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Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Libya/Egypt: An Opportunity
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaPolitics
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Hillary Educates The Imams
Isn't that a little like trying to teach good table manners to a pig?
Clinton and her State Department are delusional. Women's rights according to Clinton's version have existed for a long time in some Islamic countries and she believes her program is helping to expand that view. Perhaps she's thinking of Egypt, where women did indeed share nearly equal rights with men. But perhaps she has also failed to notice that there has been a revolution in Egypt which has placed the Muslim Brotherhood in charge. The revolution had many causes, but largest among them was the secularism of the nation which the Brotherhood declares a violation of the words of both the Koran and sharia. The Brotherhood has every intention of enforcing its own version of sharia law and to abandon the secular “mistake” of treating women as equals to men.
Prior to the revolution in Iran, Iranian women were among the freest and most influential females in the world. So much for that. Nobody with an ounce of brains thinks that as the Arab Spring progresses women are going to be better off. Muslim, but non-Arabic Iran will remain in the caves of yesteryear on women's rights pending a second great revolution. There's no "he said, she said" in sharia. If a woman says she was raped, she must produce four male witnesses to substantiate the charge. Most often those necessary witnesses would be the rapists themselves. If she makes the charge, and doesn't produce the witnesses, she will be convicted of adultery and stoned to death.
Never daunted, Secretary Clinton has cited “evidence” of her program's success. She tells us that one Afghan imam now asks the bride how old she is when he performs a wedding, and whether she consents. Other imams have said that after the training, they have tried to see that widows get a fair share of their husband's estate upon his death. Some imams have come to believe that women might even be entitled to an education like their male counterparts. Unfortunately for Hillary, as the slimy government leader Hamid Karzai continues to play footsy with the Taliban, fewer and fewer of these anecdotal tales emerge from Afghanistan.
Karzai has already approved a code of conduct proposed by the imams which allows husbands to beat their wives, reinstates segregation of the sexes, requires women to travel with a male guardian, and not to mingle with males outside their family. In order to put an exclamation point on it, when asked by an AP reporter if he personally agreed with the policy, Karzai replied “It is the Shariah law of all Muslims and all Afghans.”
Blithely ignoring that little gem, Secretary Clinton has said: “All over the world we see living proof that Islam and women's rights are compatible.” She then continued to report “news” from the last decade or before: “Muslim communities from Egypt to Jordan to Senegal are beginning to take on entrenched practices like child marriage, honor killings, and female genital mutilation.” She neglected to mention Nigeria, where the Islamist war has barely begun.
Obama truly believes that a secular, feminist view of women can be imposed on barbarians whose central tenet is hatred and jihad on all those who disagree with them. Oh, well, at least Hillary may have saved a nine year-old girl or two from being married off to an old man as his third of fourth wife, this week. But there's always next week and the entire future.
Friday, July 13, 2012
State Department Still Can’t Find The Enemy
This kind of moral equivalence and philosophical musing is going to get us all killed. For now, it’s just getting a lot of people killed in foreign lands while America either fights battles with one hand tied behind its back or stays completely out of the fray. The current example is Nigeria. Our bumbling State Department stubbornly refuses to recognize the mass murder group Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization. And why? Because it would require admitting who the real enemy is—Islamism.
Boko Haram has managed to kill thousands of Nigerian citizens using typical insurgent tactics and asymmetrical warfare. It murders innocent civilians, has no governmental authority, wears uniforms only for show but rarely during an attack, and recognizes no rules of civilized warfare. That makes it a terrorist organization by any sane person’s definition. But to say it is a terrorist organization requires one to ask what their goal is. And that would reveal the real enemy’s goal—total domination of Islam over the entire world.
The human side of this horror is that Boko Haram almost exclusively targets Christians and Christian sites. The picture accompanying this article was taken last week after another devastating bombing of a Christian church during Sunday services. The organization scarcely shows its head in the Muslim parts of the country, except to parade its successes in the shrinking Christian enclaves. The practical danger of this ongoing jihad is that Nigeria was a relatively stable state with alternating Muslim and Christian chief executives. It is becoming very unstable, and worst of all, it has been a major non-Middle East provider of petroleum to the West.
Our sophisticated and nuanced State Department is doing essentially nothing about the rapidly-growing problem. It has declared certain members of Boko Haram to be terrorists, but won’t even come close to declaring the entire organization terrorist. It’s a bit like declaring Hitler, Himmler and Goering to be international criminals, but leaving the Nazis pretty much alone. And likewise, it ignores the underlying beliefs which trigger the criminal/terrorist acts. Nazism in Germany, Islamism in Nigeria.
Instead of recognizing clear facts and an evolving catastrophe in a friendly nation, the State Department engages in sophistry. When cornered by questions from committee members, State Department spokesman Johnnie Carson (no, I didn’t make that up) rambled: “Before we prescribe actions, it is important that we understand what Boko Haram is and what it is not. The truth is that our understanding is limited at best. Boko Haram is composed of at least two organizations, a larger organization which is focused primarily on discrediting the Nigerian government, and a small more dangerous group that is increasingly sophisticated and increasingly leftist.” Aw, baloney.
To return to the Nazi analogy, that’s like failing to oppose Nazism because the SS and the SA didn’t share the exact same beliefs. If it looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk, and is seen it the company of skunks—it’s a skunk. Every platoon of Boko Haram shares a common goal, if not a common belief in how to attain that goal. That goal is the destruction of Western civilization, and in Nigeria itself anything that isn’t fundamentalist Islam. Some groups may blow up Christian churches while others assassinate political rivals, but the goal remains the same. The triumph of Islam at any cost.
Boko Haram wants to replace constitutional government and Western-style governance in Nigeria with sharia law. They do so by terrorist means, but Boko Haram and sharia have one common parent—Islamism. Our cowardly and inept State Department refuses to use either term for these murderous thugs. When they start blowing up mosques and killing imams, I might be willing to call the bloodshed a civil war. But that isn’t going to happen. This is just another attempt to take over a diverse population and control a moderate nation in the name of Allah.
In my lifetime, civilization has faced the threat of Nazism and communism. But our nation rallied behind patriotic governments, Democrat and Republican which knew who the enemy was. Now, late in my life, we face an enemy that our State Department can’t identify and won’t fight. It waffles over whom to support as Islamism takes over the entire Middle East and Africa., arguing over whether the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Shabaab is preferable.
In Nigeria, there’s no such lack of easily-discernible opponents. It is militant Islam versus civilization, and the State Department isn’t sure who should win. During the committee hearing, the State Department spokesman rigidly refused to admit that the State Department should declare Boko Haram a terrorist organization, then proceeded on three separate occasions to refer to it as a terrorist organization. With clarity of thought like that, can there be any question who will ultimately rule Nigeria?
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Sunday, July 8, 2012
Sunday Go To Meeting Post
The Congressman is not bothered by the constant drumbeat of separation of church and state. He just wants kids to get a disciplined, intelligent education.
You probably haven't read about this in the mainstream press, and your first thought is likely to be that the anti-Christian, anti-Jewish forces of militant secularism are at it again. Well, not quite. The reason you probably haven't heard about it is that the religious schooling that the Congressman is talking about is Islam, and the model schools are madrassas. Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana) said in a recent speech: “America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged and where the foundation is the Koran.”
In order to criticize the Congressman for his desire to mix mosque and state, the mainstream media would have to quote him and identify the specific religion he is espousing. That won't do. Islam (the “religion of peace”) is the only religion whose real tenets are off-limits to the mainstream. This, by the way, is the same Congressman who said that the Tea Party would love “to see black Americans hanging on a tree.”
II Timothy 2:15 says “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (citation corrected, thanks to tryanmax)” But poor old Tim was a Christian, so we can't use him or the thousands of Catholic and other parochial schools as the examples. The Bible must be kept out of the schools, but maybe the Koran is all right. After all, according to Carson, Islamic madrassas use all the modern teaching techniques encouraged by the Koran. “We need an educational model that is current, that meets the need of our students. America must understand that she needs Muslims.”
Would that be the madrassas that don't allow females in at all, or just the ones that segregate them and teach them how to be obedient wives as young as possible? Is that the Koran which is utterly meaningless without the hadiths which explain what the garbled words actually mean? Would that be the innovative educational practices which still cling to Ptolemaic astronomical theory (the universe revolves around the earth)? Or perhaps it's the cutting-edge science that says that substances are formed by the will of Allah, not by Jewish chemical principles.
Still, you must admit that the madrassas are heavy on moral principle. You could search all day to find a Catholic or other church school teaching that heaven awaits with sexual and earth-like rewards if only you have the fortitude and education to strap on explosives and blow yourself up in a crowd of other (preferably non-Islamic) people.
For once, I have to agree with the Congressman that religious schools are better-organized and better-staffed than our current public schools. But then, a gathering of prairie dogs is more coherent and educational than most of our present public schools. I simply don't agree with him that we should jump out of the frying pan and into the fire by replacing non-educational public schools with non-educational Islamic schools. There are plenty of solid non-Islamic religious schools to draw inspiration from, and the teaching methods work with or without the religious instruction.
With Islamic chemistry, Islamic physics and Islamic math, there is no division between the religious and the empirical. Islam the political/social/educational cannot be separated from Islam the religious. Secular indoctrination in the public schools and religious indoctrination in the madrassas are just two sides of the same coin.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
With Friends Like These. . .
It’s been a slow news summer, with the exception of one or two HUGE items. . . but how many times can we talk about Justin Beiber’s new album? ;) So let’s do a couple small items, then we can all get back to preparing for tryanmax's and T-Rav's birthdays! ● Silly Gays: You know that gays think with their genitalia, right? At least, that’s what Joy Behar tells us. She’s upset that a group of gay Republicans have endorsed Romney. More specifically, she questions their motives. She actually suggested that GOProud only endorsed Romney because they’re attracted to his sons:
No doubt she'll claim this was a joke, but could you imagine the outrage if a Republican suggested (even as a joke) that gays only voted for Obama because they were attracted to his children? Gays should be insulted because here is a prominent (idiot) liberal suggesting that they think through their sex organs. This woman is a mess.“Could it be that the GOProud guys are just attracted to Mitt Romney's sons Matt, Mutt, Tag, Tip, Tack, and Bashful? Do you think that's the issue?”
● Brother Can You Spare A Stadium?: The Democrats are running so low on money that they are thinking of cancelling the opening kickoff to their convention in North Carolina. At the least, they apparently plan to move it to a smaller venue. Ha ha. This is despite Obama supposedly being prepared to raise a billion dollars, despite the unions being flush with billions in stimulus money, despite Hollywood emptying their pockets to help out. Where did it all go wrong? Oh, that's right, they proved to be idiots and everyone knows they’re going to lose!
Speaking of Hollywood, it looks like Obama is starting to skip the fundraisers they are doing for him. Apparently, it doesn’t fit with his manufactured image of “caring about normal people.”
● Fleeing A Sinking Convention: In a sign of how bad the PR is for the Democrats at the moment, Missouri Democrat (and neighbor of Mr. T. Rav) Sen. Claire McCaskill will apparently skip the convention. She gets added to a growing list of other Democrats who fear that being seen at that toxic venue will cause them problems with the voters. This list includes the Clintons and the West Virginia delegation. This is a bad, bad sign for Obama. When your friends don’t want to be seen with you, you know you’re in trouble.
● Patriotism Is The Last Refuge of Short Scoundrels: Clinton Labor Secretary and noted dwarf Robert Reich just said that Republicans aren’t patriots because we don’t want to pay taxes. Specifically, he said this: “True patriotism means paying for America.” This is interesting, since Republicans actually are the ones who are paying. Democrats don’t work, they leech, be they Democratic billionaires who avoid their taxes and demand federal subsidies for their business (cough cough Warren Buffett) or be they the army of Democratic voters who live on welfare and demand subsidies for everything they buy from their homes, to their student loans, to their heating fuel, to their food, to their kids’ school lunches. So using Reich’s formula, it turns out that Republicans are true patriots and Democrats aren’t. But then, we knew that already.
● No Habla Liberalismo: So get this, we all KNOW that Hispanics only care about immigration, right? That’s what we’re told by the left. Well, it turns out that’s not true. USA/Gallup just did a poll and it turns out that Hispanics care most about. . . get this. . . healthcare (21%), then unemployment (19%) and then comes immigration at 12%. Imagine that, they’re just like the rest of us.
● No One Could Have Known!: As usual, The Economist is slowly discovering what conservatives already knew. When the Arab Spring hit, The Economist went all giddy. They saw visions of westernized-socialist Arab diplomats taking over these countries and turning them into mini-Greeces. They dismissed anyone who suggested that things might not go so well. Arabs didn't really want fundamentalist Islam, we were assured. Well, now that Egypt has had its elections, The Economist has discovered to its horror that the same people who demand the destruction of Israel, who persecute Christians, and who murder their wives for no reason whatsoever, didn’t make the wisest choices as voters after all. Shocking. The selection of the Muslim Brotherhood candidate is not as bad as people fear, but The Economist has gone into full panic mode and is now wondering how nobody could have seen this coming. . . just like all liberals do when their fantasies implode.
Anything you'd like to add?
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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Not All Speech Should Be Protected
I love the internet. It’s provided me with hours of entertainment, it’s let me sell a book, and it’s let me meet all of you. That’s pretty darn cool. But the internet does have a downside. Specifically, it lets the most hateful turds do their best to intimidate those they don’t like. We need a law, dammit!! Actually, we don’t.It really is undeniable that the internet can be a problem, particularly when it comes to “hate speech.” Indeed, some corners of the internet are a seething cauldron of hate and idiocy. But here’s the thing, we don’t need laws to stop hate or idiocy. For one thing, hate and idiocy don’t actually harm us. Sticks and stones, my friends. So why do we need more laws to stop things that don’t really harm us? Isn’t that just using the power of government to force your pet peeves on people?
Not to mention, letting people speak their minds and expose their twisted views is an incredibly useful tool for discovering who you shouldn’t trust. Would you rather know that the normal looking guy in the bowtie thinks Jews are evil creatures, or would you rather only know that he smiles a lot?
Equally problematic is the idea of how we define hate. One person’s hate is another person’s truth. So whose opinion is right, and where will the government draw the line? Moreover, how do you keep the hypersensitive from getting their views imposed through the government? They are the most likely to make such an attempt after all. Do we really trust that the government won’t start declaring things like Christianity “hate speech” merely because it argues that certain acts are immoral? Many liberals already make that argument.
Let’s face it, there are very strong reasons to allow hate speech and there really aren’t any valid ones which justify banning it except that some people don't like it.
But there is another angle to this. Sometimes people hide behind the First Amendment to do more than just spew hate and stupidity. Indeed, they cross over that line and advocate violence. Now that, is a real problem.
And that brings me to Jesse Morton, the founder of a militant Muslim website “Revolution Muslim.” Jesse just got sentenced to 11.5 years for making threats against the creators of South Park because of their episode featuring Mohammed in a bear suit. He also admitted to conspiring to solicit the murder of Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, who drew Mohammed as part of a protest against the intimidation of Danish cartoonists.
Jesse’s conviction is exactly how “hate” speech needs to be curtailed. Rather than trying to ban people from spewing idiotic opinions, we should only punish those cross the line into advocating illegality. Jesse made threats and conspired to make threats involving the injury or murder of other individuals. That is not some nebulous hateful opinion, it is in fact a crime, and has always has been recognized as such since the foundations of our justice system were laid. When he crossed the line from giving opinion to soliciting crimes, he needed to be punished.
In fact, the same thing needs to be done to the army of idiots who are taking to Twitter to issue their own death threats. If you tweet that you will kill someone or rape them or their children, that is a threat and you should be locked up, whether your target is a public figure or not. If you ask someone to kill someone else, then you have solicited murder. If you suggest that it would please you if someone died or was raped, or you simply hope they are killed or raped, that is solicitation. Those are crimes.
The internet is indeed out of control, but it’s not the handful of lunatics whining about racial purity or how everyone else is evil that are the problem. The problem is this group of supposedly normal people who now think it’s acceptable to make threats or solicit crimes against political opponents they don’t like. It’s time these people got rounded up and sent to jail, just like Jesse Morton, so that people stop doing this. If something isn’t done soon, this will spin out of control, if it hasn’t already.
Thoughts?
P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
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Friday, June 15, 2012
Polls Show Obama Trouncing Romney
If the election were held today, Barack Obama would be reelected by a major landslide. See, you’ve been reading all the wrong polls. There’s no possibility of a close election, let alone a Romney victory. Here are the results of the polls from last week, in order from highest to lowest. The question asked was: “Would you like to see Barack Obama reelected?” Yes: 92%, 89%, 73%, 71%, 69% and 67%.Now don’t quibble with me. I’m not sure if this was a poll of likely voters or merely preferences, but either way, it’s pretty stunning. So let’s take a closer look at the demographics of the polling. Also in order from highest to lowest, the poll responders are in France, Germany, England, Spain, Italy and last, but not least, the Czech Republic. In other words, if Obama were running for President of the Eurozone, he would be a shoo-in.
Is this another example of American exceptionalism? Maybe. After all, every American poll has the race as a small Obama victory, a small Romney victory, or “too close to call.” In other words, Obama would win by a huge margin, except that Americans aren’t Europeans. I find that to be an exceptionally good thing, don’t you?
Poland is a bit of a downer for Emperor Obama, however. Only 40% of Poles polled pulled for the prissy president. It may have something to do with missile defenses and Russia’s own prize prickly president Putin, but we can’t be sure. This is bound to bring Polack jokes back into vogue.
Pew Global Attitudes Project polls also found that in the same countries, the poll respondents can be as silly as a lot of Americans. In all the nations where Obama is highly popular, the overall opinion of the United States has slipped consistently each year for the past three years. Though the numbers are still better for the United States than they were in 2008, Bush’s final year in office, they have dropped consistently since the emperor’s coronation and lofty speechifying at the Berlin Wall.
Obama came into office proclaiming that the era of American unilateralism is over. The Euros liked that. But as Obama has acted more and more arbitrarily, or worse, ignored Europe’s demands, the United States is once again being perceived as arrogant. The old anti-Semitic joke about the Jewish people has been revised somewhat. “Individually, I like Americans, but as a group, they’re pushy.”
Interestingly, outside of Europe the reverse phenomenon has occurred. In the Islamic world, the favorable opinion of America has gone up, and its view of the president has gone down. George Bush actually had higher poll ratings in Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon than Obama over the past two years. Guess there’s something to that “hell hath no fury” thing. Obama came into office practically begging Jihadistan to give him enough time to extend the caliphate to Washington DC. Instead he delivered a surge in Afghanistan and drones in Pakistan. During the “Arab Spring,” Obama did a whole lot of talking and very little acting.. That hasn’t sat well, particularly with the Egyptians.
Don’t get overly-thrilled by the results in the Islamic world, however. They still really, really don’t like the United States very much, so the increased favorability of the US and the decreased popularity of Obama are purely relative. When a people thinks its prime Western enemy has elected the first American Muslim president only to find out he demonstrates the same neglect toward Islam as he does for Christianity and Judaism, there’s bound to be a show of disappointment.
The Euroweenies seem to be doing the same thing a large number of Americans are doing. They like Obama personally, but can’t entirely explain why. They don’t support the US as much as in the recent past, but they don’t seem to be able to connect Obama to any of their decreased respect for America. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that unlike Bush II and Ronald Reagan, Obama not only enthusiastically supports world government, but is delighted to borrow more money from China to support the United Nations and Greek financial bailouts.
So until the Obama administration succeeds in passing the UN Resolution on World Voting in American Elections, he stands a much better chance of winning the top governmental spot in France or Germany than he does in America.
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Monday, June 11, 2012
Final Blow To Secularism In Turkey?
I doubt that any of our readers have failed to notice that secular Turkey, a longtime American ally, is being swept up in the Islamist cause along with the rest of the Middle East. Relations with the United States have been chilling over the past decade, and the pattern has accelerated rapidly since the Arab Spring began. Now one of the major symbols of secular tolerance may be about to fall.Hagia Sophia, once the greatest cathedral in all of Christendom, may very well be facing the possibility of becoming a megamosque. Built in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the cathedral remained in Christian hands until 1453, at which time the conquering Ottoman Turks finally succeeded in bringing down the walls of Byzantium and brought Islam into the cathedral. Christian priests were tossed out or killed, and many of the Christian relics and icons were destroyed.
In the aftermath of the death of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, a secularist/modernist movement led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk took the reins of Turkish government. Among the many reforms taken by Ataturk was the de-Islamisation of the official government. One of his acts, though not formalized until 1934, was to remove all worship, Muslim or Christian, from Hagia Sophia. By converting the great mosque, which had been switched from Christian worship by the Ottomans, he turned a great national symbol from a religious battleground into a national museum, visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.
The building became a national symbol of the secularist, tolerant Turkish government for most of the remainder of the 20th Century. Sadly, over the past few years, secularism has become less palatable to religious Turks. Starting awhile back, the government began to abandon secularism in favor of increasing intrusion of Islamic law into the high elected offices. Though a republic, Turkey is rapidly becoming an Islamic Republic (which is somewhat of an oxymoron).
The remains of Arabic words and symbols have long been highly-visible on the walls of Hagia Sophia, but those Chrisitan symbols, paintings and icons which were still in existence at the time of Ataturk have been preserved. And though worship inside the building has long been strictly forbidden, the museum has until recently been thought of as a Christian historical center under Islamic domination.
That may all change in the near future. The first signs of unrest over the status of Hagia Sophia appeared in 2006 when Pope Benedict had planned a visit there. Though the historical Christian remnants are under the control of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Eastern Orthodox Christian Church), radical Muslims saw the proposed visit by the Pope (head of the western Roman Catholic Church) as the first move in a Christian attempt to re-take the cathedral. The Pope bravely made the visit anyway, but he was greeted with general animosity including signs which read “Pope get out of Turkey.”
Now we have the earliest and largest demonstrations demanding the “proper” use of the building by Islamists. As reported by Reuters: “ Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey’s historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday [May 23] to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque. Worshippers shouted, 'Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open,' and 'God is great' [the notorious 'Allahu Akbar'] before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on.”
While Christians are being murdered wholesale and churches burned to the ground with the congregants inside in other Middle East and northern African nations by Islamic militants, even such a moderate thing as a Christian historical museum is intolerable to the new generation of Muslim fanatics. Even though Turkey is semi-officially Islamic at this point, there still must be none of this Western tolerance in an Islamic Republic. While Muslims plan a megamosque in London and another at Ground Zero in New York City, the reverse must not be allowed anywhere in Jihadistan.
This one-sided tolerance is best explained by Salih Turhan, a spokesman for the re-conversion group which wants to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. “Keeping Hagia Sophia Mosque closed is an insult to our mostly Muslim population of 75 million.” He doesn’t explain why mosques in the West overlooking the Houses of Parliament and within a block of the site of the mass murder of 3,000 New Yorkers and innocent visitors is not an insult to humanity.
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Saturday, June 9, 2012
Nothing To See Here. Move On.
We have been told ad nauseam that the Obama administration’s policies are not anti-religion. We have seen that same administration intrude into the religious arena time and again, most recently when it came to denying religious exemptions for those who want no part of abortion or radical birth control (abortifacients, also know as “morning-after pills).That has resulted in nationwide lawsuits against Obamacare mandates. But let’s look outside for a few minutes. Despite Congressional requirements, the US Department of State in May released the annual Country Reports on Human Rights without any mention whatsoever of religious oppression overseas. Continuing its defiance of Congress and its denial of the realities of Middle East Islamist oppression, the State Department simply deleted the required section on religious freedom from its report. There was method to their madness.
The administration’s fecklessness during the “Arab Spring” and fast-developing strife throughout northern Africa and the Middle East would be exposed if the truth were told with current information. So instead of including the required section on religious freedom, the Report “covered” it by referring to the 2010 International Religious Freedom Report (IRFR) and the 2010 US Commission on International Religious Freedom Report (USCIRFR). Talk about a day late and a dollar short. This is two years late, and thousands of deaths short.
The Country Report is supposed to include an up-to-date section on religious freedom and religious oppression each year since the law was enacted in 1998. But the 2012 Report would have been the first which could not ignore what is really happening in those Muslim nations which have had uprisings, revolutions and changes of government which have occurred over the past year. The Report is supposed to include a country-by-country accounting of what is good and bad in each nation that the State Department is reporting on.
This means that despite massive changes in government control in Libya and Egypt and ongoing blood-letting in Syria, where it comes to development in religions other than Islam, the Report is so out-of-date as to be meaningless. Moreover, the administration has defended its position by saying that “human rights” and religious freedom are basically the same concepts, and human rights were covered in the Report. That is the position taken by those who want complete control over every facet of life and consider religion an impediment to their agenda. Worst of all, the Report didn’t even adequately cover human rights violations which are now rampant throughout the two regions.
Religious freedom is a far smaller concern to the Obama administration than other human rights, particularly since the oppressors are Islamists and the victims Christians and Jews. The Report doesn’t even cover the conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, which seem to make things even worse. Issues such as global women’s issues have been addressed over and over, but the US official charged with protecting and reporting on religious liberty has only been in her office a couple of times in three and a half years, while the ambassador-at-large for women’s issues began working feverishly the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated.
As I mentioned above, the 2010 USCIRF Report is totally out-of-date, as is the IRFR. But nevertheless, those were the reports the State Department’s 2012 Report cited. Odd, since both the 2012 IRFR Report and the USCIRFR, which were not cited, include such tidbits as the massacre in 2011 of twenty-five Coptic Christians in Egypt during a jihadist attack on a church, and the ongoing slaughter of Christians by the Islamist thug army Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Scolder-in-Chief Obama has wagged his naughty-naughty finger at some of the goings-on during the Arab Spring, But he saved his mild admonitions for human rights and women’s rights violations. When it comes to religious freedom, he just doesn’t see a serious problem and stands by his lofty praise of Middle East tyrannies and Islam made during his Cairo speech back toward the beginning of his presidency. He has put zero pressure on either the old or new governments to protect religions other than Islam.
While bending over to kiss the hem of the Saudi king’s royal robe, Obama may have whispered “could you please be a little less harsh on women?” but nary a word about the oppression and murder of Christians, Jews and pagans throughout northern Africa and the Middle East. If you want to know what’s really going on with religious freedom in those regions, don’t rely on the US State Department to give you accurate and current information.
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Mohammed Loves Gay Marriage. Huh?
Well, not exactly. But there’s some strange stuff going on here. It has been nearly impossible for conservatives to understand how leftist gay activists can be so tolerant of a religion which condemns them to rather grisly deaths. Now, several Muslim organizations in the West have begun to buzz about “gay marriage” not being any of their business. Homosexuality requires a death penalty, but maybe gay marriage is OK in the decadent West. Or something like that.Muslim tolerance of gay marriage is about as mystifying as gay support of Islamist causes. Or is it? Marriage makes strange bedfellows (or was that politics?). The religion of peace spends considerable time promoting itself as the world’s largest charitable organization passing out loving gifts to fellow Muslims and the world in general. That way you won’t notice it has a bad habit of lopping off heads and blowing up skyscrapers.
The Islamists have learned a lot about propaganda and how to attain one goal by pretending to support an entirely different one. Do the Jihadis actually support gay marriage? Hardly—but if they can help to get the Western definition of marriage changed in relation to the sex of the partners, then there’s no logical reason to forbid traditional Islamic marital practices such as polygamy (and perhaps even child-marriage). Once you’ve eliminated sex as an issue, why not eliminate numbers or age as restrictions?
The loathsome Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually cluck-clucked at gay marriage in the West, but that’s those crazy degenerate Christians, Jews and pagans. Now CAIR is becoming an advocate of Western-style “tolerance.” They may not approve of gay marriage, but shucks, if that’s what the law allows in non-Muslim lands, so be it. In the Arabic versions of CAIR’s message, there remains the minor detail of beheading, hanging, or burying homosexuals alive. But those are eliminated for consumption in the West.
To date, there has been unanimity among the American federal government and all fifty state governments that polygamy must remain illegal. But that’s what the prevailing view was about gay marriage just a few years back. The Islamists see gay marriage as the camel’s nose (or some body part) under the tent. Some states have gotten courts to declare traditional marriage unconstitutional discrimination. In other states, the legislatures or the people have voted in favor of gay marriage. Our Islamist-friendly President went from opposing gay marriage to ordering his Attorney General not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.
Whether the issue of same-sex marriage remains one of religious freedom or becomes a simple matter of leaving marriage to the clerics and same sex unions to civil law, the Islamists are seeing the extreme advantage of having non-traditional Western domestic unions embraced by constitutions, the law, and the majority of citizens. And thus the sudden public face of “tolerance” in the Western Islamic leadership.
CAIR spokesman Moein Khawaja said the following after New York legalized same-sex marriage last year: “Easy to support gay marriage today because it’s mainstream. Let’s see the same people [who advocated for same-sex unions] go to bat for polygamy. It’s the same argument.” Funny. That’s the same thing former Senator and former Presidential Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum warned about just a few years back. Nobody of any importance will criticize a sincere Islamist, but when Santorum said it, he was almost universally ridiculed.
Once the barriers are down, what’s left to stop the centuries old practice of polygamy and child-marriage? Who would have the right to criticize or ban communal marriage? So I’ll go Santorum and Khawaja one step further. No law should forbid marriage between loving companions, which explains why there are a lot of nervous-looking sheep out there. Is bestiality the new “love that dares not speak its name?” And how long will it be before it becomes mainstreamed? But that's another story altogether.
For now, the questions are many. Will America relax its traditional standards to allow polygamy on grounds related to religious tolerance of sharia law? Will gays and lesbians then demand equal rights to polygamy? Will radical feminists demand the right to polyandry? Will Hugh Hefner come out of a coma long enough to demand the right to marry all his Playmates? Enquiring minds want to know.
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Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Saudi Arabia Burning
News Update: Santorum has withdrawn from the race, but no endorsement yet.Two days after Easter, it seemed appropriate to have a little chat about our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia. We all know that Saudi Arabia is hostile to Christianity. Many of us first realized how hostile during the first Gulf War when the Saudis. ”
The beleaguered protectors of the Holy Sites reached out pleading hands to the United States, crying: “Save us from Saddam Hussein. Save us. Oh, and by the way, when you get here don’t even think of celebrating Christmas.
For decades now, the Saudis have forbidden the building of new Christian churches in Saudi Arabia, and the penalty for a Muslim who converts to Christianity remains death. But that’s simply not enough for the purveyors of the religion of peace. So the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Shaikh, chief cleric of the Saudi kingdom, has issued a fatwa that remedies that deficiency. He has called for the physical destruction of all Christian churches within the confines of the oil-rich, freedom-poor nation.
The fatwa was picked up by Islamist news stations in other parts of Jihadistan, but so far the Saudi king’s state-controlled media have not reported on the latest round of Islamic religious tolerance. Saudi king Abdullah does not want his phony interfaith “dialogue centers” in Europe endangered by the cleric’s move. He may also fear that the current robe-kissing, deep-bowing American president will be defeated in November and replaced by a new commander-in-chief with a backbone. It should also be noted that if the monarch were truly interested in interfaith dialogue he might open a center or two in his own kingdom.
On March 30, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a private meeting with the king, in which the topic was allegedly the miserable state of women in the sand kingdom. It is also rumored that she brought up the fatwa, but that remains unconfirmed. If she did discuss the matter with the king, he must have replied “shut up, foolish woman” since nothing has been heard from State since.
The news concerning the fatwa first came out in the Kuwaiti newspapers. Kuwait’s parliament was kicking around the idea of a ban on new church construction to match Saudi Arabia’s. They invited al-Shaikh to speak on the topic, but the chief Saudi cleric figured it was a dandy time to go that one step farther and propose the destruction of existing churches as well.
The grand mufti speaks officially only for the Saudi Muslim state, and then only after consultation with the king. But al-Shaikh was taking advantage of his position as chief cleric for the home of the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a position which gives his words significance outside the Saudi realm. It’s likely no coincidence that he made his decree known in a neighboring Muslim state which was considering banning all Christian churches. Although he has no authority outside Saudi Arabia, this message was addressed to all Muslims. It will have an effect, even in those states where Sunni-Shiite rivalries are vicious. Even mass murderers are know to occasionally rally around a common cause such as destroying Christian places of worship. Take Egypt and Lebanon for starters.
Think of it this way. The Pope is the single most influential Christian in all of Christendom, but his secular authority does not extend beyond the territorial limits of the Vatican, and his religious doctrine cannot be enforced outside the Roman Catholic Church. Still, anything he says is going to be taken note of by his fellow Christians. If the Pope declared that the doctrine of transubstantiation must be enforced throughout the Christian world, Protestants would take little note of it.
But what if the Pope announced an official decree (called a “bull,” something very similar to an Islamic fatwa) requiring the destruction of all mosques in Italy, the home of Roman Catholicism? And what if he did so in an address to the British Parliament? You can let your imagination run wild with that. But two things are sure. The secular authorities would declare the bull to be in violation of civil law, and many Christians would be horrified.
But in theory, at least, it would be an order to Italian Catholics, an encouragement to Catholics elsewhere in the world, and a call to arms even for many Protestants. With or without the support of the majority of Christians, trouble would soon be in the offing among those who are scarcely able to tolerate Islam in their homelands now. Medieval Popes did something very similar. The generic term for it is The Crusades.
In reality, of course, the current Pope is a real man of peace, as opposed to Islam and its major clerics who are advocates of the phony religion of peace. So don’t expect any Papal calls for mosque demolitions. In Saudi Arabia and adjacent lands, religious tolerance is honored more in the breach than in the observance. But at least until this fatwa came along, there was a small pretense that Islam was not out to destroy or reduce Christianity into submission.
And let us remember, that the Arabic word “Islam” does not mean “peace.” It means “submission.” Islamists and weak-kneed non-Muslims would have you believe that the word means “voluntary submission to the will of Allah.” Would that it were true, but the words of the grand mufti prove otherwise.
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Saturday, March 24, 2012
Mass-Murdering Right-Wing Extremist
On Wednesday of this past week, a right-wing extremist went on a killing spree in the environs of the city of Toulouse in La Belle France. The mainstream media in America and France knew immediately that the killer was some sort of right wing nut when it was announced that he had killed three Jewish children, their father (a rabbi) and three French Soldiers.A repeat of the mass murder in Norway, undoubtedly. The story quickly began to fall apart, so the liberal press on both continents went into rapid spin cycle. Just as they did after the Fort Hood massacre, they cautioned against drawing any conclusions just because the murderer had shouted “Allahu akbar.” When they found out his name was Mohammed Merah, they still had no clue as to what his motivation might have been. They advised caution, since two of the soldiers were of North African Muslim descent, and the third was black. The name Mohammed was most likely a coincidence and the murders were still the act of a right-wing terrorist.
That didn’t work out too well either. Even before the French police finally put a bullet in the murderer’s head as he tried to escape, information was coming in that he was a French citizen of Algerian origin, had fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and had broken out of a Kandahar prison in 2008 and returned to France. The sensational headlines about the right-wing extremist who was a racist murderer who was driven to hatred by Islamic immigration to France began to move to the back pages as it turned out he was nothing but another jihadist terrorist.
They drew conclusions from rumors that the murderer had filmed his murders using a camera suggested to him by the Norwegian nutcase mass murderer Anders Breivik. The New York Times particularly promoted that nonsense in two front page stories. Before admitting, however reluctantly, that the right-wing story was all wrong, the BBC, London’s Telegraph, the Paris dailies, French TV and a few fellow travelers in the American press decided they had another great story to beat “Islamophobes” over the head with.
The entire premise of an unaligned terrorist with no particular agenda finally went entirely out the window when the transcripts of the negotiations with the jihadist prior to his head-cleansing were released. In those transcripts, the follower of the religion of peace stated in no uncertain terms that he was seeking revenge for the French army’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan. In addition, he was avenging the deaths of the victims of Jewish oppression in Palestine. And lest anyone think he shot the two Muslim soldiers and the one black soldier by mistake, he made it clear that Muslims are fair game if they belong to any military establishment which opposes the Taliban.
So, the liberal worldwide press immediately retracted their earlier stories and admitted their mistake, right? Wrong. They turned on the turbocharger on the spin machine. Forget the damned Jews and kids and soldiers. Who’s the real victim here? Why who else? It’s Mohammed Merah. Though the American press leaned toward the “lone wolf” theory, proposing that Merah had no connection to other Islamists, the European press rolled out its favorite mantra:
“Yes, Mister/Monsieur/Herr Merah did a terrible thing. But in doing so, he was an extremist who in no way represents the religion of peace. No true Muslim would ever consort with mass murderers or antisemites” (see caption photo). The British Guardian and the French dailies know who the real culprits are. First, there is French President Nicolas Sarcozy, who finally has taken action against radical Islam in France (in other words, he’s an Islamophobe). And second, there’s the growing right-wing sentiment of certain French political parties opposing further immigration from the lands of Jihadistan.
Thus, Merah did act alone, but in the name of Allah and Islam (however mistakenly, wink, wink) and only after being forced to do so by sinister Western forces of Christianity, Judaism, and secularism—fascists all. To put the frosting on the cake, they repeat the falsehood that Breivik was a Christian with right-wing leanings who did the same thing as Merah, only worse. Jimmy Carter must love that moral relativism, particularly since it’s based on a lie to start with.
The facts haven’t changed, but the liberal press stories sure did. Allahu akbar. And by the way, the photo is from the 30s showing the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem meeting with some German guy.
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Friday, March 2, 2012
What Is The Primary Definition Of “Treason?”
The definition that most people would come up with almost instantly is “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” If that were all there is to it, I would be calling on the government to charge US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker with treason right this very minute. Unfortunately, there are other requirements, and the Obama administration doesn’t see the Taliban and other terrorists as the enemy. So it won’t happen.Be prepared. This will not be an entirely bloodless discussion. I’m fed up to the neck with summer soldiers, sunshine patriots, and administration fifth columnists. It isn’t bad enough that our Wimp-in-Chief has fallen all over himself apologizing to troglodytes for a military error in judgment. It isn’t bad enough that the White House and the State Department have issued pathetic further apologies and then claimed that the apologies to Hamid Karzai had “calmed things down.” It isn’t bad enough that after those statements, two more American soldiers were murdered in cold blood by mad-dog members of the Afghan Security Force.
But now the limp-wristed academic and career “diplomat” Ryan Crocker has placed several big smooches on Karzai’s behind. Karzai is allegedly our “partner” in democracy in Afghanistan. In fact, he’s just another crooked, lying, self-dealing wannabe warlord in a nation of frothing-at-the-mouth primitives. Instead of at least pretending to accept the apologies and bring some hint of peace to this nation of cave-dwellers, Karzai rushed to get on national and BBC television to pour gasoline on the flames of Islamic hatred.
He didn’t even bother to disguise what he said on Afghan television when he extended his remarks to the BBC. Said the Mussolini of the Middle East: “Representing the Afghan nation and their pure sentiments, in fact the Islamic people, once again we call on the US government to bring the perpetrators of the act to justice and put them on trial and punish them.” This was after he told his own people “I have discussed the Quran burning with jihadi leaders, scholars and elected officials.” At least unlike our own pissant president, Karzai is not afraid to identify his fellow primitives as jihadists.
Instead of Richard the Lionheart to lead us, we have Barack the Faint of Heart. A fish rots from the head down. This rotting fish called the Obama administration has rotted down to the ambassadorial level. And Crocker stinks like a dead fish in the sun. In response to Karzai’s inflammatory remarks, Crocker issued his own statement. “If there are going to be proceedings, they are going to be US proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and I don’t think there is any question or doubt on the part of the Afghan government that that is exactly how it’s going to go.”
Why would the Afghan government have any doubts? They long ago figured out we have a sob-sister Islamofriendly president and a host of ambassadors with the boldness of a titmouse. They’ve already seen multiple apologies for a simple mistake. They see an American government that won’t even justify the reasoning behind the Koran burnings (I refuse to change the way I spell Koran to make the followers of Mohammed happy).
The pages of the Korans in question were interlineated by the hands of the practitioners of the religion of peace. Karzai should be thanking our military, not condemning it, since writing in a Koran is a major desecration in and of itself. The Korans were part of an entire cache of terrorist materials, manuals and messages between jihadis. The only error the military made was to let the local bloodthirsty and perpetually indignant beheaders know that the Korans were being destroyed. They should have burned the evidence behind high walls in private with no notice to anyone from the outside.
Crocker joined General Allen in announcing that they are really, really, really sorry, but the Koran burning and accompanying murders won’t affect the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Oh, yeah? I’ll bet we’ll see an all-new timetable within the next few weeks. And despite the boost that will give jihadis who will say “we drove the British out, then we drove the Russians out, and now we’ve driven the Americans out,” it would probably be a good idea. If we’re not going to secure our bases, our embassy, and anywhere an American soldier goes, we should get them out of harm’s way—now! If we’re not going to issue orders to shoot first and ask questions later, it’s time to leave. While you’re pondering this, remember that two of the murdered Americans were officers shot in the back of the head in the supposedly secure Afghan Interior Ministry building.
And to put the frosting on this s—t cake, we have an American ambassador, in the enemy’s homeland, condemning American soldiers in advance and promising that those who made a [questionable] mistake will be criminally prosecuted. The Afghans are counting on it, and we won’t let them down. This is much juicier than the ridiculous war crimes charges against four Navy SEALs who gave nasty looks to a mass-murdering Islamic inmate captured on a battlefield. Our only hope is that the result of this traitorous act by the administration will meet with the same results as the SEALs prosecution. Total acquittal.
So let me summarize. Burn in hell, Barack Obama. Burn in hell, Hillary Clinton. Burn in hell, Ryan Crocker. Burn in hell, political generals. Burn in hell, Hamid Karzai. Burn in hell, Taliban. And burn in hell, all of you cave-dwelling bastards in Afghanistan.
Ite, missa est.
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Friday, February 24, 2012
More Apologies To The Barbarians
Barack Obama was beginning to get light-headed after going days without something to apologize for. But thank the Good Lord, someone in Afghanistan made a big mistake in disposing of some Islamic literature, including Korans, and the Apologizer-in-Chief stepped right up to apologize to the adherents of the religion of peace. Where is Brenda Lee when we need her? “I’m sorry. So sorry. That I was such a fool.”In fact, it was a veritable orgy of apologies. General John Allen apologized to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan where the incident occurred. As penance, he has ordered all the troops remaining in Afghanistan into sensitivity training, concentrating on the proper handling of religious materials. White House mouthpiece Jay Carney said that the incident does not reflect the deep respect our military has for the religious practices of the Afghan people. Not to be outdone, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called it deeply unfortunate and apologized for the inappropriate treatment of the material.
Obama sent US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, General Allen, and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter to meet personally with Karzai to weep and wail, don sackcloth, and heap ashes on their heads. Others who have joined in the sorry-fest include State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, who opined that the event was horrific, adding “desecration of religious articles is not in keeping with the standards of American tolerance, human rights practices, and freedom of religion (somebody forgot to tell her about the Obamacare mandates).” I’m still waiting for someone to cry “Oh, the humanity!”
So why did the Crusader troops burn the Korans so publicly and so insultingly? Well, they didn’t. The worst they can be accused of is sheer stupidity in making a spectacle of the destruction of dangerous materials. Am I saying the Koran is dangerous? Well, actually I would, but that’s a whole different debate. Assume that the Koran is actually a love poem to the rest of the world. It would make no difference in these circumstances. There was a lot more in that funeral pyre than Korans.
Reliable sources in Afghanistan report anonymously or “not for attribution” that the materials being burned were communications between terrorists, manuals and instructions for killing American troops, and generally all-around seriously dangerous materials. It’s understandable that the sources would remain anonymous, considering the pathological need of the Obama administration to take the blame on America's behalf for everything evil in the world, then apologizing for it.
It quickly becomes obvious that the few Korans actually burned were not the target of the burning. The target was what terrorists and Islamic plotters had written inside the Korans, attempting to get America to ignore troop welfare for the sake of religious sensitivity. At least General Allen was realistic enough to announce that “It was not a decision that was made with respect to the faith of Islam. It was a mistake. It was an error. The moment we found out about it we immediately stopped and we intervened.” OK, General Allen, there’s your statement and there’s your apology. Now stop, goddamit!
But my advice goes unheeded. The general and his minions are stupid enough to dispose of materials so publicly and so visibly that the locals know about it immediately. I can’t burn anything on my property without my neighbors knowing about it. I’m no military or CIA genius, and yet I can guarantee you that if I don’t want them to know what I’m burning, they won’t. I also don’t invite the neighbors to come over for a weenie and marshmallow roast every time I burn leaves and materials implicating me in terrorist activities (with the proper permit, of course). But it seems that the entire Afghan community is invited to witness the burning of terrorist materials. That’s stupid. That’s a mistake. We apologize. Are we done yet?
No, we’re not. In what seemed like mere minutes after the abject and humiliating apologies began to pour over the country like an oil slick, over 2000 Afghans showed up outside Bagram Air Force Base to accept the apologies and shout “die, die, foreigners, die!” The US embassy had to go on lockdown for the angry crowds outside. The scene is being repeated throughout Afghanistan and now other Islamic nations. TWINE (Taliban Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything) is fomenting unrest and violence wherever they have a serious presence.
Somehow, the ridiculous apologies and mea culpas are having zero effect on people who kill other people for publishing cartoons of Mohammed. Imagine that! President Karzai is a big help. His statement, made shortly after the American ambassadors got finished groveling, was aimed at hastening the exit of Americans from Afghanistan in any capacity whatsoever. Even the Emperor of Japan and the Nazi hierarchy didn’t have that kind of chutzpah at the end of World War II. Karzai spoke of the burnings, which occurred at the Parwan Detention Facility: “The sooner you do the transfer of the prison, the fewer problems and unfortunate incidents you will have.” He demanded that General Allen conduct a swift investigation, and called the burning of the terrorists documents (uh, Korans) a “desecration.”
The result of the weakness of the American position, highlighted by the pathetic apologies, was as predictable as night following day. Dozens of deaths and serious injuries have already been reported. Property destruction is pandemic. And now it appears that at least two American personnel have died as a direct result of the “protests.” Given all that, here is my suggestion for all official apologies in the future: “Oops.”
So some unthinking troops burned terrorist materials, incidentally including a few annotated Korans. Big freaking deal. Islamists burn Christian churches, preferably with the congregants still inside. I'm waiting for their apologies.
For you whippersnappers who are too young to know who Brenda Lee is, here’s a link to the song from 1960: I'm Sorry.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Have We Apologized Enough Yet?
The more I think about the Obama administration’s magical mystery apology tour, the harder it is for me to let go and behave rationally. OK, a small group of young warriors are alleged to have urinated on some dead Taliban. Big deal. Slap ‘em on the wrist and let’s get on with the real world. But for God’s (and America’s) sake, stop the apologies for everything America does that doesn’t comport with “world opinion.”Even AA tells its members to make amends unless to do so would harm oneself or others. Since the first day of the Obama administration, they have been apologizing for America’s every misstep, including the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. The apologies for the actions of the Marines peeing on dead lowlifes has turned into a pathetic Greek chorus. As Christians in Egypt are being murdered en masse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reserves her "dismay" for dead Taliban and her angry criticism for our own Marines.
To add insult to injury, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta practically fell over his own feet rushing to the phone to call the vile Taliban-friendly Afghan President Hamid Karzai to apologize for the Marines’ barbaric behavior. You can see from the accompanying picture how the Taliban treat prisoners, dead or alive. I don’t know about Panetta, but I’d rather be peed on dead than hanged alive. Panetta told Karzai that the Marines’ actions were “deplorable.” That to a leader of a nation that treats civilians as if they were armed combatants, tortures and brutalizes opponents, and hangs prisoners of war from public overhangs without even the pretense of legal process.
Karzai’s reply said that the Marines’ behavior was “inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” I can understand how the leader of such a peace-loving people would think that. The Afghans and the Taliban rarely torture and murder prisoners before first having attended to the important business of stoning adulteresses to death, neutering homosexuals, and beheading apostates. The Taliban themselves were even clearer in their call for an American apology: “These were the inhuman acts of wild American soldiers in contradiction with all human and ethical norms.” They ought to know inhuman acts when they see them.
This pattern of apology is not something new with the Obama administration. It’s just that they’ve elevated apologizing for their country to high art. George Bush admonished us not to make judgments about the religion of peace: “Islam’s teachings are good and peaceful and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.” Yes, George, and those who have never read the Koran should keep their big mouths shut. His Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, called Islam the religion of love and peace.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary said that Islam’s “deepest yearning of all is to live in peace.” His Secretary of State, Madeline Albright said that “Islam is a faith that honors consultation, cherishes peace, and has as one of its fundamental principles the inherent equality of all who embrace it.” And the inequality of all those who deserve a violent death for not embracing it.
The alleged and real incidents for which America must apologize are too many to list in a short article. But one thing is sure. The administrations and the mainstream media have treated each incident as earth-shattering events requiring massive apologies to the jihadists (a word now not to be used in polite company). There are no minor infractions or simple mistakes in judgment. Only great disruption of the peace of the world and shocks administered to the conscience of man. Abu-Ghraib and the sophomoric hi jinx of youngsters who should have known better was raised to the level of Auschwitz. APOLOGY. Military personnel at Guantanamo performed the impossible task of flushing a Koran down a toilet. APOLOGY. The innocent prisoners at Guantanamo were being abused and tortured. APOLOGY.
Two themes, both wrong, have emerged from these hysterical mea culpas. One is that we must apologize because the reason Islamists hate us is that we’re so mean to them. The other is that by prostrating ourselves before these primitives we can achieve peace. At the cost of American honor, American strength, and reality. Worst of all, the Islamists don’t even pretend to think that the apologies are in good faith. They merely laugh at our weakness and servility, and plot their next real atrocity. To date, all our apologies aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and have accomplished the exact opposite of their seeming purpose (you know—the thing that the road to Hell is paved with).
For all the apologies, all the hand-wringing and soul-searching of the clueless do-gooders, there have been over 18,000 Islamic terrorist attacks or attempts just since 9-11. Obama himself has apologized, on foreign soil, for America's arrogance and racist history. Obama, Clinton, Panetta and all the other usual suspects think the only thing wrong with their apologies is that they’re not numerous enough, self-flagellating enough, or quick enough. To them I have only one thing to say: ”P#@s on you."
End of rant.
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Wednesday, January 4, 2012
The Economist: Religious Jews Are The Real Evil
Sometimes The Economist has to be read to be believed. In December, The Economist began worrying for the first time that things weren’t going right in Egypt because “inexplicably” some religious types were winning the elections. How bad are these religious types? Almost as bad as ultra-Orthodox Jews. . . the worst of the worst.When the Arab Spring hit Egypt, there were plenty of reasons to hope the country would move in the right direction. Egypt had a history of religious tolerance before the modern era. The country is relatively modern. The country has a huge Christian population who would presumably be a moderating force. The Army was definitely a moderating force. And the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly forsworn violence and any intention of imposing strict Sharia law on the people. It seemed very possible Egypt could become a Turkish-style moderate-Islamic democracy.
But there were also plenty of reasons to believe things would go wrong. The Muslim Brotherhood’s political history is more radical than they admit. Islam would not see subjugating a Christian population as much of a moral dilemma, see e.g. anywhere in the Middle East, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc. And there is another group, the Salafists, who are openly pushing for a Taliban-like puritanical interpretation of Islam to become the law of the land.
People with brains saw the potential for good in this and the potential for bad, and they waited to see how the middle class and youth would respond. Idiots, i.e. liberals like The Economist, saw only the good parts.
With the first round of the elections in the books, the bad appears to be winning. The Muslim Brotherhood have become the big winners with 46%. Even worse, the Salafists got 24%. The question now is whether the Brotherhood will team with the Salafists, which they originally promised they wouldn’t. That will decide Egypt’s future.
And now that things appear to be going wrong, liberals are shocked to discover there was ever a potential for bad. Who knew there were Muslims who really meant it when they said they want to stop women from driving, going to school, and fondling vegetables, when they said they want to murder Christians who won’t convert, and when they said they want to go to war with Israel? Who could have known this, whined The Economist when it confessed to being misled by all the Egyptian Facebook pages that seemed so hopeful and so liberal.
Anyway, The Economist is now trying to save face by equating the Salafists with ultra-orthodox Jews. Indeed, according to The Economist religious Jews are just like the Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-orthodox are just like the Salafists. Let’s compare:
● Religious Jews are “carving out no-go areas for the authorities with their own legal and morality police.”Oh, those evil Jews! Won’t someone rid us of their terror?!
Yep, that’s just completely evil. It’s kind of like how it’s a death sentence for non-Muslims to be in places like Mecca and Medina and how Jews aren’t allowed in Saudi Arabia and how the Muslims in places like Sudan and Ethiopia slaughtered their Jewish and Christian neighbors. Yeah, those imaginary no-go areas are about as bad as it can get.● Religious Jews are “using their power as parliamentary kingmakers [and] religious Jews are the state.”
Oh, so they’ve imposed Torah law and Rabbis select political leaders now? Oh wait, no, that still only happens in Muslim countries.● “The hotter-headed religious soldiers boycott military pageants at which women perform,” . . . “Municipalities cancel concerts with female artists or insist that they fully cover their bodies and remove advertising of even modestly-clad women from streets and buses.” . . . and “Hillary Clinton recently said she was worried that women’s rights in Israel were being eroded.”
Wow, if Hillary says it, then it must true. Of course, boycotting parades and demanding that scantily-clad women be covered up isn’t quite the same as requiring women to wear veils head to toe, sentencing women to be stoned for having sexy eyes, attacking male doctors who try to help women, sentencing women to death for adultery or sorcery or being raped, allowing instant divorce by husbands, not letting women vote, hold office, drive, work, go to the same churches, go to school, etc. etc. But yeah, I TOTALLY see how you could equate these things.● “In ultra-Orthodox suburbs of Tel Aviv, women, like their Saudi counterparts, do not drive.”
Of course, in Israel, it’s a choice. In Saudi Arabia, it’s a law and women drivers get a death sentence. Also, it’s not just Saudi Arabia. It’s all over the Gulf and spreading.● “Religious Jews tend to be more dismissive of Arabs than their secular compatriots.”
Yep, that’s bad. There’s nothing worse than being dismissive. . . like how the left is dismissive of Christians. Of course, Muslims aren’t really dismissive of Jews so much as “murderous of.” Tomato... tomato I guess.● “Polls suggest that a high percentage of religious Jews would deny non-Jews the vote.”
But they can vote. Show me a Muslim country where non-Muslims can vote? In fact, in several Muslim countries (e.g. Pakistan) being a Jew or Christian gets you a death sentence.
This is shameful, but it’s also par for the course these days among liberal journalists for whom anti-Semitism and stupidity are tools of the trade. They casually mix anti-Semitism with their bizarre language of equivalency to come up with stunning comparisons like this, where a blood thirsty murderer can be equated to someone shushing you at a theater. Nice work Economist.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Merry Mayhem From Santa
Most of us got gifts and hugs and stockings filled with little treats for Christmas. A few got stockings filled with coal (Santa sometimes does carry out his threats about knowing when you've been naughty). One family got a really big surprise. Santa appeared at the door instead of coming down the chimney and murdered mom and her daughter.Incidentally, four other relatives of various degrees were also murdered by Santa because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage, if you will. Celebrate Christmas, open your gifts, get murdered in cold blood. ABC, NBC, CBS, Yahoo News, and most of the mainstream media reported the tragedy in Grapevine, Texas, describing Santa as "the estranged husband." Just another tragic domestic dispute. Most were careful to mention that the couple had split up, and they were having serious money problems.
But looking at the story behind the story, it quickly becomes apparent that this was yet another attempt by the politically-correct press to cover up what is becoming a common occurrence in America. Any lawyer practicing family law will tell you that domestic disputes are among the ugliest of events. But marital problems were the effect, not the cause of this mass murder. Those who read MSM reports or listen to TV talking heads were probably immediately suspicious when the real name of Santa was revealed--Aziz Yazdanpanah. But that's because we're all Islamophobic bigots, don't you know.
Yes, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and others have committed horrible family atrocities as well. But their religions don't mainstream murder, and when the name of the religion is invoked as the reason behind the killing, it's tolerated only among a fringe group of lunatics. Not so with a considerable portion of those who practice fundamentalist Islam. But to get that information from the MSM, you have to work very hard to find the obvious.
Islam in general and fundamentalist Islam in particular have a whole list of "crimes" which bring dishonor on the man's family sufficient to result in a "righteous execution." In this case, mom was a little too friendly with her non-Muslim neighbors, celebrated "pagan" festivals such as Christmas (but not Easter), and disagreed with the pater familias frequently and openly. As if this was not bad enough, the nineteen year old daughter was seriously dating a non-Muslim in direct violation of dad's orders.
Yazdanpanah is an Iranian immigrant, who believes not only in honor killing but also the apocalyptic "hidden imam" theology of his former countryman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But you wouldn't know that from the vast majority of the MSM reports. They immediately and almost simultaneously dubbed him the "Santa Killer." It almost seemed as if they blamed Christmas itself for the murders. We've all heard the common and mistaken statement that more suicides take place during the Christmas season than any other time of year. Add a little financial hardship and love turned to hate, and you have another typical Christmas tragedy.
What you really have is the growth of a uniquely fundamentalist Islamic trend--honor killing in America. This one was only a slight change in form with no change in substance. Who wouldn't open the door for Santa on Christmas Day? This was just a way for the follower of strict sharia law to get past the civil restrictions which restrained him from getting anywhere near the rest of the family. Those MSM reports which even bothered to mention honor killings tangentially immediately stated (incorrectly) that this was a very rare event that has nothing to do with traditional Islamic belief.
But then these are the same reporters who couldn't connect the shouting of "Allahu akbar" and the mass murder of thirteen servicemen at Fort Hood with the religion of peace. Yet these same people will immediately identify the alleged religion of any other murderer, even if the killer does not practice that religion or claim a religious purpose in performing the murder(s). Remember that the MSM immediately identified Timothy McVeigh and the Norway mass murderer Anders Brevik as Christians, though in both cases the murderers had rejected Christianity.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
AP Top 10: Politicized News
The AP has put out their Top 10 news stories of 2011. As usual, they’ve politicized the list and they aren’t good at separating the pointless from the significant. Here’s their list followed by a sneak peek at the top stories of 2012.No. 1. The killing of Osama Bin Laden. Yawn. Let’s be honest. Osama meant nothing by this point. He wasn’t giving orders and he inspired no one. Subsequent events have shown his death changed nothing in the war on terror. I’m glad he’s dead, but he doesn’t belong atop this list.
No. 2. Japanese Disaster. Earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown, 20,000 people dead, $218 billion in damage, 100,000 homeless. This one deserves to be on the list. It’s too bad so many Hollywood types thought this was a good time to crack racist anti-Japanese jokes.
No. 3. The Arab Spring. This one probably deserves to be the top story. Even The Economist is now worried that the thing “no one could have possibly foreseen” is happening, i.e. radical Islam taking power. Expect this one to cause a lot of carnage in the coming years.
No. 4. EU Crisis. Eh. Reality doesn’t quit. When you create a currency that anyone can print and you have no way to keep people from running up the bills, it’s only a matter of time before it all blows up. The real story would be if the Europeans learn anything from this.
No. 5. US Economy. Huh? They actually identify this as our economy growing and “unemployment rate finally dipping below 9 percent.” Don’t make me laugh. This recession will get worse before it gets better. Seasonal Christmas hiring won’t change that.
No. 6. Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal. If you care about Penn State, sure. But shouldn’t the bigger story be the recent arrests of Hollywood pedophiles? Oh that’s right, only some pedophiles are bad.
No. 7. Gadhafi Toppled. Wasn’t this part of the Arab Spring? Also, riddle me this: so what? Seriously, how does this change the world?
No. 8. Fiscal Showdowns In Congress. Kabuki theater at best.
No. 9. OWS. Morons crapping in the streets. More theater.
No. 10. Gabrielle Giffords Shot. Yeah, because this changed everything. Some crazed leftist shoots Giffords and the left blames Sarah Palin. The left calls for a “change in tone” while famous leftists joke about killing Palin and her family. Been there, done that.
Notice how they put this list together. First, they went liberal. Most of these are meant to aggrandize Lord Obama’s policies: Obama’s triumph over villains bin Laden and Gadhafi, Obama finally taming the economy, and the masses showing support for Obama through OWS. Several of the rest are meant to explain away Obama’s failures: the evil Congress that can’t fix the budget, the Japanese disaster that blasted our economy, and the murderous right-wing opposition that tried to kill Giffords and is determined to stop Obama. Of course, NONE of that is true, but truth doesn’t matter to leftist. They only care that it can be spun to make Obama look good or explain his failures. This is Obama’s campaign resume brought to you by the AP.
But even beyond helping Obama, look at the ludicrousness of this list. This entire list is aspirational, not based in reality. They hoped killing bin Laden would change the world. They hoped the Arab Spring and killing Gadhafi would bring peace to the Middle East. They hoped the Giffords shooting would end America’s love of guns. They hope the economy has turned around. They hope OWS finally means something.
And isn’t it interesting they ignored the elimination of “don’t ask, don’t tell”? I guess that didn’t turn out to be so popular with the public. They ignored the tornadoes across the Midwest and Southeast. Why? Because Obama never bothered to help those people because they don’t vote for him. They ignored Solyndra and MF Global and Fast and Furious. They ignored the Pelosi financial scandals and the retirements of dozens of Democrats. They ignored the attempt to force a union on Boeing. They ignored the left’s failure to recall Wisconsin Republicans. They ignored Climategate 2 and a bevy of global warming scandals. They ignored the courts striking down ObamaCare. . . something we were assured only lunatics could think would happen.
Gee, I wonder why?
Anyway, here’s a sneak peek at the top stories of 2012:
[+] Read More...1. Tebow wins Super Bowl
2. Obama loses in landslide
3. Republicans capture 58 seats in the Senate
4. First case of cannibalism at OWS occurs in NYC
5. Egypt invades Libya
6. Mysterious explosion at Iranian nuclear plant
7. Germany quits the Euro
8. ????
Sunday, December 18, 2011
John Kerry's Strange Associates
Over the years, Sen. John Kerry has gotten his ideas of how the world works from people ranging from the Viet Cong to Alinsky radicals to Yale professors. Having pretty much successfully worked with his fellow Democrats on making the United States a social democratic government-dependent nation, over the past few years he has turned his attentions to foreign affairs.Kerry is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Currently he is basking in the warmth of the Arab Spring. Like his counterparts in the executive branch, Barack Obama, Kerry seeks advice from those who can be trusted to tell the truth. Like Obama and his White House free-speech meeting with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Kerry has chosen to get his information on political developments in Egypt from the Freedom and Justice Party. The FJP is an arm of the Muslim brotherhood, which now (along with the even-more fundamentalist Salafists) controls about 70% of Egypt's legislative seats as of the most recent round of elections.
Let's face it. It would have been almost impossible for a man like Kerry to resist getting his advice from men who represent a party that has both "freedom" and "justice" in its name. So Kerry invited three honchos from the FJP to come to his Senate office. It's not as posh as the White House, but not bad. The three are Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of the FJP, Mohamed Saad Katani, Secretary-General of the FJP, and the big falafel, Mohamed Morsi, chairman of the FJP.
These men represent the best of Egyptian secular democracy (irony intended). Day-dreaming a western-style democracy in Egypt (and the Middle East) is a Democratic habit. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, back in February the Obama administration announced without even twitching that the Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular." And Kerry has the quotes to prove it.
As for secularism, Katani agrees with the Salafists (really militant Islamists) that "Nobody dares oppose the application of Sharia law." El-Katani and El-Erian previously issued a joint statement saying: "If you want to know what principles guide our party, let me tell you: the principles of the Islamic Sharia law."
But there's still the "freedom and justice part," right? Says peaceful chairman Morsi: "Israel is a Zionist usurper that has been created by international terrorism and injustice. Israel must be destroyed and any nation that supports it is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians." Kerry seemed entirely unruffled by that remark, unlike his reaction to Newt Gingrich referring to the Palestinians (correctly) as an "invented people."
Kerry's friendliness toward the Brotherhood was bolstered by an earlier statement from US Special Coordinator for Transitions in the Middle East William Taylor who had said that the US would be satisfied with a Brotherhood victory. Kerry's domestic partner at the meeting was Anne Patterson, US ambassador to Egypt.
Prior to the latest Egyptian elections, the Muslim Brotherhood had at least feigned a moderate stance toward secularism, democracy, and Israel. Since those elections the facade has begun to crumble. Even the liberal and Islamo-friendly The New Republic sensed there was something rotten in the state of Egypt. Correspondent Eric Trager conducted a series of interviews with FJP and Muslim Brotherhood leaders. He concluded: "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."
Kerry mustn't read TNR these days, or watch TV news stories about new outbreaks of anti-Christian violence and the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The Islamist masses have been considerably emboldened since their electoral victories. The FJP plans to follow strict Sharia law including, but not limited to, banning interest-bearing banking, banning alcohol, requiring women to wear clothing that covers everything but their faces (covering them will come later), and banning any speech which is critical of Islam or promotes in any way another religion. It's not clear whether they intend to make apostasy a capital offense, but leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood have made it clear they would like to.
Given all this, you might think that the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee might be a little cagey about whom he invites to his office and how far he would go to encourage them. Silly you. After the meetings, Kerry announced that he had learned just how good the intentions of the FJP are. In fact, they're so good, he first praised the "transparency and integrity" of the elections, then pledged his support for Egypt's new government. He also promised that he would do everything he could to get the International Monetary Fund to support the fledgling Islamist government (paid for largely out of the pockets of the US taxpayer).
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