’t generally arrive and stay here legally. ACCESS is in charge of helping Muslim immigrants get into the country. This is a lot like letting the inmates run the asylum. If ACCESS was raided I believe that deserves a headline and follow-up. This is our money in our town – don’t they have an obligation to speak and let us know what this is about?
Tuesday, December 12, 2006 the Freep’s Niraj Warikoo turns the heat up a little more with a headline about Muslim furor.
No clear moment marks the time when Dearborn's pot began to boil. This blog is perhaps the first overt sign of frogs beginning to jump out – but, we don’t plan to leave. We are determined to wake up lethargic citizens and impassion them with our boiling furor. We want to turn the heat down.
We invite anyone who feels the same to join, write, or spread the word.
Darby Shaw
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Global Warming: It's Not the Heat, It's Our Stupidity
For the first time, the United States Supreme Court last week heard oral arguments about global warming. A case was brought by the State of Massachusetts against the EPA for failing to regulate, among other harmful emissions, carbon dioxide. The first thing the Court wanted to know was whether or not Massachusetts even had any business bringing a lawsuit against the EPA on the facts it was alleging, in particular, whether or not the possible future damage that Massachusetts alleged was merely speculative, or, as required to give the state standing to sue, “imminent.”
I read about the case in a commentary on FindLaw by legal writer and commentator Michael C. Dorf. Dorf believes that global warming is quite real, and he was quite impatient that the Justices were even wasting their time with the question of imminent damage. He was especially disappointed that the Justices were quizzing the lawyer for Massachusetts about whether or not further regulating American car manufacturing would make much difference if the rest if the planet could churn out all the CO2 it wants.
Legal commentators at Dorf’s level are only too at home with the the hair-splitting of constitutional law issues and slow work of appellate reasoning. Yes, it may have taken years for the high court jurisprudence to grind through desegregation, the separation of church and state, and reparations for the interned Japanese. But as Dorf sees it:
OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING!
It may not be happening that fast, but it is DEFINITELY happening--slowly, surely, inch by inch, inexorably, until one day we will wake up and it will be too late. Failure by the Court to skip the standing issue and to act promptly on the merits of the case is fiddling while Rome burns. Dorf wrote this about global warming's less-than-obvious, but still lethal, dangers:
“Many phenomena are non-linear; that is to say, each small change leads to no discernible difference until a tipping point is reached, after which dramatic change ensues. Warming itself provides a familiar example. A block of ice slowly heated from 29 degrees Fahrenheit, to 30 degrees, to 31 degrees appears largely unchanged, until it hits 32 degrees, at which point it begins to melt.
“To the extent that global warming works in a similar fashion, waiting for cataclysmic change to be imminent may mean waiting to take action until the action taken will likely accomplish far too little to avoid the harm.”
Upon reading this, a light went on in my head, (usually it’s quite dark up there), and I asked myself, How can people who see a threat taking decades to unfold as so pressing, while remaining so utterly indifferent to the documented, unrelenting, clear and present dangers of global Islamic jihad?
It occurs to me that, if a percentage of the intensity and focus of people who are convinced of the imminent danger of global warming could ever be brought to bear on the imminent danger of global jihad, the war against global Islamic terrorism would be won and behind us in five years. If we could but convince the same segment of the population clinging to the “consensus” theory on the greenhouse affect that jihadists are--if not evil, bloodthirsty, and determined to kill us--at least projecting an unacceptably large carbon footprint way beyond acceptable limits recognized by the Kyoto Treaty or the Green Party platform.
Especially bizarre to me is the disjunct between the standard acceptable to global warmists' for showing a danger's "imminence," as compared with that required by people attempting to rally a response to global terrorism.
You all may recall that, on the subject of “imminence,” the Bush administration was savagely attacked for not waiting until the danger of a Saddam armed with WMD had become “imminent,” while at the same time claiming that Bush had lied by claiming that it was. For example, there was this volcanic eruption by Al Gore on the subject, the aftereffects of which are still being measured by climate scientists.
Except Bush did not claim that the danger from Iraq was imminent, but only that the threat was growing, and the logic, (and it was about the last time logic played any role in America’s war policy), was based on recognition that waiting for “cataclysmic change to be imminent,” (i.e., waiting until Saddam was too well-armed to be easily subdued militarily), would be irresponsible and foolhardy.
I quote: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent....If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.") Yet this is the identical logic of Dorf and the folks who worry about global warming.
Where's the difference? It looks to me that those on the left who tend to be most worried about the imminent danger of global warming, condemned the Iraq war's failure to meet an incontrovertible “imminent danger” standard. They argue that lack of a "smoking gun" have made all the actions taken to meet the potential threat in Iraq—again, to use the language of the liberal side that just won the Congress back—not only questionable, but certainly unnecessary, wasteful of the country’s resources, illegal, and probably were crimes against the Constitution, the UN, and all of humanity. In other words, those who opposed Bush and his aggressive response to worldwide jihad argued that, well, it wasn't imminent enough. Their standard for that category of threat is pretty high: come back when the airliners have changed course, when the dirty bombs have actually gone off, when the towers are actually burning.
As those of you who recall the November 7 election should now realize, the USA won’t be taking any pre-emptive steps in our own defense again. We may not even take them now if danger is imminent. Nancy Pelosi was wrong to keep telling us the election was a referendum on the war in Iraq. It wasn't. It was a referendum on the imminence of global jihad. And Americans voted in favor of the Teletubby version that things aren't really so bad.
And that's why these days, while the West still has time to stop Iran from getting a workable nuclear bomb, no one is willing seriously to discuss military intervention in order to forestall that imminent cataclysmic change: even though we all know that what might be difficult before Iran gets the bomb will be impossible after Iran has the bomb.
And remember how Kaddafi was so scared of George Bush in 2003 he voluntarily coughed up his WMD programs? Now he’s kicking himself between Seinfeld reruns and the Lou Dobbs Show wishing he had them back so he could join everyone else threatening to use them against a weakened Israel. And who's to stop them? Lebanon teeters inches above Syria’s iron glove. Pakistan is making a separate peace with the Taliban. The land-for-peace method of national self-destruction has worked so well for Israel, they're copying it in the cities of Paris, Marseilles, Copenhagen, and Florence, with just as much promise of success.
The global warming argument in the Supreme Court literally came down to whether inches of Massachusetts coastline might be threatened with washing away at some point no earlier than the next few decades. Look at a map of the world and ask yourself how many inches will be lost if we lose Iraq? And when? Democrats are talking about pulling out in months. Or if we lose Lebanon again, and it becomes an armed base for Iran, Syria, and Al Qaeda. We have already lost a province or two of Afghanistan. Israel, our only genuine ally in the region, has been weakened by letting herself be dragged out of her justified fight with Hezbollah. Large areas of European cities, in France, in Denmark, in Sweden, literally, have been de-nationalized and become “no-go zones” that belong now to the Umma.
(I think we lost San Francisco some time in the 1960s, but now the US military isn’t welcome there at all, while you can just bet that any Muslim “spiritual leader” with a few sharp words for America and the Jews can still expect a key to the city).
Whether you believe in global warming or not is neither here nor there as far as the danger of jihad is concerned. It isn't as if the two have to be mutually exclusive. The question is how we react to something that is at least as imminent as global warming, and, realistically speaking, much more so. Islamic militants won't like you better for saving the planet. They still think it all belongs to them, anyway.
If global warming is the biggest threat we all face, maybe there won’t be any polar bears left in 2030, because, as Al Gore pedantically explains, they’re all running out of ice floes to sail around on. But if the jihadists have their way, there won’t be any Europe in 2030, or anything we recognize as Europe, or possibly even any America. Now, while I myself have never actually seen a polar bear, I have seen Europe, and I’d like to go back someday without having to buy my wife a burka. For that matter, I’ve been to the top of the World Trade Center, but I can’t do that any more, and neither can anyone else. I would call that a more present measurable damage than the erosion of the ice caps.
And what difference is it going to make if the shore of the Kennedy compound extends ten fewer feet into Nantucket Sound in 2020, when the whole country is under Sharia law? And what if the global warmists are right and the mean temperature of Michigan rises by 10 degrees in our lifetimes? (Even true believers don’t say it will rise that fast). It gets up to 120 in Iraq all the time, and that’s not what’s killing our GIs--or the Iraqi police--or freedom-loving Iraqis who would choose democracy if anyone would let them do it.
It’s jihadists doing that killing, not the heat. Jihadists like the heat. In fact, they even support global warming, judging by the amount of excitement they show when their spiritual leaders preach about the coming death by incineration of their many, many enemies. If Iran gets the bomb, just the testing program alone will heat things up more than a million Ford Explorers. And if Tehran nukes Tel Aviv, isn’t the dust in the air likely to have a greenhouse effect, (or at least, cause a nuclear winter)? But, to borrow the emotive phrase of the left on issues they do care about, like global warming or Hurricane Katrina, “Nobody is doing anything!”
Remember why global warming is so urgent: “Many phenomena are non-linear; that is to say, each small change leads to no discernible difference until a tipping point is reached, after which dramatic change ensues.”
Global jihad is that block of ice melting, and it's more accurate now to say it has reached the slushy stage. We survived one cycle of this already. It began in earnest in 1983, and slowly progressed to the cataclysm of 9/11, when the world, we were told, changed forever. When America, for about 90 days, had a brief moment of wakefulness. But after that, hundreds of millions of us pressed the big American snooze button and just like that we were back to dreaming.
Now far too many Americans think the terror war is only a “so-called war,” nothing more than a talking point, a concoction. The whole goddamned country will rush to war against Mel Gibson or Michael Richards because they said something stupid while harming no one. But not a peep when our leaders seriously propose sitting down to tea with the fiends who turned Iran into a Muslim prison and Syria into a terror state, tormented our hostages, call for our nation’s death thousands of times a day, and are this minute pouring millions into Iraq to buy bombs to kill American sons and daughters.
Meanwhile the temperature of global jihad is still rising, and it's rising a lot faster than half a degree in 200 years. And yet how many people do you know who aren't convinced global warming is the "growing threat"?
So I propose somehow linking up the threat of global warming with the threat of global jihad. Perhaps a report can be released disclosing how many cubic feet of CO2 800,000 Lebanese Shiites give off per outraged chant of “Death to America!” Or how many polluting gasses are given off by just one Kassam rocket, whether or not it manages to kill an Israeli schoolkid? Or how much sulfur dioxide is given off by every IED, regardless of if it kills a US Marine? Or what an insult it was to the troposphere when the World Trade Center was burning, even if we have made peace with what that act of war as an insult to our national honor?
If it helps you sleep nights, just forget about global jihad as a national security issue. Think of it as an EPA violation.
Think of it as just plain bad for the planet.
I read about the case in a commentary on FindLaw by legal writer and commentator Michael C. Dorf. Dorf believes that global warming is quite real, and he was quite impatient that the Justices were even wasting their time with the question of imminent damage. He was especially disappointed that the Justices were quizzing the lawyer for Massachusetts about whether or not further regulating American car manufacturing would make much difference if the rest if the planet could churn out all the CO2 it wants.
Legal commentators at Dorf’s level are only too at home with the the hair-splitting of constitutional law issues and slow work of appellate reasoning. Yes, it may have taken years for the high court jurisprudence to grind through desegregation, the separation of church and state, and reparations for the interned Japanese. But as Dorf sees it:
OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING!
It may not be happening that fast, but it is DEFINITELY happening--slowly, surely, inch by inch, inexorably, until one day we will wake up and it will be too late. Failure by the Court to skip the standing issue and to act promptly on the merits of the case is fiddling while Rome burns. Dorf wrote this about global warming's less-than-obvious, but still lethal, dangers:
“Many phenomena are non-linear; that is to say, each small change leads to no discernible difference until a tipping point is reached, after which dramatic change ensues. Warming itself provides a familiar example. A block of ice slowly heated from 29 degrees Fahrenheit, to 30 degrees, to 31 degrees appears largely unchanged, until it hits 32 degrees, at which point it begins to melt.
“To the extent that global warming works in a similar fashion, waiting for cataclysmic change to be imminent may mean waiting to take action until the action taken will likely accomplish far too little to avoid the harm.”
Upon reading this, a light went on in my head, (usually it’s quite dark up there), and I asked myself, How can people who see a threat taking decades to unfold as so pressing, while remaining so utterly indifferent to the documented, unrelenting, clear and present dangers of global Islamic jihad?
It occurs to me that, if a percentage of the intensity and focus of people who are convinced of the imminent danger of global warming could ever be brought to bear on the imminent danger of global jihad, the war against global Islamic terrorism would be won and behind us in five years. If we could but convince the same segment of the population clinging to the “consensus” theory on the greenhouse affect that jihadists are--if not evil, bloodthirsty, and determined to kill us--at least projecting an unacceptably large carbon footprint way beyond acceptable limits recognized by the Kyoto Treaty or the Green Party platform.
Especially bizarre to me is the disjunct between the standard acceptable to global warmists' for showing a danger's "imminence," as compared with that required by people attempting to rally a response to global terrorism.
You all may recall that, on the subject of “imminence,” the Bush administration was savagely attacked for not waiting until the danger of a Saddam armed with WMD had become “imminent,” while at the same time claiming that Bush had lied by claiming that it was. For example, there was this volcanic eruption by Al Gore on the subject, the aftereffects of which are still being measured by climate scientists.
Except Bush did not claim that the danger from Iraq was imminent, but only that the threat was growing, and the logic, (and it was about the last time logic played any role in America’s war policy), was based on recognition that waiting for “cataclysmic change to be imminent,” (i.e., waiting until Saddam was too well-armed to be easily subdued militarily), would be irresponsible and foolhardy.
I quote: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent....If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.") Yet this is the identical logic of Dorf and the folks who worry about global warming.
Where's the difference? It looks to me that those on the left who tend to be most worried about the imminent danger of global warming, condemned the Iraq war's failure to meet an incontrovertible “imminent danger” standard. They argue that lack of a "smoking gun" have made all the actions taken to meet the potential threat in Iraq—again, to use the language of the liberal side that just won the Congress back—not only questionable, but certainly unnecessary, wasteful of the country’s resources, illegal, and probably were crimes against the Constitution, the UN, and all of humanity. In other words, those who opposed Bush and his aggressive response to worldwide jihad argued that, well, it wasn't imminent enough. Their standard for that category of threat is pretty high: come back when the airliners have changed course, when the dirty bombs have actually gone off, when the towers are actually burning.
As those of you who recall the November 7 election should now realize, the USA won’t be taking any pre-emptive steps in our own defense again. We may not even take them now if danger is imminent. Nancy Pelosi was wrong to keep telling us the election was a referendum on the war in Iraq. It wasn't. It was a referendum on the imminence of global jihad. And Americans voted in favor of the Teletubby version that things aren't really so bad.
And that's why these days, while the West still has time to stop Iran from getting a workable nuclear bomb, no one is willing seriously to discuss military intervention in order to forestall that imminent cataclysmic change: even though we all know that what might be difficult before Iran gets the bomb will be impossible after Iran has the bomb.
And remember how Kaddafi was so scared of George Bush in 2003 he voluntarily coughed up his WMD programs? Now he’s kicking himself between Seinfeld reruns and the Lou Dobbs Show wishing he had them back so he could join everyone else threatening to use them against a weakened Israel. And who's to stop them? Lebanon teeters inches above Syria’s iron glove. Pakistan is making a separate peace with the Taliban. The land-for-peace method of national self-destruction has worked so well for Israel, they're copying it in the cities of Paris, Marseilles, Copenhagen, and Florence, with just as much promise of success.
The global warming argument in the Supreme Court literally came down to whether inches of Massachusetts coastline might be threatened with washing away at some point no earlier than the next few decades. Look at a map of the world and ask yourself how many inches will be lost if we lose Iraq? And when? Democrats are talking about pulling out in months. Or if we lose Lebanon again, and it becomes an armed base for Iran, Syria, and Al Qaeda. We have already lost a province or two of Afghanistan. Israel, our only genuine ally in the region, has been weakened by letting herself be dragged out of her justified fight with Hezbollah. Large areas of European cities, in France, in Denmark, in Sweden, literally, have been de-nationalized and become “no-go zones” that belong now to the Umma.
(I think we lost San Francisco some time in the 1960s, but now the US military isn’t welcome there at all, while you can just bet that any Muslim “spiritual leader” with a few sharp words for America and the Jews can still expect a key to the city).
Whether you believe in global warming or not is neither here nor there as far as the danger of jihad is concerned. It isn't as if the two have to be mutually exclusive. The question is how we react to something that is at least as imminent as global warming, and, realistically speaking, much more so. Islamic militants won't like you better for saving the planet. They still think it all belongs to them, anyway.
If global warming is the biggest threat we all face, maybe there won’t be any polar bears left in 2030, because, as Al Gore pedantically explains, they’re all running out of ice floes to sail around on. But if the jihadists have their way, there won’t be any Europe in 2030, or anything we recognize as Europe, or possibly even any America. Now, while I myself have never actually seen a polar bear, I have seen Europe, and I’d like to go back someday without having to buy my wife a burka. For that matter, I’ve been to the top of the World Trade Center, but I can’t do that any more, and neither can anyone else. I would call that a more present measurable damage than the erosion of the ice caps.
And what difference is it going to make if the shore of the Kennedy compound extends ten fewer feet into Nantucket Sound in 2020, when the whole country is under Sharia law? And what if the global warmists are right and the mean temperature of Michigan rises by 10 degrees in our lifetimes? (Even true believers don’t say it will rise that fast). It gets up to 120 in Iraq all the time, and that’s not what’s killing our GIs--or the Iraqi police--or freedom-loving Iraqis who would choose democracy if anyone would let them do it.
It’s jihadists doing that killing, not the heat. Jihadists like the heat. In fact, they even support global warming, judging by the amount of excitement they show when their spiritual leaders preach about the coming death by incineration of their many, many enemies. If Iran gets the bomb, just the testing program alone will heat things up more than a million Ford Explorers. And if Tehran nukes Tel Aviv, isn’t the dust in the air likely to have a greenhouse effect, (or at least, cause a nuclear winter)? But, to borrow the emotive phrase of the left on issues they do care about, like global warming or Hurricane Katrina, “Nobody is doing anything!”
Remember why global warming is so urgent: “Many phenomena are non-linear; that is to say, each small change leads to no discernible difference until a tipping point is reached, after which dramatic change ensues.”
Global jihad is that block of ice melting, and it's more accurate now to say it has reached the slushy stage. We survived one cycle of this already. It began in earnest in 1983, and slowly progressed to the cataclysm of 9/11, when the world, we were told, changed forever. When America, for about 90 days, had a brief moment of wakefulness. But after that, hundreds of millions of us pressed the big American snooze button and just like that we were back to dreaming.
Now far too many Americans think the terror war is only a “so-called war,” nothing more than a talking point, a concoction. The whole goddamned country will rush to war against Mel Gibson or Michael Richards because they said something stupid while harming no one. But not a peep when our leaders seriously propose sitting down to tea with the fiends who turned Iran into a Muslim prison and Syria into a terror state, tormented our hostages, call for our nation’s death thousands of times a day, and are this minute pouring millions into Iraq to buy bombs to kill American sons and daughters.
Meanwhile the temperature of global jihad is still rising, and it's rising a lot faster than half a degree in 200 years. And yet how many people do you know who aren't convinced global warming is the "growing threat"?
So I propose somehow linking up the threat of global warming with the threat of global jihad. Perhaps a report can be released disclosing how many cubic feet of CO2 800,000 Lebanese Shiites give off per outraged chant of “Death to America!” Or how many polluting gasses are given off by just one Kassam rocket, whether or not it manages to kill an Israeli schoolkid? Or how much sulfur dioxide is given off by every IED, regardless of if it kills a US Marine? Or what an insult it was to the troposphere when the World Trade Center was burning, even if we have made peace with what that act of war as an insult to our national honor?
If it helps you sleep nights, just forget about global jihad as a national security issue. Think of it as an EPA violation.
Think of it as just plain bad for the planet.
Nasrallah and Syria Closer to Seizing Lebanon
That's Hassan Nasrallah's face projected onto the big screen in this AP photo.
A BBC report says that “Demonstrators are waving the red, green and white flag of Lebanon, but others are also waving the yellow flag of Hezbollah emblazoned with a fist holding up an AK-47.”
Speaking on al-Jazeera TV, Mr Siniora said Nasrallah "is trying to stage a coup. Or at least he's threatening to stage a coup. And he has already decided the outcome."
Speaking on al-Jazeera TV, Mr Siniora said Nasrallah "is trying to stage a coup. Or at least he's threatening to stage a coup. And he has already decided the outcome."
The Detroit Free Press has decided that Hezbollah's attempt to take over Lebanon for itself and its Syrian/Iranian puppetmasters is the fault of--no surprise here--the USA!
According to its "news" report on Nasrallah's efforts to topple the government, "Many in Beirut say U.S. failure to stop Israel's onslaught against Hizballah last summer crippled the Lebanese government -- a U.S. ally -- while strengthening Hizballah -- a U.S. enemy. "
The article nowhere mentions that Israel--also a US ally--was defending herself against decades of unprovoked missile attacks and incursions by Hezbollah, and that it was Israel's--and the US's--lack of firm resolve to see Hezbollah destroyed that led to Israel withdrawing with Hezbollah still in place and armed, which in turn enabled Nasrallah to claim "victory." Hezbollah, just like all terrorist groups, exploits weakness and lack of resolve. E.g., "Hizballah has more support in the population now because they are the 'victorious resistance,' cabinet member Ahmed Fatfat said."
Hezbollah doesn't have more support now, they just know that no one is going to fight back. Many in Lebanon hate Hezbollah, hated Syrian discrimination, and were sorry Israel didn't finish the job. But now Hezbollah has been emboldened by the failure of the world community to stand up to them and disarm or destroy them.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
The Day the West Stood Still
Now Britain's Labour Party leader Tony Blair gets the credit for being the first world leader to say multiculturalism is a bad idea. And Earth wasn’t even incinerated by Gort! (But just to keep on the safe side, ever since the speech all BBC announcers have been muttering "Klaatu barada nikto" on the quarter-hour).
Blair gave his speech with the express purpose of addressing multiculturalism’s limits, directed straight at Britain's stubborn non-integrated Muslims. The part that will have everyone most upset is the very end, where he says:
“Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don't come here. We don't want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed."
Whoa. So tolerance doesn't require subsidizing hate-mongers who want to destroy their host country, and never miss an opportunity to disrespect the majority culture? Our heads can't take it in.
We’re also gratified to hear the PM insisting on freedom to speak openly on the subject of Islam, an area in which the UK is much freer than we are here in the USA. Mr. Blair said it should be possible that all call can express their differences within the civility of “shared boundaries.”
“Partly we achieve it by talking openly about the problem. The very act of exploring its nature, debating and discussing it doesn't just get people thinking about the type of Britain we want for today's world; but it also eases the anxiety. It dispels any notion that it is forbidden territory. Failure to talk about it is not politically correct; it's just stupid.”
He also made it clear that there wasn't going to be any tolerance of the Muslim community's efforts to replace UK law in Islamic areas with Sharia. "Nobody can legitimately ask to stand outside the law of the nation. There is thus no question of the UK allowing the introduction of religious law in the UK."
Blair gave his speech with the express purpose of addressing multiculturalism’s limits, directed straight at Britain's stubborn non-integrated Muslims. The part that will have everyone most upset is the very end, where he says:
“Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain, Britain. So conform to it; or don't come here. We don't want the hate-mongers, whatever their race, religion or creed."
Whoa. So tolerance doesn't require subsidizing hate-mongers who want to destroy their host country, and never miss an opportunity to disrespect the majority culture? Our heads can't take it in.
We’re also gratified to hear the PM insisting on freedom to speak openly on the subject of Islam, an area in which the UK is much freer than we are here in the USA. Mr. Blair said it should be possible that all call can express their differences within the civility of “shared boundaries.”
“Partly we achieve it by talking openly about the problem. The very act of exploring its nature, debating and discussing it doesn't just get people thinking about the type of Britain we want for today's world; but it also eases the anxiety. It dispels any notion that it is forbidden territory. Failure to talk about it is not politically correct; it's just stupid.”
He also made it clear that there wasn't going to be any tolerance of the Muslim community's efforts to replace UK law in Islamic areas with Sharia. "Nobody can legitimately ask to stand outside the law of the nation. There is thus no question of the UK allowing the introduction of religious law in the UK."
Muslims Exhausted and Depressed
David Crumm’s Detroit Free Press article on Friday, “Muslims, Jews start to heal ” had a couple of interesting comments. The event, according to Crumm, included "nearly 200 Christians, Jews and Muslims met at Congregation Adat Shalom in Farmington Hills on Thursday night to listen to two rabbis and four Muslim leaders from metro Detroit.”
One of the leaders was Victor Begg, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan. He "said local Muslim leaders are fed up with non-Muslims’ demands that they continually condemn terrorism, as if they are responsible for all such crimes.
‘It is exhausting and depressing to be responsible for everyone in the world who uses our faith for evil,’ Begg said.”
Doesn't it sound as if Begg were suggesting that Islamic terrorists who commit acts of murderous evil are merely using Islam for evil, rather than engaging in violent acts in obedience to Islam? And isn't it more accurate that aren't demanding continual condemnations of terrorism, but that Islamic terrorist acts are being committed on a continuing basis?
Begg can’t be held responsible for the irony of the arrest, the very next day, of Derrick Shareef in Chicago. But, on the exhausting and depressing point of people using the faith for evil, Shareef was a Muslim convert, “who talked about his desire to wage jihad against civilians” by setting off “hand grenades at a shopping mall during the Christmas rush….Officials said Shareef had been under investigation since September, when he told an acquaintance that ‘he wanted to commit acts of violent jihad against targets in the United States as well as commit other crimes.’"
Is Begg asking us to accept, along with him, that, just supposing here, every once in a great, great while some person claiming to be of the Islamic faith commits an evil act, he is clearly doing it in part with the intention of making the Islamic faith look bad? That such a person isn't practicing Islam, he is only using Islam?
Najah Bazzy, teacher at the Islamic Center of America here in Dearborn was also one of the speakers.
She talked about the "fear" a lot of non-Muslims have of Islam "and its cultural symbols, such as Muslim women wearing scarves over their hair."
“’I will be so happy when people finally quit worrying about what's on my head and focus on what's inside my head.'"
Those of us who have fears about Islam aren’t the least bit fearful of Ms. Bazzy’s scarf.
And we are focusing upon what’s inside her head. And the heads of other Muslims, too. Say, like Derrick Shareef’s head, and whoever filled it with jihad.
One of the leaders was Victor Begg, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan. He "said local Muslim leaders are fed up with non-Muslims’ demands that they continually condemn terrorism, as if they are responsible for all such crimes.
‘It is exhausting and depressing to be responsible for everyone in the world who uses our faith for evil,’ Begg said.”
Doesn't it sound as if Begg were suggesting that Islamic terrorists who commit acts of murderous evil are merely using Islam for evil, rather than engaging in violent acts in obedience to Islam? And isn't it more accurate that aren't demanding continual condemnations of terrorism, but that Islamic terrorist acts are being committed on a continuing basis?
Begg can’t be held responsible for the irony of the arrest, the very next day, of Derrick Shareef in Chicago. But, on the exhausting and depressing point of people using the faith for evil, Shareef was a Muslim convert, “who talked about his desire to wage jihad against civilians” by setting off “hand grenades at a shopping mall during the Christmas rush….Officials said Shareef had been under investigation since September, when he told an acquaintance that ‘he wanted to commit acts of violent jihad against targets in the United States as well as commit other crimes.’"
Is Begg asking us to accept, along with him, that, just supposing here, every once in a great, great while some person claiming to be of the Islamic faith commits an evil act, he is clearly doing it in part with the intention of making the Islamic faith look bad? That such a person isn't practicing Islam, he is only using Islam?
Najah Bazzy, teacher at the Islamic Center of America here in Dearborn was also one of the speakers.
She talked about the "fear" a lot of non-Muslims have of Islam "and its cultural symbols, such as Muslim women wearing scarves over their hair."
“’I will be so happy when people finally quit worrying about what's on my head and focus on what's inside my head.'"
Those of us who have fears about Islam aren’t the least bit fearful of Ms. Bazzy’s scarf.
And we are focusing upon what’s inside her head. And the heads of other Muslims, too. Say, like Derrick Shareef’s head, and whoever filled it with jihad.
Friday, December 08, 2006
That's Our Congressman!
We have commented on legislative resolutions here before, but here is one we at DU support. US House Resolution 1082 condemns “the decision of St. Denis, France, to name a street in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted murder of Philadelphia Police Office Danny Faulkner.”
To his credit, Dearborn’s Congressman Dingell voted “yea,” to condemn. Guess who voted no? About 31 people, all Democrats, two of them from Michigan: John Conyers and Carolyn Kilpatrick.
We’ve never expected much from Rep. Kilpatrick, but Rep. Conyers is taking over as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, his greatest ambition there to impeach President Bush for fighting the war on terror.
Okay, I admit, I’ve never expected much from Conyers, either. But one would think qualification for chairing the Judiciary Committee would include a more practical attitude of disapproval for honoring convicted cop killers.
I mean, even Alcee Hastings voted to condemn.
Then again, we note that St. Denis does enjoy its own Islamic "no-go zone," from which the police are forbidden. The no-go zones are a growing Euro-phenomena. Perhaps Rue de Mumia Abu-Jamal falls inside one of these areas, in which case the French city's decision has a certain logic. Mumia has an Arab name, and he is a hero of those who defy law enforcement and will back it up with murder.
To his credit, Dearborn’s Congressman Dingell voted “yea,” to condemn. Guess who voted no? About 31 people, all Democrats, two of them from Michigan: John Conyers and Carolyn Kilpatrick.
We’ve never expected much from Rep. Kilpatrick, but Rep. Conyers is taking over as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, his greatest ambition there to impeach President Bush for fighting the war on terror.
Okay, I admit, I’ve never expected much from Conyers, either. But one would think qualification for chairing the Judiciary Committee would include a more practical attitude of disapproval for honoring convicted cop killers.
I mean, even Alcee Hastings voted to condemn.
Then again, we note that St. Denis does enjoy its own Islamic "no-go zone," from which the police are forbidden. The no-go zones are a growing Euro-phenomena. Perhaps Rue de Mumia Abu-Jamal falls inside one of these areas, in which case the French city's decision has a certain logic. Mumia has an Arab name, and he is a hero of those who defy law enforcement and will back it up with murder.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
"Hypocrisy paralyzes Lebanon"
"What started with 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' has now turned into 'Death to Siniora'. Neither Nasrallah, nor Berri, nor Aoun has attempted to preach to their sheep otherwise."
Read about it here.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Watch This Space
Thousands of Hezbollah and pro-Syrian supporters have planted themselves in downtown Beirut in what is, essentially, an attempted coup aimed at Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government. This according to Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt, quoted here.
I cannot resist pointing out that, if everything Hezbollah and its mouthpeices in the media were telling us ad nauseum in August and September about Israel having "completely destroyed" Lebanon's infrastructure were true, then, judging by those high-rises in the picture at the right (from Xinua Online), Hezbollah for Humanity has thrown up a helluva tent city in just a few days. Not my style maybe, but not much of a burned-out bombscape, either.
One can only assume that, if the UN's and the Dearborn Press & Guide's favorite social services group can take so many members away from their good works rebuilding southern Lebanon and passing out other people's money to have a days-long sit-in, maybe they should be allowed to run the whole country. Or, at least, co-run it with Syria's benevolent assistance.
All kidding aside, we have been warning that Hezbollah's lust to rule all of Lebanon, (on behalf of Syria) has only grown, and that Nasrallah will not relent unless he is made to do so, which no one appears willing to make him do.
According to Jumblatt, "They want south Lebanon to remain an arena for an open war so that it can be a commodity used for negotiations by the Iranian and Syrian regimes."
"Jumblatt added 'I never forget Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's answer when Siniora told him we have a promising summer and we expect to receive in Lebanon more than 2 million tourists.' Nasrallah looked at him in the eye and said 'My arms do not disrupt tourism.'
"Jumblatt said we lost the tourism business. The 6 % growth in the economy is now a 5 % deficit . The government revenue is down to zero. The hotels are empty. The only thing that is full are the foreign embassies ... full with the young Lebanese who have had enough of this mess and want to emigrate."
Gym Cited for Failing to Enforce Sharia
We’ll probably never know what the Fitness USA patron said to Wardeh Sultan of Dearborn, as she was dutifully at her prayers in a Dearborn Fitness USA. Perhaps it was something like, "if you’re through bowing on that treadmill, can I get on?" or even, "Move it lady, I have to be back to work in 20 minutes!" All that is reported is that the patron “interrupted” Ms. Sultan, which, of course, is enough to base a civil rights complaint on.
Ms. Sultan, who obviously spoke to the press before being properly prepared by legal counsel, said she has been a member of the gym for seven or eight years, and has never had problems praying there before. In other words, Fitness USA has honored her right to worship freely for a long time. But this time when she complained to the manager about being interrupted during her prayers, he told her something to the effect that while her fellow patron did have to respect Ms. Sultan, her fellow patron didn’t have to respect her God (Allah).
“I can’t believe you said that!” exclaimed Ms. Sultan, who, as if in a nightmare, suddenly realized that, after waking up that morning in America, had somehow found herself adrift in an unrecognizable land where people around her can't be forced by gym managers to respect Allah!
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, has leapt into the fray, saying, “They (Muslims) are resenting that they are to be suppressed from expressing themselves freely, like others,” Hamad said.
Ms. Sultan, who obviously spoke to the press before being properly prepared by legal counsel, said she has been a member of the gym for seven or eight years, and has never had problems praying there before. In other words, Fitness USA has honored her right to worship freely for a long time. But this time when she complained to the manager about being interrupted during her prayers, he told her something to the effect that while her fellow patron did have to respect Ms. Sultan, her fellow patron didn’t have to respect her God (Allah).
“I can’t believe you said that!” exclaimed Ms. Sultan, who, as if in a nightmare, suddenly realized that, after waking up that morning in America, had somehow found herself adrift in an unrecognizable land where people around her can't be forced by gym managers to respect Allah!
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, has leapt into the fray, saying, “They (Muslims) are resenting that they are to be suppressed from expressing themselves freely, like others,” Hamad said.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Cow College Cowed by CAIR
According to the Jewish Forward, Michigan State University has agreed to a plan, (at the prompting, of course, of the Michigan chapter of CAIR), to offer diversity training to students and faculty, “focusing on Islam-related subjects.”
This is MSU’s penance for harboring on its faculty Indrek Wichman, a professor of mechanical engineering, who dared to exercise his right to free speech in a private e-mail directed to the Muslim Students’ Association in the midst of the group’s tantrum over the Danish cartoons last February. The day before the group's campus protest was to be held, a website, SpartanEdge.com, owned by an MSU journalism teacher, published the cartoons. This caused further offense, as shown in an opinion piece that ran in the State News written by the Association’s “political chair,” Syed Mehdi Jafri:
“This is just a continuation of the university's anti-Muslim policies and practices, which include mandatory housing in dorms for all freshmen (which we were not given exemption from), the unavailability of halal food (which was denied upon request), the invitation to a speech by Salman Rushdie last year (which was not revoked upon request) and now remaining silent as SpartanEdge.com publishes such offensive and blasphemous caricatures.”
Apparently pushed to the point of distraction, Wichman fired off a private e-mail to the group.
“I intend to protest your protest,” he said. “I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians.” After citing several examples of brutal Islamic violence from around the world, Wichman, a rather poor speller, said “I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile ‘protests.’”
The Muslim Students’ Association went public with the e-mail, and CAIR began demanding MSU discipline Wichman, “saying the e-mail creates a hostile learning environment for students.” CAIR also wanted a mandatory freshman seminar on hate and discrimination.
MSU refused to discipline Wichman, citing his right to freedom of speech and that he hadn’t violated the university’s anti-discrimination policies. In the end CAIR got the diversity training it wanted, at least. But according to the Forward, Michigan law prevents the diversity training from being made mandatory. In that case, “Wichman told the Forward not to expect him at the training.”
This is MSU’s penance for harboring on its faculty Indrek Wichman, a professor of mechanical engineering, who dared to exercise his right to free speech in a private e-mail directed to the Muslim Students’ Association in the midst of the group’s tantrum over the Danish cartoons last February. The day before the group's campus protest was to be held, a website, SpartanEdge.com, owned by an MSU journalism teacher, published the cartoons. This caused further offense, as shown in an opinion piece that ran in the State News written by the Association’s “political chair,” Syed Mehdi Jafri:
“This is just a continuation of the university's anti-Muslim policies and practices, which include mandatory housing in dorms for all freshmen (which we were not given exemption from), the unavailability of halal food (which was denied upon request), the invitation to a speech by Salman Rushdie last year (which was not revoked upon request) and now remaining silent as SpartanEdge.com publishes such offensive and blasphemous caricatures.”
Apparently pushed to the point of distraction, Wichman fired off a private e-mail to the group.
“I intend to protest your protest,” he said. “I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians.” After citing several examples of brutal Islamic violence from around the world, Wichman, a rather poor speller, said “I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile ‘protests.’”
The Muslim Students’ Association went public with the e-mail, and CAIR began demanding MSU discipline Wichman, “saying the e-mail creates a hostile learning environment for students.” CAIR also wanted a mandatory freshman seminar on hate and discrimination.
MSU refused to discipline Wichman, citing his right to freedom of speech and that he hadn’t violated the university’s anti-discrimination policies. In the end CAIR got the diversity training it wanted, at least. But according to the Forward, Michigan law prevents the diversity training from being made mandatory. In that case, “Wichman told the Forward not to expect him at the training.”
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