The Wages of Appeasement...

...come due, and the French are now being justly rewarded for their years of cheese-eating, surrender-monkey antics. Although their behavior had changed a bit for the better lately, especially since "Le Grande Poulet", Jacques Chirac, left office, karma is a universal inevitability.

The first act:

Dozens of furious Palestinians protested against the French foreign minister on a visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday, pelting her motorcade with eggs and narrowly missing her with a lobbed shoe.

The protesters, relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, were angry about comments Michele Alliot-Marie reportedly made the day before in support of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid by the Islamic militant group Hamas and held in Gaza since 2006.

Protesters were waiting for Alliot-Marie as she crossed from Israel into Gaza through the Erez Crossing, lying on the road and jumping on her vehicle. Hamas police eventually dispersed those protesters, but more gathered outside a United Nations office in Gaza City that was her first stop in the Palestinian territory, and later followed her to a nearby hospital, pelting her motorcade with eggs. AP Television footage showed Alliot-Marie narrowly dodging a shoe thrown by a protester as she climbed into a jeep under heavy guard.

Schalit, the captive soldier, is an Israeli-French dual national and France has repeatedly called for his release.

And let us now direct your attention to...stage left, where Osama bin Laden, the devil's anus himself, farts fire in the general direction of the French:

al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called on France to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in exchange for releasing French hostages being held by affiliates of the extremist group, according to a new audio message broadcast on an Arabic news channel Friday.

"The exit of your hostages out of the hands of our brothers depends on the exit of your troops from Afghanistan," bin Laden said in the message broadcast by al-Jazeera.

Bin Laden reminded the French people of President Nicolas Sarkozy's refusal in November to withdraw the French troops from Afghanistan and to negotiate with al-Qaida over the hostages.

"Your president's rejection is a result of being a hireling to America and a green light to kill the hostages ... his stand will cost you a high price on different aspects inside or outside France," he said.

Extremist groups associated with al-Qaida are holding at least seven French hostages...

Appeasement just means the croc will eat you last. But he will revel in your fear first, for it will make the feast all the more enjoyable....

Crazed Environmentalist Takes Hostages At Discovery Channel

And you wonder why this blog always refers to them as "environ-mental-ists"....

So yet another act of political violence, committed not by the Mad Tea Partiers, or the "gun nuts", or the anti-abortion crowd, but by the American Left, who, having realized that the nation refuses to take their whacko ideas - climate change, deficit spending, universal healthcare - seriously, is resorting to the last argument they have remaining: The point of a gun. Or in this case, the fuse of a bomb:

A gunman with a possible explosive device strapped to himself entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., Wednesday afternoon and was holding an undetermined number of hostages, police said.

Law enforcement authorities said they were talking to the man, whom they said they believed was James Jay Lee, 43, a longtime protester at the building who was sentenced to six months of supervised probation for disorderly conduct in March 2008.

Lee appears to have posted environmental and population-control demands online, saying humans are ruining the planet and that Discovery should develop programs to sound the alarm.

“I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it,” the alleged manifesto reads, adding:"Nothing is more important than saving ... the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”

...Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”

How many people will be killed by Al Gore's propaganda? Stay tuned, and let's see how the media tries to make excuses when adherents to their favorite cause decide that killing is the best way to get their message across...

UPDATE: His manifesto of madness sounds like Democratic party talking points... especially the part about, ahem, "stopping human birth":

A manifesto posted on a Web site registered to a person named James Lee, who gave a post office box in Canada as his address, lists several demands to the Discovery Channel, saying the station "MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet." It lists 11 demands about airing shows that would promote curbing the plant's population growth, finding solutions for global warming and dismantling "the dangerous US world economy."

"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions," it reads. "In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it."

The manifesto was published on savetheplanetprotest.com. Law enforcement sources said they believe the site was operated by the same James Lee inside the building...

UPDATE II: Well, he's dead. Funny how the AP simply describes him as "a man", and not as "an environmentalist", or "an environmental terrorist", which would be equally accurate as he did in fact have a gun and a live explosive. Odd, for an press agency that uses the word "Republican" in a negative context in the lede every chance it gets, whether it is accurate or not....

A man who railed against the Discovery Channel's environmental programming for years burst into the company's headquarters with at least one explosive device strapped to his body Wednesday and took three people hostage at gunpoint before police shot him to death, officials said.

...An explosive device on the gunman's body detonated when police shot him, Manger said.

Great Britain's Great Shame

Lots of revulsion out there for the behavior of the British sailors/marines that seemed to have willingly served as propoganda tools for the fanatical Iranian regime. Ralph Peters, from the New York Post:

IT WAS a fitting image of the 14 wimps and a sob sister arriving back in the United Kingdom yesterday: skulking away with pink goody bags in hand.
The color was no accident - although yellow would've been more appropriate.
But why on earth is Britain, the land of the legendary stiff upper lip, celebrating cowards who clambered over one another to shame their country?

In a sharp signal of the difference between our military and the politically beleaguered Brits, our chief of naval operations gave an interview to CNN (which he knows the Iranians watch), making it clear that if Tehran tried such a stunt with our sailors and Marines, we'd feed their thugs to the sharks.
The admiral also stressed that if captured, our troops are still taught to give name, rank, service number - and very little else. [ See related link here ]

Those blubbering Brits were only playing dress-up in the military uniforms...They hadn't been through the Bataan Death March. They didn't suffer four years in Changi Prison after the fall of Singapore. They didn't spend a five-year lifetime in the Hanoi Hilton. And we have yet to see evidence of torture.

But they started criticizing their own country within days.

And from the same paper’s editorial page:

If there has ever in history been a faster, more humiliating submission to Stockholm Syndrome, we're unaware of it.

Of course, the only story that the terrorist homepage will print is one defending the actions of the British military:

Britain's top naval officer on Friday defended the conduct of 15 sailors and marines seized by Iranian forces after boarding and inspecting a merchant vessel in the Persian Gulf.

He told the British Broadcasting Corp. he believed the crew behaved with "considerable dignity and a lot of courage" during their 13 days in Iranian captivity.
He also said the so-called confessions made by some of them and broadcast on Iranian state television appeared to have been made under "a certain amount of psychological pressure."
"I would not agree at all that it was not our finest hour. I think our people have reacted extremely well in some very difficult circumstances," he said.

This is Orwellian doublespeak at its finest....“considerable dignity”? Good sir, I refer you to the one-liner above from the NY Post…and incidentally, if making treasonous statements is “dignified”, then doesn’t that make a complete surrender “heroic”? If this is the state of the armed services of the West, we’d better start fitting our womenfolk for the hajib and veil….

Charles Krauthammer points out how this little debacle should destroy any illusions regarding the power of multinational institutions:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success ... All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

You would think maintaining international order means, at least, challenging acts of piracy. No challenge here. Instead, a quiet capitulation.

Europeans talk all the time about their preference for "soft power" over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran's shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.

The capture and release of the British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the "international community" and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the European Union and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to "deplore" this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern.") Then turn to the despised Americans. They'll deal some cards and bail you out.

You know, maybe we should reconsider our criticism of the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hostages – if no one in the West, including the U.N., EU, and their own government, was willing to stand up to Iran, why should they? Why should these captured soldiers stand tall, when their leadership is on its knees?

British Surrender Imminent...

...so says DEBKA:

The statement by a senior British defense official Sunday, April 1 is fraught with broad implications: He said: “We are quite prepared to give the Iranians a guarantee that we would never knowingly enter their waters without their permission, now or in the future.”

The Blair government’s willingness to offer Iran a guarantee never to knowingly enter its waters is a blow to this partnership and American interests in the region. It means that Tony Blair is going off in his own direction, heading for negotiations with Tehran and a ransom deal for the 15 hostages that would potentially place British naval and marine strength on an exit course from the Shatt al-Arb. Only a month ago, the Royal Navy doubled its deployment in the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman and Arabian Sea, to match the arrival of the US nuclear carrier Stennis and its naval, air and marine buildup.

Of course, the British now would be unable to participate in any offensive against Iran to contain their nuclear ambitions, a tremendous victory by the mullahs:

The fruits plucked out of the sea with the British sailors could not be sweeter for Tehran. The British will have to ease out of the task they undertook to secure the sea routes to southern Iraq and its southern oil installations. This extra burden will devolve on the United States.

The guarantee never to enter Iranian waters will exclude Britain from any potential Western military action against Iran’s nuclear installation and further accelerate the British military pull-out from southern Iraq.
DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources report the radical Revolutionary Guards and president Mahmoud Ahmadnejad are celebrating their successes. By a single move, they have planted a wedge in the heart of the Western alliance ranged against Iran, helped boost crude to a six-month high, as well as humiliating Britain. Now, they are considering ways to capitalize on their success by follow-up coups.

Mark Steyn considers the hostage episode as an overwhelming defeat for the British, the EU, and the UN:

On this 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, Tony Blair is looking less like Margaret Thatcher and alarmingly like Jimmy Carter, the embodiment of the soi-disant "superpower" as a smiling eunuch.

....the 15 hostages are "British subjects." But, as a point of law, they are also "citizens of the European Union."
...if Europe is as it claims to be, what's it going to do about it?''
Short answer: Nothing.
....Europe has more economic leverage on Iran than America has. The European Union is the Islamic Republic's biggest trading partner, accounting for 40 percent of Iranian exports. They are in a position to inflict serious pain on Tehran. But not for 15 British servicemen. There may be "European citizens," but there is no European polity.

So what's the U.N. doing about this affront to its authority and (in the public humiliation of the captives) of the Geneva Conventions?
Short answer: Nothing.
....the Security Council instead expressed its ''grave concern'' about the situation. That and $4.95 will get you a decaf latte. Ask the folks in Darfur what they've got to show for years of the U.N.'s "grave concerns" -- heavy on the graves, less so on the concern.

The U.N. will do nothing for men seized on a U.N.-sanctioned mission. The European Union will do nothing for its "European citizens." But if liberal transnationalism is a post-modern joke, it's not the only school of transnationalism out there. Iran's Islamic Revolution has been explicitly extraterritorial since the beginning: It has created and funded murderous proxies in Hezbollah, Hamas and both Shia and Sunni factions of the Iraq "insurgency."

And as of today, the Iranians are still "explicitly extraterritorial"; except the territory they are eyeing is ours - from Iranian news services:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Sunday that arrogant powers will vanish like "bubbles on water."

Addressing local residents after a visit to Mishdagh, a center of operations during the war, Ahmadinejad said that April 1 (Farvardin 12) was an auspicious day as on this day 28 years ago the Islamic Republic of Iran was born.
The Iranian nation, in a referendum held in late March 1979, made the historic and decisive choice of voting for the establishment of an Islamic Republic system in the country, paving the way for a glorious future for themselves and, hopefully, for the entire world, he told his audience.

Consider us warned.

Britain to Fall?

The Iranian government may be held by mad messianic mullahs, but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily stupid...with the state of the British Navy, what better time to launch an attack against their personnel? A devastating analysis from the New York Post:

IT'S been a tough month for the British Navy. On March 7, it learned that Tony Blair's Labor government was going ahead with drastic cuts in its budget and number of ships. By this time next year, the once-vaunted Royal Navy will be about the size of the Belgian Navy, while its officers face a five-year moratorium on all promotions.
If that wasn't demoralizing enough, last Friday the Iranian Navy seized a patrol boat containing 15 British sailors and Marines, claiming they'd crossed into Iranian waters. They're now hostages and may well go on trial as spies.

The latest report is that the Britons were ready to fight off their abductors. Certainly their escorting ship, HMS Cornwall, could have blown the Iranian naval vessel out of the water. However, at the last minute the British Ministry of Defense ordered the Cornwall not to fire, and her captain and crew were forced to watch their shipmates led away into captivity.

There was a question whether the Blair government would end up leaving Britain with a navy too small to protect its shores. Now it seems to want a navy that can't even protect its own sailors.

Seems like the Iranians may have found their new Jimmy Carter in Mr. Blair - he's trapped, forced by the code of EU non-violence to limit his actions to strongly worded statements and the threat of more strongly worded statements. Should he react militarily, it is in essence a rebuke of the EU ideal that all conflicts can be resolved diplomatically. By possibly saving his own sailors (which, apparently, is a job our sailors might wind up doing due to Blair's insane military cutbacks), he could be severly undermining the EU in the process. What kind of pressure is Blair facing from his neighbors in Europe not to take any action at all; to "wait it out"?

Blair and the Brits should remember 1979 - the taking of the U.S. Embassy and its staff as hostages for 444 days, while a cowardly president tied ribbons around trees and pleaded for their release, destroyed American credibility around the world for years, and created the "paper tiger" meme that led to further terrorist attacks upon our forces and institutions worldwide.

If you can't back up your words with actions, nobody will take you seriously, and then you are in some deep sh*t. Blair is in a tough spot - his soft allies in the E-Union would frown upon any military action, while Blair's own weaking of his once-vaunted Navy has made any action that much more difficult to undertake. And if he doesn't act, the sight of him standing by helplesly as British sailors are manhandled through an Islamic show trial will weaken the international position of England to a point where their influence on foreign affairs will be greatly diminished.

Not a good spot to be in, but one cannot say that events were not leading up to this moment...how Tony Blair plays the cards he has dealt himself here will affect Britain and the West for the next decade. One can only hope he holds some of that staunch British blood within him; along with some of the strength and courage that has served that one-great nation so well for so long...

Well, maybe Mr. Blair will get lucky, after all...Scappleface gives us the outcome that the Left will insist is realistic:

Iran Blinks Under 'Cordial Pressure' from Tony Blair

(2007-03-27) — Iran announced today that it would release immediately the 15 British soldiers and marines it took hostage last week to avoid further “cordial pressure and devastating pleasantries” from British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“In this test of wills,” said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “we acknowledge the superior power of the adversary. We cannot withstand another onslaught of polite diplomatic language nor the withering, if unspoken, consternation we detect in the eyes of Tony Blair....

Yeah...keep dreaming....

Inside the Insurgency

The Officer's Club uses the release of hostage Jill Carrol as a window into the current mindset of the Iraqi insurgents; and provides excellent analysis. Some conclusions, among many:

They are cogniscent of our own internal struggle over the occupation. Carroll's forced propaganda statement echoed some of the most popular phrases used by the global anti-war movement, using "illegal occupation," "unjust war," and the old "Iraqi terrorists are freedom fighters" line, just to name a few...

They consider President Bush's leadership a grave threat. Not only was President Bush brought up in the Carroll interview, he got his own question. Carroll's kidnapper prompted her: "Do you have a message for Mr. Bush," to which she replied with the typical occupation, quagmire, unjust war talking points. The question was a political stab at the President, who is the first President to take fighting radical Islam with the appropriate level of seriousness.

I find the final conclusion disturbing; and I hope against hope that time proves it wrong:

Jill Carroll will not be the last Westerner to be kidnapped in Iraq, but she may be the last one released. Kidnapping is the only real way the insurgents can get airtime these days, which is why Jihadi propaganda comes with kneeling captives at their feet. Releasing Carroll was an experiment, one that failed from the insurgency's point of view. Carroll was released and immediately disavowed statements she made in captivity. The insurgents were exposed as a cheap propagandists, and their message was blurred in the celebration surrounding Carroll's return home. Killing a hostage makes a far more drastic statement than releasing one does, which is precisely why we're unlikely to see any more hostages released.

And this is the best al-Qaeda's Iraq division can do. More like a bunch of ragtag misfits than the feared guerrilla army that the Democrats make them out to be (or the New York Times shills for - this piece of enemy propoganda went uncorrected save for a paragraph 17 mention in an unrelated story).

If the media, and the Democrats, will let us, the Iraqi war can be over in short order, with less ccivilian casualities and fewer hostages turning up dead. If they would only get out of our way...

"Peacemakers" ?

The rescued members of the Christian Peacemakers Team are throwing their bodies in front of the Islamist terrorists:

The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday.
The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages.

Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements.
The two Canadians kidnapped with Mr Kember - Harmeet Sooden, 32, and Jim Loney, 41 - were said to have been co-operative at first but less so on arriving at the British embassy in Baghdad after being given the opportunity to wash, eat and rest.

Can you imagine the pain of other families, ones who have bretheran held hostage in Iraq, upon hearing that these rescued hostages refuse to provide any information that might help lead to the whereabouts of other prisoners?
Let us be clear - CPT, as well as other leftist activist groups such as Rachel Corrie's ISM, are not peace movements in any way, shape, or form. They are actively aiding and abetting terrorists and Islamist fascists in their goal of overthrowing Western Civilization. If they think they can fool us by using words like "peace", or "solidarity", well, we are just a tad smarter than they think.

Next time, let's leave these rats in their holes; not a single coalition life is worth their rescue.

LGF has a mission statement from CPT back in 1998 here; note how they practically choke on their voluminous anti-semitism...

Hostages Rescued, U.S. to Blame?

Will the Christian Peacemaker Teams show any gratitude towards the United States for helping to rescue their kidnapped bretheran?
Or, perhaps a better question is, how long will it take for the "CPT" to put out a statement critisizing the United States, despite the fact that our soldiers risked their lives to help rescue people who were in Iraq solely to betray the American cause?

U.S.-led forces freed three Christian peace activists held hostage in Iraq' on Thursday in an operation mounted two weeks after the kidnappers tortured and killed their American colleague.
Canadians Jim Loney and Harmeet Sooden and 74-year-old British pacifist Norman Kember from the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) were snatched in west Baghdad in November.
The tortured body of American Tom Fox was found dumped in the capital two weeks ago.
The four were seized four months ago while driving in a part of western Baghdad known as a haven for Sunni Arab rebels...

Kidnapping? Torture? Captured while in "enemy" territory? Don't forget the "root cause", as per CPT:

"We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S.- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."

Expect more of this at some point today...those blinded by ideology, whether religious or political in nature, will never get thrown off-message by those annoying little things known as facts...

UPDATE 1240P: That didn't take long...although the freed hostages were found "tied up in a house in western Baghdad", we all know whose fault this is:

"We believe the illegal occupation of Iraq by multinational forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq today. The occupation must end," the co-chairman of CPT, Doug Pritchard, told a news conference in Toronto.

Hey, Mr. Pritchard, I have a thought - maybe it is your teams that should leave the country, to avoid being kidnapped and murdered by those you claim to protect. And perhaps the "root cause" of their deaths is your absolute moral blindness towards the evil of these enemies of peace.

Here is their statement in full; while Christian Peacemakers shows disdain for the soldiers that rescued their people, they shower praise upon the people that didn't lift a finger:

We have been especially moved by the gracious outpouring of support from Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. That support continues to come to us day after day.

Gee, did that Muslim "support" free your captured teams; or was it American and British force of arms that prevented your "Peacemakers" from sharing the fate of Mr. Tom Fox?

I can almost see the Almighty now; covering his eyes and shaking his head...

Update 8PM: From Mark Steyn, some commentary:

The stunted morality of these Christian "Peacemakers" is apparently boundless. They evidently didn't grasp the lesson of their long capture and the murder of their comrade - that, even if you spend weeks on end with them and even if you agree with them, the jihadists still decline to acknowledge even the most basic common humanity. Even though you're objectively on their side, to the jihad you're still "the other". The late Mr. Fox didn't need to acquire Stockholm Syndrome: he was already on the "insurgents''' side. But they killed him anyway.

Yup.

The Bin Laden Raid: Obama Once Again Taking Credit For Someone Else's Work?

When it goes right, all credit and praise be upon He, Barack Hussein Obama, the one who has brought us out of the darkness and into the light.

When it goes wrong, it is everyone else's fault...but usually George W. Bush, the Republican Party, or Big Oil is usually to blame.

But so hungry for is The One to develop a Midas-touch mythology, that he's developed a nasty habit of taking credit for successes that don't have the remotely anything to do with him. You'd almost think he invented shale drilling, or passed this 25 year old government program, or is in favor of building pipelines, if you listen to Obama pat himself on the back for these "success stories".

But he may have gone a bit too far with his recent campaign ads congratulating himself for killing Osama Bin Laden, while claiming Mitt Romney would have been too much of a pussy to do the same thing.  For the more information that comes out about the day Bin Laden died, the more it seems that Obama, as with everything else in the presidency, was only peripherally involved, at best.

Investors.com:

As reported by Big Peace, Time magazine has obtained a memo written by Leon Panetta, then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency and now-Secretary of Defense, that says "operational decision-making and control" was really in the hands of William McRaven, a three-star admiral and former Navy SEAL.

"The timing, operational decision-making and control are in Adm. McRaven's hands," the memo says. "The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the president for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and, if he is not there, to get out."

In other words, it was McRaven's call to pull the trigger or not on the raid.

Obama watching the raid from a position best described as "on the outside"...

Our brave president had already built in a "blame factor" if the raid went askew:

The Panetta memo, rather than presenting a profile in courage, says "approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president." This left enough wiggle room to blame the operation planners and controllers if the raid had gone as wrong as President Jimmy Carter's famous failure to rescue American hostages held by Iran. This memo left room for the blame for another "Blackhawk Down" snafu to be blamed on anyone and everyone but President Obama.

Luckily, operational control was in McRaven's hands, and the planning, execution and decision-making were virtually flawless...


...and not in Obama's hands, where he would still be in the process of picking a blue-ribbon committee to weigh the options available.

Surprised Time would even run this story, as the MSMS's default position in news reporting is not primarily the need to inform the public, but first and foremost how any one piece of information may affect the re-election fortunes of Barack Obama. But this story is bigger than one man - yes, even you, Mr. President - and the truth will come out sooner rather than later this time.

Might turn out that the Osama raid may just be one more thing Obama will not be able to run on this fall...

Mumbai Terrorists: Delivering Extra Pain To The Jews?

Seems like the filthy savages who slaughtered scores in Mumbai in the name of Islam had a little something extra special in store for their Jewish/Israeli hostages:

...The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.

The seething hatred of Islam, channeled into anti-Semitism (and anti-Americanism, to a lesser extent) has become the hallmark of the religion.

Don't like it? Claim I am lumping too many fish into the same barrel? Too f*cking bad. If the moderate Muslim exisits, he should be screaming his head off right now about the animals that speak in his name, the ones who declare fealty to the religion of Islam by murdering innocents and torturing Jews wherever they may be found.

Seems like I hear a lot of silence out there. Nothing from the Muslim side of things, and very little in the media about the special selection of Israelis and Jews for specific torture and execution.
Munich? Entebbe? And now Mumbai added to the list? At least in the cases of the former, the media spoke to what was obvious: The selection of Jews for extermination. And why not now?

Cowards? Or complicit in the crime? For either group, their silence speaks volumes about who they really are, and what they really believe...

Final word goes to Melanie Phillips, via Israel Matzav:

The atrocities demonstrated with crystal clarity what the Islamist war is all about – and the western commentariat didn’t understand because it simply refuses to acknowledge, even now, what that war actually is. It does not arise from particular grievances. It is not rooted in ‘despair’ over Palestine. It is not a reaction to the war in Iraq. It is a war waged in the name of Islam against America, Britain, Hindus, Jews and all who refuse to submit to Islamic conquest.

Somebody telling Barack Obama this? Or is he too busy working on his customized Presidential seal? The coming of the infamous "3AM Call" is almost upon us...

More at Gateway Pundit, who's been on top of Mumbai since the beginning...

UPDATE: So you don't think this is a "race war"? Why not ask the guys who are doing the killing? Via LGF, who tells us of the confession of surviving terrorist Azam Amir Kasav:

At the railway station, Azam and his colleague opened fire, targeting Caucasian tourists while trying to spare Muslims.

UPDATE II: See what the Bollywood types have to say here; more useful idiots here...

The British Defend the NHS....Well, Sort Of....

Saw this up on Yahoo - Britons defend their health care from US criticism - and got ready for some serious arguments in favor of socialized medicine.

Instead, I wound up laughing all the way through. Where to start? Not sure - maybe with the head of Britain's conservative party bragging about widespread support of the NHS, based upon the praise it recieves on Twitter? (no wonder why Labour owns that nation).

How about I start here, with the lass suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

Even British health campaigner Kate Spall — who criticizes NHS failings in U.S. television ads produced by Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a lobby group that opposes Obama's plans — declared that the group had misled her and was distorting her true views. Spall's mother died of kidney cancer while waiting for treatment.

"There are failings in the system but I'm not anti-NHS at all," Spall told the British Broadcasting Corp.
"I help the vulnerable patients in our country that come to me for help, those that have been denied treatment," she said....

So your mom died waiting for treatment, you specialize in helping people who have been denied treatment, and yet you still support the system that forments this chaos? The Patient's Rights Group should pull their ads with Ms. Spall, if only because she is quite clearly deranged.

The truth comes out at the end of the article - which offers no support from ordinary British citizens, only activists and elected officials:

The NHS, founded in 1948, is the cornerstone of the United Kingdom's welfare state.

About 12 percent of the UK's 61 million residents have private insurance, but the vast majority rely on state-funded emergency care, surgery and access to family doctors. Even those who complain about the system say they want it improved, not dismantled.

British officials acknowledge that their system has been struggling to cope and faces a 15 billion pound ($24 billion) deficit. Hospitals are often overcrowded, dirty and understaffed, which means some patients do not get the care they are promised.

So, the AP agrees that nationalized health is the building block of the "welfare state", 88% of British citizens are on what we would call the "public option", with only 12% remaining on private insurance, and its $24 billion in the hole (and counting). Oh - and the whole think is a clusterf*ck, to boot.

And this is what the Brits defend, and this is what Obama wants to foist upon us. God help us, and our children, if he succeeds....


UPDATE: Yes, Stockhold Syndrome is appropriate here: a psychological response sometimes seen in abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee - Hostages of North Korea

In a predetermined verdict that suprised no one, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, "reporters" for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based Current TV, have been sentenced to twelve years in a North Korean concentration camp. Their crime?

Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, were arrested March 17 along the China-North Korean border after top officials in Pyongyang said they had encroached on North Korean soil while reporting a story on human trafficking by Kim Jong Il's regime.

Well, it's certainly possible and perhaps likely that Ling and Lee found themselves on the wrong side of the border; neither one of them are experienced in the art of reporting in hostile territory, and neophyte enthusiasm is out of place on the fringes of the world's most hostile regime.

So now they find themselves prisoners of Kim Jung-Il, who will hold them until he gets something that he wants; likely, a guarentee of non-interference in their nuclear development and proliferation (remember: "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons."), as well as a wad of cash. And Kim Jung will hold them for a long time, as international pressure is not a thing that the NK regime is reactive to.

So how will Obama react? As the stories build about the reporter's plight, and the exposes of the horrors of the North's labor camps come to light, will he bow to pressure from the left side (the media, Hollywood - after all, Ling is a relation of CNN's LAura Ling) and give the Norks another win, while rewarding the concept of hostage-taking as a diplomatic pressure tool? Or will he stand firm against the buttons and bumper stickers that will demand that he "Free Ling and Lee!" ?

Finally, what is Al Gore's role in all of this? Current TV is his vanity project, an unsuccessful media company trying to hoist itself on the buzzword of "user-generated content" to push its left-wing agenda. Amateur in design and presentation, it is watched by virtually no one and has zero influence (thankfully) over people or policy (despite a gratuitous Emmy for "Best Interactive Television Service", whatever the hell that means).

It is Gore's reporters that have been taken hostage here, where is the voice of the ex-Vice President? (Current TV's website has no mention at this time of the sentence, they are crowing about "contractors being questioned for a murder" in Iraq). Has he been told to silence himself, and let the administration handde this? Or is he shamed by sending out two inexperienced reporters into a situation where they have become pawns in a game of nuclear chicken?

More likely he's befuddled. And poor Ms. Ling and Lee now face hell on earth, literally. And Obama can either bail them out at a tremendous cost to the safety of the free world, or face the heat for their continued imprisonment.

The only winner here is North Korea, for no one appears inclined to lift a finger against them. And that, my friends, is very bad news indeed.

Contemplations on an Anniversary...

{editor's note: first posted 4/2; updated 4/3 at bottom - I wanted to change the name of this post to "In Heaven, Winston Churchill's puking up premium scotch", but I didn't want to mess up any inbound links...}

...on how far the British have fallen:

Today is the 25th anniversary of Argentina's invasion of the Falklands. The recapture of the Falklands became the defining event of the Thatcher years. A nation that had been in decline since WWII found a new confidence.

A quarter of a century later the role of aggressor is being played by the much more deadly Iran. On this morning's television screens, for the fourth successive day, we watch kidnapped British sailors being humilated by their Iranian captors.

The Belmont Club explains why:

...as events transpired, Whitehall telegraphed that it was going the diplomatic route by first going to the EU, then to the UN, which of course required that its Embassy remain in Teheran. The Ayatollahs must have breathed a sigh of relief at that moment. Because now they knew which route the British were going to take. And unsurprisingly the wheels came off the British wagon within days. The EU threatened to take appropriate action. The UN spent a whole day deliberating whether to issue a statement expressing "concern" over the British hostages instead of taking the opportunity to "deplore" Iran's actions.

Teheran is doing well because they are not playing the diplomatic game....They are punching entirely below the belt while their opponent is locked into a Marquis of Queensbury stance. That's asymmetrical warfare...

May I remind you that this is the stance that American liberals insist we adopt in order to make the Muslims and their mullahs treat us with love and respect ? Hmmm, see the love and respect they are showing the Brits...?

And speaking of the left, note what wussies they have turned the British Armed Services into - via God Help Britain:

Lord Nelson, alas, was killed at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The captain of the HMS Cornwall is Commodore Nick Lambert, a more modern sort. He did nothing as six Iranian speedboats seized the boarding party from his ship as they were leaving the freighter they had inspected in Iraqi territorial waters.

Samizdata asks "What the hell happened to "name, rank and serial number?":

From the moment they were captured they should have responded with NOTHING except "Name, rank and serial number". These people have a professional (and legal) requirement to keep their yaps shut and not give aid with their words to a clearly hostile foreign government.

Incidentally, the American POW code is as follows:

ARTICLE I.
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
ARTICLE II.
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.
ARTICLE III.
If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.
ARTICLE IV.
If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.
ARTICLE V.
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.
ARTICLE VI.
I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

How soon until the Democrats change that as well, to more emulate their less-brave (and I am being generous) European bretheran? Can we fall as far as the Brits have in the next 25 years? Heck, with the help of the Democratic party, there's no telling how far down the bottom is!

UPDATE 4/3: Ralph Peters shows his disgust with the British:

THE greatest shock from the Middle East this year hasn't been terrorist ruthlessness or the latest Iranian tantrum. It's that members of Britain's Royal Marines wimped out in a matter of days and acquiesced in propaganda broadcasts for their captors.
Jingoism aside, I can't imagine any squad of U.S. Marines behaving in such a shabby, cowardly fashion. Our Marines would have fought to begin with. Taken captive by force, they would've resisted collaboration. To the last man and woman.

You could put a U.S. Marine in a dungeon and knock out his teeth, but you wouldn't knock out his pride in his country and the Corps. "Semper fi" means something.
And our Aussie allies would be just as tough.....

Naturally, the European Union has praised Britain's "restraint." We've now got another synonym for cowardice.
In Heaven, Winston Churchill's puking up premium scotch....

The once-proud Brit military has collapsed to a sorry state when its Royal Marines surrender without a fight, then apologize to their captors (praising their gentle natures!) while criticizing their own country. Pretty sad to think that the last real warriors fighting under the Union Jack are soccer hooligans

Think about Sen. John McCain with his broken limbs undergoing torture in that Hanoi prison - and refusing an early chance to be repatriated because he wouldn't leave his comrades behind. Think he'd do a Tokyo Rose for Tehran?

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ): What's a Constitution?

Via Garden State Patriot, we learn that Senator Lautenberg seems not to be too interested in the constitutionality of health care reform...when questioned on it by CNS, he replied thusly:

CNSNews.com: “Specifically where in the Constitution does Congress get the authority to mandate that individuals have health insurance?”

Senator Lautenberg: “I’m not going to answer that.”

Why not? Is it because the Senate fears that their twisted reform may not stand up to a constitutional challenge, and they lack the courage to rewrite the bill in a way that would conform to the nation's laws? CNS gives us some historical background on the issue:

Back in 1994, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examined the individual health insurance mandate, which was then being proposed by President Bill Clinton’s health care reform effort, and described the idea as an “unprecedented form of federal action.”

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO analysis said. “An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

Frank knows, but Frank doesn't care. The Senator will be 86 this year; re-elected in the Obama landslide of 2008, New Jersey is stuck with Lautenberg until 2014, assuming he makes it that long. He knows this is his last ride, making him unbeholden to the voters of New Jersey, and allowing him to legislate based on his far-left tendencies and not with the interests of the voters he is supposed to represent in mind.

With his seat a "dead" one for so many years, there's very little polling being done on Lautenberg. Back in July, a poll showed him with 40%/41% favorable/unfavorable, pretty poor in an alleged "blue" state, despite Lautenberg's penchant for staying off the radar. Wonder what it looks like now, post-Corzine & in the Age of Obama?

But it doesn't matter, for on his Last Ride, Lautenberg intends to flaunt the Constitution anddefy the will of the people in order to pass legislation that will make him feel good inside. And we are all just hostages to his wicked desires, those of a old man who knows he has little to lose, and is safely shielded from voter retribution...

Something to think about, the next time an 80 year old public official seeks yet another term...

UPDATE 1-5: Senator Orrin Hatch sets "Old Man Lautenberg" straight on the Constitution in the Wall Street Journal...

Apologies, in Perspective

Lance at The Muslim Question points out:

0.0000032% of World's Muslims Accept Pope's Apology

Thirty-eight Muslim scholars and chief muftis from numerous countries have accepted Pope Benedict XVI's apology for his remarks on Islam, the editor of a Muslim journal said.
The scholars have signed an open letter to this effect that will be delivered to a Vatican envoy in the hope of engaging the pope in a dialogue to counter prejudice against Islam....

Who says Islam is not a tolerant religion?

And as far as apologies go, we have this:

The Pope says that jihad violence is against God's nature, and officials fear that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit . . . jihad violence.

Muslims murder 3,000 innocents in New York and expect no criticism.
Muslims murder 202 tourists in Bali and expect no criticism.
Muslims murder 333 schoolchildren and their teachers in Beslan and expect no criticism. Muslims murder 292 innocents, mainly Kenyans and Tanzanians at two US Embassies and expect no criticism.
Muslims murder 241 US and 58 French peacekeepers in Beirut and expect no criticism. Muslims fire 4,000 Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel killing over 50 innocent civilians and expect no criticism.
Muslims murder 52 in London and 191 in Madrid and expect no criticism. Muslims murde r 200 in Mumbai and expect no criticism.
Muslims behead Western hostages in Iraq, Buddhist monks in Thailand and Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia and expect no criticism.
Muslims murder 500,000 in Darfur and expect no criticism.
Muslims regard Jews as 'sons of pigs and monkeys', and vow to nuke Israel and expect no criticism.
Muslims force women to wear hideous sacks, stone to death women for getting raped and for leaving the home unescorted, engage in honor killings of sisters and daughters for unapproved dating, and expect no criticism.

Muslims danced in the streets and handed out sweets to their kids to celebrate the 9/11 atrocity, and still expected no criticism. Since 9/11 Muslims have killed over 26,000 and wounded over 50,000 in terrorist attacks worldwide since 9/11 and expect no criticism.

Since 9/11 Muslims have committed terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chad, Chechnya, Dagestan, Denmark, East Timor, Egypt, England, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Jordan-Iraq, Kabardino-Balkans, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Gaza-Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Arab Republic, United States, Uzbekistan and Yemen, and still expect no criticism.

Muslims have carried out over 5,800 fatal terrorist atrocities since 9/11, and countless thousands since Islamic conquest began in 623 AD and expect no criticism.

But if a Pope dares to tell the truth about Islam or Danes publish cartoons about Mohammed, then let the outpourings of Islamic hate and outrage begin. And, by some twisted reach of logic, the arrogant bastards demand the Pope issue an apology.

Allegedly penned by one John Alstad, U.S. Marine....obviously, this is all the fault of President Bush; if he never been elected (whoops! I mean selected) President none of this would have happened; we would all be singing Kum-bye-Ya like we used to in the good old days...

You know what? For the list of horror above, no apologies can suffice. The man who thinks it can, is the next one in line to be killed by the Islamists, right behind the one who is willing to prostrate himself at the knees of the Muslims to beg forgiveness for the words - words! - spoken by the Pontiff...

Jimmy "Dhimmi" Carter gets a beatdown!

Victor Davis Hanson brutally dissects the failure and immorality of America's worst President:

Jimmy Carter... almost immediately was back in the news claiming that the United States was one of the world’s great abusers of civil rights (I wonder how our internecine body count in Plains, Georgia stacks up with that in Rwanda, Kosovo, or Dafur?).

In his dotage, Carter is proving once again that he is as malicious and mean-spirited a public figure as he is historically ignorant. And for all his sanctimonious Christian veneer, and fly-fishing, ‘aw shucks blue-jeans image, he can’t hide an essentially ungracious and unkind soul.

And can Carter point to just one aspect of current American life where civil liberties are materially curtailed, in which an American can’t do what he wants? Getting on a plane without shampoo doesn’t count—or not having your family at the gate when you land either: all thanks to al Qaeda, not George Bush.

Contrast our enemies: the pope, an opera, a novel, a cartoon, a film—all either muzzled or intimidated by the mere fear of Islamic violence. Carter should reread Aristotle’s Ethics and learn what true morality is: action to combat evil, not sermonizing from the Carter Center or campaigning for a Nobel Prize at a time of war by trashing his own government.

There is another disturbing element to Cartesian maliciousness. He asks us to forget all the dilemmas of being President, the necessity of making bad choices when the alternative is usually worse. And, of course, he seems to have amnesia about his own failings that put this country in grave jeopardy. He sanctimoniously lectured us on our Cold War fixation on communism—and got a murderous Soviet invasion of Afghanistan....
He wept for the middle class, but adopted policies that led to double-digit interest rates and inflation, ensuring that only the upscale could borrow for a house or ensure their salaries would keep up with the cost of living. No need to mention his energy policy or gas lines.

Carter’s Waterloo, of course was the Iranian hostage crisis. It was not just that his gutting of the military helped to explain the rescue disaster. Far more importantly, we can chart the rise of radical political Islam with the storming of the American embassy in Teheran and the impotent response of Jimmy Carter.
Long before George Bush was elected to anything, crowds in Teheran gave us the genesis of the Great Satan and “Death to Carter”. Does he remember that so great was the Iranian Islamist hatred of him, that Iran deliberately delayed the brokered release of the hostages until he was out of office—a lesson that appeasement wins contempt as the additional wage of its failure.

One of the great failures of the Democratic Party in 2004 was giving this mangy ex-President such a high profile. Most Americans know intuitively what Hanson states above, that Carter's immoral inaction in the face of Islamic terror some 27 years ago gave rise to the perception of America as a paper tiger that could be taunted and defeated. How many innocents have died, and how many wars have we had to fight, since Carter gave fuel to the Islamic fire?

Yet the Dems let this guy speak at the convention...what kind of memories did they think he would invoke? And sitting him in a place of high honor, right next to fellow America-basher Michael Moore...well, entirely appropriate, to be sure, but I can't imagine how these two could inspire any but the already die-hard to vote Democratic...

Well, the 2006 election cycle is upon us. Let us hope we see much more of this sanctimonious moral prostitute pimping the candidates of the left - the more America sees of Jimmy Carter, the less likely they are to pull the "D" lever, knowing what type of policies he (and they) represent...

Koffi Annan: Hezbollah's Little Helper

A brief overview of Koffi's and the UN's actions in this summer's Mideast flareup - from the letters pages of the New York Sun:

Mr. Annan came close to accusing Israel of deliberately killing United Nations observers in Lebanon.
He grossly exaggerated at Israel's expense the number of persons found dead in Qana. He presided over a UNIFIL that was in collusion with Hezbollah.
He guaranteed that the new and enlarged UNIFIL force mandated under Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 11 would not disarm Hezbollah, a requirement of Council Resolution 1559.
He acquiesced in Lebanon's decision not to invite UNIFIL to guard Lebanon's border with Syria to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah.
And now he pressures Israel to end its sea and air blockade of Lebanon, a state that has just reaffirmed its refusal to make peace with Israel.

Mr. Annan did not even agree that Hezbollah must first return the hostages kidnapped by Hezbollah in mid-July, and the fates of the three Israeli prisoners of war, Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz, and Zvi Feldman, captured in Lebanon and held since 1982 didn't even come up.
To make matters worse, U.N. Under-Secretary-General Jan Egeland belittled Israel's concern with Hezbollah's missiles and rockets at a U.N. press conference on August 30...

And Prime Minister Ehud Olmert allows this man, and this organization, to broker a peace between Israel and the folks whom want the Jews exterminated. Well, you get what you pay for, so this pic from Little Green Footballs should be no surprise:


A Spanish U.N. peacekeeper shakes the hand of a Lebanese Hezbollah supporter wearing a yellow T-shirt and carrying a Hezbollah flag as he marches in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006, on his way to attend the massive victory rally that will take place in Beirut Friday afternoon. Hundreds of Hezbollah supporters from across southern Lebanon began marching on foot toward Beirut for a major rally planned Friday to showcase the group’s insistence it won’t disarm.

Nice job, Ehud - hey, remember that movie "The Lost Boys"?

Don't ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.

And so you have rendered Israel...maybe that's why this is no surprise:

Israelis would vote Prime Minister Olmert out of office if elections were held now, polls indicated yesterday, as the defiant premier defended his performance in the Lebanon war and lashed out at his critics...
...Two polls published yesterday indicted Mr. Olmert was rapidly losing support and that the leader of the hawkish Likud, archrival Benjamin Netanyahu, was poised for a comeback...

....A survey by the Dialog polling company, published in the Ha'aretz newspaper, showed 68% of Israelis were unhappy with Mr. Olmert, compared with 40% on August 1, midway through the war. Just 22% were satisfied with his performance, compared with 48% in the previous poll...
If an election were held today, Likud would double its strength, winning 24 of 120 parliament seats — making it the largest party and Mr. Netanyahu the possible premier — while Mr. Olmert's centrist Kadima would fall to 16 seats from 29, according to the poll. Elections are not scheduled until 2010, but no Israeli government in the past decade has completed its four-year term.
In a survey in the Yediot Achronot daily, 27% said Mr. Netanyahu was most suited to be prime minister, compared to just 7% who chose Mr. Olmert.....

Beauty of a democracy, I guess - losers in the West don't get to stand over the smoking rubble of their once-revitalized nation and claim victory, they are sent to a well-deserved political oblivion instead...

But Koffi, as we noted above, does everything in his power to slam the democracies and prop up the Hezbollahs of the world...that's why he's usually pictured smiling; the results have been going in his direction for a while now...

UPDATE: If I may take one more shot at Ehud Olmert... apparently, Lebanese Cedar Trees are more valuable than the lives of Jews:

On Rosh Hashana, as Is raelis reflect on what the war in Lebanon means to their future, they know they must solve such problems as Hezbollah's secret "nature preserve."
Israeli intelligence allowed the air force to KO all of the guerrillas' long-range missiles, warehoused in the Bekaa Valley, in the war's first 39 minutes.

But Iranian engineers and Hezbollah had built an underground arsenal some 12 miles long by nine miles wide, a senior government official said.
And that let Hezbollah hide - under the forest - short- and medium-range missiles built by Syria based on Chinese technology. Using hydraulic systems and other innovations, missile launchers would surface, then quickly go back below. The heavy bushes and vegetation hid all.

As Israel grew suspicious of the preserve, it weighed its options, including burning off the trees and vegetation with napalm. That was rejected for fear of world reaction to the use of Vietnam-era weaponry to destroy the legendary cedars of Lebanon.

Of course there would have been an outcry, but there always is when those pesky Jews dare to defend their lives instead of just quietly rolling over and dying. Napalming the forest would have brought about condemnation, to be sure, but it also would have engendered a healthy debate over enviornment versus human life. After all, trees can always be replanted...
But according to Olmert, the risk of negative PR was too great. Instead, current and future generations of Jews will be slaughtered by Hezbollah's terrorists, so that the Lebanese Cedars can stand tall.

How comforting!

Islam, At Gunpoint...

A note to all whom decry a "clash of civilizations", or claim that we are fighting "terrorists", but NOT Muslims...what do you call it when civilians are kidnapped, abused, and forced to convert to Islam under penalty of death?

Two Fox News journalists held for 13 days in the Gaza Strip were released Sunday after they were shown on a videotape saying they converted to Islam.
The two journalists, American Steve Centanni, 60, and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, "have liberated themselves" by converting to Islam, according to the statement accompanying a videotape from a group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades.

It gets uglier...

Centanni recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage.
"We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to life face down with our handcuffs on," Centanni said.
"Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful."
Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.
"We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."

Hot Air has some video, incidentally..

Now I'm not going to jump on Mr. Centanni, who has obviously been through a horrific ordeal. But as one of his first statements was -

“Don’t get me wrong, I have the highest respect for Islam..."

- well, I hope he was not of sound mind when that statement was made; otherwise the impression left is that one can be held hostages by ahderants to a religious belief, forced to convert to said belief, and then willfully embrace that belief afterward.
Hmmm, perhaps what the entire West needs is two weeks face down in the dirt to discover our love of the Koran....and don't think that little tidbit will escape the adherants of Allah. From View to the Right:

The kidnappers did not force Centanni and Wiig to convert to Islam because the kidnappers are “fascists” who “hate our freedoms.” They forced them to convert to Islam because they are Muslims who believe in Islam. Yes, Islam tells them to hate our freedoms. But the primary thing is the belief in Islam, not the hate of our freedoms. How can we successfully fight an enemy whose existence we don’t even recognize?

Moreover, such forced conversions are exactly what Muslims have been imposing on non-Muslims for the last 1,400 years, through jihad war, razzias (raids), kidnapping, slavery, conquest, and dhimmitude. In reply, the Muslims insist that they don’t force people to convert. Rather, as Sayyid Qutb argues, jihad war is waged to bring people under (divinely led) Islamic rule, thereby freeing them (freeing them from their false human will, that is) to choose Islam freely. What Muslims call “freedom” is what we call compulsion. In fear of being killed, and in hopes of being released, Steve Centanni agreed to convert to Islam. The choice was not what we would call a free one. But now, having become a Muslim and so transformed himself, he can’t take it back, even though the gun is no longer pointed at his head. And so he loves Big Brother—I mean, he has the “highest respect” for Islam.

Again, I'll wait until Centanni sees a psychiatrist before I bash him personally...but the post above brings another fear to the forefront - are we fighting against Islamic Fascists, or the Muslim religion as a whole? We have often spoke of the myth of the moderate Muslim; one that every politician and leader claims exists yet cannot ever be seen/heard decrying the terrorism, kidnappings, murder and general mayhem that is carried out in their name. If the moderate Muslim does not exists, then we are faced not only with armed Islamists that are attempting to bring the world under a 7th century Caliphate, but a Muslim civilian population worldwide that supports this turn of events.

Perhaps this is why Islamic terror plots grow so freely in England, Canada, and all over the Middle East - because the average Muslim believes these murderers are actually acting within the dictates of their religion. Or perhaps terrorists are simply the "armed wing" of the Muslim religion, if I may borrow the MSM lexicon applied to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah.

But it is thought like these, I guess, that qualify me as a wing-nut...from one of View's comments:

...if someone said that Muslims are violent because they are followers of a religion that commands violence as a sacred obligation, he would be certified, not as an expert, but as an extremist.

Will the wall of political correctness blind us to what awaits us as Muslim militancy grows stronger, emboldened by its small victories, all under the watchful eye of future world leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ?

Terror in Egypt

Hmmm...how long until someone figures out a way to blame this on the Jews, or the American presence in Iraq:

CAIRO, Egypt - Three nearly simultaneous bombings hit the Egyptian beach resort popular with foreigners Monday at the height of the tourist season, killing at least 21 people and wounding more than 60...
...The bombers struck the Sinai seaside town of Dahab in the early evening along a crowded promenade of shops, restaurants and bars. Authorities said 18 of the dead were Egyptian and that a Russian and a Swiss were also killed.
The explosions hit the central part of the city at 7:15 p.m. when the streets were jammed with tourists going for walks, shopping or looking for a restaurant or bar for evening festivities by the tranquil waters of the Gulf of Aqaba....

Seems like holding hands with Hamas didn't help the Russians; nor did funnelling terrorist money give any protection to the Swiss.

The Egyptian government has said the militants who carried out the bombings were locals without international connections, but other security agencies have said they suspect al-Qaida.

In Washington, a U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said it was unclear who was behind Monday's attack.

Officials there have not ruled out the possibility that al-Qaida may be involved, but have no evidence showing that is the case, the official said. Nor do they have any evidence that bin Laden's tape was linked to the attack.

It is hard to call it an al-Qaeda "style" attack; as many terror groups now use the simultaneous explosives routine. The big question is; did Osama's tape release yesterday have anything to do with the timing/location of the attack? After all, he did claim all Westerners were fair game; and the Sinai, alas, has proven very easy to infiltrate in the past.

Me - well, I do not believe in coincidence.

It becomes all the more urgent to find and kill Osama bin Ladin; for even if he is only a spiritual leader, incapable of carrying out attacks by himself, it appears likely that others await his cues.

Secondly, the fact is that al-Jazeera has become nothing more than a terrorist propoganda and communications outlet. Their selective release of tapes, whether those of Osama's, or al-Zaquari's, or various hostage beheadings, is timed and selected only to inflame the passions of war in the Middle East. It is not OK, whether in the name of free speech or ratings, to help elongate a war that has already killed thousands.

Al-Jazeera, too, must be "knocked off " the air. You gonna cry "free speech"? Ask the families of the dead hostages, and the relatives of the tourists slaughtered while on holiday in the grand Sinai, how they feel...

UPDATE: Well, that didn't take long - from Little Green Footballs:

Retired General Salah al-Din Salim, an Egyptian researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute in Cairo, said that it could not be ruled out that the Israeli Mossad was involved in the terror attack in Dahab.
“The Mossad’s ability to penetrate the Bedouins in Sinai is known,” Salim said in an interview with al-Jazeera

Ah, there's that helpful TV network again....