'Why Did FDR Invade North Africa?'

James Lewis at American Thinker asks a good question in Why Did FDR Invade North Africa?. He helps shed some light on one of the more irksome oversimplifications of the antiwar Left.

After the "day that will live in infamy" FDR's first land attack took place in Morocco and Algeria, then French colonies, in alliance with the British.

Why? Morocco is about as far from Pearl as you can get. Why punish the poor North Africans for what the Japanese did to us? Well, FDR understood the enemy, and so did the American people. It wasn't just Tojo who attacked the US on December 7, 1941. It was the Axis imperial alliance -- Germany, Japan and Italy. They were bent on world conquest, had already conquered most of Europe, and had to be stopped at a time and place of our choosing.

Read the rest of it here.





September 17, 2007
Why Did FDR Invade North Africa?
By James Lewis
One of the clichéd questions of the Left is "Why did Bush invade Iraq? We were attacked by Saudi Arabians on 9/11!" Or so goes the customary narrative.
This mantra is supposed to expose President Bush's stupidity. But in fact The Question reveals the asker's own clueless blunder about war and strategy. The proper answer is to point to other presidents and other wars. Like FDR after Pearl Harbor.

After the "day that will live in infamy" FDR's first land attack took place in Morocco and Algeria, then French colonies, in alliance with the British.

Why? Morocco is about as far from Pearl as you can get. Why punish the poor North Africans for what the Japanese did to us? Well, FDR understood the enemy, and so did the American people. It wasn't just Tojo who attacked the US on December 7, 1941. It was the Axis imperial alliance -- Germany, Japan and Italy. They were bent on world conquest, had already conquered most of Europe, and had to be stopped at a time and place of our choosing.

So our first land attack came in North Africa, not the Pacific. It was the other side of the world. We fought Rommel in the desert, along with the British Army and the Free French, cut off his supplies by sea, and step-by-step drove the Germans and Italians back across Sicily and Italy.

Meanwhile the US Navy and Marines beat the Japanese at sea in the Pacific, and started a heroic and bloody island-by-island conquest of the Philippines, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and all the rest.

In the upshot, the Allies invaded France before we finally reached Japan. So by the "logic" of our friends on the Left, FDR attacked all the wrong places and all the wrong people -- the Germans and Italians (who only fought back once we attacked), not the Japanese who assaulted us at Pearl.

Our highbrow strategists on the Left must believe that FDR should have just done a tit-for-tat for the attack on Hawaii, avenged two thousand plus American lives, and the war would have been over in six months. Which is a load of nonsense, of course, because the Japanese, the Germans and Italians, were long-term, world-wide, imperialist fanatics.

So are the Islamic fascists.

(It may be true that the Italians did not generally fight fanatically in WWII, but in the previous world war their courage and sacrifices were awesome, just like the French in WW I. When FDR went to war two decades later, therefore, he could not know with certainty how the Italians would fight. He could not even know that Pétainist France would stay out of the battle against us. But there was no doubt that we were facing a fiercely dangerous enemy engaged in long-term world conquest -- just like the ones we face today.)

FDR understood that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not an isolated incident, just as President Bush understood that the attack on America on 9/11 was not an isolated event. The liberals still don't get that. They who woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001 -- and promptly went back to sleep the day after that. None so blind as will not see.

Al Quaida (and the Khomeini cult) are mujahedeen in the martyrdom tradition of Islamic conquest, willing to commit suicide to bring the world back to the "purity" of a 7th century desert patriarchy. It was violent jihad that spread Islam with amazing speed in the two centuries after Mohammed, racing from small towns in Arabia to conquer swaths of Byzantium, Persia, Afghanistan, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, North Africa and even the Iberian Peninsula. The message to each new target was the same: submit or die. That is still the message of violent jihad today.

There is a reason for the US invasion of Iraq, just as the Left suspects -- but it's not what they think. And it's not a secret, but a strategy President Bush has spelled out many times. Since the media turns a blind eye to our strategic reasoning, it still bears repeating: Our forces overthrew Saddam in part to create a killing field to draw terrorists. We could not possibly invade every place where Al Qaida has converts -- they are in most countries in the world, including Britain and Pakistan. We did not want to wait for another attack in the United States, where every elementary school and corner gas station is a target. So we took the next best option of attacking in their home territory, provoking tens of thousands of jihadis to flock to us.

Al Qaida is being systematically killed and humiliated even now, both by Coalition forces, by Sunni tribes who have finally revolted against them, and by the Shia-dominated elected government and its Iraqi Army. If we beat Al Qaida over there, they will have a bloody nose for a long, long time to come. And we will be setting back the Iranian looney tunes more than ever before. For human civilization, it would be a great win. If we can do it.

Both North Africa and Iraq were historic gambles. If we had lost in the desert against Rommel, Britain might now be a Nazi province. Europe might be governed by Hitlerites, perhaps in alliance with a Stalinist Russian Empire, and all the nukes over there would be pointing at us. China would be Japanese territory, along with Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines, and perhaps India -- the whole Japanese Imperial Co-Prosperity Sphere. And all their nukes would also be pointing our way. The Axis Powers came within half a decade of developing nukes, and they had also cruise missiles and long-range bombers. Allied victory was not a foreordained conclusion, any more than victory in Iraq is today.

Iraq has meant painful learning for Coalition forces. Lincoln had his learning curve, and so did FDR.

But our troops have shown that America isn't ready for the dust-bin yet. Without them other Americans could not live in safety; nor could the ingrate Europeans; nor would the Middle East escape unscathed. They all depend upon our emerging victorious. That's the result of being the major civilized power in the world. We either live with that or accept the alternative.

Our domestic politics has been a kindergarten game by comparison to the work the military have done, day in and out. The little kids are constantly yelling "Are we there yet?" with all the shrill self-centered ignorance of the Boomer Left.

We are now seeing progress. We also have the historic privilege of watching Americans and allies of great character, strength, intelligence and courage, doing the toughest job in the world, in a way that is as civilized as humanly possible. But we will never see our fighters through our twisted media culture -- only by the good fortune of embedded combat reporters, all volunteers, and without the support of the big media.

So the next time somebody asks you why we are in Iraq, you might want to ask what FDR would have done. Don't expect a thoughtful answer. Yet FDR is still a Hero of the Left, and that question bears repeating until they start to think.

Six years after 9/11, half the country still can't figure out what all the fuss is about. It's important to remind them.

James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com.

Census Stats Reveal Marriage Precedes 100% of Divorces

USA Today reports that the threat of getting divorced “persists throughout marriage.”

This coincides nicely with an observation by G.K. Chesterton, that “The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life.”

Mayor Kilpatrick's Growing Troubles Only Strengthen His Faith

“Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick says he wants to
shelve questions about his personal life so he can focus on rebuilding Detroit
while his lawyers appeal his defeat in a whistle-blower case.”
(Sunday Free Press,
“Lawsuit alleges mayoral infidelity”).

Yet following on the heels of the $6.5 million dollar judgment against the mayor and the city is a second whistleblower lawsuit, also making an issue of his personal life, including how he bawled out his bodyguard for not "beating down" an NBA player who tried to get hands-on with Kwame's "Chief of Staff," Christine Beatty.

Facing all this, it’s a fortunate thing for the city that the mayor, who calls himself “God’s guy,” feels with all his heart and soul that God “anointed” him to be mayor of Detroit, and that something “bad would happen” to him if he ever “walked away from this blessing.” ("MAYOR VS. THE VERDICT: Kilpatrick brought the decision on himself, juror says”).

That's also why, as a man of faith, all this persecution just makes him stronger.

Surfing the radio Sunday morning for something inspirational, we ran across a live broadcast from one of Detroit’s more successful churches, and who else but God’s Guy himself was in the pulpit delivering the message to an extremely supportive congregation.

An excerpted transcript can give you some idea of just why it's going to take a miracle to remove Kwame Kilpatrick from the Manoogian Mansion.

…[Sounds of a large, spirited congregation in a cavernous space]

MAYOR: I’m here to tell you brothers and sisters….

CONGREGANT.: [Go ahead!]

MAYOR: …that as God’s guy here in this city, if I must suffer the slings and the arrows of persecution, slanders, lies, maledictions and kangaroo courts [Shame!] you won’t hear one word of complaint or self-pity out of me. [Never!] Because I’m God’s man, I can take it. Haven’t I got big, strong, broad shoulders?

FEMALE CONGREGANT: [Help me! ]

MAYOR: And didn’t they do this to Moses, to Elijah, to King David, and even to Mayor Young? So I’ve gotta take it for the sake of the black men in this city so they can know the outcome of this case sends a dangerous message. And that message is…” [Tell it!] …I say that message is, well…

[The message! The message! ]

MAYOR: …So did I mention that I brought the Super Bowl to the City of Detroit?

CONG: [Glory!]

MAYOR: Then the hotel development, the street development, the new houses, the property tax cut, the balancing of a $300-million shortfall when everybody said it was over for us.

FEMALE CONG.: [Hah! Why don't they sue you for that!]

MAYOR: And now all this no-account lying about some kinda woman in a mink coat! What’d I do, anyway? Yes, brothers, I encountered a poor waif late one winter night, her hand clutching her coat against the biting winter wind.

CONG.: [Lord, it was cold!]

MAYOR: And yes, sisters, as a man of God, do you think I was going to forget about all those precious Sunday School lessons at my mother's knee…

CONG.: [Not right now!]

MAYOR: …which is why, when I saw that she was naked [Have mercy!] I visited her--and she took me in!

CONGREGANTS: [It’s in the book!] [Says right here!]
FEMALE CONGRGEGANT: [Help me!]
ORGANIST: [Sound of Hammond B3 quoting first two bars of “Devil With a Blue Dress.”]

MAYOR: And all these false witnesses jabbering about me visiting my own chief of staff alone in her home unsupervised while her husband was away, alone by herself and groaning beneath a load of care because she’d just been pulled over for "speeding" and harassed by police IN SPITE OF WHO SHE WAS--which--as you may recall I mentioned at the time, was the biggest piece of crap I'd ever heard?

CONG.: [That’s all it was!]

MAYOR: Now HOW could I hold my head up to my God or his voters in this city if I should refuse to comfort, console, take pity on, or even lay blessing hands upon my own trusted aide and Girl Friday in her time of loneliness and need?

CONG.: [I wouldn't try it!]

MAYOR: You see standing before you a guy who has never been in trouble. Got pretty good grades. Graduated with honors from college. Graduated law school. Only freshman legislator to chair a committee. Leader of the state House. Became the mayor of the City of Detroit.

And all of a sudden, on the whisper, or word of one person, he's turned into a thuggish, promiscuous, sexual animal almost.

I just think it's a dangerous thing, when you can just say this is who he is, and that's it.

CONG.: [Not even a fair trial!]

MAYOR: And did I mention the Super Bowl?

CONG.: [Well…?]

MAYOR: Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today in God’s house, unashamed, and undeterred, and willing to incur whatever it costs to fight these scurrilous lies all the way to the Super Bowl!--I mean the Supreme Court!

CONG.: [Thank you! Thank you!]

MAYOR: And I’m here today to tell you that I believe with all of my heart and my soul that God anointed me to do this. And I believe something bad would happen to me if I walked away from this blessing.

CONG.: [Don’t you dare move!]

MAYOR: I’m here to tell you that if I walked away, there’s no Executive Protection Force that could protect Kwame Kilpatrick from that strong beat-down of divi-i-i-ine judgment.

CONG.: [Look out!]

MAYOR: And that goes double when you got guys like those backstabbing, jaw-flapping cops Nelthorpe and Harris bodyguarding you!

ORGANIST: [Quotes last bar of "Backstabbers"]

MAYOR: So, in closing, as your anointed mayor, as Carlita’s husband, and as the man who brought you the Super Bowl, Kwame Kilpatrick's message is this: move Detroit forward, keep on believing in God’s guy for the city, (that's ME) and do like I do and don’t ever tempt God by walking away from a blessing when it’s standing there grinning at you. This I will never do, so help me God. Amen.

CONG.: [Amen! Amen! Hallelujah!]

Sunday's offering broke every record.

How the Press & Guide Does 'Fair and Balanced'

We’re all for fair and balanced reporting here, but give us a break.

Sunday’s Dearborn Press & Guide ran an updated version of its Wednesday breaking news story on the arrest and arraignment of Houssein Zorkot, the man whose “personal jhad” commenced a week ago Friday when he deployed at Dearborn’s Hemlock Park with his just-purchased, and loaded, AK-47. Zorkot is now continuing his personal jihad in jail with a million-dollar bond. ("Man with AK-47 nabbed at Hemlock Park").

As much information as Mayor Jack O’Reilly’s office and law enforcement had been willing to release (the mayor and the police sat on this story for four days, finally issuing a press release only after Zorkot was arraigned in open court on Tuesday), the Press & Guide duly reported.

This in itself was a pleasant surprise from the Press & Guide, which has a firm editorial policy of avoiding publication of news or commentary critical of Dearborn’s Muslim population.

Nonetheless, when the Press & Guide ran this story on Wednesday as breaking news, ("Man with AK-47 assault rifle arrested after leaving Dearborn's Hemlock"), it seemed to play the facts straight, though it failed to mention Zorkot's Hezbollah sympathies. In fairness, reporter Sean Delaney may not have had that information yet. But his coverage was more useful than the 130 words the Detroit Free Press gave it in their “News Briefs” section, (though Zorkot and his AK did get higher billing than the disbanding of Grosse Ile’s community theater).

But after the Hezbollah connection became undeniable, when Sean Delaney updated his Press & Guide article later in the week, the familiar reluctance of Dearborn's major newspaper to report hard facts about jihadist influence in Dearborn reappeared.

As Delaney reported, after police obtained a search warrant for Zorkot’s home,

“a laptop computer and several pictures were seized.

“According to Mayor Jack O'Reilly, several of the pictures were taken during a recent trip by Zorkot to Lebanon, and featured him standing in front of pro-Hezbollah billboards.”

By the time this appeared, we didn’t need Mayor O’Reilly to tell us about Zorkot's pictures of Lebanon, because Zorkot has a website we all visited, and the pictures posted there are probably the same ones. Looking at them, it is impossible to conclude anything else than that Zorkot is committed to Hezbollah, its mission, and its point of view on jihad.

Delaney also reported O’Reilly saying, “These pictures alone are not enough to connect him to Hezbollah, but his Web site suggests that he does have an affinity for the group.”

That’s when Delaney decides he needs to provides his readers with the following context:

"Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist group by at least six countries, including the United States. In Lebanon, it represents one of the country's two major political parties.

"The group allegedly has been involved in numerous paramilitary activities, including a war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006.

"While Hezbollah is viewed as a terrorist threat by several nations, others regard the group as a resistance movement."

Now, some folks may think O’Reilly is being too kind because he won't come out and say the pictures "connect" Zorkot to Hezbollah. I happen to believe he is saying as much as he can, considering that the police and the prosecutor’s office have a very strict procedural course to follow in proving a case against Zorkot, that is, they're going to have to support all their charges with facts and evidence, and do it in careful obedience to due process and the rule of law. Officials shooting their mouths off before investigations are complete, and before Zorkot’s gotten his due process in court, is not the way to ensure maximum criminal penalties against a clearly dangerous man.

He is entitled, in other words, to his day in court to defend against the charges stemming from he did or didn’t do that night in Hemlock Park.

But Hezbollah is not entitled to its day in court. Hezbollah is not entitled to zealous advocacy that it is "not guilty" of terrorism, especialy advocacy from Dearborn's local newspaper.

Delaney’s need to provide balancing arguments to the overwhelming evidence of Hezbollah’s deserved reputation as a murderous terrorist organization is coming from who-knows-where. Hezbollah is not one of two political parties in Lebanon, like the Republicans or Democrats, but one of many; nor is it a home-grown party, as it has been well-demonstrated to be a creature of the Iranian revolution and a puppet of the Syrians.

And can Delaney seriously believe Hezbollah’s involvement in last year’s war against Israel has only been “alleged”? (“The United States Congress, angered over what some believe was Imperial Japan’s alleged involvement in the bombing attack on Pearl Harbor, declared war today…”).

And how is it that Delaney’s remark that “Hezbollah is viewed as a terrorist threat by several nations” seems so oddly familiar just now?

Oh yes! Zorkot has a prominently streaming banner on his website: “HIZBOLLAH IS NOT A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION! HIZBOLLAH IS A NATIONAL RESISTANCE ORGANIZATION!”

For Delaney to make room for this kind of thing is not balanced reporting, because it's got nothing to do with facts. It's either advocacy, or else just a wrongheaded fastidiousness about hurting the feelings of Hezbollah-supporters who read the Press & Guide.

Regardless of whether it’s motivated by fear of angry visits to the editor’s office from CAIR , or genuine partiality to the “Hezbollah is a resistance movement” credo, Hezbollah does not deserve this kind of benefit of the doubt.

Kwame Kilpatrick Tells Radio Audience: 'It's Hard Out Here for a Mayor'

This past Tuesday Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was “blown away,” (his expression), when a jury unanimously found him and the city liable for unfairly punishing two ex-cops probing reports of bad behavior by the mayor and his police bodyguards. The jury awarded the plaintiffs more than $6.5 million.

"I'm absolutely blown away ... and I know Detroiters are, too," said Kilpatrick, who vowed to appeal the decision. (“Mayor 'blown away:' Jury awards $6.5M to two ex-cops”).

The mayor immediately denounced the verdict as unfair, charging that the “facts have no relation to the verdict," that he was not judged by his peers (because only one black Detroiter was on his jury), and that he “did not get a fair trial.” (“MAYOR VS. THE VERDICT: Kilpatrick brought the decision on himself, juror says”). He intends to appeal the verdict, which will drive up the final cost of the judgment as interest will continue to accrue until final resolution. Either way, the city will pay Kilpatrick's portion of the judgment.

The mayor promptly scheduled radio interviews on stations with a “predominantly urban audience.” Kilpatrick was able to explain that, in spite of the wickednesss of the jury system that so wrongly ruled against him, he is unphased by the judgments of the unrighteous, as he serves at the pleasure of the LORD.

“They don't have the power to resurrect or the power to condemn,” he said. “I will be here tomorrow at work, carrying my laptop.” He adds that he “won't be deterred from the mission God gave him to lead the city and warning black men that the outcome of his case sends a dangerous message.”

Kilpatrick explained to listeners that the unjust verdict against him is “Because people have been so pent up to punish me, they got it.”

And not only that, the unanimous verdict also was followed by scathing remarks from at least one juror, foreman Curtis Scott, who said in an interview that he thought the mayor and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty were “liars,” “arrogant,” and that the mayor was "a spoiled little brat who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, was sent to the corner and is now pouting."

Scott called him that name again, when he added, “He should take the punishment like a man, not like a spoiled little brat. He could save the city some money and save the court some time by not appealing.”

But Kilpatrick has to appeal, because while he personally is man enough to stand up under the injustice, he has a divine mission to look out for all those other black males whom may be similarly targeted.

“All of a sudden,” he said of his experience as a defendant, “you just get corrupt, ignorant, stupid, lazy and promiscuous. And I just think that this is a reality check -- not just on Kwame Kilpatrick because, you know, I'm God's guy; I'm going to be all right -- I think this is for all black men right now in the city of Detroit.

"I think we need to pause and examine this situation because there's so many of us that hear every day we're no good."

So Kilpatrick has to fight this injustice, as “God’s guy,” and for all the black men in Detroit who also risk facing “this situation.” (According to the Detroit Free Press, “The mayor did not specify what he meant by 'this situation,' and declined to comment for this report. His spokesman, Matt Allen, declined to clarify the mayor's remarks.")

Kilpatrick wound up his testimony this way:

"I believe with all of my heart and my soul that God anointed me to do this. And I believe something bad would happen to me if I walked away from this blessing."

After saying which, Kwame began spraying out an infectious beat, accompanied by, as it turned out, his chief of staff, Christine Beatty:

(Melodiously, to the tune of, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”):



It's Hard Out Here for a Mayor

[Chorus 2X: Christine - singing] + (Kwame)
You know it's hard out here for a mayah (you ain't knowin)
When he tryin to be His Honor and a playah (you ain't knowin)
For the Explorers and the lawyers money spent (you ain't knowin)
[1] Because a whole lot of cops talkin shit (you ain't knowin)
[2] And now a whole lot of jurors talkin shit (you ain't knowin)

[Kwame]
Cops that drive me see some crazy thangs in the streets
Like a bitch in a mink shakin' naked there for me
But I gotta keep my game tight like Coleman on vote night
Like lyin’ to the churches don't know no better, I know that ain't right
Done made people fired, done got people hurt
Done hit Jamaican coochie in a damn short skirt
It's fucked up where you live, but that's just how it is
Cuz my crib is a mansion, and I can stay in there for years
See I’m God’s guy for this city when it come down to this shit
So why not try to hit it 'fore I leave up out this bitch?
I'm tryin to have thangs but it's hard fo' a Mayah
But I'm prayin and I'm hopin to God I don't slip, yeah

Hemlock Park Jihadist Update

WXYZ-TV has done a follow-up report on Houssein Zorkot. (Thanks to LGF). The video report is here.

Dearborn Police Profile Area Man Just for Being a Medical Student

Dearborn Underground can now report with high confidence that Executive Director of CAIR-Michigan, Dawud Walid, will soon announce that the arrest made by Dearborn police of 26-year-old Dearborn resident Houssein Zorkot at Hemlock Park on Saturday night, who at the time was dressed in fatigues, armed with an AK-47, had his face blacked out with camouflage paint, and who fought back against police so hard (Zorkot boasts martial-arts and kickboxing training) that he had to be tasered by police in order to be subdued, (“Man with AK-47 assault rifle arrested after leaving Dearborn's Hemlock Park”), was profiled and arrested for no other reason than that he was a Muslim.

Now that we have that out of the way, we should also mention that Zorkot, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University, was charged on Tuesday “on multiple felony charges, including carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent — a five-year felony.” Police told WXYZ-TV that the AK-47 was loaded. according to the report on WXYZ-TV news, Zorkot’s bond was also set at $1 million, cash, without the customary ten percent deposit, with the result that he remains in jail.

On the day of his arrest, September 8, he had posted on his website photo gallery a new category, “The Start of My Personal Jihad (in the US)”.

It contained only a single photo.

Note the barrel pointing at you in the little round inset.

Zorkot is a fervent supporter of Hezbollah. Other galleries show pictures of Zorkot visiting South Lebanon, where he posed proudly before missile launchers and posters of Sheikh Nasrallah, (known locally by many here in Dearborn as “Our Leader!”).

As sure as night follows day,CAIR’s soon-to-be-made announcement will blame the young man’s arrest on profiling and Islamophobia, but CAIR is not expected to mention details about Hemlock Park being in the heart of Muslim East Dearborn; in other words, that the scene of the arrest was within a short nightstick’s toss of thousands of profileable Arab Muslims, many of whom were not carrying AK-47s, and who still were not arrested by Dearborn police on September 8 for anything.

Nor is CAIR expected to mention that Dearborn's finest were not cruising around that night looking for Muslims to tase when they targeted the innocent Hemlock Park personal jihadist. The cops in fact were responding to resident reports of a man carrying a rifle in the area. (DU has not been able to confirm whether or not the upcoming CAIR press release will include the standard claim that, had reports of a sniper running around with an assault rifle originated in a nonMuslim neighborhood, police would not have bothered to respond. We are just now investigating potential CAIR legal threats to sue the tattle-tale residents for calling police in violation of Zorkot's civil rights).

According to the WXYZ-TV report, Dearborn's Mayor John O'Reilly has issued a press release indicating all requests for comments about this case are to be made directly to him. We have been unable to obtain a copy of this press release, even on the city hall website, (which really violates the whole spirit of a "press release," in our amateurish view).

But WXYZ states that the Mayor's press release explains how he “did not want the public to make a connection between this case and the anniversary of September 11.” This decision by the Mayor causes problems on several levels, but the most frustrating one is that we were just getting ready to connect this up with September 11, and now we can't!

(When we called to ask about permission for the public to connect this case up with Ramadan, we were told for that we had to consult Imam Hassan Qazwini's anticipated press release forbidding that, too.)

Watch and and be amazed at just how fast this story vanishes like the magician's silver dollar.

The Plan of the Muslim Brotherhood

We're happy to see the shadowy side of the Muslim Brotherhood getting more attention.

Editorial columnist Rod Dreher, at the Dallas Morning News, explores the meaning of the "explanatory memorandum" created by the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1990s, and made an exhibit by the Justice Department in the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas.

In our recent post, "Just What Is the MSA?", we wrote some about this memo, and the Muslim Brotherhood's plans for "civilizational jihad" in North America.

Dreher does much the same thing, though for a much wider audience. In view about how primal fear of being accused of Islamophobia keeps the media from publicizing even the most shocking examples of jihadist fifth-column activity in the US, every article putting people on notice of these things is a gem.

Here's an excerpt, and you should read here the rest of Dreher's column, "What the Muslim Brotherhood means for the U.S."

According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation, establishing the Brotherhood in the United States has been a 40-year project that has worked mostly underground – even beneath the notice of many Muslims. Richard Clarke, the former top U.S. national security official, told the Senate in 2003 that the Muslim Brotherhood is the common thread linking terrorist fundraising schemes in the United States – which likely explains why so many mainstream American Muslim organizations were named by the feds as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the HLF trial. Is this just alarmist paranoia? Not at all.

This matters because high-profile organizations with roots explicitly in the Muslim Brotherhood have successfully established themselves in a paramount position to define Islam in America according to a radical politicized model. And they've done so without the American public having the slightest idea about their real agenda.

Democrats and the Low Road

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal editorial, "Trashing Petraeus" hits it right on the head by saying that "[m]embers of the Democratic leadership and their supporters have now normalized the practice of accusing their opponents of lying."

With the exception of Joe Biden, Democrats refused to clearly renounce the MoveOn.org New York Times ad accusing General Petraues of "cooking the books," and transmuting the General's name into "General Betray Us."

The editorial gives these examples of how widespread is the new normal on the Left:

In an editorial on Sunday, the New York Times, after saying that President Bush "isn't looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public," asserted that "General Petraeus has his own credibility problems." We read this as an elision from George Bush, the oft-accused liar on WMD and all the rest, to David Petraeus, also a liar merely for serving in the chain of command. With this editorial, the Times establishes that the party line is no longer just "Bush lied," but anyone who says anything good about Iraq or our effort there is also lying. As such, the Times enables and ratifies MoveOn.org's rhetoric as common usage for Democrats.

Late last week, for instance, we heard it said of General Petraeus that, "He's made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual." This was from Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate.

The Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, said Thursday that General Petraeus would not be the author of his report; it would be written "by Administration political operatives." He opened yesterday's hearing, moments before General Petraeus was to speak, by saying, "We cannot take anything this Administration says on Iraq at face value."....

Can this really be the new standard of political rhetoric across the Democratic Party?....

Under these new terms, public policy is no longer subject to debate, discussion and disagreement over competing views and interpretations. Instead, the opposition is reduced to the status of liar. Now the opposition is not merely wrong, but lacks legitimacy and political standing. The goal here is not to debate, but to destroy.

Sounds accurate. And this was written before the disgraceful performance of so many Congressional Democrats during Monday's and Tuesday's hearings with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker.

The destroy-don't-debate goal explains why there's been nothing like meaningful discussion over policy in the war against Islamic jihad since the Democratic Party, bare months after 9/11, chose a strategy of political annihilation of a popular war-time administration over cooperation on vital matters of national security or--for that matter--on any other issue in the national interest.

For all kinds of reasons, Democrats just don't do moral indignation very well. Like everything else, they overreach, thinking that a soapbox, a furrowed brow, and self-righteous braying at a captive witness who can't respond in kind makes them look like modern-day John the Baptists, rather than insufferable Elmer Gantrys. They also can't get it through their heads that seizing the moral high ground takes more than just convincing people their opponents are liars--it also means convincing people your side is pure of that defect as well.

General Petraeus vs. the Copperheads

Donald Kagan has written a timely piece on the poison of the peace-at-any-price movement, “Today’s Defeatists.”

In it, Kagan considers the appearance of American defeatism, which he defines as “the attitude, policy or conduct of a person who admits, expects, or no longer resists defeat.” Right now, he recognizes defeatism at work in the current opponents of the Iraq war:

The results of the recent change in leadership and strategy in Iraq have made it plain that the war there is not lost nor is defeat inevitable. And yet, the war’s opponents, even as the situation improves, have rushed to declare America defeated. They offer no plausible alternative to the current strategy and take no serious notice of the dreadful consequences of swift withdrawal. They seem to be panicked by the possibility of success and eager to bring about withdrawal and defeat before events make it too late.

Panic seems to be the only way to explain this week's wave of insulting, slanderous, and downright idiotic statements from Democrat after Democrat (and Chuck Hagel--feh!) in response to the appearance before them of General Petraeus--who has returned home from his battlefield command only to be accused of everything from lying, to having his report written for him by others, to treason.

All of which has rolled off Petraeus like so much nothing.

I can’t imagine that the most numbskulled of these attackers will be able to manage, in the days to come when they are alone and away from the protective mob of political shits that have become the Democratic Caucus, to not sit up in bed burning with shame at how they so publicly attacked an heroic American soldier of treachery and deceit with their puny scoldings and posturing.

“In their embarrassment,” Kagan writes, “they, not their critics, have raised the question of their patriotism. However that question may be resolved, such people surely deserve to be called defeatists.”

Kagan explains that this is not the first time defeatism has reared its head, and in fact the weakness of defeatism tends to be “typical of citizens of democracies engaged in long painful wars that do not promise swift victory.”

As examples, he cites the wavering of the Athenians on the eve of the Peloponnesian War. In our own time, Americans have seen defeatism taking a hand in the Korean War, and of course, in Vietnam.

Yet Kagan goes back to the Civil War for the most apt comparison. It was in 1864 that the Democratic Party was being dominated by the anti-war faction known as the “Copperheads.” The setting takes place when:

after three years of fearful casualties, victory for the Union forces was not in sight. Lincoln was determined to continue the fight to restore the integrity of the Union and to abolish slavery. Original opponents of the war were joined by great numbers who were simply weary, and others who were ready to seek peace at any price, which was for some the persistence of slavery and for others the dissolution of the Union. One English friend of the Union cause expected such politicians to compromise with the South in order to take it back, slavery and all. Such an event would be shameful, he said, but still “it would leave the question to be settled by a similar process of blood by another generation.”

The spearhead of the calls for a compromise was in the peace movement that had gained control of the Democratic Party.

Kagan writes that, according to the best historian on the subject, [Copperheads, by Jennifer L. Weber] the peace Democrats were “consistent and constant in their demand for an immediate peace settlement. At times they were willing to trade victory for peace. One persistent problem for [them] was their refusal or reluctance to offer a realistic and comprehensive plan for peace.”

I was just reading about U.S. Grant myself a few weeks back in Bruce Catton’s Grant Takes Command. I found out that, by spring 1864, Grant, after some initial successes upon being placed in charge of the Army of the Potomac, hit a slow stretch while directing sieges of two stubborn and well-defended Rebel cities. Catton writes that:

…In Georgia as in Virginia, the Federal advance was close to its chosen goal, but a powerful enemy in a powerful position still barred the way, and unhappy folk in the North began to feel that neither campaign was really succeeding. Stalemate at Petersburg seemed to be balanced by stalemate in front of Atlanta, each army seemed to be fighting a continuous battle with nothing much to show for it; it was beginning to be hard to take….

Hard, that is, for the war-weary Northern public who, among other things, were living through a presidential election year with a full-blown anti-war movement calling for an end to the war. One-time war supporter and abolitionist, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, was responsible for creating the peace movement. Catton describes how Greeley:

occasionally carried a pundit’s eccentricity to excess and who now had gone off on a tangent. Greeley somehow had got in touch with Confederate agents in Canada and had absorbed the idea that Lincoln could end the war if he could just sit down and talk reasonably with reasonable Confederates about a peace that would be honorable and satisfying to both sides. Greeley wrote despairingly to Lincoln about “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country,” he failed to realize that the only peace Richmond wanted was one that saved both Southern independence and Southern slavery….

Grant, who began the war as a Democrat, also recognized the futility of peace terms with an implacably committed enemy, which he revealed in a letter to Congressman Washburne:

Our peace friends, if they expect peace from separation, are much mistaken. It would be but the beginning of war with thousands of Northern men joining the South because of our disgrace allowing separation. To have peace “on any terms” the South would demand the restoration of their slaves already freed. They would demand indemnity for losses sustained, and they would demand a treaty which would make the North slave hunters for the South. They would demand pay or the restoration of every slave escaping to the North.

Bogged down temporarily, as the North was, by the apparent “stalemates” of Petersburg and Atlanta, Grant knew perfectly well that the North would prevail in the end. Confident, but concerned about the failure of Northen nerve, Grant:

Early in June...wrote a letter to his Chicago friend, Russell Jones, emphasizing the military situation was much brighter than it seemed to be. Each of the two Confederate generals, Lee and Johnston, desperately needed to break out of the coil that was beginning to bind so tightly, and neither man could strike a blow because the odds against success were so long and the price of failure so prohibitive. To Jones Grant wrote:

You people up North must be of good cheer. Recollect that we have the bulk of the Rebel army, in two grand armies, both besieged and both conscious that they cannot stand a single battle outside their fortifications with the armies confronting them…If the Rebellion is not perfectly and thoroughly crushed it will be the fault and through the weakness of the people North. Be of good cheer and rest assured it will all come out right.

A couple of days later Grant wrote basically the same thing to his friend, naval officer Dan Ammen:

We will peg away, however, and end this matter if our people at home will but be true to themselves. If they would but reflect, everything looks favorable….The rebellion is now fed by the bickering and differences North. The hope of a counter-revolution over the draft, or the Presidential election, keeps them together. Then, too, they hope for the election of a “peace candidate” who would let them go. “A peace at any price” is fearful to contemplate. It would be but the beginning of the war. The demands of the South would know no limits. They would demand indemnity for expenses incurred in carrying on the war. They would demand the return of all their slaves set free in consequence of the war. They would demand a treaty looking to the rendition of all fugitive slaves escaping into the Northern states, and they would keep on demanding until it would be better dead than to submit longer.

Regarding the political side of things, Kagan notes the similarity of Lincoln’s problems of a slow-arriving victory and a rabid anti-war opposition with those of the current administration. In spite of having at last found the general, in U.S. Grant, who knew how to win the war for him and had the strategy to do it, the fact was, the war still dragged on.

A hostile newspaper wrote “that perhaps it is time to agree to a peace without victory.” Like Pericles, Lincoln was assailed by attacks on his policies and by personal vituperation. At the Democratic convention in August 1864 a speaker told a crowd in the streets that Lincoln and the Union armies had ‘‘Failed! Failed!! FAILED!!! FAILED!!!!” The loss of life ‘has never been seen since the destruction of Sennacherib by the breath of the Almighty and still the monster usurper wants more men for his slaughter pens.”

… Pressed by the Copperheads, the Democrats nominated a rabidly antiwar candidate for vice president and adopted a platform that called the war a “failure,” and demanded “immediate efforts” to end hostilities….” Their platform statement would permit abandonment not only of emancipation, but of the most basic war aim, reunion. Even New York’s Republican Party boss declared that Lincoln’s reelection was widely regarded as an “impossibility…The People [were] wild for Peace.” At the end of August defeat for the Republicans and the Union cause seemed inevitable, but Lincoln refused to seek peace without victory, saying that he was not prepared, to “give up the Union for a peace which, so achieved, could not be of much duration.”

Yet, Kagan describes how even "some of the president’s supporters were ready to abandon him and his policies.":

Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times and chairman of the Republican party, wrote that throughout the country people were convinced “that we need a change, that the war languishes under Mr. Lincoln and that he cannot or will not give us peace…. The country is tired & sick of the war & is longing for peace.” Copperheads directed the most violent personal attacks on the man who stood in their way. “God’s curse is upon the land,” wrote a Pennsylvania publisher on the day Lincoln had designated for prayer. “Does it become us to acknowledge the truth, and pray for forgiveness of God for any and every part we may have taken in upholding the sins and abominations of this wicked administration ... to put on sack-cloth and retrace our steps[?]. . . Oh, God, give us Peace! . . . Stop this bloody hell-devised carnage.” Another Copperhead took to calling Lincoln the “widow maker” or the “orphan maker.” He said any man who voted for Lincoln was “a traitor and a murderer.” If Lincoln was reelected, “we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.”

Today, in Kagan’s view, the go-for-broke investment of today’s Democrats in American defeat in Iraq creates two big problems for them when we finally win: they will be blamed by their most virulent left fringe for failing to stop the war, and they will be nakedly exposed as the defeatists that they are.

Even when the Democrats succeeded in forcing our withdrawal from Vietnam, Americans, as Kagan points out, did not like the way it was done. Thereafter, “their distrust of the Democratic Party, seen as the home of the defeatists who were unwilling to defend American interests, was a major factor in the victories of seven out of ten Republican presidents in the elections beginning in 1968.”

The Democrats, mainly through their own insistence that mid-September 2007 arbitrarily had to be the make-or-break moment of decision on the future of Iraq, badly timed their most strident outbursts for complete withdrawal at any price just as America, slowly but surely, is absorbing the possibility that progress in Iraq, slowly but surely, is happening.

The Democrats in Congress this week have made the foolish mistake to think that the weapons of slander and ridicule they have deployed so effectively against a politically disabled President with a constitutional aversion for defending himself would be effective against a stoic and honorable general with four stars, a chest full of medals, and who is fated to have his war record adorned with the victory of the Battle of Iraq.

Anyone who has had the stomach to watch--and keep watching--Boxer and Feinstein and Byrd and Lantos and Wexler and Pelosi trying to pull the wings off the tethered and patient eagle seated before them (I haven’t had the stomach)--is witnessing the destruction not of General Petraeus, and not the American war policy in Iraq, but the leadership of the Democratic Caucus itself.

Their families must be ashamed of them.

Kagan summarizes the issue this way:

Victory in the war Americans confront today is not certain. If it comes it will arrive only after long and hard effort, but it is well to remember that the United States has lost war only when it has chosen to fight no longer. There are defeatists aplenty among us today, and they too, shout that the war has been lost, that the government that conducts it is stupid and incompetent, that the war is not necessary and that our leaders lied to us in bringing it on, that nothing terrible will ensue if we abandon the fighting. They, too, bewail the casualties incurred in the war and proclaim their support for the troops even as they delay voting a budget to sustain the military. Such stratagems may work so long as a war goes badly. But what if the current president has found his Grant and a better strategy?

I've believed all along, even before the President found General Petraeus, that some years hence, (I don't know how many), George W. Bush will be given the credit for the victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for altering by 180 degrees the too-long passive American policy toward Islamic terrorism. His accomplishment will be all the greater for having done it with, (as I believe Fred Barnes one time calculated it), 90% of the press against him, and 100% of the Democratic Party.

The Victims of 9/11 Deserve Better Than Moments of Silence

Fortunately, Sen. Lieberman has chosen to use 9/11/2007 as a moment to speak out, rather than engage in unfocused "remembering." This from NRO:

Washington’s Civilizational Choice
The freedom to survive.

By Joseph Lieberman


Today we remember those who lost their lives on that horrible day six years ago. We also honor the sacrifices of Americans in uniform who have bravely fought in the war that began on September 11, 2001.

The fact is that all freedom-loving people throughout the world are engaged in a struggle against the barbarism of Islamist extremism. This is not a battle between civilizations, but rather a battle for civilization.

The cause which we are fighting for is not a Republican cause or a Democratic cause. Our cause is the cause of defending liberty and freedom against a totalitarian movement that is the evil heir to the twin totalitarian threats of the 20th century. Islamist extremism, like fascism and communism, seeks to eliminate all of the ideals that free peoples cherish.

Just as during the World War II and the Cold War, our challenge today, is not to relent in this fight for liberty. And the central front in this war today is Iraq. You cannot be serious and strong in defeating those who attacked us on 9/11 if you counsel retreat in Iraq.

To pull the plug on progress in Iraq would hand our two most dangerous enemies in the world — al Qaeda and Iran — an extraordinary military and strategic victory. These are fateful days and critical decisions we are making about Iraq. We must make them with our eye on the safety of America's next generation. It is to the credit of President Bush that he has done that in the war against Islamist extremism. He has shown the courage and steadfastness to stand against the political passions of the moment.

As Ronald Reagan once said, now is the time for choosing. If we stand united through the months ahead, if we stand firm against the terrorists who want to drive us to retreat, the war in Iraq can be won and the lives of millions of people can be saved. But if we surrender to the barbarism of suicide bombers and abandon the heart of the Middle East to fanatics and killers, to al Qaeda and Iran, then all that our men and women in uniform have fought, and died for, will be lost, and we will be left a much less secure and free nation.

That is the choice we in Washington will make this fall. It is a choice not just about our foreign policy and our national security and our interests in the Middle East. It is about what our political leaders in both parties are prepared to stand for. It is about our soul as a nation. It is about who we are, and who we want to be.

Will this be the moment in history when America gives up — when al Qaeda breaks our will, when our enemies surge forward, when we turn our backs on our friends and begin a long retreat from our principles and promise as a nation? Or will this be the moment when America steps forward, when we pull together, when we hold fast to the courage of our convictions, when we begin to turn the tide toward victory in this long and difficult war?

History tells us that appeasement of evil leads to disaster. Our cause is freedom’s cause. Together, we must prevail.

Muslims on Parade

Scott at Power Line posts the following:

MUSLIMS ON PARADE

Two days before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, hundreds of Muslims paraded down Madison Avenue chanting and waving flags from around the globe as they marched Sunday in the 22nd annual American Muslim Day Parade. The timing is in-your-face and the news coverage is scant. Newsday was there, although its story is a little light:
Parade-goer Khalilah Shabazz, of Newark, N.J., said the event was "beautiful."

"We're all Muslims," she said. "We're all one big family. Just loving each other. Just pure love."

Pamela Geller attended the march protest noted in the Newsday article. She has posted a report with evidence of the love you could you feel all around the parade. Pamela interviews the gentleman above, whose placards include a request to "Ban the Talmud."

The parade leaves one unresolved mystery. Organizers had advertised Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison as the parade's grand marshall. Rep. Ellison claimed that other commitments prevented his attendance. Perhaps he was observing a cooling off period in honor of his recent appointment to the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism.

NSA Surveillance Success

Both Power Line (“Connect the Dots” ), and the Wall Street Journal (“Listening In” ) noticed that it was NSA surveillance of foreign communications traffic that revealed who the German terrorists were leading to last week's arrests.

Citing a report about the arrest in Der Spiegel, John at Power Line points out how, in spite of most Democrats denouncing the NSA program as “unconstitutional,”

…it was the NSA program that brought the German terrorists to light:

The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that
began a year ago, when U.S. officials alerted German authorities to e-mails
intercepted from Pakistan.

If the Democrats get their way, the NSA will not be able to use this tactic unless it has enough knowledge, enough days in advance, to get an order from a FISA judge. You can be sure, however, that the liberals will never mention this incident when they denounce the program as an invasion of constitutional rights..

Democrats in Congress are planning to churn up as much opposition to this as they can in the coming week. Expect once more to hear lots of news references to “domestic spying.”

Walid Catches More Flak for the ACLU

On August 28 the Detroit News ran an opinion column by Bishop Keith Butler, pastor of the Word of Faith International Christian Center in Southfield.

In his column (“Provide religious liberty, justice for all”), Butler criticizes the ACLU for its recent duck-and-cover memo on the Islamic footbaths being installed at the University of Michigan--Dearborn at public expense.

Noting the inconsistency of the ACLU’s historical intolerance for prayers at public school graduations, Nativity scenes, and Christian clubs in high schools, Butler finds it remarkable how “their voices are muffled regarding the University of Michigan Dearborn campus decision to install foot baths for Muslim students to wash their feet before prayer or the extra recess period granted in one San Diego school for Muslim students to pray.”

Butler can’t help making the obvious deduction:

“The ACLU supports religious expression with government money for some, but not for Christians.”

Today’s response in the Detroit News ("Footbaths at U-M Dearborn are reasonable"), by CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid repeats, for the umpteenth time, his shopworn assertion that the “university installing ‘footbaths’ for safety reasons with student activity funds and Muslims bringing rugs for prayer hardly constitutes promoting Islam over other faiths.”

Walid is the point man for the UM, the MSA, the ACLU, the “Muslim community,” and every other interested party that holds some kind of stake in the progress of Dawah on the UM’s Dearborn campus. Criticize the University, Walid responds. Criticize the MSA, Walid responds. Criticize the ACLU, Walid responds. Think of him as the yappy Jack Russell who charges from under his porch at any rustle of Islamophobic footsteps.

People can judge for themselves whether Keith Butler or Walid has the better argument. But if you want to know how Walid really grinds his mental gears you need to check out his website for the short preface he wrote linking his Detroit News "rebuttal "to his site. Walid can be a bit more candid on his own website, as he has very few readers, and doesn't allow any comments responding to anything he says. He writes: On his own site he dismissed Butler this way:

Mr. Butler, a well known black evangelical, conservative clergy, advertises his ties to John Hagee, an Islamophobic pastor, who was recently featured on CNN's "God's Christian Warriors" for his radical views regarding the return of the Messiah and supporting Israel.

Given this well-known background regarding Mr. Butler in the African-American community in Metro Detroit, his skewed views in his op-ed on August 29 regarding the U of M-Dearborn "footbath" saga was no surprise to anyone.

That’s clear enough, isn’t it? Keith Butler’s “well-known background” explains his “skewed views in his op-ed.”

Except excuse me, Dawud, isn’t it your job to explain how and where Butler’s views are skewed, (if they are), rather than simply launching a personal name-calling attack?
Isn't that why it's called a "rebuttal"?

Walid, Ibrahim Hooper, and these other CAIR flaks are all the same. They simply don't known anything else but dirty fighting, like those schoolyard punks who couldn’t have their dukes up ten seconds before they started trying to kick you, spit on you, or bite you.

CAIR Public Relations 101 demands that every CAIR spokesman, under all circumstances, must trot out the term “Islamophobic” absolutely no later than the middle of his first sentence, regardless of whether it makes any sense. (In fact, it should never make sense).

In this case, the closest Walid could get was to associate Butler with John Hagee, “an Islamophobic pastor,” (although actually Hagee just happens to support Israel).

Keith Butler is one of the most prominent, well-respected, and formidable clergymen and public figures in the Detroit area. In 1989 he ran for, and won by an overwhelming margin, a seat on the Detroit City Council, making him the first (and last) Republican to win a Council seat in hopelessly Democratic Detroit since before World War II. He distinguished himself by serving served a full term without being exposed as a crook, a liar, or a nincompoop. He helped write the 1992 Republic national platform, and the first President Bush made Butler deputy chair of the Republican National Convention.

And, unlike far too many publicly successful urban pastors in the Detroit area, Butler’s ministry has never been stained with rumors of sexual misbehavior, or venal toadying up to the Democratic public-money machines.

If the ACLU felt so confident of their position, they've got plenty of facile spokespersons who could have answered Butler. But I don’t believe they do feel so confident. So instead they just turned Walid loose.

I think they’re hoping Walid’s yap-yap-yapping will drown everything out.

'The Missing Hijab 2 & the Jew,' and the Missing Humor of the MSA

Little Green Footballs, (and also American Thinker , and Protein Wisdom ), are giving their readers a chance to appreciate a grossly unamusing video, entitled “The Missing Hijab 2 & the Jew,” created by members of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Texas--San Antonio.

What with its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, its being joined at the hip with CAIR, and its craven deceitfulness in posing as a campus student organization to disguise its unswerving mission to impose Islam on all of us by slow degrees, we at Dearborn Underground haven’t got much sympathy for the MSA.

Take a look at this video. Then ask yourself if you want your tax dollars spent to install ritual footbaths so guys like this can wash their feet?

LaShish: More Than Just a Restaurant, It's a Hezbollah Soap Opera

The Talal Chahine web has caught another victim, and it still isn’t Talal Chahine.

Now Chahine’s sister-in-law, Dr. Rula Nadim Al-Aouar, is being charged in federal court with obtaining her citizenship fraudulently, because her family paid a man $1,000 to marry her in 1992. (“Sister-in-law of LaShish owner charged with fraud").

She never lived with the man, Timojin Steven Pruett, who was a dishwasher at the time (we can just guess where). He told the feds the couple never had marital contact beyond a brief kiss at the marriage ceremony. Pruett didn’t even take his rubber gloves off.

Within a year Al-Aouar was admitting to immigration officials the marriage wasn’t working out, and they ordered her to leave the country by November 1993. In response, she requested asylum, citing her fear of being persecuted by Hezbollah if she returned to Lebanon. Dr. Al-Aouar eventually managed to become an OB-GYN, but at the time of the paid-for marriage she was only a waitress at Chahine’s restaurant, LaShish.

Dr. Al-Aouar is the sister of Elfat El Aouar, who is Chahine’s second ex-wife, and another beneficiary of Chahine's bad medicine. Elfat El Aouar pleaded guilty to money laundering in December 2006, and went away to jail last May. She got in trouble for helping her husband skim millions in unreported LaShish receipts that he then forwarded to Hezbollah. She apparently didn’t get the same timely warning her husband did that the authorities were closing in. Chahine skedaddled owing $20 million in back taxes, and is comfortably untouchable now in Lebanon.

Then there’s Chahine’s son, Khalil Talal Chahine, who’s been in prison since his conviction in April 2005 for second degree murder, felonious assault and felony firearm after he and an accomplice--his brother-in-law, Ali El-Ozeir--shot down a romantic rival after a fight over a girl. Ali El-Ozeir fled to Lebanon, where last we heard he was being mistreated in a Beirut prison with standards far below those at Gitmo.

Then in January of this year, we learned about the plight of Talal Chahine’s illegitimate 7-year-old daughter, Aliyah, the love-child of another LaShish-related arrangement. (“La Shish Owner Sought as Deadbeat Dad”). Chahine’s baby mama, Wendy Whitelaw, was unfortunate enough to be another of LaShish's waitresses when Chahine was "between wives." Since Chahine skipped the country he stopped paying his child support to Whitelaw, and now mother and daughter are trying to make ends meet on food stamps and Medicaid.

Everything this bum touches turns to tears. Who knows if, hiding out with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, anything ever touches him?

When Social Workers Go Wrong

Just by way of some comic relief, we see where a clinical social worker is facing federal charges of health care fraud for routinely reporting to Medicare that she spent more than 50 hours per day giving psychotherapy. (“Social worker arraigned”). It turns out many of her patients never even met with her.

After four years of fraudulent reporting the social worker, Nelda LeJeune-Hunt, was caught by a contract auditor for the State of Michigan reviewing her computerized billing records. For example, the auditor noticed she recorded 84 psychotherapy sessions, accounting for 62 hours, in just a single day’s billings.

The auditor figured out that after working 62 hours straight there'd be no time left in the day to sleep.

AP News Flash: They Aren’t Mad About Abu Ghraib After All

Speaking of alleged terror plots, AP writer Paul Haven has this light to shed on the equally significant terrorist bust in Denmark this week:

A pair of alleged Islamic terror plots uncovered this week in Germany and Denmark share some disturbing hallmarks: Officials link both to al-Qaida and have found tentacles stretching all the way to Pakistan, the likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden. (“Foiled Terror Plots Share Hallmarks”).

As I complained elsewhere about the use of the term "alleged," everything in this paragraph makes some sense except Haven’s eccentric use of the phrase “alleged Islamic terror plots,” which I find confusing.

Which element is it that is supposed to be only alleged? Is it allegedly Islamic? Is it allegedly terrorist? Allegedly a plot? Or perhaps, (and it isn’t so far-fetched), is it only an allegation that the territories in which the plots were discovered are still going to be known as “Germany” and “Denmark”?

Meanwhile, David McHugh, Haven’s colleague at AP, wrote his report on the German (alleged) terror plot , (“Germans Arrest 3 in Alleged Terror Plot”), with a bit more common sense:

Security experts said the two purported plots are a reminder that Muslim extremists are not driven just by anger at the United States and its policies.

Islamic radicals "treat the whole Western world as their enemy," said Tadeusz Wrobel, an analyst of military and security issues in Warsaw.

I’d like to hear more from Taduesz, but that’s all the AP had room for.

But why exactly do we all need a reminder that Muslim extremists are not driven just by anger at the United States and its policies, and that they treat the whole Western world as their enemy?

Could it be because of all the ink that’s been spilled by the Western press endlessly repeating that the only reason for the anger of Islamic radicals has been the US and its policies?

If you read through Haven’s account from Denmark you see he’s still sticking with the "classic" anti-American viewpoint on the plots:

The schemes - which could have caused massive loss of life - have been a chilling reminder to Europeans of the threat they still face due to porous borders, restive minorities and perceived allegiance to the United States.

Now doesn't that make more sense than simply tarring an entire religion of peace as enemies of the West? "Bad Europeans. Not only are you friends with the USA (I thought the whole world hated us?), but your porous borders also suck in millions of us from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East, after which our refusal either to assimilate or go home again makes us unhappy--in fact, it makes us positively restive. I’m so restive right now I could spit! Or blow up some Europeans."

Haven keeps trying to make sense of this:

While Europe and the United States have diverged - often sharply - on issues such as Iraq, the creation of the U.S. holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the CIA's use of secret prisons for terror suspects, it is Europe that has found itself the victim of more terror attacks since Sept. 11.

Journalists like Haven still seem puzzled that the facts don't fit the theory, even when their profession puts them in the way of security experts and analysts who point out the obvious to them all the time: the obvious being that Islam doesn’t hate us because of Abu Ghraib, but because of who we are.

As Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center said recently, “the political goal of radical Islam is to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture…That the Quran calls for Muslims to subjugate the world, especially Christians and Jews, is a fact that anyone can look up.”

Alleged Newspaper Questions Reality of Global Jihad

In today’s Detroit News, the important wire story about the arrest of three jihadists in Germany caught assembling bombs to blow up Americans was run under the large headline, “Alleged attack plot foiled.”

There’s nothing in the story itself to call into question the truth of what German authorities described of the jihadist plan, nor any other reason to question the reality of the attack plot itself--described by many accounts as “massive.” It was not merely an “alleged attack plot.”

Nor did the rest of the liberal press seem to feel the need to question the reality of the plot, judging from only this sampling of headlines:

“German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot” -- The New York Times
“German shock at bomb plot arrests” -- BBC News
“German police hunt for terror plot 'back-up team'” -- Guardian Unlimited
“3 planned 'massive airport bombs'” -- CNN International
“Germany arrests three in 'massive' terror plot” -- CTV Canada

As of yesterday there were three suspects in custody, “two German converts to Islam and a Turkish citizen who prosecutors said shared a ‘profound hatred of U.S. citizens.’” German police have launched an international manhunt for as many as 10 more. (“10 More Sought in German Terror Plot”).

There was a very real cottage used to store explosives that was surveilled by as many as 300 law enforcement officials for months; and the jihadists had “obtained military-style detonators and enough chemicals to make bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 commuters in Madrid in 2004 and 52 in London in 2005.”

We understand that the high scrupulosity of professional newspaper editors--not to mention fear of libel lawsuits--require that media descriptions of persons accused of crimes but as yet not convicted of any charge be called “alleged” murderers, rapists, perjurers, etc. This signals that the accused may in fact be innocent and pure as the driven snow.

Like anything, the media is sometimes recklessly inconsistent about this rule about alleged wrongdoers or wrongdoing "alleged"--see for example, the thousands of references to the “Duke rape supects,” the "NSA domestic spying program,” and almost every word printed about the “outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for Joe Wilson’s exposure of Bush administration lies about Saddam’s attempts to buy yellowcake from Africa”--not a single word of which was ever true, nor ever was granted the benefit of a single “alleged” in the major media.

Obviously, the story about the German terror plot against US and Western interests is not just a crime story in which suspects (and even the crime itself) must be given the editorial kid-glove treatment (“alleged attack plot”). In fact, it's not a crime story at all, because it's a war story. The story is as big as the war on terror. Or, by the same token, and depending on your political point of view, it may be as small, or as questionable, as the ("so-called") "war on terror."

Am I being too persnickety about the Detroit News’s poor choice of words? More than likely, knowing me. But then again, the devil is in the details, and details add up.

By means of incessant use in mass media of sneer quotes, references to merely “alleged” terrorist links and plots, and endless jabs at “Bush’s war in Iraq” and the “so-called war on terror,” the left manages to feed at least some Americans' desperate fantasy that we are still in a September 10, Islamist-radical free world.

If you don’t think this incessant drip-drip-drip of skepticism has its effect, then consider this.

In late September 2001, the American public was crystal clear that Al Qaida and Islamic terrorists had struck us on 9/11, and would strike again if we didn’t strike back.

Since then, there have been literally thousands of reports daily and hourly from all over the globe of terror attacks, kidnappings, bombings, beheadings, radical threats, fatwas, exposures of plots in mosques, of terror cells, cries of Death to America!, threats of nuclear jihad, foundings of radical Islamic republics, murders of journalists, murders of missionaries, murders of women and children--all of which were matter-of-factly reported and news-crawled (sans the adjective “alleged”) beneath our very eyes. And in every instance these brutal attacks and murders manifestly were rising directly up out of the increasingly violent pathology that is the Islamic world. The average American today knows exponentially more about the extent and virulence of global jihadism than he ever did before 9/11, and that's even if he only halfway pays attention.

And yet now, in September 2007, tens of millions of Americans who once knew better on 9/11, now question not only the reality of the “so-called war on terror,” but even whether it was Islamic terrorists--and not conniving Americans--who knocked down the World Trade Center in the first place.

Such are the power and importance of words.

Happy Birthday to Us

Due to some clerical oversight in the Universe, our humble blog has just quietly managed to survive through a first birthday.

A year isn't that long in the blogosphere, I know. But it's not chopped liver, either.

If you're going to try it, I definitely recommend the wool pajama bottoms, as the seat doesn't wear out as fast as in the cotton kind.

Cheers.

The ACLU Has Got To Be Kidding

After a long delay, the ACLU of Michigan has finally released its position statement on the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s decision to install ritual foot baths for Muslim students.

In the statement , the ACLU admits that "spending public funds for items that were designed primarily to facilitate a religious practice raises red flags,” and that, after an analysis of the “facts,” they "remain troubled by the fact that the footbaths, which are permanent features, will probably be used primarily by Muslim students, and only incidentally by others.”

But in spite of being troubled by the sight of all those red flags, the ACLU refuses to challenge the decision by the University.

Why? Because, as the ACLU is now claiming, the University’s decision “was motivated primarily by concerns for health and safety”; otherwise, “[w]ere those reasons not present, this form of governmental support for one religion would be highly objectionable” to the ACLU.

And so we are to believe that what would otherwise be highly objectionable is neutralized by calling it a hygiene issue.

Now, the ACLU knows perfectly well that a critical legal test applied by courts to suspect government actions is not whether or not it entails safety and cleanliness, but whether or not the action’s principal or primary effect either advances or inhibits religion.

To get around this in the UM footbath case, in which the principal effect of the University's decision to advance the religion if Islam sticks out a mile, the ACLU claims the key issue is actually enshrouded in a dense fog of doubt: “it is not clear," writes the ACLU, “"that the installation of the footbaths has the principal effect of promoting religion.”

It isn't? And how can it be unclear? “[B]ecause Muslim students will continue to wash their feet in the sink before praying if another viable alternative is not provided. It appears that the principal effect is to make an activity that is already occurring safer and cleaner for all students.”

Notice how, when describing the all-important "principal effect," the ACLU coyly reinforces the good old American qualities of "safer and cleaner" (and "for all students," no less!), while obscuring behind a meaningless undefined term (it's only "an activity"), what it is exactly that is being made safer and cleaner. What's being made safer and cleaner is a religious, ritual activity being practiced only by Muslim students and staff.

The ACLU’s statement also attaches a secondary article by Jeremy Gunn, Director of the National ACLU Program in Freedom of Religion and Belief. In his short piece Gunn attempts to justify the footbaths as a neutral accommodation by explaining that the ritual baths, as mere physical objects, are in themsleves “not religious,” the way, say, a crucifix or a baptismal fount or a Torah is a religious object. This matches up nicely with the underlying statement's explanation that "the footbaths are not inherently religious facilities--they are not blessed, cannot be desecrated, and they are open to anyone for any purpose."

As Gunn writes,

Observant Muslims, when possible and practical before their prayers, will often try to wash their hands and feet. The basins in which hands and feet are washed are not of any ritual significance and are not religious objects. A sink in a restroom fulfills the function adequately.

But the point isn’t whether or not the “ablution stations” are religious objects with inherent religious significance. The point is that the ritual washing itself is a religious exercise, and one that, no doubt, poses a religious problem for practicing Muslims--a problem that the University now has taken upon itself to solve with public funds. The ACLU knows very well that government endorsement isn't limited to religious objects alone, but entails religious exercises of any kind, including speech, prayer, Bible reading, and even moments of silence.

In other words, this business of installing ablution stations is exactly the thing that, otherwise, always "raises red flags for the ACLU," (and still raises red flags for most Americans): "The spending of public funds for items that were designed primarily to facilitate a religious practice." In short, the University has left reasonable religious accommodation far behind, and has taken up the affirmative duty of guaranteeing its Muslim students can easily, "safely and cleanly," meet their religious duties.

(NOTE: Do not try this if you are Baptist, Catholic, Hindu, or...oh hell, don't try it if you are anything but Muslim).

Indeed, ACLU admits this foggy issue "would be simpler if the government was building religious facilities that had the clear purpose or effect of promoting religion"--as if that isn't exactly what's going on here!

In fact, the ACLU's own statement admits that "it is true that the footbaths were designed primarily to address the problem of Muslim students washing their feet in the sink," a practice made necessary because, as the statement also explains , Muslims "must wash their feet before praying five specific times during the day...three times with clean water and that new water must be used for each wash."

Since the University began its public song-and-dance about the footbaths we've been assured the purpose-built ritual wudu ablution stations work just as well for everything from washing babies(!) to providing foot-rinsing for lacrosse players, and "even janitors can use them to fill their washbuckets."

That's as may be, except we can't imagine why any of these persons would resort to footbaths when appropriate facilities already exist for college athletes (showers in the gym), janitors (slop sink in the janitor's closet); and if rest room sinks that have had feet in them are not safe and clean for other students to wash hands in, I can't imagine that showering a baby in a foot bath above a floor drain will exactly meet the University's "safer and cleaner" standard, either.

That the ACLU doesn’t believe its own phony analysis is evident in its explanation for why private funds couldn't be solicited to finance foot baths: because it would be seen as a “promotion of religion.” The ACLU statement says:

It is likely that the private funding would be donated by mosques or by those seeking to promote religion. If so, the University’s position that it was taking a practical approach to address cleanliness and safety problems, and not to promote religion, would be undermined. Additionally, such an approach would set a bad precedent when other religious institutions seek to donate money to promote their own religions.

So if the local mosques pony up to install ablution stations the “principal effect” is to promote religion. But if the University spends taxpayer/student money to do the exact same thing-- install ablution stations--the principal effect is to increase safety and cleanliness.

This is exactly how skilled lawyers can distinguish apples from oranges: "This thing here is an apple," they say, "unless you need an orange. In which case it's an orange."

And are we supposed to believe that the Muslim Student Association, that creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, ("Just What Is the MSA?") and CAIR, that unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding case, ("Is CAIR Really the 'Muslim NAACP'?) are not championing the footbaths as a promotion of Islam?

This is not a safety and cleanliness problem. If it were, the University has much more direct and simple solutions to the underlying cause of that problem, which is Muslim students misusing restroom facilities and leaving a mess behind. How big a problem can that really be if, as the University claims, it has been in discussions with the MSA for more than two years about this “problem”?

Nor does it help the ACLU's explanation that, as they say, "if the University refused to allow Muslim students to wash their feet in the sink absent a viable alternative, we would have concerns about whether the University was unconstitutionally interfering with the students' right to practice their religion."

Isn't this exactly the kind of Hobson's choice from Muslims we've all grown so weary of? "Allah commands us to perform wudu," we are told, "and if you don't pay to give us special sinks, we'll do it anyway in your rest rooms. If you try to stop us we'll call the ACLU and sue you for interfering with our right to practice our religion. Allahu akbar!"

Which makes me want to say to the ACLU: "Hey, guys, (and this includes you, too, Kary Moss), it's time to either wash, or get out of the sink!" Muslims ritually washing their feet in the rest room sink are either engaged in a religious practice or they aren't.

If they are, then UM laying out eighty large (that's accurate) in public money to facilitate that religious practice is one family-size red flag case of government entanglement. If it isn't, then the ACLU shouldn't have any 'concerns' about interfering with anyone's worship just because the University clamps down on people sticking their size tens into the hand basins.

As we noted months ago, (“The ACLU's Non-Aggression Pact with CAIR”), the ACLU already had decided to sit this one out, in spite of the glaring public endorsement of Islam it entails. This recent statement is a late, and half-hearted, stab at explainingto all their critics why they aren’t on the side of this issue they should be.

Are you buying it? Because we're not.

You Can Look It Up

Our friends at Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) are taking on the New York City Department of Education’s new Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn. It is widely believed that the school, ostensibly created to emphasize the learning of Arabic, will immerse its students in Islamic culture. TMLC claims the school will be “nothing more than a thinly disguised incubator for Islamic radicalization." ("New York City’s Khalil Gibran International Academy An Incubator For Islamist Radicalization").

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC , says his organization is representing a group of citizens opposed to the school.

In a statement that's exceptional, nowadays, for its candor and clarity, Thompson said:

“As uncomfortable as it makes one feel, we must understand that the political goal of radical Islam is to destroy our Judeo-Christian culture. And the KGIA is a Trojan Horse New York City is building for radical Islam with taxpayer money. That the Quran calls for Muslims to subjugate the world, especially Christians and Jews, is a fact that anyone can look up.”

Unfortunately, though anyone can look it up, hardly anyone ever does.