Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

Two items from the mainstream media this past week have turned me from my normal, placid, tolerant, loving self into a sputtering troglodyte (you do believe me, don’t you?). The first was the publication in the Los Angeles Times of some rather gruesome photos taken of US troops holding Taliban body parts (taken in 2010).

The other was the call for investigation of rocker and Second Amendment advocate Ted Nugent for “threatening” President Obama. Both items are proof positive that the MSM are in bed with the left wing of the Democratic party and are fully dedicated to skewing the “news” to fit their own agenda of painting the American military and angry conservatives as out-of-control mobs. The double standard is both palbable and obnoxiously left-loaded.

Let’s discuss the photo issue first. Despite ardent pleas from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking that the Times not print the photos, the paper did so anyway. Panetta did not demand anything, but simply pointed out that the photos were not newsworthy (they’re nearly two years old), would stir up more hatred and violence by the Taliban at a crucial juncture in Afghan-American discussions of exit strategy, and would further endanger already-endangered American lives.

The Times metaphorically shrugged its shoulders and asked “so what?” If it bleeds, it leads. And if it causes more unnecessary bloodshed, so much the better. If the incident had been unknown until now (which it was not), there might be some justification for publication of the photos. But it’s what the photos don’t show that makes the publication at this time so reprehensible. Like the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, this would be a major revelation of US troops behaving barbarously by murdering innocent civilians and then celebrating what they had done.

But that isn’t even close to the truth. What the photos show is young men, frustrated by a war they’re not allowed to win, holding body parts of Taliban terrorists blown up by their own people. Dumb, uncivilized, and perhaps repulsive. But unexpected given the surrounding circumstances? I think not. This sort of excess and unthinking behavior has occurred in every war in history. The Times has succeeded only in making a bad situation worse without having contributed a thing to the cause of peaceful withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. What they have succeeded in doing is handing Hamid Karzai and his friends in the Taliban another propaganda victory.

So where was the Times, and its willingness to print gruesome photos, from the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to the hanging of American workers on a bridge over the Euphrates River, to the burning-alive of Christian churchgoers in Egypt and Nigeria? The paper suffers from a very bad case of selective sensitivity. Worse still, the political generals played fellow-traveler by immediately denouncing the soldiers rather than the publication of the photos. They essentially convicted the soldiers of war crimes without trial and without context.

The soldiers didn’t kill the Taliban whose body parts were being handed around. They are at most guilty of bad behavior after the fact. But the Taliban and their jihadist friends throughout the Middle East do the barbaric killings then celebrate by displaying their “prizes.” There is simply no comparison between the two situations. The Times doesn’t care. The paper and TV news refused to show taped film of innocent civilians jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Centers rather than be burned alive because repetition of the live shots would be insensitive. But showing testosterone-fueled and frustrated soldiers holding dismembered body parts that they didn’t cause is somehow necessary and newsworthy. Aw, horse manure.

And then there’s the Secret Service’s rush to talk to Ted Nugent about “violent” remarks Nugent made about Barack Hussein Obama. Clearly, Nugent is planning on assassinating Obama because he made some over-the-top statements about what he would like to happen in the future. Here are the “threats”: “Obama is a piece of s***, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. We’ve got a president and attorney general who don’t even like the Constitution. We’ve got four Supreme Court Justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done.”

And now for the money quote: “Our president and our attorney general, our vice-president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals. They’re criminals! We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.” Aha! Got it. Nugent is planning on beheading the entire Obama administration. Well, even I haven’t gone that far, but somehow I wish I had. Because, like Nugent, I would have been making a metaphorical comment on what Americans should do at the ballot box in November. And by the way, have I mentioned that I hate Obama?

When a jihadist says he wants to behead you, you had better be wearing a thick metal collar. But that’s another story altogether. The MSM now have a double-shot of pro-Obama vitriol to work with. They can now point to a potential mass murderer and tie him to Mitt Romney. Prior to Romney appearing to have sewed-up the Republican nomination, he was their favorite moderate. Now he’s a fascist and close friend of a dangerous wild man who wants to kill the president and his entire administration.

Somehow these alleged news outlets can tie Nugent’s statements directly to the Romney campaign, but see no connection between the vile and misogynist comments of million dollar contributor Bill Maher and Barack Obama. They can’t see the Nugent comments as angry but metaphorical remarks about getting Obama out of office, but they can entirely ignore MSNBC’s Ed Schultz saying that he’d like to rip Dick Cheney’s heart out. When they did mention it at all, they called it simple rhetorical zeal, missing the exact words: “Dick Cheney’s heart is a political football. We ought to kick it around and stuff it back in him.”

The Schultz venom was spat out nearly two years ago, but according to the L.A. Times standard, that’s newsworthy today. Still, as vile as those remarks were, I didn’t seen the Secret Service rushing to the MSNBC studios to question Schultz about his threat to a former US vice-president who still has Secret Service protection. Quite simply put, a threat that can’t be carried out is no threat at all. A thousand years of Anglo-American jurisprudence firmly establishes that. In the case of first instance, an English knight, angered at what another man had said, shouted “were it not for Assize time, I would lop your head from off your shoulders.” The ancient English court called it a “conditional” threat, dismissed the charges, and that has remained the law ever since.

Could any sane person honestly believe for a second that Ted Nugent is planning on donning a kilt, painting his face with blue stripes, mounting a horse, adopting a bad Scottish accent and charging into the White House to lop off Barack Obama’s head? Apparently, the MSM and the Secret Service think so. I do have to wonder if the Secret Service will bring Colombian prostitutes with them to the Nugent meeting. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” sounds a lot like “Were it not for Assize time,” in other words a conditional threat which is no real threat at all.

Furthermore, we have gone England a step farther. It’s a thing called the First Amendment. It protects Schultz and Nugent equally. Most significantly it requires that if a threat actually has been made, it must also be a clear and present danger. By precedent, and even the standard of the questionable anti-terrorism statutes, neither Schultz nor Nugent poses a clear and present danger. More recently, on Thursday MSNBC “host” Martin Bashir used the Book of Mormon to condemn Mitt Romney to hell for “lying.” Good thing there are never more than twelve or thirteen viewers of MSNBC at any given time or we might have to take that as a serious threat.

Schultz concluded his diatribe with “I don’t want Cheney to go to hell, I just want him to get the hell out of here.” Allow me to up the ante. I want Obama and his entire gang of subversive crooks the hell out of here, and I want him and the whole left wing of the Democratic party to go to hell, the sooner the better. @#X$%F@#$%!

End of rant.

Note: Subsequent to the writing of this article, Nugent met with the Secret Service, and it appears this will go no farther. Nugent described the meeting as "solid and professional."

Two items from the mainstream media this past week have turned me from my normal, placid, tolerant, loving self into a sputtering troglodyte (you do believe me, don’t you?). The first was the publication in the Los Angeles Times of some rather gruesome photos taken of US troops holding Taliban body parts (taken in 2010).

The other was the call for investigation of rocker and Second Amendment advocate Ted Nugent for “threatening” President Obama. Both items are proof positive that the MSM are in bed with the left wing of the Democratic party and are fully dedicated to skewing the “news” to fit their own agenda of painting the American military and angry conservatives as out-of-control mobs. The double standard is both palbable and obnoxiously left-loaded.

Let’s discuss the photo issue first. Despite ardent pleas from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta asking that the Times not print the photos, the paper did so anyway. Panetta did not demand anything, but simply pointed out that the photos were not newsworthy (they’re nearly two years old), would stir up more hatred and violence by the Taliban at a crucial juncture in Afghan-American discussions of exit strategy, and would further endanger already-endangered American lives.

The Times metaphorically shrugged its shoulders and asked “so what?” If it bleeds, it leads. And if it causes more unnecessary bloodshed, so much the better. If the incident had been unknown until now (which it was not), there might be some justification for publication of the photos. But it’s what the photos don’t show that makes the publication at this time so reprehensible. Like the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, this would be a major revelation of US troops behaving barbarously by murdering innocent civilians and then celebrating what they had done.

But that isn’t even close to the truth. What the photos show is young men, frustrated by a war they’re not allowed to win, holding body parts of Taliban terrorists blown up by their own people. Dumb, uncivilized, and perhaps repulsive. But unexpected given the surrounding circumstances? I think not. This sort of excess and unthinking behavior has occurred in every war in history. The Times has succeeded only in making a bad situation worse without having contributed a thing to the cause of peaceful withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. What they have succeeded in doing is handing Hamid Karzai and his friends in the Taliban another propaganda victory.

So where was the Times, and its willingness to print gruesome photos, from the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to the hanging of American workers on a bridge over the Euphrates River, to the burning-alive of Christian churchgoers in Egypt and Nigeria? The paper suffers from a very bad case of selective sensitivity. Worse still, the political generals played fellow-traveler by immediately denouncing the soldiers rather than the publication of the photos. They essentially convicted the soldiers of war crimes without trial and without context.

The soldiers didn’t kill the Taliban whose body parts were being handed around. They are at most guilty of bad behavior after the fact. But the Taliban and their jihadist friends throughout the Middle East do the barbaric killings then celebrate by displaying their “prizes.” There is simply no comparison between the two situations. The Times doesn’t care. The paper and TV news refused to show taped film of innocent civilians jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Centers rather than be burned alive because repetition of the live shots would be insensitive. But showing testosterone-fueled and frustrated soldiers holding dismembered body parts that they didn’t cause is somehow necessary and newsworthy. Aw, horse manure.

And then there’s the Secret Service’s rush to talk to Ted Nugent about “violent” remarks Nugent made about Barack Hussein Obama. Clearly, Nugent is planning on assassinating Obama because he made some over-the-top statements about what he would like to happen in the future. Here are the “threats”: “Obama is a piece of s***, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. We’ve got a president and attorney general who don’t even like the Constitution. We’ve got four Supreme Court Justices who don’t believe in the Constitution. If you can’t galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we’re done.”

And now for the money quote: “Our president and our attorney general, our vice-president, Hillary Clinton, they’re criminals. They’re criminals! We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.” Aha! Got it. Nugent is planning on beheading the entire Obama administration. Well, even I haven’t gone that far, but somehow I wish I had. Because, like Nugent, I would have been making a metaphorical comment on what Americans should do at the ballot box in November. And by the way, have I mentioned that I hate Obama?

When a jihadist says he wants to behead you, you had better be wearing a thick metal collar. But that’s another story altogether. The MSM now have a double-shot of pro-Obama vitriol to work with. They can now point to a potential mass murderer and tie him to Mitt Romney. Prior to Romney appearing to have sewed-up the Republican nomination, he was their favorite moderate. Now he’s a fascist and close friend of a dangerous wild man who wants to kill the president and his entire administration.

Somehow these alleged news outlets can tie Nugent’s statements directly to the Romney campaign, but see no connection between the vile and misogynist comments of million dollar contributor Bill Maher and Barack Obama. They can’t see the Nugent comments as angry but metaphorical remarks about getting Obama out of office, but they can entirely ignore MSNBC’s Ed Schultz saying that he’d like to rip Dick Cheney’s heart out. When they did mention it at all, they called it simple rhetorical zeal, missing the exact words: “Dick Cheney’s heart is a political football. We ought to kick it around and stuff it back in him.”

The Schultz venom was spat out nearly two years ago, but according to the L.A. Times standard, that’s newsworthy today. Still, as vile as those remarks were, I didn’t seen the Secret Service rushing to the MSNBC studios to question Schultz about his threat to a former US vice-president who still has Secret Service protection. Quite simply put, a threat that can’t be carried out is no threat at all. A thousand years of Anglo-American jurisprudence firmly establishes that. In the case of first instance, an English knight, angered at what another man had said, shouted “were it not for Assize time, I would lop your head from off your shoulders.” The ancient English court called it a “conditional” threat, dismissed the charges, and that has remained the law ever since.

Could any sane person honestly believe for a second that Ted Nugent is planning on donning a kilt, painting his face with blue stripes, mounting a horse, adopting a bad Scottish accent and charging into the White House to lop off Barack Obama’s head? Apparently, the MSM and the Secret Service think so. I do have to wonder if the Secret Service will bring Colombian prostitutes with them to the Nugent meeting. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” sounds a lot like “Were it not for Assize time,” in other words a conditional threat which is no real threat at all.

Furthermore, we have gone England a step farther. It’s a thing called the First Amendment. It protects Schultz and Nugent equally. Most significantly it requires that if a threat actually has been made, it must also be a clear and present danger. By precedent, and even the standard of the questionable anti-terrorism statutes, neither Schultz nor Nugent poses a clear and present danger. More recently, on Thursday MSNBC “host” Martin Bashir used the Book of Mormon to condemn Mitt Romney to hell for “lying.” Good thing there are never more than twelve or thirteen viewers of MSNBC at any given time or we might have to take that as a serious threat.

Schultz concluded his diatribe with “I don’t want Cheney to go to hell, I just want him to get the hell out of here.” Allow me to up the ante. I want Obama and his entire gang of subversive crooks the hell out of here, and I want him and the whole left wing of the Democratic party to go to hell, the sooner the better. @#X$%F@#$%!

End of rant.

Note: Subsequent to the writing of this article, Nugent met with the Secret Service, and it appears this will go no farther. Nugent described the meeting as "solid and professional."

Hangin’ Out In Jihadistan

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News Roundup: Anger, Insanity and Nakedness

News Roundup: Anger, Insanity and Nakedness

Let’s do another news roundup. Why? Because I said so! Just kidding. Actually, because there are several little stories we can’t cover in separate articles so here they are all lumped together in a big old steaming pile of news! Get ready for dogs, sex, and Hawaiian Stalinists!

● Item One: Dog Show Gone Wrong. In case you missed it, the Westminster Kennel Club dog show started last night and finishes tonight. I never miss this as I think dogs are great. And much like the Super Bowl, part of the attraction each year is when Pedigree puts out new ads. The last few years have featured David Duchovny talking about dogs with the tag line, “dogs rule.” Here are some samples: We’re for Dogs / Shelter Dogs / Doggie Dentures / Rub My Belly.

Imagine my surprise when these commercials did NOT appear last night. Instead, we got some lame generic commercial for Purina using some nondescript song. Totally forgettable pabulum. Hmm.

So I promptly turned to the internet to discover what had gone wrong. It turns out that Westminster decided to drop Pedigree as a sponsor because they didn’t like Pedigree focusing on shelter dogs. Seriously. Said Westminster’s spokesidiot David Frei:

“Show me an ad with a dog with a smile. Don’t try to shame me. We told Pedigree that and they ignored us. Our show is a celebration of dogs. We’re not promoting purebreds at the expense of non-purebreds. We celebrate all dogs. When we’re seeing puppies behind bars, it takes away from that. Not just because it’s sad, but it’s not our message.”

To quote Bufford T. Justice, “you aaaaasshole.” Over the past few years, Westminster has gotten a bad reputation because of many of the breeding practices associated with purebreds. Specifically, their standards are creating dogs with breathing problems, back problems, bad joints and mental issues. They’ve been protested and some people have even considered legislation against the things they promote.

Pedigree, by comparison, is for all dogs, not just purebreds, and they’ve matched seven million dollars in donations in the last couple years to help the dogs who need it most. Westminster has not.

Westminster is not only stupid, they are shameful. I suggest they fix this by next year or I won’t be back. In the meantime, up yours Westminster, and your little sponsor Purina too.

● Item Two: Accidentally Naked? A high school football coach had to resign the other day when he “accidentally” posted naked pictures of himself on Facebook. How does that happen “accidentally”? Between this and Sandusky and the guy in Syracuse and the various women’s coaches who keep getting fired for inappropriate behavior with their players and the NFL assistant coach who got arrested driving naked through a fast-food drive-thru, something has really gone wrong in coaching.

● Item Three: Bringing Sexy Back. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wants Russians to have more sex to halt Russia’s population decline. Maybe they need more coaches? Interestingly, the land of mail-order brides and alcoholism actually has finally stabilized population-wise. In the 1990s, there was speculation Russia’s population would fall by a third by 2050, but that didn’t happen and now they’ve even begun to grow by a few thousand over the past few years. Still, it’s a good political strategy for Putin: how can you go wrong telling people to have more sex?

● Item Four: Machete. Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer just learned a little something about the joys of law and order when he was robbed at machete-point in his Caribbean vacation home by a masked intruder. Being a liberal, he will no doubt draw the wrong lesson and endorse a seven-day waiting period for machetes. . . or vacation homes.

● Item Five: Big Brother Is Watching, Aloha. Finally this item. I’ve said before that Republicans get stupid when you mention terrorists or criminals. Too many “conservatives” will happily throw away all their rights in the name of safety based on false promises and vague assurances that we can trust government not to abuse absolute power. Combine this with the Democratic instinct to monitor and control you and you have the makings for an American police state. Here’s proof.

Hawaii’s legislature is debating a bill which will require Internet providers to keep track of every website their customers visit. Basically, your provider will need to keep a continuing file showing every website you visited in the past two years. In—flipping—sane!

Why would Hawaii do this? Because Republican Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine is being “harassed” by a web designer named Eric Ryan, who claims Pine owes him money. He launched a website called KymPineIsACrook.com where he makes the claim that she stiffed him (but not in a Russian way). She also contends that Ryan hacked her e-mail account. Hence, Hawaii needs “tougher cyber laws.” Of course, the Democrats jumped on this and are pushing this insane bill.

Ok, let’s cut through this.. First, if he’s lying about the money, sue him for slander. Clearly he’s not lying because she’s taken no action in that regard. Secondly, if he has hacked her e-mail, then he’s already committed a crime under the Patriot Act. So no additional laws are needed. Third, even if a law was needed, it is to punish someone for hacking an e-mail account, not a law that requires private companies to spy on all citizens so some messed up Hawaiian legislator can get her Stalin on.

Think about this. One man is harassing her, so she wants the government to keep Stasi-like files on everyone in Hawaii?? How does that make sense? What possible purpose could this serve except to let her see who visited his website. And then what? “Re-education” camps? This is pure totalitarianism, make no mistake. And for those inclined to trust the government’s motives, this should wake you up. This is why government really acts -- because some intolerant a-hole with a grudge and a debt problem decides to use the government to help them in a personal fight.

Government is evil and those who would use the government to control others are evil.


Also, don't forget that it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site (LINK), and in honor of Valentine's Day, might I recommend revisiting the Top 25 Romance Films article (LINK).

Let’s do another news roundup. Why? Because I said so! Just kidding. Actually, because there are several little stories we can’t cover in separate articles so here they are all lumped together in a big old steaming pile of news! Get ready for dogs, sex, and Hawaiian Stalinists!

● Item One: Dog Show Gone Wrong. In case you missed it, the Westminster Kennel Club dog show started last night and finishes tonight. I never miss this as I think dogs are great. And much like the Super Bowl, part of the attraction each year is when Pedigree puts out new ads. The last few years have featured David Duchovny talking about dogs with the tag line, “dogs rule.” Here are some samples: We’re for Dogs / Shelter Dogs / Doggie Dentures / Rub My Belly.

Imagine my surprise when these commercials did NOT appear last night. Instead, we got some lame generic commercial for Purina using some nondescript song. Totally forgettable pabulum. Hmm.

So I promptly turned to the internet to discover what had gone wrong. It turns out that Westminster decided to drop Pedigree as a sponsor because they didn’t like Pedigree focusing on shelter dogs. Seriously. Said Westminster’s spokesidiot David Frei:

“Show me an ad with a dog with a smile. Don’t try to shame me. We told Pedigree that and they ignored us. Our show is a celebration of dogs. We’re not promoting purebreds at the expense of non-purebreds. We celebrate all dogs. When we’re seeing puppies behind bars, it takes away from that. Not just because it’s sad, but it’s not our message.”

To quote Bufford T. Justice, “you aaaaasshole.” Over the past few years, Westminster has gotten a bad reputation because of many of the breeding practices associated with purebreds. Specifically, their standards are creating dogs with breathing problems, back problems, bad joints and mental issues. They’ve been protested and some people have even considered legislation against the things they promote.

Pedigree, by comparison, is for all dogs, not just purebreds, and they’ve matched seven million dollars in donations in the last couple years to help the dogs who need it most. Westminster has not.

Westminster is not only stupid, they are shameful. I suggest they fix this by next year or I won’t be back. In the meantime, up yours Westminster, and your little sponsor Purina too.

● Item Two: Accidentally Naked? A high school football coach had to resign the other day when he “accidentally” posted naked pictures of himself on Facebook. How does that happen “accidentally”? Between this and Sandusky and the guy in Syracuse and the various women’s coaches who keep getting fired for inappropriate behavior with their players and the NFL assistant coach who got arrested driving naked through a fast-food drive-thru, something has really gone wrong in coaching.

● Item Three: Bringing Sexy Back. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wants Russians to have more sex to halt Russia’s population decline. Maybe they need more coaches? Interestingly, the land of mail-order brides and alcoholism actually has finally stabilized population-wise. In the 1990s, there was speculation Russia’s population would fall by a third by 2050, but that didn’t happen and now they’ve even begun to grow by a few thousand over the past few years. Still, it’s a good political strategy for Putin: how can you go wrong telling people to have more sex?

● Item Four: Machete. Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer just learned a little something about the joys of law and order when he was robbed at machete-point in his Caribbean vacation home by a masked intruder. Being a liberal, he will no doubt draw the wrong lesson and endorse a seven-day waiting period for machetes. . . or vacation homes.

● Item Five: Big Brother Is Watching, Aloha. Finally this item. I’ve said before that Republicans get stupid when you mention terrorists or criminals. Too many “conservatives” will happily throw away all their rights in the name of safety based on false promises and vague assurances that we can trust government not to abuse absolute power. Combine this with the Democratic instinct to monitor and control you and you have the makings for an American police state. Here’s proof.

Hawaii’s legislature is debating a bill which will require Internet providers to keep track of every website their customers visit. Basically, your provider will need to keep a continuing file showing every website you visited in the past two years. In—flipping—sane!

Why would Hawaii do this? Because Republican Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine is being “harassed” by a web designer named Eric Ryan, who claims Pine owes him money. He launched a website called KymPineIsACrook.com where he makes the claim that she stiffed him (but not in a Russian way). She also contends that Ryan hacked her e-mail account. Hence, Hawaii needs “tougher cyber laws.” Of course, the Democrats jumped on this and are pushing this insane bill.

Ok, let’s cut through this.. First, if he’s lying about the money, sue him for slander. Clearly he’s not lying because she’s taken no action in that regard. Secondly, if he has hacked her e-mail, then he’s already committed a crime under the Patriot Act. So no additional laws are needed. Third, even if a law was needed, it is to punish someone for hacking an e-mail account, not a law that requires private companies to spy on all citizens so some messed up Hawaiian legislator can get her Stalin on.

Think about this. One man is harassing her, so she wants the government to keep Stasi-like files on everyone in Hawaii?? How does that make sense? What possible purpose could this serve except to let her see who visited his website. And then what? “Re-education” camps? This is pure totalitarianism, make no mistake. And for those inclined to trust the government’s motives, this should wake you up. This is why government really acts -- because some intolerant a-hole with a grudge and a debt problem decides to use the government to help them in a personal fight.

Government is evil and those who would use the government to control others are evil.


Also, don't forget that it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site (LINK), and in honor of Valentine's Day, might I recommend revisiting the Top 25 Romance Films article (LINK).

News Roundup: Anger, Insanity and Nakedness

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Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

View Detail

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

Admiral Mike Mullen recently testified at the Senate Armed Services Committee that our "ally" Pakistan has allowed the Taliban-supported faction Haqqani to become nothing less than an arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. This testimony comes from the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn't very politic, and it has caused quite a stir.

We have been buoying up our Pakistani “allies” for years, often to the detriment of our much firmer ally, India. The Afghanistan War has opened wounds we either didn’t know we had or thought were healing. Pakistan makes no pretense of being a purely secular state. After all, its capital is Islamabad (“the abode of Islam”). But we counted on the fact that after the first round of Islamists were ousted from power decades back, the military would suppress the major jihadist impulses of the government and the Muslim clerics. They even elected a woman as head of state. It worked for awhile and up to a point.

The war in Afghanistan, a nation which borders Pakistan, has ripped the bandage off the long-festering wound. After successfully driving the largest groups of Taliban out of Afghanistan, we quickly discovered they were being given safe harbor and assistance in Pakistan, particularly the border province of Waziristan. Waziristan is comprised of two administrative districts, North and South, but for all intents and purposes, South Waziristan is an independent state under the very loose administrative control of the central Pakistani government.

Both parts of the province are comprised largely of warring tribes. In the South, the population is largely comprised of Waziris, Mahasuds and Burki. They are not ethnically close to the Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhi or Pashtuns, and consider Pakistan to be an occupying force. In the North, the main tribe is the Darwesh Khel, alternatively known as the Utmanzai Waziris. They are ethnically Waziri, but often at war with the southern Waziris. Unlike the South, which is largely uncontrolled, the North is actually under some direct control from Islamabad, but also unlike the South, the North shares an open border with Afghanistan. In fact, both North and South Waziristan sound a lot like Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over the government.

The battles between the North, the South and the central Pakistani government make this a slippery situation for both Islamabad and Washington DC. The problem that has come to light in recent years is that despite their internal battles, Pakistan and Waziristan are extremely Taliban-friendly. Pakistan makes occasional forays into Waziristan to stamp out open rebellions or arrest terrorists who want to blow up Islamabad. But by their own admission, the Pakistanis are unable to gain effective control of the province.

Though the government of Pakistan is still largely in military hands, those at the top are now more militantly Islamic and bellicose toward India and hesitant toward the United States. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been the recipient of complaints from the White House for its complicity in Taliban-sponsored terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. The army’s failure to gain effective control of the Afghan border regions has also been a source of considerable diplomatic maneuvering.

But it is only recently that a personage as important as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has publicly and clearly called Taliban-supported Pakistani terror group Haqqani a “veritable arm of the ISI.” American-Pakistani relations, already strained, were pulled to near-breaking by the honest words of an American Admiral. The official Pakistani response was very angry, indicating that the government believes America is interfering in internal Pakistani matters. The usual mad Muslims took to the streets in the thousands to warn America not to try to deal with Haqqani on its own (though there was no suggestion from any American official that America has any intention of doing anything faintly resembling acting independently on the Haqqani matter).

All that Admiral Mullen really did was point out the danger of an ally which officially claims to be doing its best, but in reality is at best neutral about Taliban/Haqqani terrorism and at worst, actively complicit. Having the truth pointed out in public caused the Pakistani government to announce that it would not tolerate American attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Waziristan without prior permission from Islamabad. This, even though the government admits outright that it has scant control of the border regions. It doesn’t help that the Pakistani government at its highest levels has more leaks than a sieve, and that any forewarning to Islamabad about a pending American attack on terrorist bases would get to the terrorists faster than the drones and the bombs.

This is clearly a thorny problem. But pretending that we don’t know how treacherous Pakistan has been is simply no longer viable. The best example of all was the capture and killing of the greatest terrorist of the last half of the twentieth century—Osama bin Laden. He had been living comfortably in a very obvious compound a mere sixty miles from Islamabad, in a security zone, and practically on the grounds of a nearby Pakistani military base.

When a sophisticated American helicopter went down during the operation, the Pakistani government made sure the first people to get to it were the Chinese military experts. Yet we are expected to believe that our ally didn’t know about bin Laden’s compound, had no idea he was in Pakistan, and was acting in the interest of our alliance by allowing Chinese military operatives to sort through highly-sensitive war-making machinery before allowing the Americans in.

So how does the Obama administration react to the admiral’s statement? Just about as you would expect. It wussed out. Barack Obama has refused to publicly endorse the admiral’s statement, and is presently hiding under his desk. He has sent his better-half, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to soothe the Pakistani savage breast.

Despite recent border incursions from Pakistan into Afghan war zones aiding the Taliban, the Taliban-led attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and attacks on NATO outposts near the border, Clinton failed to address the fact that Haqqani was clearly linked to the attacks. Instead, she met for three hours with the Pakistani ambassador, repeating platitudes about cooperation and vital strategic interests.

This flies in the face of the unrefuted testimony of Admiral Mullen who named names and tied Pakistan and the terrorists together: “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack on September 10 which killed five and wounded seventy-seven coalition soldiers. We also have credible evidence that Haqqani was behind the June 28th attack on the International Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

So what did our brave Secretary of State do? Her department leaked a memo to the Washington Post that said: “Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week than an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a veritable arm of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington.” She doesn’t contradict the admiral’s statement with any evidence whatsoever, but makes it very clear we mustn’t upset our “allies.”

Admiral Mike Mullen recently testified at the Senate Armed Services Committee that our "ally" Pakistan has allowed the Taliban-supported faction Haqqani to become nothing less than an arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. This testimony comes from the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It wasn't very politic, and it has caused quite a stir.

We have been buoying up our Pakistani “allies” for years, often to the detriment of our much firmer ally, India. The Afghanistan War has opened wounds we either didn’t know we had or thought were healing. Pakistan makes no pretense of being a purely secular state. After all, its capital is Islamabad (“the abode of Islam”). But we counted on the fact that after the first round of Islamists were ousted from power decades back, the military would suppress the major jihadist impulses of the government and the Muslim clerics. They even elected a woman as head of state. It worked for awhile and up to a point.

The war in Afghanistan, a nation which borders Pakistan, has ripped the bandage off the long-festering wound. After successfully driving the largest groups of Taliban out of Afghanistan, we quickly discovered they were being given safe harbor and assistance in Pakistan, particularly the border province of Waziristan. Waziristan is comprised of two administrative districts, North and South, but for all intents and purposes, South Waziristan is an independent state under the very loose administrative control of the central Pakistani government.

Both parts of the province are comprised largely of warring tribes. In the South, the population is largely comprised of Waziris, Mahasuds and Burki. They are not ethnically close to the Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhi or Pashtuns, and consider Pakistan to be an occupying force. In the North, the main tribe is the Darwesh Khel, alternatively known as the Utmanzai Waziris. They are ethnically Waziri, but often at war with the southern Waziris. Unlike the South, which is largely uncontrolled, the North is actually under some direct control from Islamabad, but also unlike the South, the North shares an open border with Afghanistan. In fact, both North and South Waziristan sound a lot like Afghanistan just before the Taliban took over the government.

The battles between the North, the South and the central Pakistani government make this a slippery situation for both Islamabad and Washington DC. The problem that has come to light in recent years is that despite their internal battles, Pakistan and Waziristan are extremely Taliban-friendly. Pakistan makes occasional forays into Waziristan to stamp out open rebellions or arrest terrorists who want to blow up Islamabad. But by their own admission, the Pakistanis are unable to gain effective control of the province.

Though the government of Pakistan is still largely in military hands, those at the top are now more militantly Islamic and bellicose toward India and hesitant toward the United States. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) has been the recipient of complaints from the White House for its complicity in Taliban-sponsored terrorism since early in the Clinton administration. The army’s failure to gain effective control of the Afghan border regions has also been a source of considerable diplomatic maneuvering.

But it is only recently that a personage as important as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has publicly and clearly called Taliban-supported Pakistani terror group Haqqani a “veritable arm of the ISI.” American-Pakistani relations, already strained, were pulled to near-breaking by the honest words of an American Admiral. The official Pakistani response was very angry, indicating that the government believes America is interfering in internal Pakistani matters. The usual mad Muslims took to the streets in the thousands to warn America not to try to deal with Haqqani on its own (though there was no suggestion from any American official that America has any intention of doing anything faintly resembling acting independently on the Haqqani matter).

All that Admiral Mullen really did was point out the danger of an ally which officially claims to be doing its best, but in reality is at best neutral about Taliban/Haqqani terrorism and at worst, actively complicit. Having the truth pointed out in public caused the Pakistani government to announce that it would not tolerate American attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Waziristan without prior permission from Islamabad. This, even though the government admits outright that it has scant control of the border regions. It doesn’t help that the Pakistani government at its highest levels has more leaks than a sieve, and that any forewarning to Islamabad about a pending American attack on terrorist bases would get to the terrorists faster than the drones and the bombs.

This is clearly a thorny problem. But pretending that we don’t know how treacherous Pakistan has been is simply no longer viable. The best example of all was the capture and killing of the greatest terrorist of the last half of the twentieth century—Osama bin Laden. He had been living comfortably in a very obvious compound a mere sixty miles from Islamabad, in a security zone, and practically on the grounds of a nearby Pakistani military base.

When a sophisticated American helicopter went down during the operation, the Pakistani government made sure the first people to get to it were the Chinese military experts. Yet we are expected to believe that our ally didn’t know about bin Laden’s compound, had no idea he was in Pakistan, and was acting in the interest of our alliance by allowing Chinese military operatives to sort through highly-sensitive war-making machinery before allowing the Americans in.

So how does the Obama administration react to the admiral’s statement? Just about as you would expect. It wussed out. Barack Obama has refused to publicly endorse the admiral’s statement, and is presently hiding under his desk. He has sent his better-half, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to soothe the Pakistani savage breast.

Despite recent border incursions from Pakistan into Afghan war zones aiding the Taliban, the Taliban-led attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and attacks on NATO outposts near the border, Clinton failed to address the fact that Haqqani was clearly linked to the attacks. Instead, she met for three hours with the Pakistani ambassador, repeating platitudes about cooperation and vital strategic interests.

This flies in the face of the unrefuted testimony of Admiral Mullen who named names and tied Pakistan and the terrorists together: “With ISI support, Haqqani operatives planned and conducted the truck bomb attack on September 10 which killed five and wounded seventy-seven coalition soldiers. We also have credible evidence that Haqqani was behind the June 28th attack on the International Hotel in Kabul and a host of other smaller but effective operations.”

So what did our brave Secretary of State do? Her department leaked a memo to the Washington Post that said: “Adm. Mike Mullen’s assertion last week than an anti-American insurgent group in Afghanistan is a veritable arm of Pakistan’s spy service was overstated and contributed to overheated reactions in Pakistan and misperceptions in Washington.” She doesn’t contradict the admiral’s statement with any evidence whatsoever, but makes it very clear we mustn’t upset our “allies.”

With Friends Like Pakistan . . .

View Detail

Obama The Terror Warrior

Obama The Terror Warrior

Following Barack Obama's UN speechifying about Palestinians and other terrorists, it is probably an appropriate time to revisit the Obama administration's alleged counter-terrorism policy. To summarize it, he doesn't have one. Like J. Edgar Hoover refusing to recognize the existence of the Mafia and organized crime, Obama thinks in terms of individual criminals and criminal acts.

It's easier and more comfortable to think of using the vast resources of American law enforcement and the military to track down one high-profile international criminal like Osama bin Laden than it is to think in terms of using those same resources to break the back of organized terrorists or fight a war against jihadism. It's easier and more comfortable to pat oneself on the back for having captured or killed a single criminal than it is to recognize the need for 24/7 vigilance in fighting a huge multi-national amorphous yet hydra-headed enemy.

Like the Lernean Hydra, when you chop off the bin Laden head, others grow to replace it. The entire beast must be killed and the stumps of its heads seared with fire before a victory can be claimed. And since Obama is no Hercules, and "victory" has become a dirty word, his counter-terrorism program is the same old liberal war-on-crime model with an added twist. The twist is that Obama admits that he and his cadres of law enforcement are incapable of going it alone. So the solution is to "energize the strength of communities, to enhance the understanding of the threat posed by violent extremism."

I've touched on Obama's August formal report to the American people in the past, but after his UN moral equivalency speech and the hackneyed "walk in the other's shoes" admonitions to Israel and the Palestinians, it's probably a good idea to do a little more analysis. Obama's counter-terrorism policy is simply more feel-good, one-nation-under-therapy, liberal utopian silliness. The title of the the report alone is a strong hint of just how unserious he is about domestic terrorism. "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States." If you are empowered, he and his resources can be used for more important things.

"Empowering" is a liberal concept that actually means very little. Essentially, it's giving pretend power to people too timid or too lazy to do things on their own initiative. It makes them feel better about themselves, and is in reality just another facet of the self-esteem movement. If you have to be told that it's a good idea to report "suspicious activity," you're probably too ignorant to get it right.

But the real problem with the report and Obama's entire counter-terrorism policy is that he carries on George Bush's inability or unwillingness to identify the enemy we need to be fighting. "Terror" is a concept, but it can't be an enemy since it exists only in the mind. Wars are fought against real, physical, human enemies. And if you can't identify them, you are taking shots in the dark. But Bush and Obama both refuse to name the enemy for fear of being politically-incorrect and/or wounding the feelings of those actually making war on America, Israel and the entire civilized world.

We are not in the middle of the war on crime, or the war on disease, or the war on poverty, or the war on any other euphemism. We are in the middle of a war--period. Like the Cold War, there are occasional hot outbreaks (such as 9-11), but mostly the enemy is fighting small actions in multiple locations while planning and organizing for the next big strike. Since 9-11, there have been 23,000 terror attacks in the world. So far, America has suffered few but awful attacks since 9-11. The Fort Hood massacre is the most infamous of them.

Multi-culturalism, leftism, one-worldism, moral relativism, blind secularism, and stealth jihadism are the fellow-travelers and enablers of the enemy, but they are not the enemy. Militant Islam is the enemy, and our government refuses to admit that simple fact. To prove that, here is the list of naughty persons in the report that the Obamists want you to look out for: "Neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, anti-tax groups, militias, racial supremacists, and religious zealots." But when it comes to religious zealots, the biggest and most violent of those groups is not identified by name. In fact, isolated radical fundamentalist Christians are treated as if they are as numerous, as determined and as organized as radical fundamentalist Muslims.

Though there are scattered mentions of radicalized Muslims, the report never uses the words Islamism, jihadism, or any other expression which might identify fundamentalist Islam as the most dangerous, most active, and most violent group of all--dwarfing all the others combined. Another interesting thing about the report is that is purports to be a counter-terrorism document, but the words "terror" and "terrorism" do not exist anywhere in the document.

Instead, the harshest description, and the closest to being accurate, is "violent extremism." No mention of the fact that the "violent extremists" who brought down the World Trade Center buildings, the shoe-bomber, the Christmas Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, and the Ford Hood shooter, among many others, all share one violent belief in common--Islamism. Most of the planned attacks were thwarted, usually at the last minute by observant civilians. Each of those civilians was empowered by his or her own inner strength, not by a worthless government report and some feel-good words. The same can be said of those brave passengers who rushed the Islamists aboard Flight 93 and prevented a fourth jumbo jet hit on America on 9-11.

The one "violent extremist" Muslim organization mentioned by name in the report is Al Qaeda. That gave Obama a temporary victory when he took credit for killing the head of that organization. But the report fails to take note of Wahhabi mosques and schools nationwide, of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Hizb ut-Tharir, Hamas, Hezbollah, or any other Islamist group with tentacles spread throughout America. It doesn't even come close to mentioning domestic terrorist-supporting groups posing as peacemakers such as unindicted Holy Land Foundation co-conspirator CAIR.

Quotes from persons intimately involved with terrorism have some telling things to say about the report specifically and Obama's lackadaisical approach to the problem of Islamism generally. Melvin Bledsoe is the distraught father of Carlos Bledsoe, a Muslim convert who murdered a soldier at a military-recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. His comment on the report was that "It's never going to fix the problem when they're dancing around the issues." Islamists are recruiting faster than the military. Ed Husain, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations said that the report said "worryingly little and was primarily designed not to offend Muslims."

Barack Obama, as President and Commander-in-Chief is charged with a major constitutional obligation--to protect the citizens of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He is not charged with being America's chief investigator of crime. Nor is he charged with being America's chief soother of injured feelings. He is charged with leading America when the nation is at war.

Obama has failed even to identify the enemy, and when he actually takes military action against Muslims of any sort overseas, he does so in what Shepard Smith of Fox News calls "not-wars." Worst of all, the American Commander-in-Chief is ready, willing and able to subvert American sovereignty, cripple American military power, and subordinate American leadership to part-time warriors like NATO and worthless warriors like the United Nations.

Obama can't blame the report on others. It was issued over his signature, and presented to the public as if it were holy writ. I suggest that he change the title to "Whistling Past the Graveyard."

Following Barack Obama's UN speechifying about Palestinians and other terrorists, it is probably an appropriate time to revisit the Obama administration's alleged counter-terrorism policy. To summarize it, he doesn't have one. Like J. Edgar Hoover refusing to recognize the existence of the Mafia and organized crime, Obama thinks in terms of individual criminals and criminal acts.

It's easier and more comfortable to think of using the vast resources of American law enforcement and the military to track down one high-profile international criminal like Osama bin Laden than it is to think in terms of using those same resources to break the back of organized terrorists or fight a war against jihadism. It's easier and more comfortable to pat oneself on the back for having captured or killed a single criminal than it is to recognize the need for 24/7 vigilance in fighting a huge multi-national amorphous yet hydra-headed enemy.

Like the Lernean Hydra, when you chop off the bin Laden head, others grow to replace it. The entire beast must be killed and the stumps of its heads seared with fire before a victory can be claimed. And since Obama is no Hercules, and "victory" has become a dirty word, his counter-terrorism program is the same old liberal war-on-crime model with an added twist. The twist is that Obama admits that he and his cadres of law enforcement are incapable of going it alone. So the solution is to "energize the strength of communities, to enhance the understanding of the threat posed by violent extremism."

I've touched on Obama's August formal report to the American people in the past, but after his UN moral equivalency speech and the hackneyed "walk in the other's shoes" admonitions to Israel and the Palestinians, it's probably a good idea to do a little more analysis. Obama's counter-terrorism policy is simply more feel-good, one-nation-under-therapy, liberal utopian silliness. The title of the the report alone is a strong hint of just how unserious he is about domestic terrorism. "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States." If you are empowered, he and his resources can be used for more important things.

"Empowering" is a liberal concept that actually means very little. Essentially, it's giving pretend power to people too timid or too lazy to do things on their own initiative. It makes them feel better about themselves, and is in reality just another facet of the self-esteem movement. If you have to be told that it's a good idea to report "suspicious activity," you're probably too ignorant to get it right.

But the real problem with the report and Obama's entire counter-terrorism policy is that he carries on George Bush's inability or unwillingness to identify the enemy we need to be fighting. "Terror" is a concept, but it can't be an enemy since it exists only in the mind. Wars are fought against real, physical, human enemies. And if you can't identify them, you are taking shots in the dark. But Bush and Obama both refuse to name the enemy for fear of being politically-incorrect and/or wounding the feelings of those actually making war on America, Israel and the entire civilized world.

We are not in the middle of the war on crime, or the war on disease, or the war on poverty, or the war on any other euphemism. We are in the middle of a war--period. Like the Cold War, there are occasional hot outbreaks (such as 9-11), but mostly the enemy is fighting small actions in multiple locations while planning and organizing for the next big strike. Since 9-11, there have been 23,000 terror attacks in the world. So far, America has suffered few but awful attacks since 9-11. The Fort Hood massacre is the most infamous of them.

Multi-culturalism, leftism, one-worldism, moral relativism, blind secularism, and stealth jihadism are the fellow-travelers and enablers of the enemy, but they are not the enemy. Militant Islam is the enemy, and our government refuses to admit that simple fact. To prove that, here is the list of naughty persons in the report that the Obamists want you to look out for: "Neo-Nazis, environmental extremists, anti-tax groups, militias, racial supremacists, and religious zealots." But when it comes to religious zealots, the biggest and most violent of those groups is not identified by name. In fact, isolated radical fundamentalist Christians are treated as if they are as numerous, as determined and as organized as radical fundamentalist Muslims.

Though there are scattered mentions of radicalized Muslims, the report never uses the words Islamism, jihadism, or any other expression which might identify fundamentalist Islam as the most dangerous, most active, and most violent group of all--dwarfing all the others combined. Another interesting thing about the report is that is purports to be a counter-terrorism document, but the words "terror" and "terrorism" do not exist anywhere in the document.

Instead, the harshest description, and the closest to being accurate, is "violent extremism." No mention of the fact that the "violent extremists" who brought down the World Trade Center buildings, the shoe-bomber, the Christmas Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, and the Ford Hood shooter, among many others, all share one violent belief in common--Islamism. Most of the planned attacks were thwarted, usually at the last minute by observant civilians. Each of those civilians was empowered by his or her own inner strength, not by a worthless government report and some feel-good words. The same can be said of those brave passengers who rushed the Islamists aboard Flight 93 and prevented a fourth jumbo jet hit on America on 9-11.

The one "violent extremist" Muslim organization mentioned by name in the report is Al Qaeda. That gave Obama a temporary victory when he took credit for killing the head of that organization. But the report fails to take note of Wahhabi mosques and schools nationwide, of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Hizb ut-Tharir, Hamas, Hezbollah, or any other Islamist group with tentacles spread throughout America. It doesn't even come close to mentioning domestic terrorist-supporting groups posing as peacemakers such as unindicted Holy Land Foundation co-conspirator CAIR.

Quotes from persons intimately involved with terrorism have some telling things to say about the report specifically and Obama's lackadaisical approach to the problem of Islamism generally. Melvin Bledsoe is the distraught father of Carlos Bledsoe, a Muslim convert who murdered a soldier at a military-recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. His comment on the report was that "It's never going to fix the problem when they're dancing around the issues." Islamists are recruiting faster than the military. Ed Husain, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations said that the report said "worryingly little and was primarily designed not to offend Muslims."

Barack Obama, as President and Commander-in-Chief is charged with a major constitutional obligation--to protect the citizens of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He is not charged with being America's chief investigator of crime. Nor is he charged with being America's chief soother of injured feelings. He is charged with leading America when the nation is at war.

Obama has failed even to identify the enemy, and when he actually takes military action against Muslims of any sort overseas, he does so in what Shepard Smith of Fox News calls "not-wars." Worst of all, the American Commander-in-Chief is ready, willing and able to subvert American sovereignty, cripple American military power, and subordinate American leadership to part-time warriors like NATO and worthless warriors like the United Nations.

Obama can't blame the report on others. It was issued over his signature, and presented to the public as if it were holy writ. I suggest that he change the title to "Whistling Past the Graveyard."

Obama The Terror Warrior

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Did The Terrorists Win On 9/11?

Did The Terrorists Win On 9/11?

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 behind us, it’s time to ask a question that few have been willing to debate openly: did the terrorists win on 9/11? That’s a really difficult question to answer. Let’s see what we can come up with?

If we take this question literally, then the obvious answer is NO. The goal of the terrorists was to intimidate America to the point that Americans would no longer resist Islam. Thus, Islam could conquer country after country until it dominated the world. That didn’t happen and won’t. The American spirit is too strong for terror to succeed, and any attempt to impose Islam in the United States will simply result in a whole bunch of dead and desecrated Muslims.

Unfortunately, there’s more to consider.

Despite ten years of being hunted by the most powerful military in the world, al Qaeda continues to exist. They have killed 6,500 American and Western troops, exhausted Western Europe’s military capability, and continue to pull off daily terrorist operations around the world. The Taliban control large parts of Pakistan and are prepared to return to Afghanistan the minute we leave. Fundamentalist Islamic groups will soon control Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and probably Iraq, and are working on Syria and others. They control Sudan and Somalia, where they have turned pirating into a $538 million a year operation despite the collective efforts of the world’s navies. That’s a lot of success.

So did they win? No. Are they winning? Sort of.

Then there's the flip side to this question: did we lose? Again, literally, the answer is NO. America is still here and no one honestly thinks that's going to change. Indeed, if anything Islam is further from its goal today than ever because now we know what they're up to.

But again, there is more to consider. Our government has spent $1.2 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, and that doesn’t count things like TSA or lost productivity. That’s 8.5% of our national debt. By comparison, World War II cost only $2 trillion (in 1990 dollars). So we’ve spent a fortune.

At the same time, we’ve given up a lot of our freedoms so that our politicians can look like they are doing something. Note that I do not say “so we can be safe.” It’s fairly clear that airport fondlings have done nothing to keep us safer. Port security is a joke. The border is porous. Internal security is nonexistent. Essentially, we’ve been lucky that these terrorists just aren’t very bright or motivated.

Moreover, our security operations have become bureaucratic wastelands. We spent a fortune creating the Department of Homeland Security (annual budget $50 billion, funnels another $35 billion in grants), but it has achieved nothing. DHS has made no arrests that I’ve seen despite being given new powers like having the power to do warrantless wiretaps -- every arrest we’ve seen has been made by local cops, vigilant citizens or FBI stings. So what does DHS do with its time? It seizes the web domains of people who are illegally broadcasting NFL games. . . which has what to do with national security? DHS head Janet Napolitano also spends her time lying about the border being secure.

Congress has been shameful in all of this too. They’ve used the supposed security crisis to ram through all kinds of pork boondoggles and special interest legislation. They pander to us like we’re idiots, selling us fences, airport pat-downs, and anti-terror laws that are so broad anyone could be charged for anything. And they’ve put our soldiers -- our fellow Americans -- at risk because they didn’t know how else to look tough.

These are not good things. The terrorists didn’t hurt America or the American people, but our own politicians sure are giving it their best shot!

So what do we do?

First, we set new goals. Rather than fighting a “war” against something as nebulous and never-ending as “terror,” we need realistic goals such as neutralizing certain terrorist groups or replacing certain regimes. Then we come up with rational plans to achieve those goals.

Secondly, we reform our government. Strip away any function from DHS that is not actually related to security. Purge its laws of special interest goodies. Stop letting Congress force programs on the military. Consolidate all of the intelligence agencies.

And frankly, we need to do this for all agencies. Our government controls too much of our lives. It should not be micromanaging the country. We need to eliminate bailouts, czars, corporate handouts, and special interest tax carve outs. It needs to surrender its ownership of banks and car companies. It needs to stop picking economic winners and losers, and propping up things consumers don’t want. It needs to stop keeping us dependent on foreign energy and foreign labor. It needs to get out of education and out of our medical system.

Finally, we need to stop letting politicians use crises to grab power. 9/11 is not a valid reason to throw out the Constitution anymore than the financial crisis was a reason to throw out the Constitution. And we should never trade our freedoms for placebos.

Thoughts?

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 behind us, it’s time to ask a question that few have been willing to debate openly: did the terrorists win on 9/11? That’s a really difficult question to answer. Let’s see what we can come up with?

If we take this question literally, then the obvious answer is NO. The goal of the terrorists was to intimidate America to the point that Americans would no longer resist Islam. Thus, Islam could conquer country after country until it dominated the world. That didn’t happen and won’t. The American spirit is too strong for terror to succeed, and any attempt to impose Islam in the United States will simply result in a whole bunch of dead and desecrated Muslims.

Unfortunately, there’s more to consider.

Despite ten years of being hunted by the most powerful military in the world, al Qaeda continues to exist. They have killed 6,500 American and Western troops, exhausted Western Europe’s military capability, and continue to pull off daily terrorist operations around the world. The Taliban control large parts of Pakistan and are prepared to return to Afghanistan the minute we leave. Fundamentalist Islamic groups will soon control Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and probably Iraq, and are working on Syria and others. They control Sudan and Somalia, where they have turned pirating into a $538 million a year operation despite the collective efforts of the world’s navies. That’s a lot of success.

So did they win? No. Are they winning? Sort of.

Then there's the flip side to this question: did we lose? Again, literally, the answer is NO. America is still here and no one honestly thinks that's going to change. Indeed, if anything Islam is further from its goal today than ever because now we know what they're up to.

But again, there is more to consider. Our government has spent $1.2 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, and that doesn’t count things like TSA or lost productivity. That’s 8.5% of our national debt. By comparison, World War II cost only $2 trillion (in 1990 dollars). So we’ve spent a fortune.

At the same time, we’ve given up a lot of our freedoms so that our politicians can look like they are doing something. Note that I do not say “so we can be safe.” It’s fairly clear that airport fondlings have done nothing to keep us safer. Port security is a joke. The border is porous. Internal security is nonexistent. Essentially, we’ve been lucky that these terrorists just aren’t very bright or motivated.

Moreover, our security operations have become bureaucratic wastelands. We spent a fortune creating the Department of Homeland Security (annual budget $50 billion, funnels another $35 billion in grants), but it has achieved nothing. DHS has made no arrests that I’ve seen despite being given new powers like having the power to do warrantless wiretaps -- every arrest we’ve seen has been made by local cops, vigilant citizens or FBI stings. So what does DHS do with its time? It seizes the web domains of people who are illegally broadcasting NFL games. . . which has what to do with national security? DHS head Janet Napolitano also spends her time lying about the border being secure.

Congress has been shameful in all of this too. They’ve used the supposed security crisis to ram through all kinds of pork boondoggles and special interest legislation. They pander to us like we’re idiots, selling us fences, airport pat-downs, and anti-terror laws that are so broad anyone could be charged for anything. And they’ve put our soldiers -- our fellow Americans -- at risk because they didn’t know how else to look tough.

These are not good things. The terrorists didn’t hurt America or the American people, but our own politicians sure are giving it their best shot!

So what do we do?

First, we set new goals. Rather than fighting a “war” against something as nebulous and never-ending as “terror,” we need realistic goals such as neutralizing certain terrorist groups or replacing certain regimes. Then we come up with rational plans to achieve those goals.

Secondly, we reform our government. Strip away any function from DHS that is not actually related to security. Purge its laws of special interest goodies. Stop letting Congress force programs on the military. Consolidate all of the intelligence agencies.

And frankly, we need to do this for all agencies. Our government controls too much of our lives. It should not be micromanaging the country. We need to eliminate bailouts, czars, corporate handouts, and special interest tax carve outs. It needs to surrender its ownership of banks and car companies. It needs to stop picking economic winners and losers, and propping up things consumers don’t want. It needs to stop keeping us dependent on foreign energy and foreign labor. It needs to get out of education and out of our medical system.

Finally, we need to stop letting politicians use crises to grab power. 9/11 is not a valid reason to throw out the Constitution anymore than the financial crisis was a reason to throw out the Constitution. And we should never trade our freedoms for placebos.

Thoughts?

Did The Terrorists Win On 9/11?

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If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

As the House hearings on Islamic recruitment and domestic radicalization wind down, the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to counter the inevitable findings of the committee. Figuring that the best defense is a good offense, the administration has published a policy paper entitled: "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Extremism in the United States." You can read the document here.



Repeating itself almost like a case of literary hiccups, the document is designed to convince gullible Americans that the best way to combat Islamic terrorism is to utilize high-profile and well-funded Islamic organizations to do the fighting for us. It smacks of recruiting Nazis to counter Hitler. Or communists to counter Castro. It also smacks of the deaf, dumb and blind whistling-past-the-graveyard liberal mindset which won't call a war a war, or call terrorists terrorists.



Note that the words "terrorism" and "Islamic" are used, but almost never in conjunction with each other. As so often happens in these documents, the first mention of domestic terrorists is awarded to neo-Nazis. You know, the guys who flew Fokkers and Messerschmidts into the World Trade Center. Lest you think they might be ignoring terrorism originating in Jihadistan, the report mentions al-Qa'ida in the first paragraph, so as to single it out as a nasty group divorced entirely from mainstream Islam.



At that point in the opening page, signed by His Majesty Barack Obama, "Islamic terrorism" essentially disappears to be replaced by "violent extremism." As The One says: "Protecting America's communities from al-Qa'ida's hateful ideology is not the work of government alone. Communities--especially Muslim American communities whose children, families and neighbors are being targeted by al-Qa'ida--are often best positioned to take the lead because they know their communities best." Well, there's a revelation. Al-Qa'ida isn't recruiting at the local Baptist churches. Whoda thunk it?



Thereafter in the main body of the document, the writers repeat, ad nauseam, that associating Islam with terrorism leads to terrorism. That's a thought that is coming to full fruition after being bandied about ever since 9/11. If you think and talk happy thoughts about Islam, the problem will go away, particularly if you have the right Muslim organizations helping to get the message out that Islam is the religion of peace. Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist plans.



While the government can help, local communities and prominent civilian organizations are in the forefront of combating the outbreak of neo-Nazi, radical Christian, disaffected youth, and the occasional Muslim extremist attacks. And they must be encouraged, yea, even supported by the government. While we're at it, we must make sure that local law enforcement assists in getting the word out that rare "violent extremists" who are only incidentally Muslim must be countered by "good Muslim" groups such as CAIR. Why am I reminded of San Francisco former Mayor Willie Brown's plan to end gang violence on the City's buses and trains by hiring gang members as security guards?



Quintan Wiktorowicz is the main inspiration for the policy paper. Would you like to hazard a guess as to where he is coming from? Well, after 9/11, he authored several treatises on how al-Qaeda (my preferred spelling) must be distinguished from moderate Muslim organizations such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He also distinguishes between good Salafists and bad Salafists (a very violent offshoot of the Brotherhood). That's a bit like distinguishing between the SS and the Gestapo. His arguments haven't changed with time, and now the President of one of the largest Muslim nations on earth has singled him out to plot American strategy to bring Islam into mainstream America and deflect violent extremism.



The underlying philosophy of Barack Obama, as evidenced by this paper and his choice of the authors, is that if the fox keeps killing your chickens, put the fox in charge of the henhouse. The paper actually suggests that the most devout Muslims are the ones who are best for combating radicalism. "Very religious Muslims are the most resistant to radicalization while those most likely to be radicalized lack a good grounding in Islam." Very religious Muslims like bin-Laden, al-Awlaki, and Adam Gadahn ("Azzam the American")?



The great patriotic and anti-terrorist organizations of CNN, NPR, the New York Times and the Huffington Post have all praised the report. The Times went so far as to include the opinion of Political Research Associates, but only referred to PRA as "a liberal group." In fact, PRA is a wingnut organization that proclaims that Christians are plotting to take over the American government. The Times emphasized the wisdom of PRA's and the ACLU's concept that Islamic terrorism must be soft-pedaled when recruiting law enforcement to assist in searching for violent extremists. They want no serious discussion or investigation of widespread Islamic terrorism, and so must reduce a few hundred million Muslims to the equivalent status of the lone Oslo "Christian mass murderer" or Turner Diaries nutcase Timothy McVeigh.



As Daniel Greenfield puts it: "The Orwellian blankness of the new strategy is a spate of ignorance to mask the truth of terrorism. The enemy is reduced to a social problem, terrorism to violent extremism and the war on terror to programs teaching Muslims about the dangers of violent extremism on the internet. The same dead-end European counter-terrorism strategies imported to the United States." Indeed, there are no Muslim terrorists, there are only misguided disaffected youths. He believes that "the new strategy begins with Obama carefully using the Arabic transcription spelling of 'Usama' and 'al-Qa-ida,' and ends with cautioning that, strong religious beliefs should never be confused with violent extremism. Unless you're Christian, of course."



Personally, I prefer to wait for the report coming out of the House committee chaired by Rep. Peter King (R-New York). More importantly, I will wait for the committee's recommendations and the list of organizations that the committee believes should be involved in countering growing domestic Islamic terrorist recruiting. Will CAIR be among them?

As the House hearings on Islamic recruitment and domestic radicalization wind down, the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to counter the inevitable findings of the committee. Figuring that the best defense is a good offense, the administration has published a policy paper entitled: "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Extremism in the United States." You can read the document here.



Repeating itself almost like a case of literary hiccups, the document is designed to convince gullible Americans that the best way to combat Islamic terrorism is to utilize high-profile and well-funded Islamic organizations to do the fighting for us. It smacks of recruiting Nazis to counter Hitler. Or communists to counter Castro. It also smacks of the deaf, dumb and blind whistling-past-the-graveyard liberal mindset which won't call a war a war, or call terrorists terrorists.



Note that the words "terrorism" and "Islamic" are used, but almost never in conjunction with each other. As so often happens in these documents, the first mention of domestic terrorists is awarded to neo-Nazis. You know, the guys who flew Fokkers and Messerschmidts into the World Trade Center. Lest you think they might be ignoring terrorism originating in Jihadistan, the report mentions al-Qa'ida in the first paragraph, so as to single it out as a nasty group divorced entirely from mainstream Islam.



At that point in the opening page, signed by His Majesty Barack Obama, "Islamic terrorism" essentially disappears to be replaced by "violent extremism." As The One says: "Protecting America's communities from al-Qa'ida's hateful ideology is not the work of government alone. Communities--especially Muslim American communities whose children, families and neighbors are being targeted by al-Qa'ida--are often best positioned to take the lead because they know their communities best." Well, there's a revelation. Al-Qa'ida isn't recruiting at the local Baptist churches. Whoda thunk it?



Thereafter in the main body of the document, the writers repeat, ad nauseam, that associating Islam with terrorism leads to terrorism. That's a thought that is coming to full fruition after being bandied about ever since 9/11. If you think and talk happy thoughts about Islam, the problem will go away, particularly if you have the right Muslim organizations helping to get the message out that Islam is the religion of peace. Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist plans.



While the government can help, local communities and prominent civilian organizations are in the forefront of combating the outbreak of neo-Nazi, radical Christian, disaffected youth, and the occasional Muslim extremist attacks. And they must be encouraged, yea, even supported by the government. While we're at it, we must make sure that local law enforcement assists in getting the word out that rare "violent extremists" who are only incidentally Muslim must be countered by "good Muslim" groups such as CAIR. Why am I reminded of San Francisco former Mayor Willie Brown's plan to end gang violence on the City's buses and trains by hiring gang members as security guards?



Quintan Wiktorowicz is the main inspiration for the policy paper. Would you like to hazard a guess as to where he is coming from? Well, after 9/11, he authored several treatises on how al-Qaeda (my preferred spelling) must be distinguished from moderate Muslim organizations such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He also distinguishes between good Salafists and bad Salafists (a very violent offshoot of the Brotherhood). That's a bit like distinguishing between the SS and the Gestapo. His arguments haven't changed with time, and now the President of one of the largest Muslim nations on earth has singled him out to plot American strategy to bring Islam into mainstream America and deflect violent extremism.



The underlying philosophy of Barack Obama, as evidenced by this paper and his choice of the authors, is that if the fox keeps killing your chickens, put the fox in charge of the henhouse. The paper actually suggests that the most devout Muslims are the ones who are best for combating radicalism. "Very religious Muslims are the most resistant to radicalization while those most likely to be radicalized lack a good grounding in Islam." Very religious Muslims like bin-Laden, al-Awlaki, and Adam Gadahn ("Azzam the American")?



The great patriotic and anti-terrorist organizations of CNN, NPR, the New York Times and the Huffington Post have all praised the report. The Times went so far as to include the opinion of Political Research Associates, but only referred to PRA as "a liberal group." In fact, PRA is a wingnut organization that proclaims that Christians are plotting to take over the American government. The Times emphasized the wisdom of PRA's and the ACLU's concept that Islamic terrorism must be soft-pedaled when recruiting law enforcement to assist in searching for violent extremists. They want no serious discussion or investigation of widespread Islamic terrorism, and so must reduce a few hundred million Muslims to the equivalent status of the lone Oslo "Christian mass murderer" or Turner Diaries nutcase Timothy McVeigh.



As Daniel Greenfield puts it: "The Orwellian blankness of the new strategy is a spate of ignorance to mask the truth of terrorism. The enemy is reduced to a social problem, terrorism to violent extremism and the war on terror to programs teaching Muslims about the dangers of violent extremism on the internet. The same dead-end European counter-terrorism strategies imported to the United States." Indeed, there are no Muslim terrorists, there are only misguided disaffected youths. He believes that "the new strategy begins with Obama carefully using the Arabic transcription spelling of 'Usama' and 'al-Qa-ida,' and ends with cautioning that, strong religious beliefs should never be confused with violent extremism. Unless you're Christian, of course."



Personally, I prefer to wait for the report coming out of the House committee chaired by Rep. Peter King (R-New York). More importantly, I will wait for the committee's recommendations and the list of organizations that the committee believes should be involved in countering growing domestic Islamic terrorist recruiting. Will CAIR be among them?

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

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Domestic Terrorism Boost From Redford

Domestic Terrorism Boost From Redford

Following his most recent box office flop The Conspirator, leftist producer/actor Robert Redford has decided to move his allegorical attacks on conservatives from the Civil War to the turbulent 1960s and 70s. His current project is a Weather Underground-friendly whitewash of domestic terrorism called The Company You Keep.

This same theme was offered in 1988's Running On Empty, and seemingly involves even the same disguised real terrorists. But Redford thinks he can do it better, so we're off to the "good terrorist" races. Both movies want you to feel deep sympathy for the plight of fleeing terrorists hiding out among us because they exercised their right to blow up buildings and murder bystanders (accidentally, of course) in the name of peace, love and universal brotherhood.

The thinly-disguised "heroes" of both Running On Empty and The Company You Keep are Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. Ayers escaped prison with some clever legal maneuvers, but Dohrn actually did some time for her murderous rampage. Both are now happily ensconced in academia, teaching their radical principles to new generations of future America-haters. But the two movies concentrate on their fugitive years.

Both movies paint the terrorists as patriots who fought the fascist American government that was killing freedom-fighters and innocent civilians in Asia. Running On Empty built its sympathy haze around the teenage son (played by the late River Phoenix) who is a brilliant pianist whose local fame endangers the family's anonymity. Thus, sadly, they must move on to a new hideout with new fake identities to avoid capture while requiring the son to leave his sweetheart behind. It's so sad--sniff, sniff. It's not easy being a fugitive murderer, let alone a fugitive murderer's innocent offspring.

Redford is taking his The Company You Keep from a novel by the same name. The writer, Neil Gordon, is in real life a former Weatherman. Since Gordon's character is the main narrative, the Ayers and Dohrn characters will still play an important part, but as fugitive comrades rather than as the main protagonists. In other words, there will be more sympathetic murderers than in the earlier Lumet film.

Redford is totally enamored with scuzzy murderers, terrorists and communists whom he transforms on screen into attractive patriotic heroes, a la his 2004 production of the early life of sadistic murderer Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. Redford's co-producer on The Company You Keep says of the upcoming film: "This is an edge of your seat thriller about real Americans who stood for their beliefs, thinking they were patriots and defending their country's ideals against their government."

Blowing up buildings and killing bystanders in a domestic terrorist campaign doesn't seem to comport with my idea of what the Founders would call a patriot. But what do I know? I don't live or work in Hollywood. Remember that the Weather Underground, with the able assistance of scholar William Ayers, wrote a declaration of a state of war against AmeriKKKa. As recently as a couple of years ago, Ayers was asked by a reporter if he felt any remorse over what he and his circle of friends had done, including the death of innocents. His reply was "we didn't do enough." And yet we're supposed to feel deep sorrow at their travails while they hide out from the legal authorities who are attempting to keep them from killing anyone else.

Redford also made another stab at gaining sympathy for Ayers and his ilk in his previous box office flop, Lions For Lambs (2008). In that film, the main character, a college professor attempting to dissuade two of his students from enlisting, tries to talk the audience to death. Redford seems to subscribe to the very liberal concept of throwing ever-increasing sums of money at things that don't work, hoping that eventually the hoi polloi will see the correctness of the domestic terrorist anti-capitalist and anti-any-war cause.

The movie is set to start shooting in September, so a 2012 or early 2013 release seems most likely. But given Redford's leftist bent, he might once again make the mistake of thinking the movie will energize the loony anti-America crowd and try to get the picture into release during the 2012 re-coronation campaign of Barack Obama.

Following his most recent box office flop The Conspirator, leftist producer/actor Robert Redford has decided to move his allegorical attacks on conservatives from the Civil War to the turbulent 1960s and 70s. His current project is a Weather Underground-friendly whitewash of domestic terrorism called The Company You Keep.

This same theme was offered in 1988's Running On Empty, and seemingly involves even the same disguised real terrorists. But Redford thinks he can do it better, so we're off to the "good terrorist" races. Both movies want you to feel deep sympathy for the plight of fleeing terrorists hiding out among us because they exercised their right to blow up buildings and murder bystanders (accidentally, of course) in the name of peace, love and universal brotherhood.

The thinly-disguised "heroes" of both Running On Empty and The Company You Keep are Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. Ayers escaped prison with some clever legal maneuvers, but Dohrn actually did some time for her murderous rampage. Both are now happily ensconced in academia, teaching their radical principles to new generations of future America-haters. But the two movies concentrate on their fugitive years.

Both movies paint the terrorists as patriots who fought the fascist American government that was killing freedom-fighters and innocent civilians in Asia. Running On Empty built its sympathy haze around the teenage son (played by the late River Phoenix) who is a brilliant pianist whose local fame endangers the family's anonymity. Thus, sadly, they must move on to a new hideout with new fake identities to avoid capture while requiring the son to leave his sweetheart behind. It's so sad--sniff, sniff. It's not easy being a fugitive murderer, let alone a fugitive murderer's innocent offspring.

Redford is taking his The Company You Keep from a novel by the same name. The writer, Neil Gordon, is in real life a former Weatherman. Since Gordon's character is the main narrative, the Ayers and Dohrn characters will still play an important part, but as fugitive comrades rather than as the main protagonists. In other words, there will be more sympathetic murderers than in the earlier Lumet film.

Redford is totally enamored with scuzzy murderers, terrorists and communists whom he transforms on screen into attractive patriotic heroes, a la his 2004 production of the early life of sadistic murderer Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. Redford's co-producer on The Company You Keep says of the upcoming film: "This is an edge of your seat thriller about real Americans who stood for their beliefs, thinking they were patriots and defending their country's ideals against their government."

Blowing up buildings and killing bystanders in a domestic terrorist campaign doesn't seem to comport with my idea of what the Founders would call a patriot. But what do I know? I don't live or work in Hollywood. Remember that the Weather Underground, with the able assistance of scholar William Ayers, wrote a declaration of a state of war against AmeriKKKa. As recently as a couple of years ago, Ayers was asked by a reporter if he felt any remorse over what he and his circle of friends had done, including the death of innocents. His reply was "we didn't do enough." And yet we're supposed to feel deep sorrow at their travails while they hide out from the legal authorities who are attempting to keep them from killing anyone else.

Redford also made another stab at gaining sympathy for Ayers and his ilk in his previous box office flop, Lions For Lambs (2008). In that film, the main character, a college professor attempting to dissuade two of his students from enlisting, tries to talk the audience to death. Redford seems to subscribe to the very liberal concept of throwing ever-increasing sums of money at things that don't work, hoping that eventually the hoi polloi will see the correctness of the domestic terrorist anti-capitalist and anti-any-war cause.

The movie is set to start shooting in September, so a 2012 or early 2013 release seems most likely. But given Redford's leftist bent, he might once again make the mistake of thinking the movie will energize the loony anti-America crowd and try to get the picture into release during the 2012 re-coronation campaign of Barack Obama.

Domestic Terrorism Boost From Redford

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