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wednesday, june 02, 2004
Death of an Intifada
Note to Palestinians and their Western enablers: the intifada is over. The fence is working; you can’t get into Israel any more to slaughter children on buses. The few remaining terrorist thugs are no longer welcome in Tulkarem; they lower the property value and people who hang with them end up without houses. (Hat tip: Amy.)
Hani Aweideh looks like he hasn’t quite grown into his new role as a militia leader. Clean-cut with neatly coiffed hair, pressed beige jeans and a matching polo shirt with embroidered trim around the collar, the only thing that distinguishes this 26-year-old from the ordinary young men of Tul Karm is the AK-47 he brings with him when he emerges out of hiding for an afternoon rendezvous in an anonymous downtown store.
Aweideh handles the gun awkwardly, though with obvious reverence, asking for a plastic bag to hide it in for the short hop from the backseat of a car into the store. Not long ago Aweideh and his comrades from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — the armed cells, affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, that sprung up with the intifada — would have been swaggering through the streets of this West Bank market town, inspiring admiration in some residents, terrorizing others and plotting what they call “military operations” against nearby Jewish settlements or Israeli cities that lie over the Green Line, the pre-1967 border that skirts Tul Karm to the west.
But the armed men are not walking around here anymore, certainly not in broad daylight. The few of them left after the army’s frequent raids, targeted killings and arrests are said to be feeling hunted and alone. And while predictions of calm times ahead may be premature, many here are already declaring Tul Karm’s intifada over.
“Everybody’s either dead or in prison,” says Nidal Jallad, who is hanging around the store shortly before Aweideh makes his entry. “It’s over. We’ve had enough. All we want now is for the prisoners to come home.” One of Nidal’s brothers, a Hamas activist, was caught in March 2003 transporting an explosive belt from Nablus in a car with three others, including the would-be suicide bomber. He is now serving a 17-year sentence in Beersheba jail. Another brother, Nidal says, was shot by an Israeli army sniper during a curfew and is just starting to walk again after four operations. Nidal claims his brother was only outside because soldiers had taken him from his house, dropped him off near the hospital, then ordered him to walk home.
Nidal is the cousin of Malik Jallad, known as Jarira, the last commander of the Tul Karm Qata’eb, or Brigades, who was captured four months ago. When Aweideh comes in, he introduces himself as Jarira’s successor, though other local sources say the arrested leader hasn’t been replaced. There’s nobody left of the serious hard core of the Brigades, they say, only the remnants of Jarira’s junior lieutenants such as Aweideh inside the city and “a few thieves” in the two local refugee camps. The mounting tensions between the city and camp militants have turned them more into rivals than brothers-in-arms.
It’s over, Ahmed. Time to make some compromises, deal with the situation like responsible adults, and get on with building an accountable, mature society that will offer more to its children than martyrdom.
I can dream, can’t I?
ACLU: A Crusade Against Christianity
Can you find the evil cross in the above illustration of the Los Angeles County seal?
Well, the eagle eyes of the ACLU did—and LA County has now caved in to their demands: LA County to remove cross from county seal after ACLU challenge.
LOS ANGELES - County supervisors have decided to remove a tiny cross from the county’s official seal rather than face a potential lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
The supervisors held an emotional debate Tuesday before deciding to replace the cross with another image - possibly a representation of a Spanish mission or California’s indigenous tribes.
The cross has been on the county seal since 1957 in a panel with two stars above a depiction of the Hollywood Bowl. The Bowl was intended as a symbol of culture while one star represents film and the other television.
In a May 19 letter, ACLU attorneys warned the Board of Supervisors to remove the cross or face a lawsuit, saying the seal was unconstitutional because it reflects “an impermissible endorsement of Christianity by the county government.”
The panel is one of six around the seal’s main figure, Pomona, a Roman goddess of fruits and trees representing the region’s agriculture. The seal’s other symbols are: a triangle and calipers to represent industry; oil derricks; the Spanish galleon San Salvador that was sailed into San Pedro Harbor in 1542 by the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo; and a tuna and a champion cow named Pearlette, for the once-huge fishing and dairy industries.
Supervisor Don Knabe said removing the cross was like “rewriting history” in a region shaped by Catholic missionaries.
“Where does it all end?” he said. “I do not think we should capitulate. As the largest county in America, if we roll over, what’s next?”
UPDATE: Here is the Los Angeles County Contact Information page, if you live in LA and are as outraged about this totalitarian attempt to erase history as I am.
Islamism's Campus Club: the MSA
Here’s a must-read article about the Saudi-funded fifth column activities of the Muslim Students’ Association: Islamism’s Campus Club: The Muslim Students’ Association.
The northern Virginia-based Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) might easily be taken for a benign student religious group. It promotes itself as a benevolent, non-political entity devoted to the simple virtue of celebrating Islam and providing college students a healthy venue to develop their faith and engage in philanthropy. Along these lines, its constitution declares the MSA’s mission as serving “the best interest of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Canada so as to enable them to practice Islam as a complete way of life.”[1]
Today, over 150 MSA chapters exist on American college campuses (divided into five regional chapters), easily establishing this organization as the most extensive Muslim student organization in North America. A Washington, D.C.-based national office assists in the establishment of constituent chapters and oversees fundraising and conferences while steering a plethora of special committees and “Political Action Task Forces.”
Yet consider some of these recent activities of the MSA:
At a meeting in Queensborough Community College in New York in March 2003, a guest speaker named Faheed declared, “We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don’t lobby Congress or protest because we don’t recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it ... Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah.”[2]
During an October 2000 anti-Israeli protest, former MSA president Ahmed Shama at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) stood before the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, shouting “Victory to Islam! Death to the Jews!” MSA West president Sohail Shakr declared at the same rally, “the biggest impediment to peace [in the Middle East] has been the existence of the Zionist entity in the middle of the Muslim world.”[3]
Prior to September 11, 2001, the MSA formally assisted three Islamic charities in fundraising: the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief, and Benevolence Foundation. After that date, all three were accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of having serious links to terrorism and were ordered closed. The MSA issued a formal statement of protest: “How three of the nation’s largest Muslim charities could be made inoperable at the peak of the giving season of Ramadan seemed unbelievable.”[4]
This is only the tip of the iceberg. There is overwhelming evidence that the MSA, far from being a benign student society, is an overtly political organization seeking to create a single Muslim voice on U.S. campuses—a voice espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies, sometimes with criminal results.
I recommend reading all of this one. If you’re a journalist, I highly recommend reading every word of this one, because it sure would be nice if you guys would stop quoting enemies of America as if they were reasonable, moderate human beings. Sheesh.
We’ve been keeping track of the MSA here at LGF for quite some time; here’s a post from last year about messages left at the ClearGuidance discussion forum (known as “Islam on crack”) by the president of the Muslim Students’ Association of Grand Valley State University in Michigan: MSA President at ClearGuidance. And the person in question shows up in our comments to deny everything, after all his ClearGuidance messages were deleted.
One Man's Militant
Arab News uses the T word: Attacks Leave Many Questions Unanswered.
ALKHOBAR, 2 June 2004 — With the worst now over and the body count completed, the injured are being treated and the traumatized hostages are working hard to bring their lives back to normal.
The security forces are on high alert throughout the country to make sure that there is no repetition of “Black Saturday” while the hunt continues for the escaped terrorists.
An overview of the chain of events that started Saturday morning and ended with the release of hostages on Sunday morning, finds several questions unanswered.
But al-Reuters knows better: Militants Allegedly Linked to Khobar Attack Killed.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi forces killed on Wednesday two suspected militants the Interior Ministry said were linked to the weekend al Qaeda attack on the eastern oil city of Khobar in which 22 people died.
Never Trust a Smiling Mullah
We were getting ourselves all worked up for nothing. Iran Says Its Nuclear Case Nearly Closed. This is such a relief. Thank you, Hassan. (Hat tip: scaramouche.)
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said on Wednesday the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog will soon be able to reassure the world that Tehran has no atomic arms ambitions.
Addressing a news conference the day after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report on Iran’s nuclear activities [a highly incriminating report—ed.], Supreme National Security Council secretary-general Hassan Rohani said only minor issues remained outstanding.
“This report shows that Iran’s nuclear case is approaching the end and there are no more important issues,” he said.
It must have been all those apologies for Abu Ghraib that softened the mullahs’ hearts. See? They’re really just sincere, well-meaning people, no different from us. If you treat them with respect, they respond with respect. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
(OK. I’ll knock it off.)
tuesday, june 01, 2004
Iran Building Stealth Missile
Iran says they are building a radar-evading stealth missile.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran is producing its first stealth missile, a rocket that can evade electronic detection, the Iranian Defence Ministry said Tuesday.
The missile, named Kowsar after a river in paradise, will be capable of hitting ships and aircraft, Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammad Reza Imani told The Associated Press. He refused to give the missile’s range or provide other details. Features of the Kowsar, such as its guidance and positioning systems, are currently on show at an exhibition in Tehran that is open only to select government officials.
Iranian state television announced the Kowsar on Tuesday while screening pictures of a missile flying through the air.
Iran manufactures various missiles, chief among them the Shahab-3 whose range of 1,300 kilometres makes it capable of reaching Israel.
Iran also produces tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and a fighter plane.
The Kowsar River is mentioned in the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book.
Chinless Ophthalmologist Meets Spanish Royals
You think you can’t be surprised any more at Spain’s appeasement antics. Then they invite the head of a terrorist state in for “talks:” Iraq, Mideast head agenda as Syria’s Assad arrives in Spain.
MADRID (AFP) - Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad began a two-day official visit to Spain with the troubled situation in Iraq and the Middle East conflict set to top his agenda in talks with Spanish leaders.
Assad arrived shortly after 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) and was whisked straight off for lunch with King Juan Carlos, who was later to host a banquet for his guest at the royal palace.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos greeted Assad as he arrived amid tight security accompanied by his wife Asma and his Foreign Minister Faruk al-Shara.
Moratinos told reporters the visit was “very important given the situation in the Middle East.
”It shows the interest of the Spanish government to obtain as much information as possible and (its desire) to work together to initiate a new stage regarding the stabilisation of the whole of the Middle East,“ said Moratinos, former EU envoy to the region.
Wednesday will see the Syrian leader get down to the serious business of political discussions with the leaders of Spain’s main political parties, most notably Spain’s new Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Here are photos of the Spanish royals hobnobbing with the Ba’athist dictator. (Hat tip: sharona.)
Contributions to Victory
A photograph of John Kerry is displayed in a place of honor—the Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as the “War Crimes Museum:” Kerry honored at communist museum. (Hat tip: rumpole.)
The snapshot of the display, which depicts a July 1993 meeting, was forwarded to Epstein by Bob Shirley, one of more than 200 members of Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth who signed an open letter questioning Kerry’s fitness to serve as commander in chief.
Epstein said the picture of the display was taken by Bill Lupetti, a Swift Boat Veteran who currently is visiting Vietnam.
Epstein said the display photograph’s “unquestionable significance lies in its placement in the American protesters’ section of the War Crimes Museum” in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon.
“The Vietnamese communists clearly recognize John Kerry’s contributions to their victory,” he said. “This find can be compared to the discovery of a painting of Neville Chamberlain hanging in a place of honor in Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in 1945.”
Iraq & Militant Islam
In a long, detailed article, Andrew McCarthy lays out what we know to date about Saddam’s possible connections to 9/11: Iraq & Militant Islam. I recommend reading this one all the way through. McCarthy says those who state as fact (when they cannot possibly know for sure) that “Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda” are guilty of the worst sort of pigheaded blindness. I agree.
Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime indisputably harbored terrorists and supported terrorism. Under the Bush Doctrine that won resounding bipartisan assent in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and that remains as worthy today as it was back then, that should have been more than enough to justify deposing Saddam, even if there had not been ample evidence of — and decisive consensus about — his intentions and wherewithal regarding weapons of mass destruction.
Yet, although there should be few, if any, matters more important to national security than boring into the linkage between Iraq and militant Islamic terror, the very idea of linkage has been discredited. Thanks to a withering campaign waged by ideological opponents of U.S. military operations against Iraq — led by the mainstream media, partisans such as former Clinton counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, and disgruntled factions of the so-called intelligence community whose anonymous carping to sympathetic journalists has now reached a fever pitch — conventional wisdom now holds that secular Saddam could not conceivably have collaborated with Osama bin Laden’s jihadist network.
It is, however, pigheaded blindness masquerading as wisdom. There are abundant strands of connection. It is, moreover, breathtakingly irresponsible for the press generally, and for an intelligence community purportedly dedicated to securing America from further attacks, to be ignoring or dismissing countless salient questions, rather than moving heaven and earth to answer them. There is good reason to think we have convicted several terrorists in this country on less proof than already exists regarding Saddam’s Iraq. What’s more, these linkage questions are not going away.
That is largely because some praiseworthy journalism is not going to let them. Most significant is the assiduous detective work of The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, who has been investigating and writing about the links for months. Hayes’s new book, The Connection, is being released today. It comprehensively lays out a mosaic of operational ties, and questions that Americans, far from brushing aside, should be demanding answers to. Further, the Wall Street Journal is on the case with vital new information, as are other investigative journalists such as Edward Jay Epstein. The issues they are raising may ultimately shape the legacy of the Iraq war, illustrating, in a way the Bush administration has abysmally failed to, that overthrowing Saddam’s regime was a logical and worthy progression in the war against militant Islam.
Islamofascists Dig Us Too
Look who’s reading LGF: Department of Justice Accessed Al-Masakin. (Hat tip: justdanny.)
TUCSON, May 30 (MNA) — A routine audit of our weblog at Al-Masakin has revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice has once again made a complete review of Al-Masakin Online. The DOJ investigated Al-Masakin Online in response to demands made by several Zionist racists that frequent the “Little Green Footballs” webpage.
Since the beginning of the Masjid Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, Zionists have been using all manner of cyber attacks against the Muslim and anti-imperialist media. Cyber attacks against the Muslim and anti-imperialist media have taken the forms of hacking, spamming, petitions to webpage host servers, and petitions to government organizations like the FBI. Israeli Zionists first petitioned the FBI against Majdur Travail — then of Marxist-Leninist Newswire — in 2002 after MLN declared its support for the Islamic resistance movement Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine simultaneously.
The current investigation comes at the hysterical urging of certain fascists alarmed by our principled stance on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Their so-called “principled stance” involved a call for violent attacks against “military targets”—inside the United States. This seditious statement has been deleted from Indymedia where it appeared, but the complete text is posted here: Nazimedia: Attack US Targets.
Feeding Monsters is Dangerous
Victor Davis Hanson has another good piece, in The Australian for a change, on the recent horrific murders in Khobar and the Saudi royal family’s responsibility: Appeasing al-Qa’ida will only encourage militants. (Hat tip: FrankNH.)
The Saudi royals, like most autocracies in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, play a tired game well known in the West. To ameliorate increasing misery among the populace (unemployment in Saudi Arabia is more than 40 per cent while $US800 billion [$1.1 trillion] is held by the royal family outside the country), few Arab regimes embark on liberalisation, constitutional government, open markets, free speech, sexual equality or religious tolerance.
Instead, popular frustration in state-controlled media is carefully filtered and directed against the US and Israel - as if those in New York or Tel Aviv can explain why Saudi jobs are scarce or Egyptian water undrinkable. Direct aid to Islamic “charities”, funding of hate-spewing madrassas and subsidising firebrand clerics were the old Danegeld that Saudi elites meted out to turn bin Laden’s fury against us. And such triangulation worked, if we remember that 15 Saudi suicide killers struck on September 11, 2001 - and earned smug, though private, smiles among many in the kingdom.
But feeding monsters is dangerous. Now the emboldened killers have turned on their erstwhile own. If the Spanish appeasement directs predators elsewhere for a time in search of similar easy meals, so in contrast do the defiance and deterrence of other, quite different potential victims, who prove that they will fight rather than capitulate. After September11, it is not so easy to attack a US, UK or Australia that crafted increased vigilance and made it clear that they will strike back tenfold when hit.
In contrast, Saudi appeasement, coupled with little record of deterrence, invites opportunistic probes. Indeed, we will only see more of such assaults until the kingdom eradicates terror, turns with a fury on its own subsidised Islamic extremists - or capitulates.
Iran's Manhattan Project Speeding Ahead
UN Raises New Questions About Iran’s Nuclear Plans.
VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report on Tuesday Iran had acknowledged importing parts for centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium that it previously said were made in the country.
Washington accuses Iran of pursuing a nuclear arms program. Tehran denies this, saying its nuclear program is only for power generation.
“Iran has acknowledged that, contrary to...earlier statements, it had imported some magnets relevant to P2 centrifuges from Asian suppliers,” said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, obtained by Reuters.
There were also indications Iran’s interest in P2 centrifuges, which can produce bomb-grade uranium twice as fast as earlier P1 centrifuges, was more than a “research and development” on a small amount of centrifuges as it had told the IAEA, the report said.
Kerry: No Nukes, Man!
Perhaps the silliest pie-in-the-sky chicken-in-every-pot campaign promise hoo-ha ever offered up by a Presidential candidate: Kerry Outlines Way to Limit Nuke Threat.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, outlining a plan to reduce the potential for a nuclear attack by terrorists, promised on Tuesday to safeguard all the nuclear weapons and materials that exist around the world by the end of his first term if elected.
Kerry, speaking at a container port in the politically important state of Florida, also pledged to reduce existing nuclear weapons stockpiles, halt production of the materials used to make them and end nuclear weapons programs in nations like North Korea and Iran.
The Massachusetts senator promised to boost international efforts to stop the trafficking of nuclear materials and said he would name a national coordinator for nuclear terrorism and counterproliferation, a Cabinet-level post, to focus on the issue full time.
“Today, I am proposing a new initiative to prevent the world’s deadliest weapons from falling into the world’s most dangerous hands,” the presidential candidate said at the Port of Palm Beach, the 18th busiest container port in the country.
“If we secure all bomb-making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons, and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism,” he said.
Incredible. And people will actually fall for this.
FBI Issues Alert For Propane Trucks
The FBI has issued an alert for propane trucks stolen in San Antonio, Texas.
ANTONIO — The FBI issued an alert Monday for two propane trucks and 15 gas canisters that were stolen over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend in San Antonio.
FBI Agent-In-Charge Patrick Patterson, of San Antonio, said the possibility that the propane could be used to create a bomb prompted him to notify the National Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington and law enforcement officials in Texas.
“We’ve had recent reports of al-Qaida’s desire to attack the United States,” Patterson said. “And we have to be vigilant to these kinds of theft reports.”
San Antonio Police Chief Albert Ortiz called the theft of the propane trucks from Ferrelgas at 5514 East Houston St. “a very professional job.”
Ortiz said the individuals cut a fence and broke a lock to get away with the trucks, one of which had a 2,000 gallon tank, and another that had 3,000 gallons. Both tanks were 85 percent full.
Patterson is also concerned about 15 canister tanks that were stolen from a Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center. Four of the tanks contained nitrous, three had carbon dioxide, three contained oxygen and four of the tanks were empty.
Patterson said he didn’t know if the contents of the tanks could be mixed to make a weapon of mass destruction, but he offered another scenario.
“The tank could be emptied, and other items (could be) put in it to make it an improvised explosive device,” he said, “which would be essentially a bomb.”
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
Here’s an excellent piece by Robert Spencer on Al Qaeda suspect Adam Gadahn’s recruitment to radical Islam: The New Face of Al-Qaeda.
A young man like Gadahn who gains what he knows about Islam from the internet will find dozens of jihadist websites, many of which feature detailed explications of the Qur’an and Sunnah such that would warm the heart of Osama bin Laden — and precious few, if any, Muslim sites that refute the rigorist interpretation in favor of an Islam that is essentially peaceful. Moderate Muslims in general don’t refute; they just ignore. Not long ago a young Muslim woman told me that she didn’t think it was necessary to respond to radical Muslim exegesis of the Qur’an — it was so ridiculous, she said, that no one with half a brain could possibly take it seriously.
Maybe. But Adam Gadahn (and Johnny Taliban Lindh, and Richard Reid, and Jack Roche, and Jose Padilla, and all the rest) shows that such responses are no longer adequate, if they ever were. Gadahn and the rest were probably recruited by straightforward appeals to numerous passages in the Qur’an and Sunnah. In Islamic history and doctrine violent jihad is founded on numerous verses of the Qur’an — most notably, one known in Islamic theology as the “Verse of the Sword”: “Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful” (Sura 9:5). Establishing “regular worship” and paying the “poor-due” (zakat) means essentially that they will become Muslim, as these are two of the central responsibilities of every Muslim.
Such verses are not taken “out of context” to justify armed jihad by radical imams such as those who may have taught Gadahn; on the contrary, that’s how they have been understood by Muslims from the beginning of Islam. Said the Muslim Prophet Muhammad: “Allah assigns for a person who participates in (holy battles) in Allah’s Cause and nothing causes him to do so except belief in Allah and in His Messengers, that he will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr).”[5]
One classic manual of Islamic sacred law, which in 1991 gained the approval of Cairo’s prestigious and influential Al-Azhar University as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community,” is quite specific and detailed about the meaning of jihad. It defines the “greater jihad” as “spiritual warfare against the lower self” and then devotes eleven pages to various aspects of the “lesser jihad” and its aftermath. It defines this jihad as “war against non-Muslims,” noting that the word itself “is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.”
RoPMA
As one of their slaughtered victims lay bleeding on the ground, the Muslim terrorists at Khobar lectured another near-victim about the wonders of Islam: After the Saudi Rampage, Questions and Few Answers.
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia, May 31 - The Iraqi-born American engineer stood listening to two of the four terrorists who had attacked his luxurious residential compound in this Persian Gulf oil center wrangling over his fate.
“He’s an American, we should shoot him,” he recalled the younger of the two as arguing. He looked about 18 and was wearing desert camouflage.
“We don’t shoot Muslims,” responded the older man, perhaps 25, with wispy facial hair.
The argument seesawed for several minutes, both men displaying a certain calm determination. The engineer had a stark example of just how determined they were because a few yards away lay the body of a Swede he knew, oozing blood. Two other militants cradled guns as they paced nearby.
The engineer stood there silently, hoping, praying the older man would prevail. “I was on the borderline,” he said, “but finally the older one said, ‘We are not going to shoot you.’ ”
Instead, they gave him a brief lecture about the merits of Islam and their cause, then tried to make him point out the houses of infidel neighbors. ...
“They told me: ‘We are here because we want to promote Islam. We don’t want non-Muslims to come to our country. We are promoting a Muslim cause,’ ” Mike recalled.
Kerry Flips Off Vietnam Vet
When the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry confronted the Democratic Presidential candidate yesterday, Kerry showed his true colors by extending his middle finger—in front of a group of schoolchildren. (Hat tip: Lambo.)
Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, “Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here.”
At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.
Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, “Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam.”
Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly ‘flashed the bird’ at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, “Sampley is a felon!”
monday, may 31, 2004
Death Cult Technology
Impoverished, desperate Palestinians use their mobile phones to take photos of dead “militants.” (Hat tip: ism_truth.)
Congo Uranium Business is Booming
Here is a sentence that should send chills down your spine:
SHINKOLOBWE, Congo - Business is booming in the mining zone that supplied uranium for the atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — despite a decree by Congo’s president banning all mining activity here.
Fighting Music of World War II
One of my idols, Les Paul, remembers the Fighting Music of World War II. (Hat tip: Geepers.)
Showtime approaches, and there is a light, respectful tapping by band members at his dressing room door. But Paul isn’t quite finished talking about his memories of the war era. “We were all so united to win that war,” he reflects. “We’ll probably never see anything like it again. That unity. That togetherness. We were all willing to fight, whether it was in battle or whether it was at home on the swing shift working all night.”
Has anyone noticed that, in the three years since the US homeland suffered its worst attack in history, Hollywood has not produced one single film that advocates the American side in the War On Islamic Fascism?
"When We Finish Our Mission"
President Bush’s remarks at the Arlington National Cemetery Memorial Day Commemoration.
This morning I had the honor of placing a wreath before the Tomb of the Unknowns. This custom is observed every Memorial Day on behalf of the American people as a mark of gratitude and respect.
And when this ceremony is concluded, and all of us have gone on our way, the Honor Guard will keep watch over the Tomb. Every hour of every day, on the coldest nights, in the hardest rain, there is a sentinel of the 3rd U.S. Infantry standing guard. The soldiers entrusted with that duty count it a privilege. And, today, as we reflect on the men and women who have died in the defense of America, all of us count it a privilege to be citizens of the country they served. (Applause.)
In the military tradition, no one is left behind on the field of battle. And our nation is determined to account for all of the missing. The same spirit can be seen in the respect we show to each life laid down for this nation. We receive them in sorrow, and we take them to an honored place to rest. At this and other cemeteries across our country, and in cemeteries abroad where heroes fell, America acknowledges a debt that is beyond our power to repay.
This weekend, we dedicated the World War II Memorial, which will stand forever as a tribute to the generation that fought that war and the more than 400,000 Americans who fell. (Applause.) Some here today can turn their minds back across 60 years and see the face of a buddy who never made it home. You are veterans who have not forgotten your comrades. And America will always honor the achievements and the character of your brave generation. (Applause.)
Through our history, America has gone to war reluctantly, because we have known the costs of war. And the war on terror we’re fighting today has brought great costs of its own. Since the hour this nation was attacked, we have seen the character of the men and women who wear our country’s uniform. In places like Kabul and Kandahar, in Mosul and Baghdad, we have seen their decency and their brave spirit. Because of their fierce courage, America is safer, two terror regimes are gone forever, and more than 50 million souls now live in freedom. (Applause.)
Those who have fought these battles and served this cause can be proud of all they have achieved. And these veterans of battle will carry with them for all their days the memory of the ones who did not live to be called veterans. They will remember young soldiers like Captain Joshua Byers, a West Point man born in South Carolina who died in Iraq. When this son of missionaries was given command of a 120-man combat unit, he wrote this to his parents: “I will give the men everything I have to give. I love them already, just because they’re mine. I pray, with all my heart, that I will be able to take every single one of them home safe when we finish our mission here.”
No Blood for Oooiiiillll!
The Christian Science Monitor, a formerly valued news source whose pro-Palestinian writers have ruined its credibility, points out the obvious fact that the Islamofascists are trying to hurt the US economy by attacking our Saudi oil subsidy: Al Qaeda targets US oil supplies.
JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — In two deadly attacks here in the past month, analysts see Al Qaeda-linked groups adopting new tactics and targets - encouraging self-organizing cells to hit soft targets in an effort to drive away Western oil workers, damage the Saudi petroleum industry, and slow the US economy.
Despite the weekend attack in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern province in which 22 people were killed, oil operations continued uninterrupted Monday amid heightened security.
Oil prices hit 20-year highs of $41.85 per barrel in May but eased last week after Saudi Arabia pledged to increase production and urged OPEC to do the same. Oil markets, closed Monday, are expected to experience a slight spike because of the Khobar attacks. Saudi Arabia is the world’s No. 1 oil producer and provides for more than 10 percent of worldwide consumption.
“Hurting the US economy is a longtime Al Qaeda goal and is one of the reasons the World Trade Center in New York was targeted. They’re now striking these oil- related sites in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to keep oil prices high and hurt the US economy,” says Saud al-Sarhan, a Saudi writer and researcher who follows Al Qaeda closely.
A statement posted on the Internet and signed by the Saudi Al Qaeda leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Miqrin, claimed responsibility for the Khobar attack.
“Our heroic fighters were able, by the grace of God, to raid the locations of the occupying American oil companies ... which are plundering the Muslims’ resources,” it said. Mr. Miqrin also criticized the Saudi government for “supplying the United States with oil for the cheapest prices, according to their master’s wish, so that their economy does not collapse.” A Westerner killed during the operation was dragged though the streets, the statement said.
Saudis Let Terrorists Escape
Saudi security forces allowed the Islamic mass murderers who perpetrated the Khobar atrocities to escape.
SAUDI authorities struck a deal with al Qaeda hostage-takers which led to three of them escaping, it was claimed yesterday.
Checkpoints set up across Saudi Arabia also failed to trace three Islamic militants who went on the run following Saturday’s attacks in the eastern oil city of al Khobar.
The allegation of collusion involving Saudi Arabian security forces emerged amid fears that the latest terrorist outrage in the country may have a knock-on effect on the global economy by sparking further rises in oil prices.
After all, the victims were only infidels.
Bradley Has a Blog
As John R. Bradley—former editor for the anti-American Saudi mouthpiece Arab News—works to promote himself as a serious journalist, I recommend that all our readers review the man’s writing by following this link to a page of LGF search results for his name: John R. Bradley.
And note that every one of the appallingly hateful articles he produced at the command of his Saudi masters has been deleted from the Arab News site. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure.
Bradley visited LGF several times: here, here, and in this topic (suggested by Joe Katzman.)
Don’t miss this classic comment from Mr. Bradley:
I’m off for a stroll down Jeddah’s fabulous Corniche, the longest in the world and a kind of open air museum peppered with famous, giant-size sculptures. At dusk the largest fountain in the world bursts into life. Ordinary families settle down to have picnics. Polite smiles and hellos from strangers. A completely crime-free environment. Ah! A bit of civilization . . .
And note that the society about which he waxed poetic is the same society about which he now writes harshly critical articles.
UPDATE: I’m also struck by the ridiculously overdone legalistic boilerplate employed by Bradley—and whoever’s funding/designing his site. I suspect the money may be at least partly his own, distributed to law firms on the Saudi payroll. The House of Saud is known for rewarding its toadies very well.
Troll Spills Beans
Here’s an important note for lizardoid minions who comment at LGF. One of our more tedious holier-than-anyone trolls made a very interesting admission last week, brought to my attention by reader “twisterella,” in this topic:
It’s been a fun visit, but it’s come to pass that my week’s patrol duty for the hate-watch/demoralize-the-enemy ring to which I belong is over. I’ve turned over my beat to another; you’ve probably already seen him/her. My card may come up again, but I’m happy to stay off this particular site for all time.
Also please note that this isn’t the first time I’ve discovered evidence that this kind of thing is going on. It’s important to keep this in mind if you insist on responding to trolls—they are often trying to deliberately provoke angry responses that they can then use as evidence of the “hate” at LGF.
This also means that I’m going to start being much less tolerant of such trolls. Honest differences of opinion will always be welcome at LGF, but this kind of sneaky bullshit will not stand.
(And by the way, this particular troll also lied about his intention to leave for good.)
VDH on Hewitt
Victor Davis Hanson is on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show at this very moment. You can listen over the web here: KTKZ AM 1380.
If that station doesn’t work for you, try: KSKY-AM 660.
The Soldiers You Never Hear About
The Soldiers You Never Hear About.
Ask Americans to name some of our soldiers in Iraq and chances are they’ll readily identify Lynndie England, Charles Graner Jr., Jeremy Sivits, and Ivan “Chip” Frederick II. The three major networks have run over 200 stories on the detainee-abuse scandal, making the seven disgraced soldiers assigned to Abu Ghraib the most recognizable faces of American service in Iraq. The media’s line of attack against the war is revealed in its selective coverage of our soldiers: All villains and victims, no valor. Not one of the heroes decorated for bravery in Iraq has received a minute of coverage from ABC, CBS, or NBC. National newspapers have run hundreds of stories on the scandalous service of the Abu Ghraib seven, but have made no mention of another seven whose stories of service could be recounted with Steven Seagal cast in the lead.
In early May, Marine Captain Brian Chontosh, Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Perez, and Marine Sergeant Marco Martinez were awarded Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism, an award second only to the Medal of Honor. Army Sergeant Gerald Wolford, Army Sergeant Major Michael Stack, Marine Staff Sergeant Adam Sikes, and Marine Corporal Armand McCormick — and 123 others — have been awarded Silver Stars for outstanding valor in combat. The stories of these courageous men represent the dedication of the tens of thousands of soldiers serving bravely and honorably in Iraq far better than the actions of a derelict nightshift in two isolated cell blocks.
On March 25, 2003, then-Lieutenant Brian R. Chontosh, 29, of Rochester, N.Y., was leading his platoon on Highway 1 south of Baghdad when his troops came under a coordinated ambush of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic-weapons fire. With the road ahead blocked, Chontosh realized his men were caught in a kill zone. He ordered his driver to advance directly into the enemy trench. Chontosh leapt from his vehicle and began firing with his rifle and pistol. But his ammunition ran out. “With complete disregard for his safety,” according to the citation, “he twice picked up discarded enemy rifles and continued his ferocious attack.... When his audacious attack ended, he had cleared over 200 meters of the enemy trench, killing more than 20 enemy soldiers and wounding several others.”
After being awarded the Navy Cross, Captain Chontosh said, “I was just doing my job, I did the same thing every other Marine would have done, it was just a passion and love for my Marines.” Two of those Marines — Corporals Armand E. McCormick, 22, and Robert P. Kerman, 21 — received Silver Stars, the service’s third-highest award, for their “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” in pressing the assault forward in that trench. Two days after the award ceremony at Camp Pendleton, McCormick redeployed to Iraq.
Read the whole thing.
Islamic Religious Cleansing
Al Qaeda vows to ‘cleanse’ Arabian Peninsula. (Hat tip: twostellas.)
“We renew our determination to repel the crusader forces and their arrogance, to liberate the land of Muslims, to apply Sharia [Islamic law] and cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of infidels,” said the website message. ...
It said the attacks and hostage-taking were conducted by “four mujahideen,” or Islamic fighters.
The website message, signed by the “Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula”, headed by Saudi Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, said only one of the fighters was killed, naming him as “the hero Nimer bin Suhaj al-Baqmi”.
Mr Muqrin tops a Saudi list of most wanted terror suspects, which has been reduced to 18 since it was released amid a massive crackdown on suspected Al Qaeda sympathisers.
“The [other] mujahideen successfully withdrew from the site, despite the strict security measures [by the authorities], toward safety,” said the message.
Religion of High Explosives
Another day, another Islamofascist bombing: At Least 6 Killed by Karachi Mosque Bomb.
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least six people were killed by a bomb during evening prayers in a Shi’ite mosque in the southern Pakistani city Karachi on Monday, a hospital doctor told Reuters.
“We have received six dead bodies,” a doctor at Karachi’s Liaquat National Hospital said.
Fears of inter-Muslim sectarian violence had been running high in Karachi after a senior cleric from Pakistan’s majority Sunni sect was gunned down in the city on Sunday.
sunday, may 30, 2004
Flying Pig Grounded
Your attention please: Thursday’s flying pig has been grounded indefinitely.
Imagine my surprise.
DOHA - A Vatican-led conference in Qatar on dialogue with Muslims ended with bickering over whether to allow Jews to take part in future meetings, because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Emir of the Gulf state had opened the seminar by telling senior Muslim and Christian religious leaders that Jews should also take part. “Perhaps it would be worthwhile widening next year’s seminar to an Islamic-Christian-Jewish dialogue,” Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said in a speech delivered on his behalf on Thursday.
“That is the way to build a decent human life where love, tolerance and equality prevail for the good of mankind.” But Arab clerics told a public forum late on Saturday, that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian land first.
“Can there be a dialogue with Jews while they still occupy Palestinian land? Would that not consecrate the occupation?” asked Sheikh Abdel-Karim al-Kahlout, the Mufti of Gaza. A Syrian representative of the Greek Orthodox Church agreed.
“We at the Patriarchy of Antioch reject the principle of dialogue with Jews before all the inhabitants of Palestine regain their rights,” Bishop Basilious Nassour said. The head of Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, organizing the meeting which is held in Qatar every year, said the decision would be in Qatar’s hands.
“It is better to try to talk together than not to talk at all, but I would agree that there are certain conditions for a dialogue to take place,” Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald said, adding that the Vatican sponsors a separate dialogue with Jews.
Bad News for the Americanized
Have a look at the way recent statements by Anthony Zinni and Fritz Hollings are playing in the Arab press—and then ask yourself why Zinni and Hollings are saying these things: Bad News for the Americanized. (Hat tip: Hulugu.)
And note that on a day when more than 20 Westerners have been slaughtered in the kingdom of the oil ticks, one of their mouthpieces writes this:
It appears that the Iraqi swamp is growing wider and deeper. The idiots in the US administration are drowning in its mud, prompting American political and military leaders, both Democrat and Republican, to raise their voices, disclose facts and, for the first time perhaps, begin to call things by their real names.
The retired general and former chief of the CIA, Anthony Zinni, has accused high-level officials in the Pentagon of failing to prosecute the war in Iraq and of being unable to grasp its implications and dimensions. He demanded that the officials resign. On the CBS TV show, “Sixty Minutes,” Zinni said without naming names: “Someone has ruined things and at this level and at this stage, it should be clear...Now, whose head should roll?” Zinni who served as chief of the CIA from 1997 until 2000 said that the Iraqi war plans and postwar plans were “our mistake from the beginning ...if you are secretary of defense, you are responsible for this, if you were responsible for the planning and implementation on the ground, if you were responsible for other non-military forces, non-political, economic, social or security forces and all others, then you bear the responsibility.”
Zinni, a retired general, accused George Bush’s administration of launching a war against Iraq in order to help Israel; he accused the top civilian officials in the Pentagon of abject failure. He said that it was time to change the prevailing situation or at least specify who would take responsibility for what is happening - specifically the Jewish officials in the Defense Department, Paul Wolfowitz, his assistant, Douglas Feith and the neoconservatives, who according to Zinni, have hijacked America’s foreign policy. He went on to say that these individuals saw in the Iraqi invasion an easy means of controlling the situation in the Middle East and helping Israel. “They went so far as to create intelligence information that served their aims and interests. They must bear the responsibility.”
Gen. Zinni accused extremist Jews in the government of “imposing a strategy full of holes on us and they must leave. If I were the head of a military organization with that performance record, I would have resigned. It is time for a change as the current path is leading us to Niagara Falls and I believe that it is time to question who is responsible for putting this plan into action. What has occurred is nothing but a fiasco.” He stated that he didn’t see the US in the region as bringing about positive democratic change but rather “as neocrusaders ... an occupying force.”
Zinni and his compatriots may talk about “neocons,” but their counterparts in Saudi Arabia are obviously hearing “Jews.”
Sanity vs. Insanity
Two articles that illustrate the yawning gap between the two increasingly delineated Western sides of World War 04:
The Nazi Seduction by Jean Bethke Elshtain.
The deluge of books about Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler apparently knows no end. In addition to those here under review, dozens of others have appeared in the past two or three years alone, and many more are sure to come. By contrast, scholarly study of Stalinism and the gulag is relatively neglected. As Anne Applebaum observes in Gulag, although “some eighteen million people passed through this massive system,” we pay far less attention to Stalin’s victims than we do to Hitler’s. Many of the millions killed during the Stalin era were simply “driven to a forest at night, lined up, shot in the skull, and buried in mass graves before they ever got near a concentration camp—a form of murder no less ‘industrialized’ and anonymous than that used by the Nazis.” But no archival film-footage records these scenes that played out behind the Iron Curtain, no harrowing photos comparable to those that followed the liberation of the Nazi camps. Stalin’s victims “haven’t caught Hollywood’s imagination in the same way. Highbrow culture hasn’t been much more open to the subject.”
Why is it, Applebaum wonders, that the German philosopher Martin Heidegger “has been deeply damaged by his brief, overt support of Nazism which developed before Hitler had committed his major atrocities,” yet “the reputation of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre has not suffered in the least from his aggressive support of Stalinism throughout the postwar years, when plentiful evidence of Stalin’s atrocities was available to anyone interested.” Her answer is that the literary Left, many of whom were enchanted by the Soviet experiment, did not want to broach the subject. Indeed, this has been so much the case that decades after Stalin’s death, it was still possible “for an American academic to publish a book suggesting that the purges of the 1930s were useful because they promoted upward mobility. ... It is possible—still—for a British literary editor to reject an article because it is ‘too anti-Soviet.’” It is impossible to imagine a literary editor rejecting a piece for being “too anti-Nazi.” The terror famine of the 1930s killed more Ukrainians than Hitler murdered Jews. Why so little attention? Literary and academic bias is one answer, the tendency of a “small part of the Western Left ... to explain and sometimes to excuse the camps” is another, but neither fully suffices.
Perhaps, Applebaum muses, because the Soviets talked about a classless society and a utopian world without division, they seem more attractive to us. “Perhaps this helps explain why eyewitness reports of the Gulag were, from the very beginning, often dismissed and belittled by the very same people who would never have thought to question the validity of Holocaust testimony written by Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel.” So the subject is repressed. Then too, “no one wants to think that we defeated one mass murderer with the help of another.” Better not to acknowledge that in the talks that ended World War II and decisively shaped the postwar world, the Western allies gave their blessing to Stalin’s stranglehold over Central and Eastern Europe.
The American ‘Good War’ vs. the German ‘Bad War’: World War II Memory Cultures by Marshall Plan Professor of Austrian Studies and Director of CenterAustria at the University of New Orleans Günter Bischof.
A post-Nuremberg memory culture was forced on the Germans that stressed the horrid war crimes committed by Germans during war. The German memory regime of World War II for the past fifty years has stressed the “bad war.” The concentration camps and the memory of the Holocaust have become central sites of German World War II memory. While in 1994 the Anglo-Americans celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion at the cemeteries in Normandy in their usual martial fashion with parades and presidential speeches of soldierly sacrifice and valor, the Germans commemorated a rare “good” memory event of the war - the assassination attempt by officers on Hitler on July 20. In the second half of the 1990s a powerful exhibit documenting the war crimes of the German Wehrmacht traveled through Germany and Austria. Veterans organizations tried to stop it but failed. It is this memory of the terrible German World War II past more than anything that has so deeply ingrained the postwar pacifism among younger Germans.
Meanwhile the United States has become a militarized society in peacetime and sports a martial pride and attendant hyperpatriotism in its mainstream culture and ethos that is reminiscent of old Prussia. As the leader of the Western world, the U.S. has built the most powerful armed forces and destructive weapons systems the world has ever seen. During the Cold War the Americans spent up to 30 percent of its budget on the military. They established an awesome global base system that allows the U.S. to project its power swiftly and devastatingly when needed. It has fought long wars in Korea and Vietnam and intervened dozens of time around the world when it saw its national interests threatened.
Arafat to Israel: We're On Your Side
Are there still people who believe the horse puckey that spews from the mouth of the world’s oldest serial killer? (Aside from al-Reuters?) Arafat: Palestinians Foiled Revenge Against Israel.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said on Sunday his government had helped thwart revenge attacks on Israel for the killings of two Hamas leaders.
Arafat, in a rare interview with Israel’s Channel 10, was asked why militants had not carried out attacks they threatened after Israel’s assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in March and April.
“It is thanks to the Palestinian Authority, efforts by Egypt and the efforts of the Quartet,” of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia, Arafat replied.
But something may be changing, albeit with glacial slowness, at the Reuters wire service—because a year ago you would never have seen this open admission of the genocidal goals of Hamas:
Hamas, an Islamic group sworn to Israel’s destruction, has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings.
Holy War Ghouls Drag Away Survivors
The mujahideen have gotten their filthy hands on some very unfortunate Western civilians in Iraq: Gunmen Kill 2 Foreigners, Seize 3 in Baghdad.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked three civilian vehicles carrying foreigners in northwest Baghdad Sunday, killing two Westerners and seizing three others, witnesses and police at the scene said.
Two of the four-wheel-drive vehicles, of the type used by foreign contractors, employees of the U.S.-led administration and some media in Iraq, appeared to have collided after coming under fire on a main highway, and two bodies could be seen.
Locals and police said the attackers had dragged away three survivors of the attack. Their fate was unknown.
Prison Abuse 2004!
Newsweek reads more and more like the farthest left of the leftist rags. The insanely overwrought title of their latest PhotoGallery: Abu Gulag.
Millions vanished into the Gulag, over the course of decades.
Most of the Abu Ghraib abuses took place in a single day, and the few soldiers responsible are already being brought to justice.
What the hell is wrong with these so-called journalists at Newsweek? This is just disgusting.
Pakistani Talibanistas Seethe, Rampage
A well-known pro-Taliban Islamozoid cleric was assassinated in Karachi, Pakistan, earlier today.
And you know what that means: Pakistan Cleric Killed; Thousands Rampage.
They really seem to have it in for Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.
KARACHI, Pakistan May 30, 2004 — Thousands of Sunni Muslims rampaged through this volatile southern Pakistani city Sunday, ransacking property and stoning vehicles after unidentified gunmen assassinated an influential pro-Taliban cleric.
Enraged by the drive-by shooting of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, rioters set fire to banks, shops, a police station and a KFC fast food restaurant, and traded gunfire with security forces, leaving more than a dozen people injured.
Tens of thousand of mourners later gathered for the evening funeral, where police fired warning shots above the crowd.
Shamzai, in his 70s, had met Osama bin Laden and was a strong supporter of Afghanistan’s former Taliban regime. The soft-spoken cleric was shot dead as he traveled in a pickup truck to his Sunni Muslim religious school in the east of the city.
Witnesses told police that as many as six gunmen riding in two cars and on a motorcycle opened fire on Shamzai’s vehicle, wounding one of his sons, a nephew, his driver and a police bodyguard.
No one claimed responsibility for the shooting, which Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali condemned as a “dastardly act of terrorism.”
If a terrorist kills a terrorist, is that still terrorism?
Muslim Cop Kills "Blasphemer"
Pakistani Christian Samuel Masih was charged with blasphemy, for allowing garden rubbish he was collecting to touch the side of a mosque. While awaiting trial for his “crime,” he suffered a bout of tuberculosis—and as he lay in his hospital bed, a Muslim police constable came into the room and beat him to death with a hammer. (Hat tip: Allah.)
Samuel Masih was buried in Lahore, Pakistan, yesterday following injuries he received from a Muslim policeman who beat the 27-year-old Christian with a hammer as he lay in his hospital bed recovering from a bout of tuberculosis.
Masih had been in jail since Aug. 23, 2003, awaiting trial on charges of blasphemy under Pakistan’s strict “Law 295” — which forbids desecrating the Quran and “defiling” the name of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad. On the day of his arrest, Masih was collecting garden rubbish, which he heaped temporarily against the wall of a mosque in Lahore’s Lawrence Gardens section while collecting more that he planned to burn later. This action brought the blasphemy charge, which carries a maximum two-year prison sentence.
The Case Against Rachel Corrie
Bruce S. Ticker spells out the blindingly obvious fact about Rachel Corrie and all the other objectively pro-terror swine of the International Solidarity Movement—they know perfectly well what they are doing: The Case Against Rachel Corrie. (Hat tip: NY Nana.)
Maybe, just maybe, Rachel Corrie knowingly aided and abetted cold-blooded murderers.
Many of you will probably call me naive and roll over having belly-laughs. It took me long enough, right? [Laugh? Who, me? —ed.]
When Corrie died more than a year ago, it was no great stretch to suspect that she and others who converged on Israel’s territories knowingly supported terrorists. There was certainly no proof and it was just as difficult to figure out any hard connection. ...
The raid on Rafah brings new facts to light indicating that Corrie and other ISM members had to know they were aiding and abetting terrorists, if they were not participating in terrorism themselves.
The 23-year-old Corrie, who traveled more than 8,000 miles from Olympia, Washington, was run over by a bulldozer when she tried to block the vehicle from demolishing a house in Rafah - a house where she had been staying. The Israeli military ruled that this was an accident and ISM members accused the driver of murder even before the military could investigate the incident.
It may pass the “reasonable person” test that these ISM’ers knew very well they were helping terrorists. What would a reasonable person conclude?
Consider: The Israeli government revealed that 90 weapons-smuggling tunnels were constructed between the Egyptian border and Rafah. At least some of these tunnels were known to end underneath the homes in Rafah.
With 90 tunnels running underneath Rafah, there must have been lots of suspicious activity. Corrie and her friends would have had to be blind not to notice.
First, there are the tunnel connections underneath the homes. ISM’ers who stayed with Gazan families might have seen the tunnels themselves, or they at least spotted people going back and forth from the basement of the home. During deliveries, people would have been hauling the goods out of the homes. Maybe Corrie herself did some heavy lifting.
The weapons then had to be transported somehow. Vehicles appear to be the natural choice. They would have had to be driven to the tunnel entrances and the weapons would need to be loaded onto the trucks.
Would you wonder about this kind of activity if you were personally on the scene?
Wherever ISM members mingled and even lived among Gaza and West Bank Arabs, it is possible that many of these Arabs were terrorists or helped the terrorists by feeding and housing them. The ISM’ers could have been at gatherings where they were introduced to suspected terrorists, heard stories about violent activities or noticed otherwise suspicious activity.
Actually, there is not only evidence, but proof of ISM aiding and abetting terrorists. When terrorists seized a church in Bethlehem, a few ISM’ers smuggled food to them.
If you put it all together, a reasonable person must conclude that the ISM members knew they were aiding and abetting terrorists.
The instant that it dawned on any of them that they might be helping terrorists was precisely the time for them to end their involvement. That’s what a sincere and honorable person would have done.
Arafish Says...
Don't Look Away
This is the enemy. Don’t look away. (Hat tip: selpaw.)
Nick Berg, an American from Philadelphia, was kidnapped and tortuously beheaded by Arabs in Iraq sometime in May. The murderers filmed the deed and proudly displayed the victim’s severed head.
After killing six Israeli soldiers in an attack on an armored vehicle in Gaza on May 11, the Arabs near the scene of the carnage gleefully held aloft human body parts in front of rolling cameras. One of the Arab terrorists was later interviewed on film with what appeared to be a human head in front of him.
The week before, after shooting at Tali Hatuel’s car, causing it to skid and stop, Arab terrorists walked over to the vehicle to finish the occupants off. They looked at the heavily pregnant mother and her four no-doubt frightened girls; the youngest was two years old. And then shot them all. At point-blank range. With sadistic satisfaction, they systematically murdered Tali Hatuel and her unborn son, as well as all of Tali’s daughters - Hila, age 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and two-year-old Meirav.
In Fallujah in March, crowds of townspeople dragged four American civilians out of their vehicles, shot or beat them to death, mutilated their bodies, dragged them through the streets, suspended them from a bridge and burned them.
And they danced and cheered.
With their children.
In Ramallah in 2000, two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped, beaten, stabbed countless times, had their eyes gouged out, and were literally disemboweled and dismembered by an Arab lynch mob.
The people - and I use the term loosely - who carried out the initial beatings threw one of the victims down to the waiting mob, where his face was further crushed with stones, feet, fists and even a heavy metal window frame. One Jew was set on fire and dragged along the street as Arab onlookers danced and cheered. Some of the butchers celebrated their crimes with the victims’ internal organs. One of the killers, famously captured on film, proudly displayed his blood-soaked hands to the cheering Ramallah crowd.
And it gets worse. In 2003, nearly two years later, Arab parents in Gaza cheered again when their little children dressed up as members of the Ramallah lynch mob, complete with hands painted blood red, for a kindergarten graduation ceremony.
Islamic Supremacists Slaughter Westerners
Saudi Arabia is doing their best to control the news about the horrific slaughter of Westerners in Khobar, but what’s slipping out is just nightmarish. Islamic supremacist bloodlust on full display: Gunmen hunted “infidel” Westerners. (Hat tip: Colt.)
And Reuters still refuses to label these savages as “terrorists.”
KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - “Are you Muslim or Christian? We don’t want to kill Muslims. Show us where the Americans and Westerners live,” Islamic militants told an Arab after launching a shooting spree on Westerners in Saudi Arabia.
The four gunmen, aged 18 to 25 and wearing military vests, grabbed Abu Hashem, an Iraqi with a U.S. passport, in front of his home in the Oasis compound in Khobar but let him go when he told them he was a Muslim.
“Don’t be afraid. We won’t kill Muslims even if you are an American,” he quoted them as saying.
The Oasis compound, where suspected al Qaeda militants held about 50 foreigners hostage, was the last target in a rampage that struck oil firms and residential compounds in the oil city of Khobar where at least 17 people were killed on Saturday.
Saudi commandos rescued most of the hostages on Sunday after storming the building where the militants had seized them. Some of the hostages, mostly Westerners, were taken to hospital and others to hotels but most were too shaken to speak to journalists. There were reports that the gunmen had killed several hostages, but details were unclear. ...
Abu Hashem, the director of a Saudi firm who has been in Khobar for six months, said the four gunmen had been polite and calm.
“They gave me a lecture on Islam and said they were defending their country and ridding it of infidels,” he told Reuters at Qusaibi hotel. “The gunmen were so polite. I cannot comprehend this politeness they showed me because I am a Muslim and this cruelty to others,” said Abu Hashem, who declined to give his first name.
He said that while talking to the gunmen he saw the bloodied body of a Swedish cook who worked in the compound. He had been shot dead.
An American, a Briton, an Egyptian, two Filipinos, an Indian, a Pakistani and nine Saudis, mostly security men, were also killed on Saturday, security sources said. ...
Lebanese Abdulsalam Hakawti, a 38-year-old financial director, was at home with his wife and two-year-old son when he heard someone storm through the door of his villa in the Oasis complex. They ran upstairs with one militant in hot pursuit.
“Asalam Alaykum,” Hakawati said he told the militant using the traditional Muslim greeting.
“(The gunman) told me ‘Our jihad is not against Muslims but against Americans and Westerners’ and asked me to show him which villas had Americans and Westerners.”
Lovely Surprise for Lovely People
When the webmasters at Hatzolah Jerusalem discovered that a group of Arab sites had linked directly to one of the photographs on their web site—as part of a sick little “slideshow” gloating over dead and grieving Jews—they arranged a lovely surprise for the death junkies.
A day later, the Einsteins who run these sites still haven’t figured it out:
almjlah.com
shorog.com
alwifaq.net
egyfilm.com
alsaha.fares.net
qal3ah.net
UPDATE: Lebanese LGF reader Photoblogger provides translations of the comments at one of the sites linked above, gloating over the pictures of Israeli death and grief with vampirish delight:
1. Lifts the spirits and quenches the thirst
2. May God make them cry blood and make sorrow their constant companion
3. congrats brother, pictures that gladden the heart and quench the thirst. May god let muslims and islam win
4.god bless you brother, pictures that gladden the heart. may god let there remain not one of them.
6. thanks, brother, looking forward to see these scenes repeated every day soon god willing.
7.[cartoon of sharon cutting off arab’s arms] even if you chop off our arms we will operate our suicide belt with our teeth
8.[photo of US and ISraeli flag bearers] the jews and crusaders aare alles in murder.
next page:
10. [english] jihad is our cause
11. May god let them burn in hell
Bloggers Run Amok at AFI; No Fatalities
Domo arigato to Cathy Seipp, our gracious host and moderator for last night’s panel discussion for the American Cinema Foundation and LA Press Club, titled The Real Story: L.A Bloggers take on Politics and the media.
After all the thrashing and ranting at LA Observed when the LGF haters (those curious animals who hate us so much they have to compulsively read every day) discovered I was going to be on this panel, I was feeling a little trepidation. OK, I admit it; I was fully trepidated.
I wore my running shoes in case I needed to make like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man. Hey, I’ve been riding 150 miles a week. My cardiovascular system is in darn good shape. Ain’t no Morlock gonna catch me and beat me to death with no Birkenstock.
But I was a bit disappointed when Roger L. Simon and I walked into the American Film Institute building and there was no horde of enraged Indymedia orcs with pitchforks and signs reading “Kill The Lizard!” and “Johnson Must Die!” After all, they laid on extra security for the event, just because of little old me. (That’s how you know you’ve arrived.)
The panel was a hoot. I was struck by what an odd assortment of people we were: the serious and measured Kevin Drum, the ex-Commie mystery novelist Roger L. Simon, three-dot wonder and Microsoft minion Mickey Kaus, the congenial yet acerbic Matt Welch, and of course, last but not least, the redoubtable (and some say frightening) moxie, to whom I didn’t even get to say hello. Hi Moxie!
There were plenty of other LA bloggers in attendance, and not one called me an odious Neanderthal. In fact, I got lots of compliments and support; thanks to all who showed up and participated. I don’t remember all the URLs that were mentioned, but feel free to post a comment with your blog address here.
For an account of the festivities, blogged live from the event by Cathy Seipp’s teenaged daughter Cecile DuBois, see Cathy’s World.
UPDATE: LA Voice has an excellent detailed account of the debacle.
When Setbacks Didn't Deter Us
Mark Steyn evokes an earlier era, when the cult of victimhood had not yet gotten a grip on America: Recalling a time when setbacks didn’t deter us.
Before the First World War, it was called Decoration Day — a day for going to the cemetery and “strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” Some decorated the resting places of fallen family members; others adopted for a day the graves of those who died too young to leave any descendants.
I wish we still did that. Lincoln’s “mystic chords of memory” are difficult to hear in the din of the modern world, and one of the best ways to do it is to stand before an old headstone, read the name, and wonder at the young life compressed into those brute dates: 1840-1862. 1843-1864.
In my local cemetery, there’s a monument over three graves, forebears of my hardworking assistant, though I didn’t know that the time I first came across them. Turner Grant, his cousin John Gilbert and his sister’s fiance Charles Lovejoy had been friends since boyhood and all three enlisted on the same day. Charles died on March 5, 1863, Turner on March 6, and John on March 11. Nothing splendid or heroic. They were tentmates in Virginia, and there was an outbreak of measles in the camp.
For some reason, there was a bureaucratic mixup and the army neglected to inform the families. Then, on their final journey home, the bodies were taken off the train at the wrong town. It was a Saturday afternoon and the stationmaster didn’t want the caskets sitting there all weekend. So a man who knew where the Grants lived offered to take them up to the next town and drop them off on Sunday morning.
When he arrived, the family was at church, so he unloaded the coffins from his buggy and left without a word or a note to anyone. Imagine coming home from Sunday worship and finding three caskets waiting on the porch. Imagine being young Caroline Grant, and those caskets contain the bodies of your brother, your cousin and the man to whom you’re betrothed.
That’s a hell of a story behind the bald dates on three tombstones. If it happened today, maybe Caroline would be on Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric demanding proper compensation, and the truth about what happened, and why the politicians were covering it up. Maybe she’d form a group of victims’ families. Maybe she’d call for a special commission to establish whether the government did everything it could to prevent disease outbreaks at army camps. Maybe, when they got around to forming the commission, she’d be booing and chanting during the officials’ testimony, as several of the 9/11 families did during Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s testimony.
saturday, may 29, 2004
Breaking News
Another top Hamas freakazoid has met his end in Gaza. (Hat tip: Davenport.)
An explosion ripped apart a motorcycle in Gaza City early Sunday, residents said, killing three people - including a senior Hamas commander and his assistant.
Hamas charged that Israel was responsible for what it called a “dirty assassination crime” killing Wael Nassar, 38, a top Hamas commander, and his assistant, Mohammed Sarsour, 31, his assistant, and a bystander. The two Hamas leaders were on the motorcycle when it exploded, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. Witnesses said they saw a flash in the sky and then the motorcycle exploded, indicating an Israeli missile strike. The residents said they did not see any Israeli helicopters in the sky, though they heard an unmanned Israeli plane.
The Israeli military refused to comment.
MPAC Wants to Fight "Terrorism"
On the surface, a very positive development: Muslim Group Wants to Fight Terrorism.
LOS ANGELES - A national Muslim group called Friday for a campaign within the Muslim community and mosques to root out terrorist supporters after federal officials said they were looking for a California man with links to al-Qaida.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s plan urged Muslims to “be on the lookout” for Adam Yahiye Gadahn, 25, although the FBI said he is not believed to be living in the country. ...
Fliers containing the FBI’s photographs of seven wanted people will be handed out to mosques nationwide, officials said.
The plan was put forward because of the Justice Department’s warning that credible intelligence reports point to a possible terror attack this summer, said Maher Mathout, senior adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
The council also sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting a meeting with Muslim leaders.
Terrorism has tarnished the Muslim-American community, Mathout said, and there have been accusations on some conservative talk shows that the community has failed to condemn violence.
“We are in complete partnership with good people to protect America,” Mathout said as he explained the plan to hundreds of Friday worshippers at a Los Angeles mosque. “We have so much at stake ... protecting our faith and our country,” he said. “God forbid something terrible happens in America, the number one losers will be the Muslims.”
The campaign says the Muslim community should give law enforcement information on terrorist suspects and emphasize that “terrorism is not a valid means of struggle in Islam.” It also asks that mosque leaders make sure to authorize all lectures or talks there.
There’s a very real possibility that this initiative may lead to valuable intelligence, so overall, it has to be seen as a good thing.
But.
Once again, the news media are not telling us important information about the people they identify as spokesmen for the Muslim community (and MPAC’s Senior Advisor is named “Hathout,” not “Mathout”). Before things got hot for them in the US, MPAC and Maher Hathout were singing a very different tune (from Steven Emerson’s American Jihad):
On October 28, 2000, MPAC was a cosponsor of a rally in Washington DC in support of the recent spate of violence known as the Al-Aqsa intifada between the Palestinians and the Israelis. (This was the rally at which the American Muslim Council’s Abdulrahman Alamoudi exhorted the crowd to voice their support for the Hamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations.) During these exhortations, MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations. Dr. Maher Hathout, MPAC’s Senior Advisor, also participated in this rally. Later, in an article in The American Muslim, rather than condemning the rally for its extremist and militant views, Hathout heralded the rally as a marker of a “new era”:
“The rally in Washington, D.C., was the embodiment of this new phase of activism in the United States ... The speakers and the slogans were relevant and pertinent to the American seen [sic] ... It was then not a normal rally ... it transcended the barriers and limitations of a specific local struggle ... It is a new era ...”
Maher Hathout condemned the U.S. strike against Afghanistan in retaliation for Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda destruction of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998:
“Our country is committing acts of terrorism according to the definition. What we did is illegal, immoral, inhuman, unacceptable, stupid, and un-American.”
I’m going to be the mean old cynic again and suggest that MPAC’s latest initiative should be viewed with cautious skepticism. Unless you believe that people who support Hamas and Hizballah would never lie.
Religion of Decapitation
Islamic terrorists in South Thailand are upset that “innocent Muslims” are being arrested by Thai security forces.
To protest this injustice, they decapitated a 63-year old Buddhist man and left his head on display. (Hat tip: Nannette.)
The restive South took a turn for the worse yesterday as suspected Muslim militants decapitated a rubber-tapper and threatened to carry out more killings if security forces continued to arrest “innocent Muslims”.
Sieng Padkaew, 63, a resident of Narathiwat’s Sungai Padi district, was beheaded by an unknown number of assailants on his rubber plantation about two kilometres from his house in tambon Toh Daeng yesterday morning before dawn.
A typed note saying, “If you arrest innocent Malay, we will kill innocent Thai Buddhist”, was left on Sieng’s body, while his severed head was placed about 60 metres away on a nearby dirt road - apparently so people passing would see it.
Eyewitnesses said Somsri, Sieng’s wife, begged hysterically for her husband’s head to be sewn back on. They said the two were born in the area, had lived there all their lives, did not have any problems with anybody, and she had no idea why her husband was attacked.
Sacred Islamic Holidays Recognized in NJ Schools
School districts in New Jersey have approved days off for Islamic holidays.
Excuse me; according to this AP release, that should be “sacred” Islamic holidays. Without the quotes.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) _ Atlantic City has become the fourth school district in New Jersey to recognize Muslim holidays. The city’s board of education approved districtwide days off for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, two sacred Islamic holidays, for the upcoming school year.
Previously, under state law Muslim students and teachers were allowed to take off Islamic holidays without being penalized. According to Superintendent Fredrick P. Nickles, about 560 of the city’s 7,800 children are Muslim.
Board member Cornell Davis, who is Muslim, called the decision “courageous” in light of current tensions between Americans and Islamic extremists.
“It shows a lot of character about us as Americans,” Davis told The Press of Atlantic City.
Eid al-Fitr, a festival celebrating the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, will be observed on Nov. 15. Eid al-Adha, a festival of sacrifice and pilgrimage, will be observed on Jan. 21.
To fit the two holidays into the school calendar, officials reduced the number of days schools can take off for emergencies from six to four. That means if schools close for snow or other emergencies more than four days, the days would have to be made up during spring recess or on Saturdays in June, Nickles said.
School districts in Trenton, Paterson and Irvington already recognize Islamic holidays.
Fuzzy Fingerprints and Puff Pieces
The LA Times serves up a puff piece about Brandon Mayfield, the Portland lawyer wrongly accused (due to faulty fingerprint analysis) of involvement in the Madrid train bombings—and makes no mention at all of Mayfield’s ties to convicted terrorist Jeffrey Battle of the Portland Seven jihad group: A Fuzzy Fingerprint Leaves a Lasting Mark. (Hat tip: Eric Pobirs.)
Mayfield, finished with dinner, pushed his plate away and appeared to be in deep thought. Sharia and Samir teased each other behind him, sometimes bumping and jostling him. The kids laughed. Cats — the Mayfields have five — walked in and out of the room. Some lawyers, Mayfield said, put a stuffed salmon or a musket or a picture of a president on their wall at the office, “something that defines them.” In his office, Mayfield kept a framed copy of the Bill of Rights, and he noted that when FBI agents ransacked his office, “the one thing they didn’t touch was the Bill of Rights.”
“Can you tell me what the 5th Amendment says?” Mayfield asked a visitor, who stumbled through a definition. “That’s OK. Let’s ask Shane.” The eldest son, still in front of a computer, said: “It’s the right to be quiet.” Mayfield smiled, and then recited the amendment by heart, emphasizing the part that read:
No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Mayfield said his 5th Amendment rights were violated.
“The government took a dump on the Bill of Rights,” he said.
“That’s poetic, Dad,” Sharia said.
“You can print that,” Mayfield said.
Now isn’t that a Kodak moment?
Religion of Mass Murder
Qaeda Attack Kills at Least 9 Saudis, 7 Foreigners.
KHOBAR (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked militants killed at least nine Saudis and seven foreigners in a string of attacks in an oil-industry city on Saturday, then took hostages and fled with security forces in hot pursuit.
Saudi security sources said an American, a Briton, an Egyptian, two Filipinos, an Indian and a Pakistani died in the attacks on foreigners’ compounds in the eastern city of Khobar, along with two Saudi civilians and seven security force members.
“I can confirm the death of at least one American. There may be more,” a U.S. embassy official said.
Saudi forces later stormed a housing compound where the militants had taken the hostages, a compound employee told Reuters. He give no further details. Forces cordoned off the area, evacuated many civilians and shooting could be heard.
A Saudi Interior Ministry statement confirmed four gunmen had stormed an oil company and housing compounds and said security forces were “dealing with them as appropriate.”
A statement purportedly from Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network posted on Islamist Web sites claimed the attacks.
The group blamed for the September 2001 attacks on the United States has vowed to destabilize the U.S.-allied monarchy and the world’s leading oil exporter.
Witnesses said a body had been dragged through the streets, apparently by militants, in the third attack against foreigners in less than a month in the birthplace of Islam. It appeared aimed at the crucial and in part Western-run oil industry.
Al Arabiya aired footage of a man with Western features, slumped in his car, apparently shot dead by the gunmen. It showed a charred car and a third blood-spattered vehicle.
The attack came two days after the top al Qaeda leader in the kingdom, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, issued a battle plan for urban guerrilla war, specifying steps militants needed to topple the royal family.
It’s utterly infuriating to see Reuters using their morally empty weasel words here. Why are these murderers called “militants?” They slaughter civilians in an oil company and housing compounds, drag bodies through the streets—but they’re not terrorists?
Aaaarrrrggghhhh.
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frank says:
