Wednesday, October 31, 2007

GEORGE BUSH FUNDS TERRORISTS



Oh, this is rich, absolutely ludicrous, this news that the United States taxpayer should be sending money TO Saudi Arabia, instead of collecting huge sums of dough FROM those scoundrels. With billions of petrodollars carefully counted and stashed in secret vaults, a workforce of foreigners to do the manual and sophisticated work the Saudis won't and can't accomplish for themselves, of course, for a single reason or many, and a military force made up not of Saudi men and women, but of Kansans, Californians, and New Yorkers, these slick-tongued Saudi imposters continue to milk jizya from our Dhimmi-in-chief, and he of course, is delighted to pay it.

How many 9/11 terrorists originated from Arabia? Who funds radical Wahabbi madrassas and mosques all over the planet, including some 1500 built here in the US in the past 25 years? Who threatens to convert oil dollars into oil euros, if a certain bankrupt nation doesn't toe the line? Who oppressively rules its own country with the strongest of iron hands, while jet setting about partaking in big gulps of every vice it refuses its own people, and who continues to traffic in slavery without a hint of shame? Who refuses to allow a school of young girls to escape a burning building because they aren't wearing the proscribed head garb required by the religious police? Who exhibit zero tolerance for any show of religious faith other than their own particularly vile state-mandated form of Islam?

Read on...

Last Friday, President Bush certified Saudi Arabia as a cooperative anti-terrorism ally and released U.S. financial aid to Riyadh. This occurred despite charges leveled against the “Kingdom” by Stuart Levey, the U.S. Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, who one day after the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, declared that Saudi Arabia had failed to prosecute terrorism financiers.

Levey voiced frustration that not a single terrorist supporter identified by Washington had been prosecuted by the Saudis.

“If I could snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” a frustrated Levey told the press. “When the evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terror organizations . . . then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism because it is.”

Levey leads an office which marshals the Treasury Department's policy, enforcement, regulatory and intelligence functions to sever the lines of financial support to international terrorists, weapons of mass destruction proliferators, narcotics traffickers, and other threats to our national security. Yet, the United States blithely ignored the very person with the best information whose job is to help stop terrorism and safeguard our country.

Instead, we are providing U.S. aid to the world’s top oil-producing country which is also coincidentally the main financial and ideological sponsor of Wahhabism or Islamic extremism. This austere form of Islam insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran and spreads the belief that all those who don't practice their form of Islam are heathens and enemies. In effect, we are funding our enemies. Even more outrageous, we are funding wealthy enemies: a resource-rich country that is the largest source of financing for Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists who have murdered hundreds of Americans and Israelis.

The extent of Saudia Arabia’s wealth frequently makes headlines. Recently, Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family, sold a 5% share of the Kingdom Holding Company, one of the largest investment companies in the world, for more than two and a half times its initial public offering valuation. As a member of the Saudi royal family, Al-Walid holds assets estimated at $20.3 billion and is deemed by Forbes Magazine as the 13th wealthiest person in the world. The prince’s major holdings include Citibank, AOL, Apple, Inc., Worldcom, Motorola, News Corp, Planet Hollywood, and numerous other companies. He alone is the largest foreign investor in New York and his extensive real estate holdings including upscale hotel chains and resorts. In July of 2005, Talal donated $20 million to the Louvre in Paris, the largest donation ever received by the museum, for the construction of a wing to house Islamic art.



In recent years, Talal has used his financial clout to influence American foreign policy, shape media portrayals and promote Islamist ideology. Following the 9/11 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, Al-Walid offered a $10 million donation to New York City toward relief efforts and suggested that the U.S. should reexamine its allegedly pro-Israel policies in the Middle East as the root cause of the attacks. The donation was turned down.

Prince Talal gave $500,000 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an un-indicted co-conspirator in the funding of Hamas, for distribution to American public libraries of books that sanitize Islam and terrorist organization activities. One book declares that terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah were placed on the U.S. government’s terrorist list, not because of their well-documented terrorist operations, but because of the pro-Israel bias of American leaders.

During the 2005 Muslim riots in France, Prince Talal, the fifth largest shareholder of the parent company of Fox News, called network chief Rupert Murdoch and demanded that a screen banner identifying the unrest as “Muslim riots” be changed to “civil riots.” The Prince maintained that the U.S. media is too pro-Israel and he encouraged the Arab world and media to do more to counter this tendency.

Further, Prince Talal has tried to influence U.S. Middle East policy by donating $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University, among the largest university donations in history, to finance Islamic studies and create a pro-Islamic environment among future and current policy leaders. From a country that ironically routinely punishes practitioners of Christianity, he declared that his primary reason for bestowing the gifts was the promotion of “Muslim-Christian” understanding.

Of grave concern is another donation by the Prince to the Saudi Committee for the Support of the al-Quds Intifada for $27 million given in 2002. Although committee leadership attempted to portray the gift as assistance for Arab-Palestinian families resisting the “occupation,” documents captured by the Israel Defense Forces indicated that the funds were payoffs for suicide bombings used as enticements to murder by Hamas. A Saudi-government cleric, Sheikh Saad al-Buraik, stated to television audiences viewing the 2002 fundraising telethon, “I am against America until this life ends…She is the root of all evils and wickedness on Earth…” He further urged listeners to pillage the Jews, enslave their women and wage all-out jihad.

The travesty of U.S. funding for a wealthy terrorist-sponsoring nation is further demonstrated by a 2005 study, “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques” by Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to advance the worldwide expansion of political and economic freedom. Freedom House researchers found that over 80% of U.S. mosques had been radicalized by Saudi-appointed, Wahhabist imams and ideology. These Saudi-trained clerics, the ideological arm of the royal family, advocate the rejection of Christianity and Judaism, the full application of the Sharia or Islamic law in America, hatred of non-believers, renunciation of allegiance to America and the waging of jihad by all Muslims against infidels.

It is indeed troubling that U.S. leaders overlook the role that the Saudi government plays in supporting terrorism worldwide and the spreading of extremist ideology within America. It is the height of irony that while Saudia Arabia bans churches and arrests Christians praying in private homes, it is also freely funding a fifth column inside America in the form of “religious” instruction. For President Bush to praise Saudi Arabia as an “anti-terrorism” ally while Saudi-funded efforts within our borders are undermining and threatening our very existence as a free nation, nullifies American counter-terrorism measures and ignores the warnings of those charged with protecting us. Such a decision dangerously ignores reality and courts our own destruction.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

BEAUTIFUL ATROCITIES

In the spirit of Lewis Carroll and Jack Benny, two comedians who probably had nothing in common but the number 39, we here at the Two-Fisted Forum welcome a new voice to our Blogroll. The ferocious gay voice of Beautiful Atrocities is no longer in the closet about the threat posed by Islamic forces in their world and ours. Let's start here with the laughs.

And once you have finished with your history lesson, try keeping your head with this one. And while we are at it, here's a wonderful post by an observer named Karl, posting at Jihad Watch:

In an Islamic state, there is no separation of church and state, so the Koran (and example of Mohammed as documented in the hadiths) is used as a substitute. It is immutable, of course. Apologists for Islam are likely to justify the extreme passages of the Koran by pointing out the the U.S. Constitution, as originally drafted, counts blacks as 3/5 of a person.

In response to that argument, I would suggest making the following offer:

If the apologist for Islam will stand up on a soap-box in front of 10,000 Muslims in an Islamic republic (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc., take your pick) and shout out that the Koran is wrong and Mohammed was wrong to justify taking slaves, having sex with them, and killing non-believers and apostates and the Koran should be amended; I will stand up on a soapbox in front of 10,000 people in our Constitutional Republic (the U.S.A.) and shout out that our Founding Fathers were wrong to count blacks as 3/5ths of a person and that the U.S. Constitution was rightly amended to delete that onerous provision.

What will happen, of course, is that the apologist for Islam will avoid taking up such a challenge, knowing full well that he would be put to death for apostasy in the Islamic republic; while a person in our constitutional republic making an assertion that our Founding Fathers and their central document were in error would be met with yawns.

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THE PLIGHT OF LAURA BUSH



The following commentary comes to us by Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post. Her poignant reportage once again shows those of us paying attention how sadly entrenched the Bush administration is with the Saudi royal family. This insult to America's own recent history in standing up to the human rights violations of global despots wherever we find them (okay, not entirely true) seems lost on our present leadership.

Or closer to the truth, and far worse in terms of the economic and other strategic ramifications is that the American presidency is simply "owned" by the Saudis, and thus are behaving like obedient dhimmi slaves to the oil masters who threaten us with painful economic sanctions if we do not abide their every request. Respect is one thing. Submission quite another. Let us not forget that the word "Islam" itself translates from the Arabic as submission.

On the surface, wearing the scarf is no big deal. Male gentile visitors to a Jewish synagogue are usually asked to don the yarmulka. But lntuit the striking difference of garb here in the first picture when compared to the second picture taken of the First Lady in the scarf, just below. The difference is visceral. Then finish reading Glick's essay:

Women in Saudi Arabia do not have human rights. As Amnesty International puts it, "The abuse of women's rights in Saudi Arabia is not simply the unfortunate consequence of overzealous security forces and religious police. It is the inevitable result of a state policy which gives women fewer rights than men, which means that women face discrimination in all walks of life and which allows men with authority to exercise their power without any fear of being held to account for their actions."
Laura Bush
For instance, women in Saudi Arabia cannot choose whom they marry and they have no real power to divorce their husbands. Men on the other hand can lawfully marry up to four women and divorce any of them simply by announcing that they have divorced them. And once they are divorced, they are by law and practice denied custody of their children.

Marital rape and physical abuse are not generally considered crimes and therefore women have no legal recourse for dealing with abusive husbands, or fathers or brothers. Since they are legally barred from serving as lawyers, and Islam weighs a woman's court testimony as worth half the testimony of a man, even if they were able to press charges against their male tormentors, Saudi women are effectively denied recourse in the local courts.

Women of course are not the only victims of the Saudi regime. Non-Muslims are denied the right to worship. Shi'ite Muslims' right to worship is subject to draconian limitations. Jews are officially barred from entering the kingdom. Then too, there are no real elections in Saudi Arabia, no press freedom, no freedom of assembly. Yet even against this totalitarian backdrop the position of women stands out in its severity.

Take education for example. As the State Department's 2006 Human Rights report notes, there is little academic freedom in Saudi Arabia. For instance, "The government prohibited the study of Freud, Marx, Western music, and Western philosophy." Yet women's educational opportunities are even more constrained. Due to gender apartheid, women may only study in all female institutions. There they are prohibited from studying fields like law and engineering and petroleum sciences. In 2005 the BBC reported, "Although women make up more than half of all graduates from Saudi universities, they comprise only 5 percent of the kingdom's workforce."

Saudi women have no freedom of movement. They may not drive. And they may not move around in public unless escorted by their husband, father or brother. Women found in public unescorted by suitable males are subject to arrest and corporal punishment.

The limitations placed on public appearances are mind boggling. As Freedom House reported in 2005, "Visible and invisible spatial boundaries also limit women's movement. Mosques, most ministries, public streets, and food stalls (supermarkets not included) are male territory. Furthermore, accommodations that are available for men are always superior to those accessible to women, and public space, such as parks, zoos, museums, libraries, or the national Jinadriyah Festival of Folklore and Culture, is created for men, with only limited times allotted for women's visits."

To the extent that women in Saudi Arabia are allowed leave their homes, they are prohibited from actually being seen by anyone through the rigid enforcement of Islamic dress codes. As the State Department 2006 report explains, "In public, a woman was expected to wear an abaya (a black garment that covers the entire body) and also to cover her head and hair. The religious police generally expected Muslim women to cover their faces and non-Muslim women from other Asian and African countries to comply more fully with local customs of dress than non-Muslim Western women. During the year religious police admonished and harassed citizen and noncitizen women who failed to wear an abaya and hair cover."

Perhaps it is because it is so offensive to the Western eye to see women covered like sacks of potatoes, the abaya has become a symbol of Islamic oppression and degradation of women. Although outlawing their use, as the French have attempted to do in recent years, is itself a form of religious oppression, the sentiment informing their ban is certainly understandable. The fact is that a free society should not be able to easily stomach the notion that women should be encouraged, let alone obliged to wear degrading garments that deny them the outward vestiges of their humanity and individuality.

Due to the fact that the abayas convey a symbolic message of effective enslavement of women, Mrs. Bush's interaction with women clad in abayas was the aspect of her trip most scrutinized. In the United Arab Emirates, Mrs. Bush was photographed sitting between four women covered head to toe in abayas while she was wearing regular clothes. The image of Mrs. Bush sitting between four women who look like nothing more than black piles of fabric couldn't have been more viscerally evocative and consequently, symbolically meaningful.

The image told the world that she—and America—is free and humane while the hidden women of Arabia are enslaved and their society is inhumane.

But then Mrs. Bush went to Saudi Arabia and the symbolic message of the previous day was superseded and lost when she donned an abaya herself and had her picture taken with other abaya-clad women. The symbolic message of those photographs also couldn't have been clearer. By donning an abaya, Mrs. Bush symbolically accepted the legitimacy of the system of subjugating women that the garment embodies, (or disembodies). Understanding this, conservative media outlets in the US criticized her angrily.

Sunday morning, Mrs. Bush sought to answer her critics in an interview with Fox News. Unfortunately, her remarks compounded the damage. Mrs. Bush said, "These women do not see covering as some sort of subjugation of women, this group of women that I was with. That's their culture. That's their tradition. That's a religious choice of theirs."

It is true that this is their culture. And it is also their tradition. But it is not their choice. Their culture and tradition are predicated on denying them the choice of whether or not to wear a garment that denies them their identity just as it denies them the right to make any choices about their lives. The Saudi women's assertions of satisfaction with their plight were no more credible than statements by hostages in support of their captors.

As the First Lady, Laura Bush is an American symbol. By having her picture taken wearing an abaya in Saudi Arabia—the epicenter of Islamic totalitarian misogyny—Mrs. Bush diminished that symbol. In so doing, she weakened the causes of freedom and liberty which America has fought since its founding to secure and defend at home and throughout the world.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE NAPPING


Introducing Bruce Tefft, the Director of CRA's Threat Assessment Center. Retired from the CIA as a case officer in 1995 after 21 years, 17 working in Stations abroad, Tefft was a founding member of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center in 1985 and has been involved with terrorism issues since then. After his retirement, he has continued studying Islamic terrorist techniques and training more than 16,000 first responders, law enforcement, military and intelligence officials in terrorism awareness and prevention. For a two year period following 9/11, he was the Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence advisor to the New York Police Department.

Here is his quite succinct statement on the current threat circling the globe with stealth wings:

The "War on Terror" and the use of the terms "Islamofascism" or "radical Islam" are basic examples of faulty nomenclature. One terrorism is a tactic, used by an enemy. One wages war on the enemy, not the tactic. During WWII we did not wage war on the "blitzkrieg" or "kamikaze pilots"—we fought a war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japanese. We are fighting a 14-century year old war against Islam and its adherents, Muslims. And it is a war that they have declared on all non-Muslims as part of their religious mandate, their ideology, to make the whole world Islamic, under the Caliphate, and to convert, kill or enslave all non-Muslims.

In a recent interview with FrontPageMag, Tefft is characteristic clear, "Well sir, again, it is not Muslims that are the problem. Islam is the problem. There are many Muslims who want a modernized and democratic Islam—Salim Mansur, Thomas Haidon, Kamal Nawash and Mustafa Akyol are among them. And these reformers and moderates oppose the extremists in their religion just as much as any one us."

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Friday, October 26, 2007

IN COPENHAGEN PROTESTORS ATTACKED


The attack was not covered by MSM

This is not 1773, and standing up to the Islamofascists in America will never be a Boston tea party, but Europe meanwhile already has its hands full of its own blood, evidenced this time as several SIAO members from Denmark suffered an attack on their lives by Leftist thugs in the lead-up to the October 21 demonstration against the Islamization of Europe. This is nothing new, of course. Just within the past week, David Horowitz is shouted down by ill-mannered and poorly educated students at Emory University in Atlanta and Robert Spencer is repeatedly interrupted with shouts at the University of Rhode Island by opponents of free speech there, and both must travel with their own security squads for personal protection.
Denmark
This scene in Denmark and those happening around the campuses of America this week should serve to remind us that resisting fascism in any form is not a picnic. There will be casualties. But do not meet violence with violence, otherwise you will play into the hands of the enemy and give them the ammunition they need to retaliate. It is not the Muslim community who should be the focal point of attack but our own political leaders who have brought us into the present mess with appeasements and blatant ignorance. These outrages among peoples without borders offers merely a glimpse of what is to come should our political leaders continue to mishandle the problem.

As is pointed out often anywhere outside the mainstream media, left-wing radicals and their heroes can come to any campus in America (Ahmadinejad at Columbia) and speak to great cheers without security being breeched even once, but conservative speakers like Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat and others who disagree with the jihadi left, face grave personal dangers with each speaking engagement they accept.

Of course, the Left will continue its infilading probe into the hornet's nest. Witness this week's Code Pink attack on Condoleeza Rice. The beat goes on.

So let's persevere with our campaign, continuing to clarify the issues relating to the Islamofascist threat, but we should never descend to the tactics of these "counter" aggressors here in the US, misdirected groups such as Code Pink and IVAW. We enjoy these liberties of free speech only because of the sacrifices made by our forefathers (forefathers who these radicals now despise) with their own self-loathing apotheosis of the Other. Yes, there is much wrong with American policy, both at home and abroad. We here at the Project just feel another tact is required of our dissenters.

What is happening in our institutions of higher learning is abominable. In fact, it is these same "liberal" liberties of free speech and freedom of assembly absent in so much of the world that the enemies of liberty wish to deny those of us less susceptible to their unprovable ideologies while using such "liberal" laws to gain an advantage, many by the institution of "political correctness" onward toward sharia law which are incompatible with democratic principles and the US Constitution.

Such insanity! Better to consider the very real oppression endured by the ordinary citizens of Islamic regimes.

Coming to a blog near you. Dare I say it, should we just stop globalization in its tracks right now! Yes, let's just recoil back in time and sanctimony to our own respective testaments in history, pick a date, any date, and demand that the rest of the world feel free to crawl back under the rock they first left with outstretched hand. That should clear all this mess up, nice and tidy, right?

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Thursday, October 25, 2007

MAKING THE CASE FOR DARFUR DEFENSE


Arab Supremacy alert: African Muslim refugees from Darfur scatter across Sudan to Chad fleeing genocide at hands of Arab Muslim soldiers.

By Hugh Fitzgerald

Osama bin Laden is now attacking the government in Khartoum, decrying the permission given by the fanatical Arab Muslims in Khartoum to the "infidels"—i.e., allowing in some completely ineffective troops from the African Union to "keep the peace" in Darfur.

He needn't worry. Turabi is still Turabi, and the Muslims of Khartoum are just as fanatically vicious as they ever were. They are just willing to be a bit more mindful of Muhammad's "war is deception" as they attempt to diminish Western pressure on them. Hence that "peace treaty" with the Christians and animists in the southern Sudan, which "treaty" is, of course, merely a hudna or "truce" treaty and, for the past six months at least, has been grossly violated by the Sudanese government—and with seeming indifference by the Western powers, which content themselves with the notion that there is now an agreement, a "peace agreement," in the southern Sudan, and they can all forget about that part of the Sudan.

In Darfur, the Sudanese government has made sure that the troops will only be from the African Union, and has repeatedly said that not a single Western soldier will be allowed in. In other words, there will be no force effective enough to smash the Janjaweed, and protect the black Africans being killed for the crime of being black African, rather than Arab, Muslims.

Osama Bin Laden and his Arabs famously treated the Afghani Muslims with indifference, or contempt. The Arabs, after all, are the "best of peoples" to whom the Qur'an was given, and—so Muslims believe—in Arabic. In his remarks on the Sudan, he reveals his indifference to, or rather his tacit approval of, the mass murdering of black Africans. That is not surprising. What is surprising is how this is overlooked by the entire Western world, including those—such as Nicholas Kristof—who write about the Sudan without any mention, much less understanding, of either Islam, or that aspect of Islam that makes it a vehicle for Arab cultural, linguistic, economic, and political imperialism. That subject is too difficult and too troubling for the heart-on-sleeves (and Pulitzers carefully pocketed) likes of Nicholas Kristof and others like him, who can report, who can be mere reporters, full of their easy anguish, but who cannot make sense, for themselves much less for others, of what it is they have been reporting on. They cannot explain the promptings, the attitudes, the atmospherics, that move the people who run the government in Khartoum. They cannot explain the Arab Muslim view of non-Arab Muslims. Don't expect someone on the mental level of Nicholas Kristof to conceivably beable to make a connection between the massacres of Kurds by Arabs in Iraq, and the cultural and linguistic imperialism of the Arabs directed at the Berbers in Algeria, and what is happening in Darfur, where he reports so much, and understands so little.

No, Bin Laden doesn't have to worry about the Turabi government in Khartoum. They know exactly how to delay any day of reckoning.

But what of the American government? Does it realize what an opportunity it is missing by not sending a few thousand troops to seize all of the southern Sudan (with its oil, that would allow that region to pay for itself, and deny those oil revenues to the Arabs in the north?), and Darfur, and holding them until a referendum on independence can be held? That would be a blow for that "freedom" and "democracy" that, unlike in Iraq, might actually mean something because the southern Sudanese are not Muslims, and those in Darfur are nominal Muslims who, having had a taste of the Arab Muslim attitudes, might be willing to listen to the message of Christianity—already hundreds of refugees from Darfur have apparently, once out of the Sudan, converted to Christianity. Quite an opportunity presents itself for the American government to draw a line against further Arab (and Egyptian Arab) expansion further south, threatening Ethiopia, and Kenya, and the rest of the littoral, including Tanzaniya, which is where the old Arab slave trade had its entrepots, at Pemba and Zanzibar, to ship those black slaves to the Arab slave markets of Muscat, and beyond.

But Tarbaby Iraq gets in the way. It gets in the way of properly dealing with Iran's nuclear project. It gets in the way of domestic surveillance that is amply justified. It gets in the way of thinking clearly about the future of the Western countries now subject to demopraphic assault from within. It gets in the way of considering the Jihad as a world-wide phenomenon, one for which terrorism is the least effective of its weapons.

Bin Laden needn't worry about the Sudan. The government there knows exactly what it needs to do to protect the Arab Muslim position, and it has already violated the "peace agreement" with the south in ways that, if Bin Laden knew, would leave him well-satisfied. And they are doing much the same, or trying to, in Darfur.

Those who need to worry about the Sudan are the Infidels. Why has the American government not yet taken the step—the "humanitarian" step—of rescuing the black Africans of Darfur and the southern Sudan? Why has it not allowed its troops to be deployed effectively, instead of ineffectively—to attain exactly the wrong goals—in Iraq? Why has it not created a situation in which the Arab League would have to denounce the Americans (and other Western troops) for protecting the obviously grateful (see those photographs of smiling black faces surrounding their saviors and protectors) for ending the mass murder, by Arabs, of black Africans. What better way to drive a wedge between Arabs and sub-Saharan Africa? What better way to bring to the attention of black Americans, one group long targetted for sinister campaigns of Da'wa, that the Arabs conducted a slave trade that lasted far longer (indeed lasts to this day, despite Western efforts to end it), and claimed far more victims (see "The Hideous Trade") than the Atlantic slave trade and that the Qur'an permanently recognizes the institution of slavery (and Saudi clerics have restated that position repeatedly), and the fury of the Arab League over the rescue of black Africans in Darfur or southern Sudan ought to tell us all a great deal about the real attitudes and intentions of the Arabs.

The Sudan presents a great opportunity to weaken the Camp of Islam, through a very small deployment and application of force. Iraq, on the other hand, presents a great opportunity to weaken the Camp of Islam not through the bringing of "democracy" and keeping the country together, but by the removal of American troops, in order that the pre-existing fissures, sectarian and ethnic, may work themselves out, as they inevitably will.

There is no contradiction here between a policy of removal in Iraq and intervention in Sudan. Both measures would contribute to weakening the Camp of Islam. And that is, or should be, the goal.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

BURNING BUSH CONSPIRACIES


Despite a recent poll that 12% of Americans defy the functions of ordinary intelligence amidst clear evidence to the contrary in suggesting that the Bush administration had an active hand in the September 11 attacks on American soil, we cannot dismiss all the bad news thrown at us by conspiracy theorists aiming to tear America apart at the seams.

The following scenario, while old news, is almost certainly factual, and continues to point up the hard conclusion that Saudi Arabia is no less a declared enemy against the West and the United States than Iran is, and that the US military is little more than a mercenary force controlled by Saudi interests held in place by the kingdom's subtle threats against our nation's economical best interests.

And it is this realization that compels me to advocate with the most avid anti-war protestor that the US needs to vacate Iraq and Afghanistan, cease all overt military actions until we are attacked once more, close our borders to ALL immigration, begin rebuilding our own infrastructure and fortitude, leaving the ME Islamists (Arabs & Chaldeans) to quarrel among themselves for supremacy in the hopes of weakening the Camp of Islam as it pursues its oft-stated desire to reconstitute its beloved Caliphate, And then we should take a hard look at shutting down the Saudi-financed madrassas springing up all over the West since the 1970s, and deporting or charging with treason all hard line Muslims and sympathizers who would call for jihad and sharia law on American soil. War is a nasty business. And it is rarely won with words. Let the saber-rattling masquerade begin!

Given the impossible task of actually earning or owning its own right of return according to Leftists even those among their own people, Israel can and therefore must protect itself. After all, it has vowed to use the Samson option if pushed to the wall, and will not flinch. Never again!

America, unfortunately, is a house divided, and must be healed, or face our own painful reality check. After all, Ahmadinejad has proclaimed that both Israel and America will perish from among the nations of the earth. I have no reason not to take him at his word (no matter how preposterous), if we in the West don't change our ways and learn to name our enemy, and fight this inevitable war with a strategy based on winning not the hearts and minds of our enemies but those hearts and minds of those who support the enemy from within our own borders, those Americans who may hold dear to cherished ideals but for some reason cannot recognize the true enemies of those ideals.

From Greg Palast of the BBC, a fiendishly far-left outfit I usually avoid:

On November 9, 2001, when you could still choke on the dust in the air near Ground Zero, BBC Television received a call in London from a top-level US intelligence agent. He was not happy. Shortly after George W. Bush took office, he told us reluctantly, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the FBI, “were told to back off the Saudis.”

We knew that. In the newsroom, we had a document already in hand, marked, “SECRET” across the top and “199-I” - meaning this was a national security matter.

The secret memo released agents to hunt down two members of the bin Laden family operating a “suspected terrorist organization” in the USA. It was dated September 13, 2001—two days too late for too many. What the memo indicates, corroborated by other sources, was that the agents had long wanted to question these characters … but could not until after the attack. By that time, these bin Laden birds had flown their American nest.

Back to the high-level agent. I pressed him to tell me exactly which investigations were spiked. None of this interview dance was easy, requiring switching to untraceable phones. Ultimately, the insider said, “Khan Labs.” At the time, our intelligence agencies were on the trail of Pakistan’s Dr. Strangelove, A.Q. Khan, who built Pakistan’s bomb and was selling its secrets to the Libyans. But once Bush and Condoleeza Rice’s team took over, the source told us, agents were forced to let a hot trail go cold. Specifically, there were limits on tracing the Saudi money behind this “Islamic bomb.”

Then we made another call, this time to an arms dealer in the Mideast. He confirmed that his partner attended a meeting in 1995 at the 5-star Hotel Royale Monceau in Paris where, allegedly, Saudi billionaires agreed to fund Al Qaeda fanatics. We understood it to be protection money, not really a sign of support for their attacks. Nevertheless, rule number one of investigation is “follow the money” — but the sheiks’ piggy banks were effectively off-limits to the US agents during the Bush years. One of the men in the posh hotel’s meeting of vipers happens to have been a Bush family business associate.

Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, let me tell you that we found no evidence — none, zero, no kidding — that George Bush knew about Al Qaeda’s plan to attack on September 11. Indeed, the grim joke at BBC is that anyone accusing George Bush of knowing anything at all must have solid evidence. This is not a story of what George Bush knew but rather of his very-unfunny ignorance. And it was not stupidity, but policy: no asking Saudis uncomfortable questions about their paying off roving packs of killers, especially when those Saudis are so generous to Bush family businesses.

Yes, Bill Clinton was also a bit too tender toward the oil men of Arabia. But this you should know: In his last year in office, Clinton sent two delegations to the Gulf to suggest that the Royal family crack down on “charitable donations” from their kingdom to the guys who blew up our embassies.

But when a failed Texas oil man took over the White House in January 2001, demands on the Saudis to cut off terror funding simply stopped.

And what about the bin Laden “suspected terrorist organization”? Called the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the group sponsors soccer teams and summer camps in Florida. BBC obtained a video of one camp activity, a speech exhorting kids on the heroism of suicide bombings and hostage takings. While WAMY draws membership with wholesome activities, it has also acted as a cover or front, say the Dutch, Indian and Bosnian governments, for the recruitment of jihadi killers.

Certainly, it was worth asking the bin Laden boys a few questions. But the FBI agents couldn’t, until it was too late.

In November 2001, when BBC ran the report on the spike of investigations of Saudi funding of terror, the Bush defenders whom we’d invited to respond on air dismissed the concerns of lower level FBI agents who’d passed over the WAMY documents. No action was taken on the group headed by the bin Ladens.

Then, in May this year, fifty FBI agents surrounded, invaded and sealed off WAMY’s Virginia office. It was like a bad scene out of the ‘Untouchables.’ The raid took place three years after our report and long after the bin Ladens had waved bye-bye. It is not surprising that the feds seized mostly empty files and a lot of soccer balls.

Why now this belated move on the bin Laden’s former operation? Why not right after the September 11 attack? This year’s FBI raid occurred just days after an Islamist terror assault in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Apparently, messin’ with the oil sheiks gets this Administration’s attention. Falling towers in New York are only for Republican convention photo ops.

The 199-I memo was passed to BBC television by the gumshoes at the National Security News Service in Washington. We authenticated it, added in our own sleuthing, then gave the FBI its say, expecting the usual, “It’s baloney, a fake.” But we didn’t get the usual response. Rather, FBI headquarters said, “There are lots of things the intelligence community knows and other people ought not to know.”

Ought not to know?

What else ought we not to know, Mr. President? And when are we supposed to forget it?

**************

Greg Palast’s reports for BBC Television Newsnight and The Guardian paper of Britain (with David Pallister) on White House interference in the investigation of terrorism won a 2002 California State University Journalism School ‘Project Censored’ Award.

The BBC television reports, expanded and updated, will be released this month in the USA as a DVD, “Bush Family Fortunes,” produced by BBC’s Meirion Jones.

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IN SHARPENING OUR VOCABULARY

Defending Islamofascism. It's a valid term. Here's why.
By Christopher Hitchens


The attempt by David Horowitz and his allies to launch "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on American campuses has been met with a variety of responses. One of these is a challenge to the validity of the term itself. It's quite the done thing, in liberal academic circles, to sneer at any comparison between fascist and jihadist ideology. People like Tony Judt write to me to say, in effect, that it's ahistorical and simplistic to do so. And in some media circles, another kind of reluctance applies: Alan Colmes thinks that one shouldn't use the word Islamic even to designate jihad, because to do so is to risk incriminating an entire religion. He and others don't want to tag Islam even in its most extreme form with a word as hideous as fascism. Finally, I have seen and heard it argued that the term is unfair or prejudiced because it isn't applied to any other religion.

Well, that last claim is certainly not true. It was once very common, especially on the left, to prefix the word fascism with the word clerical. This was to recognize the undeniable fact that, from Spain to Croatia to Slovakia, there was a very direct link between fascism and the Roman Catholic Church. More recently, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, coined the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Messianic settlers who moved onto the occupied West Bank after 1967. So, there need be no self-pity among Muslims about being "singled out" on this point.

The term Islamofascism was first used in 1990 in Britain's Independent newspaper by Scottish writer Malise Ruthven, who was writing about the way in which traditional Arab dictatorships used religious appeals in order to stay in power. I didn't know about this when I employed the term "fascism with an Islamic face" to describe the attack on civil society on Sept. 11, 2001, and to ridicule those who presented the attack as some kind of liberation theology in action. "Fascism with an Islamic face" is meant to summon a dual echo of both Alexander Dubcek and Susan Sontag (if I do say so myself), and in any case, it can't be used for everyday polemical purposes, so the question remains: Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism?

I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ("Death to the intellect! Long live death!" as Gen. Francisco Franco's sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined "humiliations" and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual "deviance"—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures.

Fascism (and Nazism) also attempted to counterfeit the then-success of the socialist movement by issuing pseudo-socialist and populist appeals. It has been very interesting to observe lately the way in which al-Qaida has been striving to counterfeit and recycle the propaganda of the anti-globalist and green movements. (See my column on Osama Bin Laden's Sept. 11 statement.)

There isn't a perfect congruence. Historically, fascism laid great emphasis on glorifying the nation-state and the corporate structure. There isn't much of a corporate structure in the Muslim world, where the conditions often approximate more nearly to feudalism than capitalism, but Bin Laden's own business conglomerate is, among other things, a rogue multinational corporation with some links to finance-capital. As to the nation-state, al-Qaida's demand is that countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia be dissolved into one great revived caliphate, but doesn't this have points of resemblance with the mad scheme of a "Greater Germany" or with Mussolini's fantasy of a revived Roman empire?

Technically, no form of Islam preaches racial superiority or proposes a master race. But in practice, Islamic fanatics operate a fascistic concept of the "pure" and the "exclusive" over the unclean and the kufar or profane. In the propaganda against Hinduism and India, for example, there can be seen something very like bigotry. In the attitude to Jews, it is clear that an inferior or unclean race is being talked about (which is why many Muslim extremists like the grand mufti of Jerusalem gravitated to Hitler's side). In the attempted destruction of the Hazara people of Afghanistan, who are ethnically Persian as well as religiously Shiite, there was also a strong suggestion of "cleansing." And, of course, Bin Laden has threatened force against U.N. peacekeepers who might dare interrupt the race-murder campaign against African Muslims that is being carried out by his pious Sudanese friends in Darfur.

This makes it permissible, it seems to me, to mention the two phenomena in the same breath and to suggest that they constitute comparable threats to civilization and civilized values. There is one final point of comparison, one that is in some ways encouraging. Both these totalitarian systems of thought evidently suffer from a death wish. It is surely not an accident that both of them stress suicidal tactics and sacrificial ends, just as both of them would obviously rather see the destruction of their own societies than any compromise with infidels or any dilution of the joys of absolute doctrinal orthodoxy. Thus, while we have a duty to oppose and destroy these and any similar totalitarian movements, we can also be fairly sure that they will play an unconscious part in arranging for their own destruction, as well.

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MONITORING THE HABITUAL LEFT

From the Frank Files...

"So the campus Left is placing itself squarely on the side of those who want to implement the institutionalized oppression of women and religious minorities sanctioned by Islamic Sharia law, who deny the freedom of conscience, and want to impose upon the world a supremacist and totalitarian code".

The political Left alliance with IslamoFascism is very similar to the Nazi-Soviet alliance of 1939. Most of the so-called Communists at the time considered the West the enemy (for demented ideological reasons) and even Stalin refused to believe Churchill when Churchill warned Stalin that the Nazis were going to attack the USSR on June 22, 1941. The British intelligence had Ultra which broke the Nazi code and an intelligence agent in Germany named "Lucy".

The left will be devoured by IslamoFascism as was Stalin in 1941 and only the "liberal" Western Democracies will save them from themselves. History is repeating itself here.

The political Left's extreme is motivated by ideology, as were the Communists who allied themselves with the Fascists in the late 1930's-early 40's. There was actually a leftist group picketing in front of the White House on June 22, 1941, carrying placards protesting Lend-Lease and any American involvement in WW2, protesting any aid to England. The same protesters (the next day-6/23/1941) had placards (I wish I had the film handy) calling for US involvement in the war and aid to Britain and the USSR. We are dealing with similar demented Leftists and Islamofascists in this matter. There is no reasoning with such people. It's all about "beliefs" with them.

Thanks Frank. Now for some fine tuning...

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.

Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
And I'm wondering what it is I should do,
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face,
Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place,
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Well you started out with nothing,
And you're proud that you're a self made man,
And your friends, they all come crawlin,
Slap you on the back and say,
Please.... Please.....

Trying to make some sense of it all,
But I can see that it makes no sense at all,
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor,
'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

Well you started out with nothing,
And you're proud that you're a self made man,
And your friends, they all come crawlin,
Slap you on the back and say,
Please.... Please.....

Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you,
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
Stuck in the middle with you.

—Stealer's Wheel, 1972

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THE BOLSHEVIKS AND ISLAM


Why does most or much of the "Left" today support Islamic Jihad? After all, the "Left" is supposed to stand for equality, whereas Islam—even in moderate forms—rejects equality. Indeed, that "left" that supports Islamic Jihad is demonstrating that it is in fact AGAINST equality. Without pretending to give a full and total answer to the question, here is some evidence to consider.

In late 1917, shortly after the Bolsheviks took power in the Russian Empire, Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities issued an: Appeal to the Muslim Toilers of Russia and the East. This was an extraordinary document. It was an appeal to a particular religious group, whereas supposedly the Bolsheviks were against religion. Further, the Muslim Ottoman Empire was perpetrating the first genocide of the 20th century at the time—with the help of course of its German and Austro-German allies.

The Appeal mentions none of this. Instead, it rejects promises by the Western allies to give the Armenians a state and to remove Armenian territories from the Ottoman Empire. It tells the Armenians to wait for their self-determination, while their national territory was to stay under Ottoman control. The Armenians were guaranteed self-determination after "military operations are brought to an end."

Yet, the parts of their national territory under Ottoman control were areas where the massacres had taken place. Other parts had been under Russian imperial control since the 19th century. Whereas the Appeal was issued in late November-early December, several months later, in March 1918, the Bolsheviks, possibly under German pressure, agreed not only to withdraw from Ottoman territories—parts of historic Armenia and Georgia occupied during WW I—but from historically Armenian and Georgian areas conquered from the Ottomans long before.

The promise of self-determination for Armenians was not respected for those areas, whereas Soviet weapons were given to the new Turkish nationalist movement which rose out of the Ottoman Empire's defeat, but was no less anti-Armenian than the Empire. In 1922, the Turkish nationalists drove the Greek population out of Smyrna [now called Izmir], while massacring the Armenians there.

The Appeal is "a brilliant piece of political demagogy," as Serge Zenkovsky has noted [in Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 1967), p 161]. It disregarded "all the atheistic and internationalist elements of Marxist and Leninist teaching," as well as the supposed working class principles and loyalties of the Bolsheviks, "and appealed to the Moslems' religious and national feelings."

Read it all...

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Saturday, October 20, 2007

I PLEDGE ALWAYS

To remember radical centrism and salute the fair ideals and correlated principals for which I stand. I may salute or I may ignore the charms and chaos of the crowd I can no longer hope to fathom. I cannot bow before these bold "true believers" trapped in some mosh pit of competing shadows and elbows, clinging to pure idealism while denying the obvious. We are born alone. We eat and we drink alone. Execute our talents alone. And just as fate has decreed, we die alone. From cradle to grave we rock and we roll. Dust to dust, we burn out or we rust. Mismanaging the dream with great fear. But listen my friends, take heed dear foes, despite these longings for sound joy and satisfaction, despite my own terrific hunger to share and be shared, I have no stomach for group therapy.

All I want now is my forty acres of canvas and the next intrepid word from the poet...

Admitting it's time to paint quietly the love I seem to have swapped for the shifting voices of fatigue, I fall mute.



Soon all will be swept away. Suddenly—the world we knew—an unbelievable world of comfort, freedom and dignity will crumble beyond repair.

And those who have kept us blind...

Ah, those who have kept us blind. Their infamy will be relentless. As they parrot "pretty sounding nothings" they can never imagine how little their "good intentions" and their "compassion" will matter against their lies, evasions and cowardice in subtle alignment with declared enemies who would slice our thin throats and steal our thick histories.

May the spirit of Billy Mitchell rise up against them!

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NOTIONS OF TRANQUILITY

Terror-Free Oil
Terror-Free Oil Initiative is dedicated to encouraging Americans to buy fuel that originated from countries that do not export or finance terrorism. By promoting those companies that acquire their fuel supply from nations outside the Middle East and expose those companies that do not, they help educate the American public about the oil-terrorism connection and press those in power to take the necessary steps to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

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FLYING DUST


China continues to fix its own currency against the dollar. The House of Saud tightens its grip on the American economy, holding it hostage with its blood-stained stash of petrodollars, whispering threats to go Euro. Dubai oil sheiks ratchet up the stakes of impending financial doom by purchasing controlling chunks of Western stock exchanges. Hardball. Playing for keeps. Winner take all. The West is rapidly losing its stewardship, and foul friends just laugh and cackle good riddance.

Vincente Fox admits push for a single Western Hemisphere currency. Open borders. Political alliances operating on false presumptions and feckless ignorance. Babies nursed on bombs. Roving gangs well-hidden. Faces ripped off dirty headlines. Motion in recoil. Deceit in motion. No one in control. Welcome to chaos, ugly to its core. Fear in the fingers. Arrogance on the nose. Hatred by the book. Cowards without fright. Opposing thumbnails. Inversions of the rule. The pauper's pose. Hooked on transference. Lies. Damn lies. Peace at any cost. Ugly to its core.

And now of course, our trendy American kids are at it again, proving that ruthless irrationality in any forum always trumps strategic idealism in the hawkish eyes of its declared and undeclared enemies:

Wearing black shirts and covering their faces with bandanas, scores of sometimes unruly demonstrators marched through Georgetown last night to protest the international finance and development organizations meeting this weekend.

Despite the large contingent of officers on scooters and bicycles who flanked and followed the 200 to 300 protesters, violent incidents broke out. A woman bled after being struck in the face with what police said was a flying brick.

Trash cans were overturned in the rain-dampened streets, objects were thrown, and newspaper boxes were overturned. Two protesters were arrested in connection with an incident in which an officer was pushed from a scooter, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said.

Many store windows were boarded up in anticipation of the demonstration, which targeted the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, but two unprotected windows were struck near Wisconsin Avenue and M Street. It was not clear whether they were broken.

Read more in the Washington Post...

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Friday, October 19, 2007

BATTLEFIELD


Once again for emphasis. Islam is not a race. Islam is a pernicious ideology, spoiling for global domination and the total submission of the world to its evil culture of death. Should I mention again its historical links to Old Joe Goebbels and Nazi Germany?

Warning from the homefront. A private Islamic school supported by the Saudi government (that and 1500 others scattered strategically across this sleeping nation) should be shut down until the U.S. government can ensure the school is not fostering radical Islam. This is not news, for anyone reading this blog knows that the particularly virilent strain of Wahabbism is the code of the road for these Saudi financeers, but what is indeed a bit of uplifting good news is that finally a federal panel has recommended such a closing. Amazing grace!

In a report released Thursday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom broadly criticized what it calls a lack of religious freedom in Saudi society and promotion of religious extremism at Saudi schools. Particular criticism is leveled at the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school serving nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in northern Virginia's Fairfax County.

The commission's report says the academy hews closely to the curriculum used at Saudi schools, which they criticize for promoting hatred of and intolerance against Jews, Christians and Shiite Muslims.

"Significant concerns remain about whether what is being taught at the ISA promotes religious intolerance and may adversely affect the interests of the United States," the report states. Again, none of this is news, except perhaps to George Bush and his left-wing cronies, yes, you read this correctly. The Bushies have aided and abetted the vast left-wing conspiracy to deliver this nation unto the Saudi kingdom without even blinking.

Our national forebearance and patience can be noble and wonderful traits in a people, except when they are not. And this report has finally let the cat out of the bag. How long before the "official" denials start rolling heads?

Now imagine the exact inverse of this scenario—an Amero-fascist school set up in a Muslim dominion, Saudi Arabia for instance—financed by hidden sources answering the call to duty. Imagine the 'academy' is filled with over 1,000 transplanted Westerners, operatives and patsies who are flush with the most vicious hatred of any and all Muslims, operatives and patsies who are brainwashed with the official propaganda of hatred-spewing 'teachers' and 'religious high priests' aiming to annihilate that Muslim nation and subject that people to Amero-fascist domination and replace all Islamic laws with the US Constitution...

No, this is not happening, not even in hapless Iraq, no thanks to curious George and his black hand of eager beavers.

Imagine, if you can, the immediate consequences of such an operation by American forces. Not a single head would remain on a single set of shoulders. Tongues would have long ago been pulled from mouths with pliers. Eyes would have been gouged out. Genitals would have been mutilated and fed back to the 'students' and 'faculty' of this 'blasphemous' school.

As part of their plans for global takeover, the Saudis have done exactly this. The Saudis have installed not one, but virtually thousands of such academies in the West. In these madrassahs and schools and mosques they regularly enforce ideas of Islamic supremacy among their students, instilling a hatred and contempt for non-Islamic things right in the midst of the non-Islamic West. They teach their children to despise the West, its people, its culture, and to ponder ways to subvert us and our laws, to convert us to Islam, or to subjugate us under Islam. Failing that—to annihilate us in honor of Islam.

There is no moral equivalency here, folks. Don't even try it.

Now, the bad news. The Commission apparently has no official power, but merely advises the State Department and the President, essentially saying what the former are unable to say openly.

Their annual report is found here.

Saudi Arabia, was named as a CPC, country of particular concern, in 2004 and targeted by the State Department for action, but after a waiver of 180 days, the State Department continued the waiver explaining a dialogue on matters of concern was in play. The Commission, in its frustration, has issued a recommendation that the State Department report to Congress every 120 days on the progress of their discussions with the Saudis. Translation: Saudi cooperation is not forthcoming and the discussion is probably an exercise in futility.

The Commission's report is some 292 pages, but contains summaries on all countries of concern and is a good guide for understanding the intricacies of the religious makeup, differences and policies within countries.

Like I've written many times before in these pages, America is buckling at the knees, and has become the hireling, the paid mercenaries of the Saudi regime. We are owned by those who hold our debt. We have exported our hard industries, crippling our own middle class, and now we must kow tow to our enemies. This must stop. This is the fight we we must fight.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

TALES OF PURCHASING POWER


From the Washington Times article—The Camel in the Tent—by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen

Objections to Borse Dubai's proposed acquisition of 20 percent of Nasdaq last week prompted Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank to quip, "In the ports deal, the concern was smuggling something or someone dangerous... What are we talking about here—smuggling someone onto a stock exchange?"

It is not "who" Dubai will smuggle into the stock exchange we should worry about. It's the arrival of the world's first Islamic stock exchange exerting unprecedented Islamic influence in the heart of the U.S. and Western economies that should raise our alarm. Dubai's handsomely paid Washington lobbyists see nothing wrong with that. Rather, they claim the deal benefits U.S. financial markets, giving "Nasdaq access to rich Mideast pockets." Unfortunately, the deal also increases the appeal and influence of Islamic financing in the West.

What is "Islamic" finance? Islamic, or Shariah-based finance, is the 1920s invention of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. He ordered the Muslim Brothers to create an independent Islamic financial system to supercede the Western economy, facilitating the spread of Islam worldwide. He set the theories and practices and his contemporaries and successors developed Shariah-based terminology for "Islamic economics," finance and banking. Attempts by Muslim Brotherhood members in the early 1930s to establish Islamic banking in India failed. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser shut down the second attempt in 1964, after only one year, later arresting and expelling the Muslim Brothers for attempts to kill him. Saudi Arabia welcomed them and adopted their ideas.

In 1969, soon after a mentally deranged Australian Christian fundamentalist, Michael Dennis Rohan, tried to set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the Saudis convened the Conference for the Islamic Organizations (OIC) to unify the "struggle for Islam," and have been its major sponsor ever since. The 56 OIC members include Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Based in Jeddah, "pending the liberation of Jerusalem," the OIC mandates and coordinates actions to "support the Palestinian people, assist them in recovering their rights and liberating their occupied territories." The OIC's first international undertaking was the 1975 establishment of the Islamic Development Bank "in accordance with the principles of the Shariah," marking the beginning of the fast-growing, petrodollar-based Islamic financing market. From 1975 to 2005, the bank approved more than $46 billion in funding to Muslim countries. Since 2000, it has transferred hundreds of millions of dollars raised especially to support the Palestinian intifada and suicide bombers' families -- and has channeled United Nations funds to Hamas. Yet the bank received U.N. observer status in 2007.

Overseeing Shariah finance are the 1991-Bahrain-registered and -based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), which laid the groundwork for the global Islamic financial network and the "de facto Islamic Central Bank"—the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), established in 2002 in Kuala Lumpur "to absorb the 11 September shock and reinforce the stability of Islamic finance." Chairing the meeting, then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamed Mahathir stated: "A universal Islamic banking system is a jihad worth pursuing to abolish this slavery [to the West]."

According to Saleh Kamel, president of the Saudi Dallah Al-Baraka Group and the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), more than 400 Islamic financial institutions currently operate in 75 countries. They now hold more than $800 billion in assets—growing at a rate of 15 percent annually. All investments with Islamic financial institutions are subject to the minimum zakat (Islamic charitable wealth tax). On April 30, the OIC, the organization that initiated global Muslim riots after the Danish cartoon publications, established the clerical International Commission for Zakat, replacing more than 20,000 organizations that previously collected the money. Islamic clerics' "expert committee" in Malaysia now supervises and distributes those funds. The new committee will shortly distribute to Muslim charities roughly $2 billion collected during Ramadan.

But not all charities are equal. In 1999, Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi decreed: "Declaring holy war [and] fighting for such purposes is the way of Allah for which zakat must be spent." If past zakat distribution is any indication, all Muslim jihadist-terror organizations (including Palestinian Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and the many al Qaeda offspring) will benefit.

Shortly after September 11, Osama bin Laden called upon Muslims "to concentrate on hitting the U.S. economy through all possible means. Look for the key pillars of the U.S. economy. Strike the key pillars of the enemy again and again and they will fall as one."

Most Arab and Muslim states publicly denounced bin Laden. But the impending Nasdaq acquisition, the purchases of over 52 percent of the London Stock Exchange and 47.6 percent of OMX (Nordic exchange) and the vigorous expansion of Shariah financing apparently follow the Muslim Brotherhood-bin Laden script.

President Bush on Sept. 25 at the United Nations called on all nations to open their markets. Surely, he did not mean opening the markets to domination by Shariah.
_______________

Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the American Center of Democracy and a board member at the Committee for the Present Danger. She is also a member of the American Congress for Truth Board of Advisors. Alyssa A. Lappen is a senior fellow at the American Center of Democracy.

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FREEDOM AND LIBERTY CAST BEFORE US


I noticed the word "decency" but I could add another “respect”. Respect for one's nation and pride in one's nation. Our founding fathers had the decency and respect for themselves to tell the British where to shove their taxes. Was it the prudent or safe thing to do? Now way but they did anyway and thank god for it because today we live in a free nation were we bow to no nobles or kings. The anti-slavery movement had decency and respect for themselves which is why they opposed slavery. They could have sat around and ignored it. Let it just pass over the falls but they did not and resisted and fought. Was it the prudent and safe thing to do? No way for it led to a civil war but thank god for it.

Today no man is enslaved in this land. We can hold our head up with pride. Throughout our nation's history we have had people who did the unsafe thing so today we could be free and be proud. We did not do it for the adventure but because it was the right thing to do. Now we are faced with yet another example. It is a small one. The question before us is should we recognize the sufferings of the Armenians in the genocide of 1915?

Some say it is not needed because it is for the historians to ponder. I disagree, for if we had let the injustice of the past be pondered by historians of the future we would not be in America today and we would still have chattel slavery. Some say we will anger a supposed ally in the so called war on terror. I disagree, for would a real ally react as Turkey has reacted to simple words.

We are not threatening to wage war against Turkey yet they appear to be willing to kill Americans if we get in their way when they invade northern Iraq. Once again if they behave like this over a few words can they really be trusted for anything? Are they really an ally? Yes, there will be some fallout. Perhaps it will prevent Bush’s plan to unify Iraq and bring Democracy to the Islamic world.

However, it is clear that was not working anyway and if you accept that Islam is a political ideology and not just a faith then the Iraqi adventure was doomed to begin with. There are also some among you that think this a ploy by certain democrats to get us out of Iraq and to make Bush look bad. You maybe are right but I don’t really care. Bush does not need the democrats to make him look stupid as has been proven beyond count. Bush does this to himself. We are in Iraq today because of George W. Bush. This is his mess, so let him figure out how to fix it. That is what you get when you put your trust in nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and others and allow them to play roles in your battle plan. This is why we will continue to pay a heavy price for doing economic and military deals with these nations. This is the price for us buying their oil, this is the price of freedom.

We are not free. If we were free we would not be pushing for a Palestinian state. If we were free we would not be thinking about thought crimes. If we were free we would not be begging Arabians to stop their war against our people. The Arabians proved their point on 9-11. They killed thousands of Americans and what did we do about it? Nothing. For we fear they might hurt our economy. That sounds like a slave to me. If you are a decent, proud and free man or woman you would have no problem with this bill for it is the truth no matter how silly or irreverent it might seem. However, it appears our master has screamed and some of you (along with our President and Congress) have jumped for Massa Turkey.

I am a free man so my response to Turkey is this is none of their business. This is between the United States and Armenia. We recognize their suffering in the 1915 mass murder of their people by the Ottoman Empire. End of Story…

—Great Comet of 1577

Great essay, and I agree with most of its tenets. However, as pointed out on another blog, this does nothing to end a war, but actually extends it which was not the Democrats original motive. And, this small detail is obviously why Speaker Pelosi has now backed off this airy resolution a mere day or two after the news broke she and her cronies were pushing their October Surprise up the Hill.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

FIVE BIGGEST ROLLOVER MISTAKES

By David Bach

A couple of weeks ago, I invited readers to take part in my 401(k) savings challenge, and promised to keep the momentum going with more articles about making the most of your retirement plans.

401(k) Rollovers Uncovered

One of the topics many of you wanted to learn more about is how to make smart rollover decisions when changing jobs. Well, you're not alone. According to consultant Deloitte's most recent 401(k) Benchmarking Survey, 22 percent of employers surveyed revealed that their employees find rollovers to be the most confusing part of their retirement plan.

"Rollover" is the term used to describe moving money from one type of tax-advantaged account, like your 401(k) plan, to another, such as an individual retirement account (IRA) or a different 401(k) plan at your next job.

The goal here is simply to ensure that your money continues to grow tax-deferred and that the government is aware of its status. Otherwise, you're likely to get hit with a tax bill for funds you didn't want to receive until retirement, and possibly an additional penalty.

The Five Pitfalls
Here are five of the biggest 401(k) mistakes people make when changing jobs, and my advice about how to avoid making them yourself:

1. Cashing out.
The last thing you should do is tap into your retirement savings simply because you're changing jobs and you can. Yet according to Hewitt Associates, 45 percent of employees do this. What's worse is that 69 percent of employees between ages 20 and 29 cash out—and this is the group with the most to gain from long-term compounding.

Let's not forget that this money has been earmarked for retirement, and that's why you get tax advantages. But when you break your agreement with Uncle Sam, he wants his payback. Not only will you be required to pay ordinary income taxes on any before-tax contributions and investment earnings you receive, you'll also have to fork over an additional 10 percent tax penalty if you're under 55 (if your money is already in an IRA, the tax penalty applies until you reach 59-1/2).

To drive the point home, consider what happens at age 25 if you cash out a $5,000 balance. You'd receive a net amount of only $3,100—$5,000 minus 28 percent ordinary income tax ($1,400) and the 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty ($500). However, if you rolled over your original $5,000 and kept it invested until age 65 (assuming 8 percent annualized earnings), you could end up with more than $108,000 at retirement.

2. Leaving your money behind.
If you leave your job for a new one, don't leave your 401(k) money with your former employer. Why? When you leave a 401(k) balance behind, you run the risk of giving up control of your investments.

If you're out of touch with your old plan and they change mutual fund providers (from a Fidelity 401(k) plan to a Vanguard 401(k) plan, say, which is something that happens all the time), not only can your money be frozen during the transition, but it may default to the new plan's low-yielding money market fund or other investments you might not like.

It's also important to note here that just because your new employer offers a 401(k) plan doesn't mean you shouldn't consider rolling over your old account into an IRA instead. IRAs often offer you much more flexibility than a 401(k) plan with regard to investments, withdrawal options, and alternatives for your beneficiaries.

Employers aren't required to keep you on their books if you have a 401(k) balance under $5,000. However, rather than cashing you out, they must at least establish an IRA rollover for you with this money. If your balance is less than $1,000, you may still be cashed out of a former employer's plan.

Another strong argument for taking your money with you is that people simply tend to forget about old plans—or worse, they die and their beneficiaries have no idea that the account even exists.

3. Not taking the "direct" route.
There are generally two ways to go about requesting a rollover: You can set up a direct rollover, where the funds are electronically transferred to a new plan or account you're establishing (or a check is drawn in their name). Or you can receive payment within a 60-day window in which to roll over the money.

The latter may sound like an attractive option to temporarily splash around in your retirement pool if you have short-term cash-flow needs. However, there are too many things that make it unattractive.

For one thing, you won't get a check for the full amount of your account balance. Employers are required to withhold 20 percent of the gross amount as a prepayment of your income taxes if the check is made out directly to you. So, if you're trying to roll over $10,000, you're only going to get a check for $8,000 -- and that means you have two months to come up with the additional $2,000. (You'll be reimbursed the $2,000 when you file your federal income taxes.)

If you miss the deadline, then the whole amount is considered a taxable distribution. You'll have to add another $10,000 onto your taxable income for the year and pay income tax on that amount. If you're under 55, you also get hit with the 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty.

So, if at all possible, avoid ever having a rollover check made out to you. Some employers may only offer you the option of sending the check to you, but make sure to have it made out to your new financial institution—so there are no withholding requirements—with an "FBO" ("for the benefit of") naming you. For instance, my check might be made out to "Morgan Stanley IRA Rollover FBO David Bach."

There's more about the rules for rollovers here.

4. Making hasty decisions regarding company stock.
When making your rollover, you might just assume that you'd sell all the investments in your account and invest the proceeds in new investments offered by your next provider. But I recommend you think twice about this when you have company stock in your account.

First, you may not be able to control the exact date when your stock is sold. As a result, you might not get the best sale price. While selling the stock when it's still in your 401(k) plan can help you avoid paying broker commissions, it's best to have control over the timing of the stock sale and elect to move the company stock "in-kind" (as stock shares) into the new rollover account.

In the long run, however, you can often do even better if you transfer your company stock in-kind to a taxable account instead of rolling it over. Unlike other investments in your company's retirement plan, shares of company stock may be eligible for special tax treatment after you leave your employer. This is due to something called net unrealized appreciation (NUA), and can work in your favor if you're holding company stock that's greatly appreciated.

In short, NUA is a strategy that allows you to take advantage of the lower long-term capital gains tax rates versus your ordinary income tax rate when cashing in stock upon leaving an employer. Using this strategy, you can take a lump-sum distribution of company stock (transferring it to a taxable account in-kind) and pay the ordinary income taxes on the stock's cost basis, plus the 10 percent penalty if you're under 55.

You can find out more about NUA here.

5. Going it alone.
Finally, if you're unsure of what the best move is for your individual situation, seek the advice of a professional tax adviser, money coach, or financial advisor.

After all, this is your retirement nest egg we're talking about. It took you years—if not a lifetime—to accumulate it, so don't take chances with it now.

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Friday, October 05, 2007

SAD SAGA OF HOMELAND SECURITY


We can have unregulated Mexican trucks cruising through US cities, but let's criminalize non-threatening peace protestors who wish to visit Canada, right or wrong. The absurdity of the Bush administration continues to strangle my vision of America, my worldview, a vision and worldview scripted from those heady colonial days American schoolchildren once studied as gospel, when patriotism meant something more substantial than a power buck at the back door. Homeland Security?

Frankly I do not wish to secede from that union of dreams and go frolicking to the "other" side of what I so earnestly worked heart, mind, and soul to achieve, and that is—being at peace with my country—but George W. Bush, whom I voted for in 2000, and rejected in 2004 by neglecting to vote at all, is not the American leader of yesterday, today, or tomorrow. And I absolutely cringe when I hear people denigrating the voting apparatus in our country so my abstention meant something more than apathy or cynicism to me, but for the life of me, I cannot fathom this trainwreck of deception and ineptitude that America apparently cannot avoid, as if the Fates themselves are in control, and not rational, patriotic, compassonate men.

Who among us can argue against "true" peacemakers, bona fide pacifists, folks who would never harm a fly? Nor fight a war, nor kick a policeman in the shin. We must be certain that while wars and rumors of wars are among us to stay in all likelihood for a long, long time, true pacifism is an ideal worth cherishing. Shades of Thoreau. Things however do become much much foggier when kicking up dust about which war is righteous or just, and even foggier when deciding on a winning and resolute strategy for that just war.

Peace activists, peaceniks, and the odd assortment of well-heeled students strolling the learning curve are not monolithic, and many do indeed exert harm to others, overtly, collectively, singly. Unintended consequences play a feckless role. On the other hand, the one-sided heavy-handed sorely-misguided thumbprint of this adminstration seems to recognize few historical boundaries with regard to illegal aliens from enemy nations entering this country, but is quick to place restrictions and stop gaps on ordinary and extraordinary Americans, who, with their own stories to tell, in this case, decide to visit friendly arch-ally Canada for a short spell.

This stinks. Now what was that I reading about this NAFTA superhighway stretching from Mexico to Canada? Maybe these two ladies should hide in the back of a Kellogg's truck heading toward Toronto. Smuggling humans is actually awarded by this adminstration. This is silly. And yes, it stinks.

WASHINGTON—A day after two U.S. anti-war activists were barred from entering Canada, the reasons for their rejection remained unclear. Barring entry to anti-war activists is "absurd," NDP MP Olivia Chow said yesterday after two U.S. women, both with long records of non-violent protest, were turned away by Canadian border guards.

Ann Wright, a retired U.S. army colonel and former diplomat who quit in opposition to the Iraq war, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, a women's peace group, were refused entry this week, apparently because their names have been added to an FBI database.

"These are not terrorists; why do we have to protect Canadians from them?" said Ms. Chow, who represents the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina. "We should not be allowing the FBI or Mr. Bush to dictate our entry policy."

Stockwell Day, the Minister for Public Safety, who is responsible for the Canada Border Services Agency, said: "I can't give you details on specific cases," when asked about the activists. "I can tell you that our border officers do everything within their mandate to make sure that our borders are safe."

Both activists, clad in pink and backed by anti-war supporters holding banners, held a news conference outside the Canadian embassy in Washington yesterday. They said they were astonished that the names of anti-war activists convicted of misdemeanours—such as trespass, the offence routinely used to clear peaceful protesters—had been added to the FBI's National Crime Information Center database.

"This is outrageous. I'm appealing to Canadians not to treat peaceful activists like common criminals," Ms. Benjamin said.

  • Read it all.

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  • Thursday, October 04, 2007

    STOCK MARKET CHIMERA


    Man, can you spare some change? Considering the point that the market is more about emotions than true monetary policy, let's recall just a few of the most obvious factors...

    If the stock market was declining but you were getting nice wage increases wouldn’t you feel that the economy was better off? And the opposite is also true. The health of the stock market is a result of wages in America, not the cause of wages.

    The value of a company is supposed to increase over time if its profits increase over time. How do profits increase when consumers have stagnating wage growth? They can’t. But, if we have wage growth even with the Dow declining our increased ability to spend will cause higher profits which will cause higher stock prices.

    If our wages are declining and the Dow is increasing it’s because the companies are cutting costs either by layoffs, or some other point-shaving financial voodoo on the books. While that’s fine in the short term, in the long term it leads to a a depressed stock market.

    Another stress point weakening our country is the massive debt that we all carry. Does anyone know anybody under 30 who is suffering under a college loan? A car loan and maybe a house loan? What about credit cards? The average college graduate has $7500 in credit card debt when graduating. Granted, a lot of this is from people not being able to say no, but it’s also a societal peneomenon. The point is that roughly 70% of the economy is predicated on consumer spending and you have to wonder when consumers will simply run out of steam, and pack it in for the simpler lifestyle revolution.

    The job of the Fed is to manage the economy, but unfortunately it usually does a piss poor job of it. The conspiracy theorist in al of us says that the Fed exists to serve Wall Street because otherwise why wouldn’t it have been disbanded by now?

    Greenspan talks about the Fed’s role, here.

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    BENEFIT FOR IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THIS PARTICULAR WAR


    This past Sunday night, I was privileged to donate 13 werks of art consisting of five paintings, seven prints, and a copy of my book to a silent auction fundraiser for the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). The event was hosted by my special friend, Martine Zundmanis. Here, in Martine's own words:

    Friends—

    Thank you all for coming to my place for the benefit party Sunday!!! I think it's safe to say that a grand time was had by all and we were all able to show our love and admiration for Iraq Vets Against the War vets and supporters and for the Washington Peace Center volunteers and staff.

    You all pulled together over $1200 in donations and art bids – UTTERLY AMAZING!! I want to especially thank the artists who all donated so much more than expected: DARRYL WILLIS, GABRIEL THY, JAMES SHELVIN, ISIS, & NICOLE ENTWISTLE. I donated pieces made by DORIS ZUNDMANIS and OBERON BENASUTTI & Jose Rodriguez donated a piece made by VERONICA VELASCO MENDEZ. Thanks to their extreme generosity the auction raised over $500 dollars from art lovers who had fun out-bidding each other and will treasure your pieces.

    Thanks also to Adam Kokesh (Nat'l IVAW Co-Chair), Geoff Millard (DC IVAW Chapter Pres), and Jay Marx (Wash. Peace Ctr. Coordinator) for giving us their inspiring words and updates on their respective organizations current campaigns and actions. TROOPS HOME NOW! NO WAR ON IRAN! To contact them go to www.ivaw.org and www.washingtonpeacecenter.net

    It was a privilege and an honor to have poet Rick and Carlos Arredondo join our gathering of friends and neighbors and Jim and the Peace Bus with all the Vets, CodePinkers and Greens! Rick's poems are TRUTH - fantastic, and he and Mike got the party singing strong with live music! We also have a big shout-out to Jim for loaning and Glenn for bringing the BBQ grill and to Echo, Norman, Jay, and my big-bro Reich for set-up and clean-up help – you guys ROCK!

    I had a wonderful time hosting and thank you so much for supporting IVAW and Washington Peace Center! Together we struggle and Keep Up the Fight!

    Love & Peace--
    Martine

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    Wednesday, October 03, 2007

    LA RECONQUISTA ACROSS THE POND


    Infidel Marx hardly empathetic to Muslim totalitarianism, nor it with him

    The fascination with Islam among Spanish Communists is nothing new. Just a couple of months ago the former Secretary General of the Communist Party of Spain, Santiago Carrillo, stated on a television program that "Islam is a powerful instrument of revolution against Western values as represented by the United States."

    Senior Carrillo and all like-minded Marxists are quisling fools (in relation to Marxism and with Islam). Sure, one can dub Islam as anticapitalist, but so what? Most of that oil money is in the hands of a very few, not the many. How would implementing sharia move society forward from capitalism to socialism? It wouldn't. There is nothing about Islam that does away with private property, wage labor or class exploitation. Islam veils class rule with religious illusions that Marx scorned. Mohammedanism is an effort to turn back the historical clock that Marx would have rejected. Islam's ultimate ideal is perfect and total stasis, not progress.

    It sounds like the New Left is becoming the Old, Old Right. Get off your duff. Smell the manure. Read the first few pages of the Communist Manifesto and try to picture Marx saying, "and in capitalism's final crisis, the proletarians will rise up and establish Islam."

    You'll see how far these Communists have drifted from their roots.

    Imagine the great treasures of Europe, two or three generations hence, under the dull blade of a theocratic regime such as the Taliban who routinely blow up ancient statues of the Buddha, one of history's great teachers of peace.

    So long Sistine Chapel. Goodbye to The Last Supper. Stonehenge blown to bits. Acropolis razed. Marauders pillaging the Louvre. Keep these images in mind whenever confronting anyone over the ban of Islam in the West.

    Not on our watch, say a few. Most of the remaining crowd remain in their fog only vigilent in that ever illusive pursuit of happiness...

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    WAR IS AN UGLY THING


    War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

    —John Stuart Mill

    Thanks to Ralph127 for this observation:

    Peace at any price had deep roots in 1930s Britain. Roots fertilized by the blood of almost one million Empire soldiers on Flanders's muddy fields.

    About ten years ago I told an old family friend that I was taking my dad, a Korean war vet, to see the newly opened Korean war memorial in Washington. My friend started crying. I asked her what was wrong. She replied that her brother had been killed in Korea. I was stunned. I never knew she had a brother much less that he had died in the defense of our country.

    I mention this little tableau because today it is obligatory to say that the death of one American solider is a tragedy, as if this terrible truth should not be obvious to any sentient being. Winston Churchill’s great strength was that he was prepared to lead the ‘English Speaking People’ to the greater and even more terrible truth that war is not the ugliest of things.

    A “Winston Churchill” today would have the courage to name the theology that drives our enemies. He would have the courage to confront the adherents of this theology at home and abroad. He would lead a free people to understand that the creed of their prophet Mohammad is incompatible with our individual Liberty. He would lead Americans, dare I say the English speaking people, to the truly terrible truth that we cannot suffer an Islamic polity to possess nuclear weapons.

    Which city do you think good Muslims will nuke first?

    de Tocqueville said:

    "One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles and to purchase peace at the expense of logic."

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