Islam: 2008 Archives

Boston attorney par excellence Jeff Robbins wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe yesterday pointing out how Hamas was causing as much if not more anguish and pain to the Palestinian population as to the Jews of Israel. As he notes in his article, Hamas is perfectly content to have Palestinians become victims in its war of destruction against Israel because it gives them photo-ops that the press in the West will use to mischaracterize what is happening.

How ironic that as Jeff Robbins is making that point on the op-ed page, the Globe in a supersize picture on the front page is doing exactly that favor for Hamas.

A relative carried the body of one of five young sisters who authorities said died in an air strike at Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp. (Reuters Photo / Mohammed Salem)

That's our Globe, as smart and accurate as its parent the New York Times.

The suffering that Hamas causes
By Jeff Robbins | December 30, 2008

LAST MONTH'S commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided the occasion to ask difficult questions about societies whose political leadership serially violates them. What, for instance, is to be done about places like Darfur or Zimbabwe, or any one of a multitude of places governed by leaders whose consciences appear untouched by the suffering they are causing? To the list of grotesque human rights violators must be added Hamas, whose disdain for the suffering its policies cause the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip is exceeded only by its open, and even proud, infliction of atrocities on Israeli civilians.

This year alone, Hamas, which expressly calls for the obliteration of Israel, has launched approximately 3,000 rockets and mortar bombs into Israeli civilian centers, always for the purpose of killing and maiming Israelis if possible, and terrifying those who are not actually hit. In the last week or so, Hamas has fired some 200 rockets and bombs into Israeli communities.

Under these circumstances - circumstances which would have continued without end had the Israelis failed to act - it seems clear that the Israeli military response was not merely a necessary one. It was, regrettably, the only one left.

Israeli author Amos Oz, whose call for peace with the Palestinians is shared by a majority of Israelis, succinctly described the brutalization of Israeli civilians in terms that cannot fairly be disputed. In a recent piece entitled "Israel Must Defend Its Citizens," the longtime advocate for reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis wrote: "The systematic bombing of the citizens in Israel's towns and cities is a war crime and a crime against humanity."

Oz is correct. But it isn't only Israelis whose fundamental human rights Hamas is violating. It is those of the Palestinian population about whose welfare Hamas professes to care.

In direct contravention of international law, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, utilizing homes, schools and community centers as launching pads, content in the knowledge that if innocent Palestinian civilians are caught in the cross-fire, it will be Israel that is criticized. This amounts to a sort of Daily Double of human rights violations: the use of innocent Palestinians as human shields for the infliction of violence upon innocent Israelis.

It is Hamas that perfected the use of the suicide bomb, by which young Palestinians were induced to kill themselves so that Israelis could also be killed. It is somehow apt that Hamas should be forever associated with the suicide bomb, for in a larger sense Hamas has proved to be an instrument of the demise of Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas's persistent call for the annihilation of Israel through jihad, its unequivocal rejection of any peace with Israel under any circumstances, its seizure of Gaza through a coup d'etat, its repression of women and freedom of expression, and its embrace of Iran have all disgusted the international community, which will have little to do with it. Hamas has likewise repelled numerous Arab governments, which might otherwise have been expected to dip into their ample reserves of petrodollars to provide much-needed aid and foreign investment to Gaza, but which have steered clear of it.

Thus Hamas leads the Gazan population on a kamikaze course. The suffering of Gazans cannot conceivably be a genuine concern of the leadership, given the perpetuation of that suffering for which Hamas is responsible. And the suffering of Israelis is its avowed goal.

Whether it was South Africa or Sudan, the international community has understood that the way to deal with truly egregious human rights violators is not to placate them, but to speak the truth about them, and to them. If the truth is spoken plainly enough, and forcefully enough, to a Hamas leadership whose cruelty and callousness have reached alarming levels, it may be that the Palestinians and Israelis alike may be spared further suffering of the kind to which they have been relegated in the past.

Jeff Robbins, an attorney, was a US delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission during the Clinton administration.

Indian-born Muslim author Salman Rushdie appeared on a panel in New York City on December 19th at the Asia Society. In this video he is making devastatingly critical remarks about the motives of the Muslims who carried out the Mumbai massacre.

The text of his key point is below the video.

"Ask yourself the question that if the Kashmir problem were resolved tomorrow, if Israel-Palestine reached a lasting peace, do we believe that al-Qaeda would disband? Do we believe that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad would put their guns down and beat them into plough-shears and say we would now be farmers because our job is done. I mean the point about is that is laughable, right? And the point about that is that that is not their project. Their project is power. This is a power grab by the most obscurantist, revanchist, old-fashioned, medievalist idea of modern culture that attempts to drag the world back into the middle ages at the point of modern weaponry ..." Salman Rushdie.

The full panel video may be seen at the website of the Asia Society.

Political correctness, fear of being charged with racism or "Islamophobia" keep those in civilized nations under threat from Islamic suremacist barbarism from defending themselves. Columnist Cinnamon Stillwell of the Middle East Forum asks,

Should not this grave threat to human rights be called what it is? Should not the world rally against this cancer within its midst and spare no expense or effort to stop it from metastasizing? Should not human rights groups make defeating this ideology its chief priority? Should not women's groups make the oppression of Muslim women, both within and without the Muslim world, its first priority? Should not gay rights groups turn their attention to the hangings of young men across the Muslim world? Should not Jewish groups condemn the hateful, anti-Semitic propaganda that is brainwashing Muslim youth? Should not those who believe in religious freedom denounce the persecution of religious minorities, apostates, and atheists in the Muslim world? Should not those who advocate free speech condemn the campaign to silence journalists and activists in the Muslim world, as well as attempts to do the same in the West? Should not the international community do everything in its power to prevent fanatical Islamist regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons and wreaking unprecedented havoc on the planet?

In a richly-linked article Stillwell explains why and how we are endangering ourselves.

Britain's Channel 4 TV network created some controversy by inviting Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver a message for Christmas Day. It contended that European viewers really didn't know Ahmadinejad and his positions and it was a public service to have him, in a sense, respond to Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message as head of the Church of England.

Caroline Glick, the most perceptive of all Middle East political analysts, believes Channel 4 did the right thing.

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

Glick rightly denounces this "realism" as fantasy, whether it involves dealing with Iran, Syria, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government, Hamas or North Korea.

These foreign policy realists maintain that talking and appeasement are the way to bend these actors to the will of the West, even though years doing that have not produced the desired Western results. The age-old definition of a madman applies: Doing the same thing that failed over and over again expecting a different result.

Continue reading "GLICK: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AND FOREIGN POLICY ESTABLISHMENT IN FANTASYLAND "

Occasionally, a good idea surfaces in the press. Today Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal -- and former editor of the Jerusalem Post -- suggests how we can help Pakistan, which is in desperate need of $100 billion. Europeans have come up with $15 billion and the only place to turn for the $85 billion is the U.S. (The Saudis don't help anybody, even fellow Muslims, unless it involves spreading Mohammad-era Koranic training on how to take over the world through jihad.)

The quid pro quo for the money would be Pakistan's elimination of its nuclear weapons and its weapons infrastructure. The U.S. would provide safeguards for Pakistan's security against nuclear attack in return. One can be sure that Pakistan's home-grown terrorists would dearly love to get their hands on those weapons. Using conventional weapons, Pakistani terrorists killed 1500 of their felllow civilians in 2007. With nuclear weapons and the opportunity to take over the country, who's to say they would hesitate to use them against the capital city Islamabad? And the U.S. should insist that the Saudi-funded madrassas teaching jihad be shut down as well.

Pakistan is the world's largest exporter of terrorists in the world today and many of them do their work without leaving home. Getting rid of the principal Pakistani threat to the rest of the world -- and Pakistan itself -- would be an excellent accomplishment for the Obama administration.

President-to-be Obama wants to "reboot" America's relationship with the Muslim world and muses about making a speech in the capital of a major Muslim country.

Amir Tahiri, an Iranian journalist in exile since the Islamic state emerged in Iran, is skeptical. He urges Obama to think carefully about what he has said he wants to do and the implications of whatever move he makes. He doesn't quite call Obama "naive," but he comes close.

Obama talks of "a unique opportunity to reboot America's image," as if his nation's problems with terrorism were due to poor public relations on Washington's part. Does he think so highly of his own talent for seducing people with words that he believes that he can do with a single speech what his five predecessors have failed to do since 1979 - namely, remove the threat of Islamic terror?

Hubris has marked Obama all his life and he won't change now. He probably believes he can do it.

An Interesting read.

Doctor Thomas Sowell wonders if the reality of Mumbai has clicked into the heads of those who have fought so bitterly to weaken our national security. He wonders if President Obama understands the hatred that seeks to kill us and is immune to offers of concessions. And the American people who "want it all," do they realize that "benefits have costs"? Are we ready to fight to defend what we have -- country, homes, families?

A self-identified Dutch homosexual "humanist," feeling the noose of Islamic supression tightening around him which will change his life forever, says

coping with the islamization of Europe is like “a process of mourning.” He is overwhelmed by a “feeling of sadness.” “I am not a warrior,” he says, “but who is? I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

Professor Sowell fears we have not awakened from our complacent slumber and that we have fallen prey to the false hope of "Can't we all get along?" Are we ready to fight for what we hold dear?

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong. . ..

[The Islamic terrorists] didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

Could this have had anything to do with all the security precautions that liberals have been complaining about so bitterly, from the interception of international phone calls to forcing information out of captured terrorists?

Dr. Sowell identifies the fatal ignorance:

Too many people refuse to acknowledge that benefits have costs. . . . There are people who refuse to give up anything, even to save their own lives.

He asks:

How many Americans are willing to see New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all disappear in nuclear mushroom clouds, rather than surrender to whatever outrageous demands the terrorists make?

Neither Barack Obama nor those with whom he will be surrounded in Washington show any signs of being serious about forestalling such a terrible choice by taking any action with any realistic chance of preventing a nuclear Iran. . . .

The people who flew those planes into the World Trade Center buildings could not have been bought off by any concessions, not even the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in bailout money today.

They want our soul-- and if they are willing to die and we are not, they will get it.

The Meaning of Mumbai
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Will the horrors unleashed by Islamic terrorists in Mumbai cause any second thoughts by those who are so anxious to start weakening the American security systems currently in place, including government interceptions of international phone calls and the holding of terrorists at Guantanamo?

Maybe. But never underestimate partisan blindness in Washington or in the mainstream media where, if the Bush administration did it, then it must be wrong.

Contrary to some of the more mawkish notions of what a government is supposed to be, its top job is the protection of the people. Nobody on 9/11 would have thought that we would see nothing comparable again in this country for seven long years.

Many people seem to have forgotten how, in the wake of 9/11, every great national event-- the World Series, Christmas, New Year's, the Super Bowl-- was under the shadow of a fear that this was when the terrorists would strike again.

They didn't strike again here, even though they have struck in Spain, Indonesia, England and India, among other places. Does anyone imagine that this was because they didn't want to hit America again?

more...

British writer Melanie Phillips shouts to her countrymen "Wake Up!" But the snoring goes on as Islam's War of Conquest steadily advances everywhere.

What Mumbai shows:

a war is being waged against civilization.

at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

By Melanie Phillips
December 2, 2008

Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.

For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos as the toll of murder victims climbed to upwards of 190 people, with many hundreds more injured.

Despite the fact that Western citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place.

Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion.

Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq — which many assume is the motive for such attacks — why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station?

And why was an obscure outreach centre geared to Jews marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

But because we don't understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this — or something even worse — occurring; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many obdurately deny — that a war is being waged against civilization.

It is both global and local. It is not 'our' fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances — Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya — merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all 'unbelievers'.

The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian 'unbelievers' as possible.

Where they found Muslims, they spared them.

They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of an outreach organization geared to Jews with no Israeli or political agenda — underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

This was not, as is so often described, 'mindless violence'.

On the contrary, the terrorists precisely calibrated both their choice of targets and the way in which they attacked them. This tells us many things.

India was chosen in order to further two aims. First was to foment greater tension between India and Pakistan.

No less important was the wish to destroy the ever more vital strategic alliance between India and the West in common defense against the Islamist onslaught.

That was why British and American visitors in those two grand hotels were singled out.

And that was why Mumbai itself was chosen — as the symbol of India's burgeoning commerce and prosperity and its links with the West.

The manner of these attacks also carried a message.

Many hostages were taken, but no attempt was made to use them to demand redress of any grievances. They were simply killed.

That made a statement that the terrorists' agenda is non-negotiable.

The attacks demonstrated, above all, the reach of the perpetrators and the impotence of their designated victims.

Those who believe that Islamist terror can be halted by addressing grievances around the world are profoundly mistaken.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Iranian-born foreign affairs specialist Amir Taheri has pointed out that the Mumbai attacks embody the plan outlined by a senior Al Qaeda strategist after the U.S. decided to fight back following 9/11 — a decision that the Islamists had not expected.

This new strategy entails targeting countries with a substantial Muslim presence for 'low-intensity warfare' comprising bombings, kidnappings, the taking of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, beheadings and other attacks that make normal life impossible.

Such a simultaneous, multi-faceted onslaught quickly reduces a city and a country to chaos. It can be repeated anywhere — and our cities must be among the most vulnerable.

Mark Steyn worries about the all-too-obvious silence of Muslims about Islamic atrocities and their loud complaints about being put "on the defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion.” Mumbai is just another sorry example.

And the press in its multicultural political correctness wonders just who are these youths running amok and what if anything is the purpose of this "random violence." Random?

The discovery that, for the first time in an Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured, and killed produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: “It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene.”

Hmm. Greater Bombay forms one of the world’s five biggest cities. It has a population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An “accidental hostage scene” that one of the “practitioners” just happened to stumble upon? “I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?”

While the media is scratching its collective head, what are the "moderate" Muslims doing, Stey wonders?

“[R]eforming” Islam is something only Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a Koran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there’ll be rioting throughout the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper, and there’ll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant wife of a rabbi in Bombay in the name of Allah, and that’s just business as usual. And, if it is somehow “understandable” that for the first time in history it’s no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us, “worry about image.” Not enough.

Islamic apologists insist on referring to Islam as a "religion" when it clearly is a totalitarian ideology waving the banner of religion in its war of world conquest. ("It isn't the devil who made me do it; it's Allah.") Why not confuse non-Muslims into thinking that Islam is just another "peaceful religion"? The Irony about the Religion of Peace is that in the view of its adherents there will only be Peace when Islam rules all the world.

By their adoption of multiculturalism -- that is, the belief that all cultures are equally good, except Western civilization, which is universally bad and responsible for the world's ills -- as their religion, Western elites (which include the elites in India) are putting millions in extreme danger.

The Middle East's leading political analyst Caroline Glick finds the post-Mumbai reporting, analyses and governmental commentary unreal if not insane. The mulitculturists immediately began blaming the victims because of the grievances the jihadists had supposedly suffered at the hands of India (ignoring the history of Islamic murder of 80 million Hindus in their centuries of assault). Newspapers such as the New York Times were at pains not to identify that all the attackers were Muslims (instead they were called Pakistanis and one Indian!) and to overlook the fact that the small, out-of-the-way Jewish center had been deliberately targeted.

The jihadists in Mumbai, like their counterparts from Gaza to Baghdad to Guantanamo Bay, have been defended, and their acts and motivations have been explained away, by their allies and loyal apologists: Western multiculturalists. Multiculturalism is a quasi-religion predicated on both moral relativism and a basic belief in the inherent avarice of the West - particularly of the US and Israel. Multiculturalists assert that Westerners - or, in the case of India, Hindus - are to blame for all acts of violence carried out against them by non-Westerners.

What the Mubai attack and its aftermath shows:

THE ATTACKS in Mumbai and the multiculturalists' rush to minimize their significance exposed two disturbing truths about the global jihad. First, they showed that the jihadists are quick studies. With each passing day, their capacity to attack grows larger. . . .

THE SECOND truth about the global jihad that the Mumbai attacks exposed is that there is nothing that jihadists can do to make the multiculturalists stop defending them. And there is nothing effective that democratic governments can do to defend against the jihadists that multiculturalists will deem acceptable. This is the case because multiculturalists cannot accept the fact that the jihadists are waging war against the West without disavowing multiculturalism itself. And since they will not disavow what has become their religion, they will never be convinced that they must stop defending jihadists.

This frightening] "refusal to acknowledge the fact of the global jihad [is shared by] many of the governments principally targeted by jihadist regimes and terror armies. Take the incoming Obama administration for example.

Iran daily threatens to destroy the US, annihilate Israel, close the Straits of Hormuz, use nuclear weapons and proliferate nuclear weapons to other states. It controls Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. It is the primary sponsor of the insurgency in Iraq and, with Pakistan, the major sponsor of the insurgency in Afghanistan. It has cultivated strategic ties with US foes in the Western Hemisphere like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

Yet one of the first foreign policy initiatives promised by the incoming Obama administration is to attempt to diplomatically engage Iran with the aim of striking a grand bargain with the mullahs. . . .

Unless something changes soon, the consequences of the jihadist-multicultural alliance will be suffered by millions and millions of people.

To read Glick's full analysis, click here.

Note: A Power Line reader notes just how assiduously the opinion-setters in the media are going through these multicultural hoops to avoid linking Islam with terror.

Update: Mark Steyn in his weekly column also points out the way in which the cowering media avoids linking "Islam" to "terrorism" in their reports, instead referring to "gunmen," "militants," "youths" and "teenage gunmen."

Columnist Charles Krauthammer points out tha the American and Iraqi success in hammering out an agreement on military and strategic cooperation is an extraordinary achievement. "It constitutes our best hope for the kind of fundamental political-cultural change in the Arab sphere that alone will bring about the defeat of Islamic extremism." He explains why this is so:

A self-sustaining, democratic and pro-American Iraq is within our reach. It would have two hugely important effects in the region.

First, it would constitute a major defeat for Tehran, the putative winner of the Iraq war, according to the smart set. Iran's client, Moqtada al-Sadr, still hiding in Iran, was visibly marginalized in parliament -- after being militarily humiliated in Basra and Baghdad by the new Iraqi security forces. Moreover, the major religious Shiite parties were the ones that negotiated, promoted and assured passage of the strategic alliance with the United States, against the most determined Iranian opposition.

Second is the regional effect of the new political entity on display in Baghdad -- a flawed yet functioning democratic polity with unprecedented free speech, free elections and freely competing parliamentary factions. For this to happen in the most important Arab country besides Egypt can, over time (over generational time, the time scale of the war on terror), alter the evolution of Arab society. It constitutes our best hope for the kind of fundamental political-cultural change in the Arab sphere that alone will bring about the defeat of Islamic extremism. After all, newly sovereign Iraq is today more engaged in the fight against Arab radicalism than any country on earth, save the United States -- with which, mirabile dictu, it has now thrown in its lot.

Read it all.

Not only has President Bush kept the nation safe for eight years, which Mumbai reminds us is no easy task, he has planted the tree of liberty in the heart of the Islamic world. May it grow in numbers.

-- Symbol of Sons of Liberty, Boston, 1765

Barbarians.

In Mumbai, Islamic killers murdered 172 or more. Random killings in restaurants, hotel corridors, shopping malls, aiming at foreigners and rich Indians to strike terror, hurt commerce and destroy terrorism. Ramdom, except for Mohammad's favorite target, Jews, whom they sought out in a small Orthodox synagogue serving Jews passing through Mumbai. Those there were all tortured and killed, except for a 2-year old left crying hysterically over the twisted bodies of his mother, six-month pregnant, and rabbi father.

Not that far away Muslim pirates terrorize shipping lanes for hostages and ransom, much as Muslim pirates did in the Mediterranean for centuries till President Jefferson put an end to it.

There is no right or wrong as the West knows it in Islam. The model is the perfect man Mohammad. If he raped, pillaged, raided caravans and killed Jews, why, then, true believers in Islam can do what their founder did. And they do.

As Mohammad did it for wealth and power, so too do his modern day followers.

A personal note: This summer a wonderful cruise took place on the Regatta, an identical sister ship of the Nautica, both owned by the cruise line Oceania. So the Nautica's brush with Muslim pirates has special meaning.

Allowing this alien ideology into the West is a serious mistake that hopefully will be corrected before it is too late. It is late already for Europe.

Cruise passengers describe "cheeky" pirate attack
By SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press Writer Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 3, 5:12 pm ET

MUSCAT, Oman – Ordered to get inside and stay down, Oregon tourist Clyde Thornburg heard the pirates' rifle shots hit the side of the luxury cruise liner — "Pop! Pop! Pop!" — then felt the ship speed up to escape.

At this port north of the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden, passengers told The Associated Press on Wednesday they had been warned of the danger even before they embarked, and the crew used a device that blasted painful high-decibel sound waves to keep the marauders at bay.

The attack on the nearly 600-foot-long cruise ship in the dangerous waters between Yemen and Somalia was the latest evidence pirates have grown more brazen, viewing almost any vessel as a potential target — even a large luxury liner with hundreds of tourists on board.

But the assault on the M/S Nautica lasted only five minutes Sunday, and the ship with about 650 passengers and 400 crew members sped away quickly and was not seized.

"We didn't think they would be cheeky enough to attack a cruise ship," said Wendy Armitage, of Wellington, New Zealand, shortly after disembarking for a daylong port stop in the Omani capital of Muscat.

During the assault, pirates on one of two skiffs fired eight rifle shots at the ship, according to its American operator, Oceania Cruises, Inc. The captain ordered the passengers inside and accelerated the cruise liner quickly, leaving the pirates far behind in their 20- to 30-foot wooden speedboats, powered with twin outboard motors.

"I couldn't see them shooting, but I heard them hitting the ship, 'Pop! Pop! Pop!'" said Thornburg, of Bend, Ore. "It wasn't really scary because the captain announced for the safety of everybody to get inside and get down, and by that time he was pouring on the coals to the ship and was outrunning them."

Lynne Pincini of Australia said she was heading to a friend's cabin when the order came to keep their heads down and stay inside.

"We heard the announcement, and of course we went straight out on the balcony to have a look," she said. "It was like a very large speedboat. It was running alongside the boat."

The passengers were on a monthlong cruise from Rome to Singapore, a route that took them through the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen, where pirates have hijacked dozens of vessels this year.

Cargo ships, cruise liners and other vessels use the route — the only access to the Suez Canal shortcut between East and West — unless they are willing to add weeks to the trip by traveling around the southern tip of Africa.

At the beginning of the journey, the Nautica's captain briefed the passengers on what the vessel could do to ward off pirates.

Alicia Moorehead said they were told the Nautica could outrun pirates and was equipped with high-pressure water hoses and a device that blasts painful sound waves at any bandits. Such devices can emit sounds up to 150 decibels — well above the normal pain threshold of 120 decibels — focused on targets several hundred yards away.

"We had been reassured that they had these ghetto blasters that could go through them. And we could outrun anything that they had," Pincini said.

Moorehead's husband, Pat, said the crew laid out the water hoses before the vessel entered the Gulf of Aden.

"They had laid out the fire hoses for a high pressure repellant. They never did fire them up, but they were ready for them," said Moorehead, a native of Long Beach, Calif.

"I will say the crew was very calm. They had prepared for this. Every staff member has an assignment in case of an emergency, and every one of them did it calmly and quickly," he added.

Some passengers said the crew used the long-range acoustic device to ward off the attack, and at least two passengers described hearing two booms after the pirates fired their rifles.

Oceania Cruises would not comment on specific details of the ship's security other than to say the ship's captain and crew used "evasive maneuvers and took all prescribed precautions."

Roger Middleton, author of a recent report on piracy for the London-based think tank Chatham House, said such non-lethal defenses are preferable to having armed guards on board — but their effectiveness is limited. Earplugs can foil the sound device, for example.

The ship's high speed and the difficulty of boarding such a large ship probably were the reasons the pirates were not successful, Middleton said.

"Lots of pirate attacks fail ... They will go for anything and keep trying until they get on board," he said. "I think they see these things as how much money they get out of them. And lots of Western tourists is very valuable."

International warships patrol the Gulf of Aden and have created a security corridor under a U.S.-led initiative, but attacks on shipping have not abated.

In about 100 attacks off the Somali coast this year, 40 vessels have been seized. Thirteen remain in the hands of pirates, including a Saudi supertanker filled with $100 million worth of crude and a Ukrainian ship loaded with 33 battle tanks.

Large ransoms are usually paid for the release of hijacked vessels, but a Somali official maintained Wednesday that a Yemeni cargo ship and its eight crew members were freed without a ransom after an appeal by local clan elders and regional officials.

The ship, released Tuesday, was seized last month in the Arabian Sea. A Yemeni security official had said the pirates were demanding a $2 million ransom

The ten Islamic terrorists sent from Pakistan to commit murder in Mumbai were specifically told to target the small Jewish center for Jews traveling through India. Five hostages were found tortured and murdered, so badly so that the pathologist said he had never seen such brutality. The 29-year old rabbi from New York and his six-month pregnant wife of 28 were murdered, their 2-year old son survived. What did they have to do with Kashmir, Iraq, Hindu violence? They were sought out and killed because they were Jews.

Orphan of New York Rabbi and Wife Killed in Mumbai Attacks Leaves India
Monday , December 01, 2008

The 2-year-old orphan found drenched in the blood of his parents at the besieged Jewish center in Mumbai left India on Monday on an Israeli Air Force jet, accompanied by the Indian woman who rescued him.

Dec. 1: Moshe Holtzberg, the orphan of the rabbi and wife slain in the Mumbai Jewish center, cries during a memorial service at a synagogue in Mumbai.

Moshe Holtzberg's parents, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, ran the headquarters of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch movement in Mumbai — one of 10 targets besieged by gunman over the 60-hour rampage.

During the attack Thursday, Sandra Samuel, a nanny who worked there for years, had locked herself in a laundry room when she heard Rivkah screaming for her to help. Then the screaming stopped, and it was quiet, said Robert Katz, a New York-based fund-raiser for an Israeli orphanage founded by the boy's family.

Samuel cracked open the door of her hiding place and saw a deserted staircase. She ran up one flight and saw the rabbi and his wife, covered in blood and shot to death. The child was crying beside his parents' bodies, his pants drenched in blood.

She snatched the boy, bolted down the stairs and out of the building.

"She's been there with him throughout," Katz said.

Six civilians were killed in the center — all of them Jewish and four of them Israeli, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David said. In all, more than 170 died in attacks on 10 targets across the Indian city.

Moshe was accompanied on the trip to Israel by his maternal grandparents, Yehudit and Shimon Rosenberg, who were reunited with their grandson when they arrived in Mumbai on Friday.

"It was pure raw emotion, tears of joy, tears of sorrow, incredible emotion, understandably out of control," said Katz.

Asked about Moshe's condition, he said: "I don't know that he can comprehend or that he will remember seeing his parents shot in cold blood."

Before the child's departure, dozens gathered at a synagogue in Mumbai for a memorial service for the Jews slain at the Chabad center. During the service, Moshe burst into tears and called out "Ima," Hebrew for "mother."

Weeping, Shimon Rosenberg delivered a eulogy for his daughter and son-in-law, reciting the Hebrew phrases from the Book of Job: "The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Moshe's father was a dual American-Israeli citizen and his mother was Israeli. The couple lived in Israel and Brooklyn before they moved to Mumbai in 2003.

Samuel, an Indian resident, will live with Moshe in Israel "so at least he has someone he knows and recognizes and loves," said Katz.

Though Samuel has no passport or papers, Moshe's grand-uncle, Rabbi Yitzchak David Grossman, helped arrange for her to get a visa to Israel. In a sad coincidence, Grossman is founder of the Migdal Ohr, which says it is Israel's largest facility for orphaned and disadvantaged children.

The Israeli jet that carried Moshe and Samuel also carried the remains of his parents and the others killed at the Chabad House, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

Government officials planned a small ceremony upon the plane's arrival.

"There are going to be thousands of people at this funeral," said Katz, executive vice president of Migdal Ohr's fundraising arm in New York. "This couple wasn't living in the West Bank. They weren't settlers. They weren't occupying anyone's land. They were killed because they were Jews, simple and plain."

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From the Hadith, the sayings and actions of Mohammad:

.“The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him’; but the tree Gharkad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985).

The Wall Street Journal continues its extraordinary reporting of the murders by Islamic supremacists in Mumbai. (For its earlier report, click here.) Evidence collected by American and Indian intelligence points to a Pakistani mastermind of the massacre. All ten of the terrorists were Pakistani. The one survivor has been confirming information that was intercepted by American communications monitoring.

Read the story that will appear in tomorrow's WSJ:

DECEMBER 3, 2008

India Names Mumbai Mastermind Article

By GEETA ANAND, MATTHEW ROSENBERG, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and ZAHID HUSSAIN

MUMBAI -- India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week's terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group.
Just two days before hitting the city, the group of 10 terrorists who ravaged India's financial capital communicated with Yusuf Muzammil and four other Lashkar leaders via a satellite phone that they left behind on a fishing trawler they hijacked to get to Mumbai, a senior Mumbai police official told The Wall Street Journal. The entire group also underwent rigorous training in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the official said.

Mr. Muzammil had earlier been in touch with an Indian Muslim extremist who scoped out Mumbai locations for possible attack before he was arrested early this year, said another senior Indian police official. The Indian man, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, had in his possession layouts drawn up for the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and Mumbai's main railway station, both prime targets of last week's attack, the police official said.

Mr. Ansari, who also made sketches and maps of locations in southern Mumbai that weren't attacked, had met Mr. Muzammil and trained at the same Lashkar camp as the terrorists in last week's attack, an official said.

U.S. officials agreed that Mr. Muzammil was a focus of their attention in the attacks, though they stopped short of calling him the mastermind. "That is a name that is definitely on the radar screen," a U.S. counterterrorism official said.

Information gathered in the probe also continues to point to a connection to Lashkar-e-Taiba, that official said. Along with a confession from the one gunman captured in the attacks, officials cited phone calls intercepted by satellite during the attacks that connected the assailants to members of Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, and the recovered satellite phone from the boat.

It also emerged Tuesday that U.S. authorities had warned Indian officials of a pending attack by sea. Hasan Gafoor, Mumbai police commissioner, told reporters there was a general warning issued in September that hotels could be targeted as well, after the bombing of the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad.

Two militants arrested in early 2007 also told police officials then that they were part of a band of eight Lashkar members who slipped into India by boat from Karachi, Pakistan, and made their way to Mumbai, an Indian police official in Kashmir said in an interview Tuesday. The group broke into pairs -- just as last week's attackers did -- and made their way north using safehouses provided by local sympathizers, the police official said.

The evidence cited by investigators is giving fresh ammunition to the Indian government, which has long tried to pressure Pakistan into cracking down on Lashkar-e-Taiba. India claims the group enjoys support from elements of the Pakistani intelligence agency. Pakistan denies that and outlawed the organization in 2002, but has done little to curtail its operations.

Mr. Muzammil's name is on a list of people -- numbering about 20 in all -- that India gave Pakistan earlier this week, demanding their immediate extradition, a senior Pakistani official told the Journal. The official said Pakistan was examining India's list of suspects and has assured New Delhi that action would be taken against them if there is evidence of involvement in the attacks.

Any move by the shaky civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari against Lashkar-e-Taiba could create a huge backlash, however, particularly from Islamic groups, said a senior official in Pakistan. On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani convened a meeting of all of the country's political parties in the capital to develop a joint response to Indian demands for extradition.

"The government of Pakistan has offered a joint investigation mechanism and we are ready to compose such a team which will help the investigation," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a televised statement. Mr. Qureshi, however, declined to say whether Pakistan would hand over any of those sought by India.

The Mumbai attacks have ratcheted up tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, who have been exchanging verbal fire for the past several days and sparking fears of a conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive in India Wednesday, as is Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indian authorities say evidence highlights how Lashkar has broadened its operations to include recruitment of both Indian and Pakistani Muslim extremists.

Lashkar-e-Taiba -- literally Army of the Good -- has been implicated by Indian officials in several recent terrorist attacks on Indian soil. The group initially focused on fighting the Indian army in the disputed state of Kashmir. Over the years, it has expanded its cause into the rest of India and aims to establish Islamic rule.

India has told Pakistan that the latest attacks in Mumbai were masterminded by Mr. Muzammil, aided by others in Lashkar's senior ranks including an operative named Asrar Shah, according to a senior Pakistani official. Mr. Muzammil, a Pakistani in his mid-30s, became head of Lashkar-e-Taiba's anti-Indian planning cell some three months ago, according to Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, an independent think tank in New Delhi. Indian authorities believe he is in Pakistan but officials there haven't acknowledged that.

India also claims the attacks were approved by Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, the Pakistani official said. Mr. Saeed is the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the parent organization of the Lashkar group. Mr. Saeed, who is free in Pakistan, denied the accusations. "India has always accused me without any evidence," he told Pakistan's GEO News television channel.

Indian investigators -- helped in part by the testimony of the one terrorist they captured alive, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab -- say they now possess solid proof. "We have made substantial progress in the investigation," said A.N. Roy, director general of the State Police of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located.

According to Mumbai police chief Hasan Gafoor, Mr. Kasab told interrogators that he and fellow gunmen spent between a year and 18 months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp.

An armed policeman guards the Victoria Terminus station on Tuesday in Mumbai.
The 10 militants left Pakistan's port city of Karachi on Nov. 23 aboard a ship called the Al Husseini, which also carried a crew of seven, another senior police official said. Investigators believe that all the 10 gunmen were Pakistani because they spoke Punjabi or Punjabi-accented Urdu.

When they entered Indian waters, the terrorists hijacked a fishing trawler called the Kuber and took its five crew members prisoner. The terrorists transferred four of them to the Al Husseini and they were subsequently killed, police believe. The terrorists kept the Kuber's lead crewman alive and sailed close to Mumbai.

The terrorists abandoned the Kuber in haste, fearing detection by an approaching vessel, the senior police official said. In the process, they forgot their satellite phone on the Kuber. Investigators found in the call log the numbers of five people, including Mr. Muzammil, two of his deputies and his personal aide, the senior police official said. Indian officials had already intercepted phone conversations made while the terrorists were traveling to Mumbai.

Indian Muslim leaders are skeptical of Lashkar's reach into India. But police say Lashkar has increasingly sought contacts and recruits among Indian extremists. In October, for instance, five Muslims from the southern state of Kerala were recruited into Lashkar-e-Taiba and traveled to the Indian part of Kashmir, according to T.K. Vinod Kumar, Kerala's deputy inspector-general of police. They tried to cross the line of control that runs between India and Pakistan and reach training camps on the Pakistani side.
Four among the group were killed in a firefight with the Indian military during that attempt. The fifth, construction worker Abdul Jabbar, was arrested two weeks ago, Mr. Kumar says.

Unlike other Pakistani-based jihadist organizations, Lashkar draws its recruits across a broad social spectrum, from universities as well as among unemployed youths. The majority come from Punjab; Mr. Kasab used to live in the Punjabi village of Faridkot, according to Indian investigators.

In March 2007 when two militants were arrested in the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir, the pair told police that Lashkar was looking to start slipping people into India from the sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders. The sea also provided a winter route to Kashmir for Lashkar members, when high mountain passes crossing to India's part of the state are often blanketed by deep snow.

—Siobhan Gorman, David Crawford, Tariq Engineer and Peter Wonacott contributed to this article.

Just ten Islamic terrorists did it all.

Just ten men paralyzed Mumbai for three days, killing at least 174. Only one survived and he's from Pakistan.

This gripping account by the Wall Street Journal is a tale of horror and sheer incompetence on the part of the Indian police and much of the military.

DECEMBER 1, 2008

India Under Fire for Security in Wake of Attacks

At Tourist Haunts and Train Station, Swiftly Launched Assault Overwhelmed Police; Home Affairs Minister Steps Down

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, GEETA ANAND, PETER WONACOTT and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

MUMBAI -- As waiters started setting dinner buffets in Mumbai's luxurious hotels, the killings that would ravage this Indian metropolis began out of sight, in the muddy waters of the Arabian Sea.

In the dusk hours of Wednesday, fisherman Chandrakant Tare was sailing his boat about 100 yards from a fishing trawler when he spotted young men killing a sailor on board. He says he saw them toss the body into the engine room. Assuming he had stumbled upon pirates, Mr. Tare says, he sped away.

Hours later, at least 10 terrorists, having arrived by small craft on the shores of Mumbai, began to sow death and destruction at will across India's financial capital.

Pieced together from interviews with dozens of witnesses and officials, this account of the three days of the battle for Mumbai shows just how a small but ruthless group of skilled militants, attacking multiple targets in quick succession, managed to bring one of the world's largest cities to its knees. The human toll -- currently at 174 fatalities, including nine terrorists -- was exacerbated by the Indian authorities' lack of preparedness for such a major attack. But the chain of events also points to just how vulnerable any major city can be to this type of urban warfare.

Continue reading "THE ISLAMIC TERROR ATTACK ON MUMBAI"

War is being waged by Islamic supremacists worldwide. Their goal is to conquer the world. Don't laugh. They've been at it for 1400 years, with much success over the centuries. With the Middle East awash with billions of petrodollars, a potential support base of 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide, of which an estimated 10-15% are supportive of the supremists' goal, the followers of Mohammad are in the best position to wage war they have been in since 1453.

While they don't currently have military might to attack the U.S. frontally, they can inflict damage through terrorist attacks, as happened on 9/11/2001. The attack of just ten Muslim terrorists in Mumbai is illustrative as well. Fortunately, since the Bush Administration quickly went on high alert immediately after 9/11 and strengthened national defenses, it has became much more difficult for Islamic forces to launch a major strike in this country. In fact, several significant plots have been thwarted and the nation has been able to protect itself successfully in the years since.

However, there is a quieter offensive underway to weaken our culture to advance the cause of Islamic supremacism that largely escapes notice. One of the foremost experts on Islamic supremacism who is very much focused on Islamic efforts to undermine society is Robert Spencer. He calls this under-the-radar, quiet offensive to establish Islam as the ruler in the U.S. "Stealth Jihad," which he describes in detail in his book of that name.

Jihad in common parlance means violent war against unbelievers, which, according to Mohammad, is to be unrelenting until victory is achieved. Stealth Jihad is part of that same war, but it is being being waged by non-violent means. Among other things, it involves raising money for "charity," which gets funneled to support terrorist organizations and Islamic fighters in other parts of the world -- as well as Stealth Jihad in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere..

A major victory was won last week in a Dallas courtroom when the Holy Land Foundation and several of its leaders were found guilty of knowingly funding the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza. During the course of this trial and a prior one it was revealed that the Holy Land Foundation was but one of up to 70 Islamic organizations in a network established by the Muslim Brotherhood to undermine the United States from within with the ultimate goal of replacing the U.S. Constituton with Islamic law, Sharia. To be specific, the goal is to conduct in the United States

"a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Continue reading "AMERICAN ISLAMIC SUPREMACISTS CONVICTED OF FUNDING TERRORISM"

If President Obama (after January 20) closes Guantanomo, where is he going to put those guys?

As everyone but President-elect B. Hussein Obama's base knows, many of the Guantanamo detainees cannot be sent to their home countries, cannot be released and cannot be tried. They need to be held in some form of extra-legal limbo the rest of their lives, sort of like Phil Spector.

Will we send them all to Afghanistan where they can resume jihad? Does anyone -- except some nutty judge -- want them released in the United States if no one will take them?

One story illustrates the challenge.

TERRORISTS' RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME

Guantanamo detainees not exactly philanthropists
by Ann Coulter
November 26, 2008

I thought the rest of the world was going to love us if we elected B. Hussein Obama! Somebody better tell the Indian Muslims.

As everyone but President-elect B. Hussein Obama's base knows, many of the Guantanamo detainees cannot be sent to their home countries, cannot be released and cannot be tried. They need to be held in some form of extra-legal limbo the rest of their lives, sort of like Phil Spector.

And now they're Obama's problem.

Continue reading "GUANTANAMO TO BE CLOSED? WHERE DO 'THEY' GO?"

Geert Wilders, the outspoken Dutch parliamentarian, sat down with the Wall Street Journal to discuss the invasion of Europe by Muslims and the danger presented by European multiculturists who claim all cultures are equal and denigrate their own civilization. We posted Wilders' plea to the Dutch parliament to act and his must-see short film Fitna earlier.

As he sees it, the West suffers from an excess of toleration for those who do not share its tradition of tolerance. "We believe that -- 'we' means the political elite -- that all cultures are equal," he says. "I believe this is the biggest disease today facing Europe. . . . We should wake up and tell ourselves: You're not a xenophobe, you're not a racist, you're not a crazy guy if you say, 'My culture is better than yours.' A culture based on Christianity, Judaism, humanism is better. Look at how we treat women, look at how we treat apostates, look at how we go with the separation of church and state. I can give you 500 examples why our culture is better."

Already Muslims in the Netherlands are 6% of the population and a tipping point is close,he believes.

He acknowledges that "the majority of Muslims in Europe and America are not terrorists or violent people." But he says "it really doesn't matter that much, because if you don't define your own culture as the best, dominant one, and you allow through immigration people from those countries to come in, at the end of the day you will lose your own identity and your own culture, and your society will change. And our freedom will change -- all the freedoms we have will change

We have just seen what ten determined Islamic terrorists can do to a city of 15 million in India.

Wilders says all the circumlocution about the Global War on Terror is missing the point.

Since 9/11, American political leaders have struggled with the question of how to describe the ideology of the enemy without making enemies of the world's billion or so Muslims. The various terms they have tried -- "Islamic extremism," "Islamism," "Islamofascism" -- have fallen short of both clarity and melioration. Melioration is not Mr. Wilders's highest priority, and to him the truth couldn't be clearer: The problem is Islam itself. "I see Islam more as an ideology than as a religion," he explains.(emphasis added)

What would he do?

He says he would end Muslim immigration to the Netherlands but work to assimilate those already there.

A key requirement of Wilders' would be to give up the Koran, from which the problem that is Islam springs. Islam, he believes, is an ideology, much as HItler's National Socialism was..Since the Koran is the ideology's handbook inciting hatred and violence it should be outlawed.

A proposal to halt Muslim immigration into the United States and to work to assimilate those already here has been made as well by an American scholar of Islam Hugh Fitzgerald.

Read all of the Wilders interview.

From NRO's The Corner yesterday, November 28th:

Both of the above [Mark Steyn]

Andy [McCarty] wrote yesterday about our confused thinking re events in Bombay:

The obsession over whether al Qaeda or its endless jumble of affiliates pulled off the operation is a misguided attempt to mimimize the challenge. The bin Laden network is not unimportant, but it is tapping into something that is much bigger than itself.

We're reluctant to address that "bigger than itself" elephant. All jihad is local: If rockets are fired at Israel, it's a failure to settle the Palestinian question. If an NHS doctor drives a flaming Cherokee into the check-in desk at Glasgow Airport, it must be Tony Blair's foreign policy. The Jerusalem Post's headline writer poses the question:

Homegrown Terror Or International Jihad?

False choice. The answer is: Homegrown terror in the service of international jihad. Clearly, India has had a Muslim problem to one degree or another in the 60 years since partition, but increasingly those locally driven grievances have been absorbed within the global pan-Islamic ideology. What strikes you, as the dust clears in Bombay, is that one assault provided an umbrella for manifestations of almost every strain of Muslim grievance.

There's the local element - the fatal shooting of the city's anti-terror squad, and other prominent officials. There's the crusader element - the targeting of British and American passport holders. There's the Jew-hating element - the Munich massacre nesting within the more general carnage.

And there are the more ironic nuances of jihad: British subjects were to be found not just among the victims but among the perpetrators.

To pose the question as that Jerusalem Post headline is to miss the point. Moreover, the global ideologues correctly see our determination to attribute every attack to purely local phenomena unconnected to any bigger picture as a sign of weakness.

This can't be said often enough:

In so many of the reports about Islamic terrorist attacks the media wonders what the connection to Osama Bin Laden might be. The answer is simple: In all cases the connection is the Koran. All Islamic true believers are doing what the Koran says and Mohammad commanded: Wage unrelenting war against the infidels untiil Islam rules supreme over the world.

Islamic supremacism is mandated by the Koran and Mohammad, the "perfect man" as Muslims call him, whose example provides all the latitude for violence one can imagine. As Muslims learn more about their core ideology, more true believers who become a danger to the world are born. At heart, Islam is a political ideology carrying a religious banner to justify its expansionism by whatever means work, including murder. Conquering the world today requires such things as instilling fear to force submission, damaging if not destroying economies, assassinating leaders and undermining the values of targeted civilizations, be it Europe's or that of the United States.

Among the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world are many good people who simply believe in one god and live good lives. They probably have never read the Koran or the Hadith (the sayings and doings of Mohammad). It's when they do that problems can arise. Saudi Arabia has spent and is spending tens of billions around the world to "educate" those who are in ignorance.

Among those killed by the Islamic terrorists were a young Jewish rabbi (29) and his wife (28). Both were Americans.

Wealthy foreigners in luxury hotels were among the principal targets in the Mumbai Islamic attacks. But so were Jews, rich or poor.

The bodies of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka were found after Indian commandos seized Nariman House from the militants today.

Their deaths were confirmed by Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for Chabad Lubavitch, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish group that ran the centre.

The couple's two-year-old son, Moshe Holtzberg, managed to escape with the centre's cook, Sandra Samuel, yesterday morning. The toddler is now with his grandparents.

In so many of the reports about Islamic terrorist attacks the media wonders what the connection to Osama Bin Laden might be. The answer is simple: In all cases the connection is the Koran. All Islamic true believers are doing what the Koran says and Mohammad commanded: Wage unrelenting war against the infidels untiil Islam rules supreme over the world.

This map shows India at the center, Pakistan and Afghanistan to the west and Bangladesh (dark green) to the east. Mumbai is on the west coast of India about halfway down. Click on the map to get a bigger picture.

Pakistan and Bangladesh are almost 100% Muslim; their non-Muslim populations have shrunk ever sent the Great Partition when the British left in 1948. Those who weren't killed have fled; only a handful remain and they are persecuted.

India has the third largest number of Muslims (130-150m)in the world after Indonesia (200m) and Pakistan (173M). Bangladesh has the fourth largest Muslim population (124m).

Amir Taheri is an exiled Iranian who writes frequently about Iran, Islam and Islamic supremacism. He is immensely well-informed and his insights on the situation in India are very much worth reading.

Mumbai attacks: the terrorists' tactics

As India burns, Amir Taheri examines how radical Islamists may be changing their tactics to inspire home-grown jihadists

Amir Taheri
28 Nov 2008
Telegraph, London

The Army of Muhammad is back. This was the message buzzing in radical Islamist circles yesterday as the world tried to absorb the shock of the terrorist attacks in Bombay, India's economic capital.

While it is not yet clear which group was behind the attacks, it looks as if the perpetrators were trying to imitate the tactic of ghazwa, used by the Prophet against Meccan caravans in his decade-long campaign to seize control of the city.

The tactic consists of surprise no-holds-barred attacks simultaneously launched against a caravan or settlement with the aim of demoralising the enemy and hastening his capitulation.

The Bombay attacks differed from previous terror operations in India in a number of ways. In the past, one approach had been to place explosive-packed devices in crowded places with the aim of killing large numbers at random. Another was suicide attacks on specific targets by lone "volunteers for martyrdom".

This time, however, the approach was "symphonic", in the sense that it involved different types of operations blended together.

Involved in the operations were men who had placed explosives at selected points. But there were also gunmen operating in classic military style by seizing control of territory at symbolically significant locations along with hostages. Then there were militants prepared to kill, and be killed, in grenade attacks against security forces.

Whoever designed the operations had another important Islamic tactic in mind: tabarra or exoneration.

This consists of separating the "outsider", in this case the British and American "infidel", from the community with the intent of blaming them for the ills of the world before sacrificing them. It was no accident that one of the places attacked was a Jewish centre, where gunmen seized a rabbi and several members of the congregation as hostages.

The loud message was that a small group of individuals could turn a megalopolis of almost 15 million inhabitants into a battlefield for at least a day.

Terrorism is a beast with an extraordinary ability to mutate. As soon as its victims have learnt to cope with its methods, it develops new ones. Groups of anarchists throwing bombs follow the lone assassin who would target a king or a political leader. The hijacking of passenger jets is replaced by the transformation of aircraft into missiles against fixed targets.

All the time, the intention is to terrorise the largest number of people, eroding the ordinary man's confidence in the ability of the authorities to protect him, and, in the long run, persuading a majority of the people, who just want to live their lives, to trade their freedom for the security that the terrorist promises in his utopia.

Although new to India, the tactic of "symphonic" attacks has been tried in a number of other countries in the past decade, notably Algeria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, at times with devastating effects.

Most recently, it was tried, on a smaller scale, by the Taliban in the Afghan city of Qala-Mussa. Theoretically, the tactic could be used in any city, from Bombay to New York, passing through London and Paris.

On Wednesday, it was obvious that India's various anti-terror units were surprised, unable to cope with methods of operations not mentioned in their manuals.

So far the only claim of responsibility has came from a hitherto unknown group using the name the "Deccan Mujahedin".

This may be a cover for other groups, perhaps the Lashkar Tayyiba (the Army of the Pure) and the Jaish Muhammad (the Army of Muhammad), two terrorist organisations created by the Pakistani military intelligence services.

Earlier this year, in one of his last acts as president, Pervez Musharraf announced the dissolution of both, but it is possible that the two groups and their backers in the Pakistani military and intelligence elite have returned to the market under a new brand, with new tactics.

The attacks came 48 hours after Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, practically threw away 50 years of Pakistani policy by announcing his readiness to end the dispute with India over Kashmir.

Zardari is an ethnic Baluch who, unlike previous Pakistani leaders who had Indian backgrounds, has no direct family history in pre-partition India. As a result, he is not as sensitive on Kashmir as his predecessors.

The Bombay attacks could be a message to Zardari that, though he may be uninterested in Kashmir, the issue is still central to many in Pakistan.

The new label used may also be significant. Deccan, a region in south-central India, was the intellectual and cultural capital of Indian Islam for centuries.

By using the term "Deccan Mujahedin", the terrorists may be trying to pass two messages. First, that the Islamist movement is no longer interested only in Kashmir but intends to strive for the reconquest of the whole of India for Islam.

This runs in line with the new pan-Islamist thinking that propagates the will to recover all lands once ruled by Muslims – from India to Spain and southern France, passing by Siberia, parts of Russia and the Balkans. "Deccan" designates a movement that has universal aspirations precisely because it claims local roots.

The designation is also intended to show that India now has a home-grown Islamist terror movement.

This started to form more than a decade ago after Hindu nationalists won power in New Delhi through the BJP and its radical anti-Muslim allies. The Islamist terror movement has adopted what is known as the Matryoshka method, after the Russian dolls nested one into another. The outer and bigger doll in this case is the Students' Islamic Movement of India (Simi), which claims millions of members.

Indian authorities call Simi an antechamber of terrorism. Within it are nested other dolls in the form of cultural associations, charities and political lobby groups. The smallest and deadliest doll represents the kind of groups that may have been behind these attacks.

The need for a home-grown terror movement in India may have been further emphasised by the success of the US-led coalition in destroying virtually all Islamist training bases and safe havens in Afghanistan.

With Pakistan also becoming inhospitable, partly thanks to Zardari's apparent determination to move his country close to both India and the United States, Indian Islamists are forced to look for training centres and safe havens at home.

While many have mentioned al-Qaeda as the perpetrator of the latest attacks, the connection is not easy to establish.

Many experts believe al-Qaeda has ceased to exist as an organisation, although it survives as a model and inspiration. Al-Qaeda's number two, the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been calling on militants to refocus their efforts on winning power in Muslim countries such as India, which is home to 150 million Muslims, and thus the [third] largest "Muslim" country in the world, [after Indonesia and Pakistan].

This is in contrast with Osama bin Laden's theory that the US and its Western allies must be prime targets because, if they fall, the world system they dominate will disintegrate, opening the way for Islam's final triumph.

It is possible that al-Zawahiri's writings influenced the Bombay attackers. But it is unlikely that he and al-Qaeda had any direct role in planning or executing them.

There are other reasons why India is targeted. Over the past five years, it has emerged as the largest aid donor to Afghanistan and the second most important backer of President Hamid Karzai's regime after the US.

The buzz in jihadist circles is that once the US and its allies have left, India will emerge as the principal foreign power behind the new democracy in Afghanistan. India is already playing a leading role in training and equipping the new Afghan army and police.

India has also moved from its traditional anti-Americanism to a new policy of close friendship with the US. Earlier this year, India signed a landmark nuclear co-operation agreement, paving the way for massive purchases of American military hardware in the future.

In jihadist circles, the new Indian economic boom is often described as the "House of the Spider", a reference to a sura of the same name in the Koran, Islam's holy book. On Wednesday, the attackers may have wished to show the flimsy nature of the "House of the Spider" by attacking Bombay, the engine of India's economic transformation.

However, if that was the intention, the terrorists are likely to be disappointed. Bombay and India in general have been victims of terror before, although not in so spectacular a fashion. And yet they have managed to absorb the shock and move ahead.

As always, the terrorists may end up like the man who, having won a great many tokens at the roulette table, is surprised when the casino tells him his winnings cannot be cashed.

Amir Taheri is author of 'Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism'. His new book, 'The Persian Night', will be published next month.

A great many comments were posted by readers in response to this article. What follows is a representative sampling. Most were from Britain, though a few were from the U.S. The sentiments were similar.

***
The attack as it unfolds tells us it is multipurpose. It attacks Indian financial center, takes foreigners as hostages and also Jewish center is taken. so it is not easy to pinpoint, what exactly is its purpose. It may be just that by this attack, it tells us that Islamists want to tell the world, that be forewarned and Islamists is on the rise again everyone else.
Posted by Satish K Batta on November 27, 2008 12:27 PM
***
“Add to this chaotic background the fact that sections of India's disgruntled 130m-strong Muslim minority have proved highly receptive to the extremists message and you are left with near perfect-storm conditions for an outbreak of terrorist activity."

India has already had three wars with Muslim Pakistan, (the 1947–48 War, 1965 War and 1971 War) and regular border skirmishes with Islamic Kashmir. I would imagine that many are already uneasy about such a large Muslim minority of around 13.5 %. Conversely Hindus only make up 2.5 % of Pakistans population and are a victimised minority with forced conversions and intimidation being a regular occurrence.
link Pakistan.htm.

This is not lost on Indian Hindus and lacking the excruciating finessing of political correctness and human rights we exersise in the West will eventually tire of this ridiculous situation and react. Meanwhile the US is nipping at Pakistan's lawless north-west borders leaving Pakistan in a situation of painting themselves into a very dangerous corner. What then?

This is not going away, it is all part of the global jihad which is patently manifesting itself in a multitude of guises. From the UN's OIC inspired censorship of so called defamation of Islam which, quite frighteningly will place Islam in a position of unassailability from any critisism to the violence we see on a daily basis committed by Islamists it is clear that Islam is once again on the march to global power. We must join the dots and remove our masks. The days of 'teaching the world to sing' are well and truly over. The use of Kumbaya against Kalashnikovs is simply not working as Churchill foretold. Here
is his view in 1899 and how true it still is?

'How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident
habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of
commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the
followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and
refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that
in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man
as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a
concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the
faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the
influence of the religion paralyses the social development of
those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from
being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and
proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central
Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not
that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science,
the science against which it had vainly struggled, the
civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization
of ancient Rome.'

***
He talks of our defence in the 'arms of science' but Pakistan
already has that nuclear science, stolen by AQ Khan fom his
Netherlands workplace and Iran is gearing up to join the club
so, quoting another 20th cetury titan, what is to be done?
***
Listening to the BBC news on five this morning. No mention of who was responsible for this attack. All we were told that it was "gunmen". No mention that it was Islamic-inspired gunmen! Now,did the BBC not genuinely know who might have been responsible, or did this reticence stem from a desire not to rock any boats, upset any applecarts etc!
Posted by ray douglas on November 27, 2008 4:12 PM
***
Dar al Islam = House of Islam (submission)

Dar al Harb = House of War

These are the only 2 realities according to their 'prophet'. Go read it in his 'holy' book.

With a leading UK barrister calling for the incorporation of Sharia Law - appeasement & capitulation no less- I wonder how long before Britain becomes Balkanised or submits totally to Dar al Islam.

Socialism = Failure

Reject Christ at your own peril.
Return to Him for He is the only True Hope.
Posted by Ming Ye on November 27, 2008 4:32 PM
***

Between January 2004 and March 2007 the death toll from terrorist attacks in India was 3,674, second only to Iraq during the same period, according to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington. At last the world has woken and taken notice as few westerners have died. Every year hundreds are killed by the islamic militants and india has been trying to bring it to the international attention. We had our 9/11 ten years before america in bombay. If you look at the history of the mugal invasion of india, 60-80 million hindus were slaughtered as they refused to convert to islam. Persecution is a lame excuse, but main aim of the jihadists is to convert the world to Dar ul Islam.
Posted by pranit on November 27, 2008 5:25 PM
***
There appear to be few places in this world, that followers of that peace loving religion of Islam are not butchering their fellow human beings.
Posted by Agnostic. on November 27, 2008 6:03 PM
***
What are 120M of them doing in India? When they insisted upon Partition, to the great distress of Ghandi, they got it after a few fracas where 1M people died.

They've got their Muslim country now, it's called Pakistan; why don't they go there if they are so 'oppressed'?

Wherever there is Islam, there is trouble and bloodshed. When are the rest of us going to stop pussy-footing around these manic butchers.
Posted by Graham King on November 27, 2008 12:02 PM
***

A clever Brit whipped up the following visual right after the attacks attributing the violence to the spirit of Bin Laden. Bin Laden almost certainly had nothing to do with the attacks.

For some reason the Minneapolis-St.Paul area has become the number one gathering point for legal and illegal Somalis to settle in the United States. Virtually all are Muslims. Somali taxi drivers have been in the news recently for refusing to pick up passengers at the international airport who were carrying alcoholic beverages. They also wanted to refuse passengers with dogs (even seeing-eye dogs). Such actions are part of the Stealth Jihad underway in this country to gradually change our culture to an Islamic one. Such a transformation is quite far advanced in Europe. Other examples in the U.S. are Wal-Mart cashiers not being required to ring up sales of pork products and Harvard having women-only gym hours for Muslim students. There are many more.

Now there is a report of a Minneapolis Somali, a naturalized American, who returned to Somali to join with the Islamist forces at war to install Islamic law throughout the country, who has killed himself in a suicide attack. Where did he become infused with Islamic supremacist zeal? At a mosque in Minneapolis? Here's the report:

11/25/2008 10:25:29 PM
KSTP Channel 5
By: Sam Zeff, Assistant News Director; Bob McNaney, Investigative Reporter; Nicole Muehlhausen, Web Producer

FEDS: Twin Cities man behind Somalia bombing

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned that federal law enforcement sources believe that a Twin Cities man blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Northern Somalia last month.
The FBI and Homeland Security are investigating whether Shirwa Ahmed had developed a terrorist recruiting network in the area.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS learned that Ahmed came to the Twin Cities in 1996 and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen.

More than a dozen young men of Somali descent, mostly in their 20s, from the Minneapolis area have recently disappeared, U.S. law enforcement officials tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. All are thought to be associates of Ahmed. U.S. officials suspect most of the young men have departed for Somalia to fight in ongoing violence there or to train in terrorist camps. Family members of the young men are said to be distraught, trying to figure to out what happened to them, sources say.

So far, the investigation has not uncovered credible evidence of a plot targeting the U.S. but American officials want to track down all these young men before they can say for certain what this is or is not, according to ABC News. Sources say the situation is being closely monitored by senior law enforcement and intelligence officials in Washington.

CIA Director Michael Hayden recently voiced his concern about increased fighting in Somalia and the Horn of Africa and the desire of Al Qaeda to strengthen it's ties in Somalia.

"In East Africa, Al Qaeda's engaging Somali extremists to revitalize operations," said Hayden. "And while there clearly has not yet been an official merger, the leader of the al-Shabaab terrorist group is closely tied to al-Qa’ida. And the recent bombings in Somalia may have meant, at least in part, to strengthen the bona fides of this group with al-Qaeda's senior leaders. A merger between al-Shabaab and al-Qa’ida could give Somali extremists much needed funding while al-Qaeda could then claim to be re-establishing its operations based in East Africa. That's a base that was severely disrupted about two years ago when Ethiopia moved into Somalia."

Hugh Fitzgerald, the Vice President of the website Jihad Watch, had this to say:

What does it cost the FBI, the local police, the judicial system, to monitor sometimes around the clock, to hold enless meetings about, to investigate an actual plot or a completed crime, to prepare a criminal case, to hold a trial, to prosecute, to hold another trial if, given the ignorance and idiocy of so many juries, the first one goes awry, to defend an appeal, to lock someone up and support him for ten or twenty or fifty years, or life, to do all of these things, and many more, including fighting off every kind of lawsuit based on demands by Muslims for every kind of yielding and accommodation by non-Muslims whose political and legal institutions, whose way of life, those Muslims have nothing but contempt, and who do not share, who cannot possibly share, any sense of loyalty for the history of this nation, created as it was entirely by non-Muslims, and until the last few decades peopled entirely by non-Muslims, and based on principles and an idea of individual autonomy that are not merely foreign to Islam, but flatly contradicted by the principles of the Shari'a, the Holy Law of Islam which, Muslims are taught, should ultimately be imposed everywhere, for all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam -- which means the Shari'a -- must be removed, everywhere.

Why do we ask for more and more trouble? Can't we in the United States see what Muslims have done in Great Britain, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, all over Western Europe? Is there a sane person in Western Europe who would not wish to turn the clock back, wish that the Pakistanis had never been allowed into Great Britain, the Moroccans and Turks into the Netherlands, the Algerians (and Moroccans and Tunisians) into France, the Somalis and Egyptians and Libyans into Italy, the Turks (and Moroccans) into Germany, and so on? Is there an honest Infidel who would dare to disagree with the statement that "the large-scale presence of Muslims in the countries of Western Europe has led to a situation, for both the indigenous non-Muslims, and for other, but non-Muslim, immigrants, that is much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous for them, than would be the case without that large-scale Muslim presence."

Will the Qu'ran change? Will the Hadith change? Will the facts of Muhammad's life, as recounted in the Muslim biographies, the Sira, change? If they cannot, because the Qur'an is the immutable word of God, and the Hadith were winnowed and assigned ranks of "authenticity" more than a thousand years ago by the most respected muhaddithin, then why should one entertain the wan hope that somehow, in some way, simply because it has just got to be, doesn't it, that Islam will change, or as Tariq Ramadan, that snake, likes to put it, without ever explaining what he means, a "European Islam" can be created, without of course telling us what texts, what tenets, what attitudes, what atmospherics in this "European Islam" would differ from the Islam of North Africa, or the Middle East, or of Muslims in Pakistan or Bangladesh or Indonesia.

Are we not entitled to ask that those in the government take notice of reality, and cease to allow Muslims into our country, where they can only increase that unpleasantness, that skyrocketing expense, that ominous threat of physical insecurity? What does it take to get the government to respond to our most essential needs and desires? What?

The infiltration of an alien ideology incompatible with the U.S. Constituion is a serious and growing problem almost universally ignored by the federal government and the media. In some countries of Europe, such as the Netherlands and perhaps France, it may already too late. Popular resistance is growing in Europe, but it has not been joined by officialdom in any country as yet and certainly not by the bureaucrats in Brussels who run the European Union. In the U.S., the debate must begin. It is a matter of national security.

As we have reported again and again, the Islamic war of conquest is global and aimed at all non-Muslims. India has suffered from Islamic warfare for centuries; it is estimated that some 80 million Hindus were killed by Muslim invaders and occupiers before they were driven out.

Today's attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) are intended to bring down the government, deliver a body body to tourism and the economy, sow fear, discord, anger and chaos.

Muslims constitute 10 to 15% of India's population, which translates into some 110 to 160 million. How many of those are active terrorists or supportive of such terrorists is unknown.

n addition, suspicions about recent murderous Islamic attacks inside India have centered on Muslims from Pakistan. Pakistan itself has become a target of homegrown Islamic supremacists as well as of terrorists leaving Iraq. To this point, the Indian government has, incredibly from an American point of view, treated these attacks as business as usual, sort of a nuisance, a large nuisance to be sure, but a nuisance nonetheless.

The decades-long insurrection by Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir has resulted in thousands of deaths. Kashmiri terrorists have been arrested staging terrorist attacks outside Kashmir elsewhere in India.

What's difference about today's attacks is the level of sophistication and its magnitude. Will this shake the Indian government out of its torpor?

Will it also have the effect of making the U.S. government finally acknowledge that the terrorism and other attacks being fought worldwide are Islamic in nature, flowing from the core documents of Islam?

Rumors are surfacing that similar attacks are in preparation for New York City's subway system during the holidays. Hugh Hewitt reminds us:

When highly coordinated attacks like those in India unfold, the families of victims have to wonder whether the attacks might have been prevented but for the blows to surveillance of terrorism suspects brought about by leaks such as those involving the Swift program that tracked terrorist financing. The New York Times defended its actions and those of the Los Angeles Times at the time, but it is in the aftermath of deadly attacks that we should all revisit the recklessness of MSM in dealing with such matters.

No one will ever be able to prove whether an uncompromised Swift program might have penetrated such a big ring of terrorists, but at the time of the controversy, I did interview the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, who admitted that the story might have helped terrorists elude capture. When hell breaks loose, we ought to remind ourselves that the media has in the past decided for itself when security could be breached.

The villains are the terrorists, of course, but their lives are made easier by every leak of a national security secret.

It's disturbing that Obama has so many aides who are anti-Israel. It's disturbing that Obama aides met with leaders of terrorist, Iran-supported Hamas during the campaign and told the Hamas leaders to keep quiet about the meeting so as not to cause upset before the election. It's disturbing that one of Obama's most virulently anti-Israel advisors went to Damascus to meet with Syrian leader Assad.

But there's even more.

This week, Middle East Newsline reported that President-elect Obama recently sent "senior foreign policy adviser" Malley to Egypt and Syria where he "relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo as well as reconcile with Damascus." According to an unnamed aide, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests."

Are we entering a new era of accommodation of jihad terrorists bent on Israel's — and the West's — destruction?

Diana West says, "I'm very afraid."

Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

By Diana West, Syndicated Columnist
November 17, 2008

How dumb does President-elect Barack Obama think we are?

Let me rephrase the question: Are we as dumb as Obama thinks?

Continue reading "IS ACCOMODATION WITH TERRORISTS IN OUR FUTURE?"

When America came into being its chief enemy of course was England. But another enemy arose that caused grief to Americans for years, indeed, decades.

Muslim pirates operating from the North African coast were intercepting British and American ships and seizing passengers and crew members for slavery and ransom. For several years the American government actually budgeted blackmail money to pay the Muslim pashas to lay off, but each year the demands get getting bigger, making up about 20% of the young nation's budgeet

Debates raged in Congress and a famous cry was uttered in 1798 by a fed-up Congressman Representative Robert Goodloe Harper , "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute! John Adams wanted to keep paying, saying if we starting fighting them it would never end. (He, of course, was right; the 1400 year battle to conquer the non-Muslim world continues.)

However, Thomas Jefferson had had enough and commissioned the building of the first ships of the U.S. Navy, one of which is the U.S.S. Constitution, which is still listed as an active ship of the Navy while at dockside in the Charlestown shipyard in Boston. Naval battles were fought (which included the Constitution), Marines (established 1775) landed (on the shores of Tripoli) and the Muslim piracy and tribute ended finally about 1815.

Now Muslim pirates are at it again. They have been operating for a few years off the coast of Somalia. As they have taken ships and hostages and been rewarded with ransom money, they have grown bolder with faster boats, "mother" ships and more deadly weapons and have ventured farther out to sea. A few days ago they seized a Saudi supertanker with 2 milliion barrels of oil and a crew of 25 and are demanding $2 million to release the ship and crew. A Internatiional Maritime Bureau official says the situation is out of control. Here's a report of one of the Indian patrol ships taking on a mother ship and sinking it.

Ship traffic from the Mediterranean goes through the Suez Canal, across the Red Sea and out the Gulf of Aden to the north of Somalia. Tankers come down through the Arabian Sea to the east of Somalia, some going to the Mediterranean, some to Asia and others to the U.S. and European Atlantic ports. The Somali pirates are well-postioned to intercept them all.

Do notice nobody ever identifies who the pirates are; They are all Muslims performing their historic role. Robbing caravans is akin to seizing ship cargo and passengers. Since the Prophet Mohammad robbed caravans and took slaves to make a living, it's okay under Islam for today's Muslims to do the same.

Indian navy sinks suspected pirate "mother" ship

By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer
November 19, 2008

NEW DELHI – The ship, operating off the coast of Oman in the lawless waters of the Gulf of Aden, was crewed by heavily armed men, some carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Behind it were a pair of speedboats — the sort pirates often use when they launch attacks on merchant ships in these violent seas.

What followed, officials said Wednesday, was a rare victory in a sea war against Somalia-based piracy that has become increasingly more violent, and where the pirates are ever more bold.

A patrolling Indian navy frigate quickly identified the vessel as a "mother ship" — a mobile attack base used to take gangs of pirates and smaller speedboats into deep water — and ordered it to stop and be searched.

"They responded on the offensive and said that they would blow up the Indian naval ship," Commander Nirad Sinha, a navy press officer, told reporters in New Delhi. Then the pirates opened fire.

Navy officials wouldn't say how long the battle Tuesday lasted, but the frigate, the INS Tabar, is a 400-foot war machine, carrying cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles and six-barreled 30 mm machine guns for close combat, according to the Web site GlobalSecurity.org.

By the time the battle was over, the mother ship had sunk — the Indian gunfire sparked fires and a series of onboard blasts, possibly due to exploding ammunition — and the speedboats were racing into the darkness.

One was later found abandoned. The other escaped. An unknown number of people died on the mother ship, a navy statement said.

It's not the first success. Last week, Indian navy commandos operating from a warship foiled a pirate attempt to hijack a ship in the Gulf of Aden. The navy said an armed helicopter with marine commandos prevented the pirates from boarding and hijacking the Indian merchant vessel.

Across the Gulf of Aden, though, news was far more grim for shippers.

Separate bands of pirates seized a Thai ship with 16 crew members and an Iranian cargo vessel with a crew of 25.

These days, pirates appear to be attacking ships at will in the region, said Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.

"It's getting out of control," Choong said.

A multicoalition naval force, which includes the Indian presence, has increased patrols in the region, but the seizures Tuesday raised to eight the number of ships hijacked this week alone, Choong said. Since the beginning of the year, 39 ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, out of 95 attacked.

"There is no firm deterrent, that's why the pirate attacks are continuing," Choong said. "The criminal activities are flourishing because the risks are low and the rewards are extremely high."

The pirates used to mainly roam the waters off the coast of Somalia, where there has not been a stable, functioning government in nearly 20 years. But now they are targeting ships far further out at sea.

Choong said 17 vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 300 crew members, including a Ukrainian ship loaded with weapons and a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude.

The supertanker, the MV Sirius Star, was anchored Tuesday close to Harardhere, the main pirates' den on the Somali coast, with a load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members.

Asked about reports that a ransom had been demanded, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Wednesday in Rome that the owners of the tanker "are negotiating on the issue."

"We do not like to negotiate with pirates, terrorists or hijackers," but the owners of the tanker are "the final arbiter" on the issue, he said.

Pirates have generally released ships after ransoms were paid.

The vessels patrolling the dangerous seas include three NATO warships in the Gulf of Aden. The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet also has ships in the region.

But U.S. Navy Commander Jane Campbell of the 5th Fleet said naval patrols simply cannot prevent attacks given the vastness of the sea and the 21,000 vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden every year.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday that President George W. Bush has been briefed on the issue of piracy and that the United States was working with other members of the U.N. Security Council to see if there are actions that can be taken to fight and prevent piracy more effectively.

"The safety and well-being of the crew is of paramount importance in preventing or dealing with issues of piracy," Perino said. "One of the things that's clear is that piracy is something that is affecting ... many more waters than any of us would have known about."

The Gulf of Aden connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles and many days shorter than going around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa.

The Thai boat, which was flying a flag from the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati but operated out of Thailand, made a distress call as it was being chased by pirates in two speedboats but the phone connection was cut.

Wicharn Sirichaiekawat, manager of Sirichai Fisheries Co. Ltd. told The Associated Press the ship, the Ekawat Nava 5, was headed from Oman to Yemen to deliver fishing equipment.

"We have not heard from them since, so we don't know what the demands are," Wicharn said. "We have informed the families of the crew but right now, we don't have much more information to give them either."

Of the 16 crew members, Wicharn said 15 are Thai and one is Cambodian.

Later in the day, Thai Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Voradet Veeravekin said Thai officials in Kenya were trying to make contact with the vessel.

"Based on previous cases, we believe they were held for ransom. We are optimistic that we will be able to negotiate for their release once we can contact the ship," he told the AP.

The Iranian carrier, the Delight, was flying a Hong Kong flag but was operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines.

On Tuesday, a major Norwegian shipping group, Odfjell SE, ordered its more than 90 tankers to sail around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal after the seizure of the Saudi tanker.

"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president and chief executive.

It has just been revealed that aides to Obama were meeting with Hamas representatives before the election. The Obama people told the Hamas group to keep their meetings secret since disclosure might affect the election. Obama got 78% of the American Jewish vote.

Obama's public position was that he would not meet with Hamas until they renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist. Of course, Hamas has done neither.

John Hinderaker of Power Line is deeply concerned.

It's hard to disagree with this assessment by David Hornik of Pajamas Media:

A clash between Obama's public, anodyne, mainstream statements and behind-the-scenes activities of a different nature would confirm the fears of those concerned about Obama's history of association with radical people and ideologies.

It would have been nice to know about the cordial relationship between Obama's advisers and Hamas during the campaign. But, of course, it was an article of faith in the mainstream media that Obama's many unsavory and radical associations were somehow irrelevant to any expectation as to how he would govern as President.

Hard-headed British columnist Melanie Phillips provides good advice to American conservatives in the wake of the Obama victory. She cites the disaster that has been building in Britain over recent decades -- and is still building -- hastened along greatly by the ascendency into high office by Labour's charismatic leader Tony Blair, whose arrival was hailed almost as messianically as Obama's. Similar, or worse, damage looms with Obama:

Obama has talked about remedying what he sees as the flaws in the U.S. Constitution which promotes only “negative liberties,” or freedom from something rather than positive rights to something. Well, through human-rights legislation Britain has exchanged its historic concept of “negative” liberty — everything is permitted unless it is actively prohibited — for the ‘positive’ European idea that only what is codified is to be permitted.

As a result, freedom has shrunk to what ideology permits. Equality legislation has cemented a “victim culture” under which the interests of all groups deemed to be powerless (black people, women, gays ) trump those deemed to be powerful (white people, men, Christians). Since this doctrine holds that the “powerless” can do no wrong while the “powerful” can do no right, injustice is thus institutionalized, and anyone who queries the preferential treatment afforded such groups is vilified as a racist or bigot.

Her warning should be read in full and printed out to post above the desk as a constant reminder.

Read it all:

Preventing National Suicide

By Melanie Phillips

Continue reading "A BRIT WARNS: DON'T LET OBAMA DESTROY AMERICAN VALUES"

Posted by Republican on Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
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Democratic policies promoting mortgage loans to those who couldn't afford them created the housing boom and bubble and its collapse that was at the heart of the worldwide financial panic that has cost American savers hundreds of billions of dollars of losses in their life savings. There was a chance to head off disaster in 2005 and 2006 but Democrats in the Senate led by Harry Reid and supported by Barack Obama and other Senate Democrats blocked the Republican bill to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. House Democrats led by Pelosi and Barney Frank backed them up. The Democrats who pushed such policies deserve to be rejected. They sought to "spread the wealth" and instead impoverished tens of millions.

However, the most important decision on November 4th is electing our Commander-in-chief.

These are dangerous times, it is a dangerous world. Many don't want to think about it, but Islamic radicals are waging a world war against Western Civilzation targeting first and foremost the United States. Battlefronts are in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, Israel, Nigeria, across all of Western Europe and in the United States, Canada and Australia. In some places it's active warfare, in others, terrorism, in others, subversion of our values and way of life to replace them with Islamic law. And Russia and China are building military strength while Iran seeks nuclear warheads for its long-range missiles.

Only John McCain is qualified and fit for the job of Commander-in-Chief. 69% of our military polled agree. McCain loves America and will do his utmost to protect it. Obama finds it difficult to say a good word about America. He constantly disparages America, it's bad and it needs to be changed.

Not only is Obama unqualified, he denies the importance of these threats, has pledged to slash our military to help fund new welfare programs and seems to believe appeasement and a weakened military will bring us peace in our time, just as Neville Chamberlain did in 1939. What prize would he offer up to Iran as Chamberlain offered (and gave) the Sudetenland to Hitler? No wonder Israelis polled prefer McCain by a wide margin.

The media is now joining Obama is playing the race card. And here. Simply put, if you don't vote for Obama, you're racist. You have no legitimate reason not to.

1. That you're troubled by the elite media's attempt to force you to vote for Obama to prove you're not a racist, is no reason.

2. That you're troubled by Obama’s constant playing of the race card, first against Hillary Clinton, then against John McCain and now against anyone who raises a question or a criticism, is no reason.

3. That you're troubled by his fixation on black power and dislike of whites as revealed in his own books in which he approvingly refers to "white men's greed" as the cause of the world's problems, is no reason.

4. That you're troubled by his attraction to Marxist socialist principles that began in high school and continued through college where he “hung out” with black power advocates and Marxist socialists and distanced himself from whites, as he describes in his books, is no reason.

5. That you’re troubled that he put his Marxist socialist principles into practice by becoming a community organizer of blacks against the white establishment in Chicago working with communist/socialist ACORN and other community organizers, is no reason.

6. That you're troubled by his attraction to and absorption of the communist Alinsky method of community organizing (studied in Chicago and while at Harvard Law School) in which socialist purposes are carefully hidden by sticking to platitudes like "hope" and "change" to solve every human dissatisfaction, is no reason.

7. That you're troubled by his telling Joe the Plumber he was going to impose higher taxes on him to "spread the wealth," that is, to take money away from people who pay taxes to give to people who don't pay taxes, which is pure socialism, is no reason

8. That you're troubled by his long association (as trainer, lawyer, collaborator and employer) with the communist/socialist community organization ACORN that has been involved in vote registration fraud controversies, including convictions, across the country, including this year, is no reason.

9. That you're troubled that Obama hired ACORN this year to do voter registration, knowing as he did about its record of voter fraud registration accusations, investigations and convictions (investigations of ACORN fraud are under way right now in at least 12 states), paying $320,000 to ACORN and then covering up the payment, is no reason.

10, That you're troubled that every day there are new stories of fraud involving ACORN workers in states across the nation and all the Obama campaign can say is that such reports are "a distraction" from the real issues, is no reason.

11. That you're troubled that he was an early pioneer, working with ACORN, in showing how to intimidate banks and bankers into making uncreditworthy mortgage loans to minorities and low-income people who could not afford them, which pressure tactics spread and ultimately led to the housing bubble, its collapse and the present world financial crisis and loss of hundreds of billions for investors and tens of thousands of jobs, is no reason.

12. That you're troubled that Obama, having worked closely with the communist/socialist organization ACORN throughout his entire career, recently said his views are still pretty much the same as when he helped ACORN force banks to make risky mortgage loans they never should have made and ran a voter registration drive with ACORN, is no reason.

13. That you're troubled that Obama has vowed to the communist//socialist group ACORN and other such organizations will be called in to work with him, if he's elected president, even before inauguration to shape the agenda of his administration,, is no reason.

14. That you're troubled that in just a few months in the U.S. Senate Obama was able to become the second biggest recipient, some $126,000 -- over a 20-year period -- of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sources, is no reason.

15. That you’re troubled that when John McCain and others were proposing reforms in 2005 and 2006 to prevent a collapse of the out-of-control practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying up far too many risky subprime mortgage loans, Obama instead sided with Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd in opposing reform, thus bringing on the present world financial crisis, indeed being quoted saying subprime loans were a good thing, is no reason.

16. That you're troubled by his association with people who hate America such as white hater Jeremiah Wright, unrepentant admitted terrorist bomber and self-described communist William Ayers (who said in 2001 the mention of America "makes him want to puke"), Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi and nutcase Father Michael Pfleger, is no reason.

17. That you're troubled that he was attracted in the first place to black power, white-America hater, anti-Semitic pastor Jeremiah Wright and stayed with him for 20 years, knowing he was a follower of black liberation theology that preaches that any god that is not exclusively on the side of the blacks against whites must be killed, is no reason.

18. That you're troubled that he lied about never in 20 years hearing Jeremiah Wright make any of his anti-America and anti-white speeches, but then admitted he had when his campaign advisors realized the lie could be easily disproved, is no reason.

19. That you're troubled that he brought his young children to Jeremiah Wright's sermons Sunday after Sunday to listen to his bigoted tirades against whites and his hateful harangues against America, is no reason.

20. That you’re troubled that he helped Nation of Islam’s anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan organize the Million-Man March in Washington and that Farrakhan has called Obama the messiah for black Muslims, is no reason.

21. That you're troubled that, working for years jointly with unrepentant terrorist bomber William Ayers, who describes himself as a communist, Obama funneled $150 million to fund programs to turn Chicago teachers and students into socialist revolutionaries who hate America, is no reason.

22. That you're troubled that, working jointly with America hater William Ayers, Obama directed charitable funds to separatist Afrocentric, America-hating programs designed by allies of Jeremiah Wright, while denouncing “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” is no reason.

23. That you're troubled that, working jointly with America hater William Ayers, Obama, "to change America," directed charitable funds to the communist/socialist ACORN that was intimidating banks to make unsafe mortgage loans and engaging in voter registration fraud, as he well knew, is no reason.

24. That you're troubled that Obama continued his collaboration with Ayers after Ayers allowed himself to be photographed for the cover of Chicago magazine in 2001 standing on the American flag and telling an interviewer the thought of America made him "want to puke," is no reason.

25. That you're troubled that, working jointly with admitted terrorist bomber William Ayers, he steered charitable funds to an Arab-related organization that handed money over to a Palestinian terrorist organization, is no reason.

26. That you're troubled by Obama’s decision to go inside the Chicago Daley Democratic patronage and payoff political machine (often called by Chicago newspapers the “corrupt” Daley Democratic political machine) and become a go-along, loyal member of the machine, which is now running his campaign, is no reason.

27. That you're troubled that as an Illinois state senator Obama refused to support reformers against the Daley patronage and payoff machine, but supported the Chicago Democratic political machine at all times, is no reason.

28. That you’re troubled that in his first run for public office he was able to force all three Democratic opponents off the primary ballot to run unopposed, which if not unprecedented is so highly unusual as to raise questions about the objectivity of Democratic election officials beholden to the Daley political machine which Obama supports, is no reason.

29. That you're troubled by the fact that he is the most extreme advocate of abortion in public life, having pledged to Planned Parenthood as president he would like his first act as president to be signing a bill removing all restrictions on abortion, including partial birth abortion which 75% of all Americans oppose, is no reason.

30. That you're troubled by the fact that he engineered the defeat of a bill in the Illinois senate to protect babies who survive a failed abortion (and then lied about it), a bill that was identical to one that passed Congress unanimously, is no reason.

31. That you're troubled by his callous statement that, if either of his girls made a mistake, he wouldn't want them "punished with a baby," is no reason.

32. That you're troubled by his wife's statements that only now, for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of her country, is no reason.

33. That you're troubled by his wife's view of America as “just downright mean,” is no reason.

34. That you're troubled by his view of America as having done harm to the world for which he must apologize (in Berlin, to Germans no less), is no reason.

35. That you’re troubled that he so often seems ashamed of America, speaking ill of it, as in Berlin, is no reason.

36. That you're troubled that Obama didn't put hand to heart during the national anthem until his advisors told him to, is no reason.

37. That you're troubled that Obama left injured servicemen and women waiting at a military hospital in Germany when he canceled a scheduled visit to work out at a gym, is no reason.

38. That you're troubled that he is so naive that he can say tear down the walls between Muslims and Jews (as in Israel?) and there will be peace, is no reason.

39. That you're troubled by his statements in support of the Palestinian cause and his support by a former member of the terrorist-listed PLO Rashid Khalidi, who is now the director of the most rabid anti-Israel Middle East Studies department in the U.S, is no reason.

40. That you're troubled by his lukewarm and equivocal statements about Israel (for an undivided Jerusalem one day, opposed the next), is no reason.

41. That you're troubled by his vocal support by leaders of Hamas and the lack of support by a leading Israel statesman and author such as Natan Sharansky, is no reason.

42. That you're troubled that Obama's running mate Biden is reported to have told Israelis they had just better get used to the idea of a Iran with nuclear warheads on missiles that can destroy Israel, is no reason.

43. That you're troubled that Obama declined to appear at an anti-Iran rally sponsored by Jewish organizations and made sure that Sarah Palin was disinvited, is no reason.

44. That you're troubled that all Obama wants to do is talk and talk with the leader of our deadly enemy Iran and do nothing of consequence to stop their development of nuclear weapons, is no reason.

45. That you're troubled by his position well over a year ago to withdraw troops from Iraq on a fixed timetable regardless of conditions and to oppose the surge that was not only dangerous for our troops but would have resulted in al-Qaeda taking over Iraq as its new world headquarters, with riches like oil and gas that Afghanistan cannot even dream of, is no reason.

46. That you're troubled by his opposition to doing what is necessary to make America independent of hostile and unstable overseas energy suppliers by drilling for gas and oil domestically and by supporting nuclear power and clean coal along with all other alternatives, is no reason.

47. That you're troubled that Obama naively wants to cut defense spending in an increasingly dangerous world, and that Obama refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Islamic supremacist war against the non-Muslim world, is no reason.

48. That you're troubled that Obama actively and openly spoke in favor of his Muslim cousin Raila Odinga in his recent campaign for president of Kenya, during which he reportedly pledged to decree Islamic law for all Kenyans and ban Christian missionaries throughout the country, is no reason.

49. That you're troubled by his protectionist statements supporting unilaterally repealing NAFTA and opposing the free trade agreement with our hemishere's closest ally Colombia, and his lying about the facts to justify his opposition, is no reason.

50. That you're troubled that he wants to end secret ballots in union elections so as to increase the power of union intimidation, is no reason.

51. That you're troubled that he is so obsessed with himself, appears to be such a narcissist, that he can tell a campaign gathering that light will come down from above and convince them to vote for The Obama, is no reason.

52. That you're troubled that when you look at his record of accomplishment you only see that he has written two books about himself (partially fictionalized, possibly ghost written), graduated from college and law school, spent four years in socialist community organizing, and years in the Illinois senate (voting present 130 times) toeing the Democratic machine line -- and gave a nice speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, is no reason.

53. That you're troubled that he had for years as a major fundraiser (at least $250,000) Syrian-born political fixer and slumlord Tony Rezko, who has been convicted on 16 counts of political corruption, is no reason.

54. That you're troubled that while Rezko was being investigated on corruption charges and reportedly in debt for more than $10 million, Rezko's wife (said to have no assets of her own and income of only $37,000 as a city worker) somehow made it possible for him to buy his dream house in the upscale Hyde Park section of Chicago by buying an adjacent empty lot for full price ($625,000) while Obama purchased his house and lot for a $300,000 discount ($1.65 million) from the same seller on the same day, is no reason.

54. That you're troubled that Rezko's wife shortly thereafter sold a strip of land from the adjacent empty lot that Obama wanted for one-sixth her purchase price, paid for a fence Obama wanted between the properties, then sold off the lot to one of Rezko’s attorneys for an undisclosed price, is no reason.

55. That you're troubled by his plan to give $50 billion of American taxpayer money to the corrupt United Nations for a new anti-poverty program, is no reason.

56. That you’re troubled by his socialist “tax cut” plan to take more money from those who earn it – including imposing higher taxes on hundreds of thousands of small businesses -- and make welfare payments to the 44% (63 million) of American’s who pay no income tax, is no reason.

57. That you're troubled that Obama is hiding so much of his record, that he has refused to allow access to information or has blocked research about his past, such as his joint socialist programs with William Ayers in Chicago, the official State of Hawaii birth records, his Columbia College and Harvard Law School records and years and his ideological affiliations before joining Jeremiah Wright's church, is no reason.

58. That you’re troubled that his campaign has apparently raised tens of millions of dollars from sources outside the country in deliberately small sums (under $200) to avoid federal reporting requirements and the campaign has no controls to identify such sources, some of which are clearly fraudulent, whereas the McCain campaign can track every dollar, is no reason.

59. That you're troubled by what Michael Barone calls the thug tactics of the Obama campaign to silence all criticism with cries of “lies,” “discrimination,” racism,” including even discussion of Obama's socialist and machine partisan activities in Chicago, and that Barone fears an Obama Administration "thugocracy" stifling First Amendment rights, is no reason.

60. That you’re troubled that Obama’s socialism smacks of totalitarianism, as his campaign’s efforts to shut down free speech shows, is no reason.

61. That you’re troubled that Obama is rated the most far left senator in the U.S. Senate, a radical with a socialist agenda "to change" an America he is not proud of to something we will not like, and who is blind to the defense needs of the United States, is no reason.

62. That you're troubled that Obama is so "flexible" and evasive when it comes to telling the truth and just plain lies, is no reason.

63. That you're troubled that he could coldly dismiss the legitimate fears of the white grandmother who raised him as those of a "typical white person," is no reason.

64. That you're troubled that the Chicago Democratic machine that is running his campaign may be intending to take its patronage and payoff operations onto the national stage, at staggering cost to American taxpayers, is no reason.

65. That you're troubled by his elitist attitude towards simple working people, sniffing at them for clinging to their God and their guns, is no reason.

66. That you're troubled by the many, many times that Obama misstated historical facts to suit his own agenda, including misdescribing his past positions, and that the mainstream media did not challenge Obama’s statements, is no reason.

67. That you're troubled by the hypocrisy and double standard of the elite media that can proudly report that 95% of blacks now say they're voting for Obama, but can express horror that some white Americans might vote for McCain, which they assert can only be for racist reasons, is no reason.

68. That you're troubled that the elite media, which has decided it wants a Democratic black president now, whoever it is, qualified or not,, has deliberately avoided its obligations to the American public by refusing to do any detailed investigation into who Obama really is, his alliances, involvement in sleazy machine politics and his history, so that all that exists is the fictionalized narrative contrived by the Chicago Daley Democratic machine that is running his campaign, which leaves too many questions unanswered and voters still wondering "Who is Barack Obama?", is no reason.

69. That you're still troubled about who Obama really is though you are deeply troubled about what you know already and wonder what else he may be hiding, is no reason.

70. That you're troubled that Obama appears to be cleverly hiding who he is, presenting a false image to the world as postpartisan, moderate and a healer, when he is none of those, as his record shows, is no reason.

71. That you're troubled that Obama, if elected, may have a Democratic House and Senate, to implement his extreme socialist agenda of higher taxes, trade protectionism, stifling free enterprise, stifling free speech, enacting extreme pro-abortion policies such as reviving partial-birth abortion, relaxing our defense vigilance, cutting defense spending and increasing taxpayer funding to subversive organizations such as ACORN, is no reason.

72. That you're troubled that foreigners see things so much more clearly than our media and view the president candidate Obama as having a "nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters," is no reason.

73. That you're troubled that, as Professor Thomas Sowell notes, John McCain and Sarah Palin have not spent "decades working with people who hate America" and Obama has, is no reason.

74. That you're troubled that, as Professor Thomas Sowell also notes, the values of John McCain and Sarah Palin "are the values of this nation, whose loyalty and dedication to this country’s fundamental institutions are beyond question" and this cannot be said about Obama, is no reason.

75. That you're troubled by reports that as much as $63 million in campaign contributions to the Obama campaign in amounts smaller than the $200 required to be reported federally are from foreign sources, may be illegal, are not tracked by the Obama campaign though McCain tracks ALL his contributions, and more than 80% of all Obama contributions are not identified and may not be identifiable, is no reason.

76. That you're troubled that the Obama campaign had deliberately collected tens if not hundres of millions of illegal contributions by disabling all security settings on online credit card systems so as to facilitate fake and foreign contributions and contributions over the limit and have no controls for contributions under $200 though the McCain campaign has all such controls, obviously seeking to steal the election and disenfranchise American voters, is no reason.

77. That you're troubled by the Gestapo tactics against Obama critics like the attacks on Joe the Plumber and throwing reporters off the campaign plane whose organizations endorse McCain, is no reason.

That you're troubled that if you don't vote for McCain/Palin you will be doing a dangerous disservice to your country and generations of Americans is no reason, either.

To be sure, in Obama's circle of America-haters, Jeremiah Wright and Willam (Bill) Ayers rank high. Wright's rantings of "God Damn America" still ring in our ears. And how can one forget Ayers' bombings of the Capitol and the Pentagon and his (fortunately) failed plans to explode a nail bomb at a Fort Dix dance?

But are there other Obama America-haters as despicable? Some say yes.

Rashid Khalidi was a spokesman for Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization at a time when the U.S. had designated it a terrorist organization. PLO members killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Khalidi left Lebanon and wound up in Chicago sharing many dinners with Obama and his wife. Obama toasted him as he left Chicago to head up the most anti-Israeli Middle East Studies program in America at Columbia. Obama steered money from a foundation he chaired to an organization headed by Khalidi that in turn sent money off to the terrorist PLO.

It's no wonder that a recent poll in Israel had McCain favored overwhelmingly 46% to 34%. The Middle East expert and Israeli author Caroline Glick has called Obama's rise "frightening."

Check this Power Lilne report out.

Update: Guess what? Andy McCarthy does some digging and finds out that Ayers and Khalidi were best friends. Khalidi and Obama were buddies. And Ayers and Obama together handed out tens of millions of foundation money to radical groups, including $75,000 to Khalidi's rabidly anti-Israel foundation, which in turn funneled money to the PLO. All these fine folks gathered together for a farewell party for Khalidi who was off to head Columbia's anti-Israeli Middle East Studies department. Obama was reported to have offered a toast, as did many others. Imagine what the remarks about Israel were! Actually, one doesn't have to imagine: The Obama-backing Los Angeles Times has a tape of the reception. But the Times refuses to release it. Journalism's highest standards at work. Where's the outrage?

Ealier we posted a projection about the "Islamic Future of Europe" and what it portends for the United States.

One of the few courageous office holders in Europe who is trying to mobilize a resistance to save the Judeo-Christian history and character of Europe is Dutch parliamentarian and chairman of the Freedom Party Geert Wilders. Just a few days ago he gave an important warning to a gathering in New York City.

He led off with a blunt statement: "The problem is Islam itself." Yes, there are moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as moderate Islam.

The Koran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Koran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam.

[T]he entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam. This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites.

[T]here is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

(How difficult it is for the resistance to form was dramatically illustrated in Cologne two weekends ago when a gathering of 1500 to discuss ways to combat Islam was broken up by left wing street thugs while the police looked on. To turn truth on its head, Cologne's mayor said democracy had triumphed. What is happening in the U.S. has already occurred in Europe: The far left from elites to thugs has united with Islam because they share the goal of destroying Judeo-Christian civilizaition.)

Before his talk, he showed a short video he had prepared called Fitna that no Dutch television channel dared to carry. It was posted on the internet instead. (Because of Muslim death threats it was taken down and later moved to another website.) Wilders lives under threats of death and is surrounded by bodyguards at all times. In the Netherlands he is seldom seen outside of parliament and he changes his sleeping location regularly to thwart attacks.

Fitna contains scenes of Muslim violence with verses of the Koran superimposed. There is no fictionalizing; it is all true. It takes about 15 minutes to view. Below the video clip is Wilders' warning. After seeing the film and reading Wilders' words, one can understand why John McCain calls Islam the "transcendent challenge" of our time, a threat his presidential opponent believes (or at least says) doesn't exist.

The full text of the Wilders' warning.

September 30, 2008

A Wise Warning from Europe about America’s Future

Geert Wilders

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario from becoming a reality.

My short lecture consists of four parts.

First, I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit about the movie you just saw. To close, I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer,walk threesteps ahead. With mosques on many street corners. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark serve only halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam, gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore.” Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England, Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25% of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they “understand” the 9/11 attacks.

Muslims demand what they call “respect.” And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept Sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators “settlers.” Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries.

Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Koran. The Koran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Koran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Koran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Koran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world,” and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Koran.

Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Koran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell-out.

A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.

Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to lose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: “Islam has bloody borders.” Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is Jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It IS Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in what President Reagan so aptly called: “the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”

If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites. Change can come only from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60% of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don’t think the public opinion in Holland is very different from other European countries.

Patriotic parties that oppose Jihad are growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with 5% of the vote. Now it stands at 10% in the polls. The same is true of all similarly-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.

Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be Europe’s last chance.

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will admit only parties that are solidly democratic.

This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support.

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks to its location, it is safe from jihad and Sharia. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Geert Wilders is chairman of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands.

Even though there is plenty to worry about in this country, what is playing out in Europe cannot be ignored. Muslims are becoming more numerous and powerful and are openly seeking to transform the continent into an Islamic land under, at some point, Islamic law.

Those who value the democratic principles of the west, including free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and the equality of women are increasingly concerned and are starting to speak out.

However, a strange union has taken place between Muslims and the far left, both of which have as an ultimate goal the destruction of the dominance of Western civilization.

This past weekend in Cologne saw those assembling at a conference to express concern for Western values silenced by violent mob action supported by police of the city, with the apparent appproval of the elected mayor. Doublespeak was in evidence as the mayor called the total disruption of the conference “a victory by the democratic forces of the city.”

“It couldn’t happen here,” would be the typical American reaction. Oh, no?

As in Europe, huge mosque complexes are opening across the States -- one very recently in Boston and another in Atlanta. Do they portend the extension and entrenchment of Islamic law in the United States? One difference between the United States and Europe is that we don't have street thugs enforcing a code of silence on the subject. That's because of the other difference: We don't have any political parties willing, or even able to discuss it.

If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.

Well, it won't. Islam is an aggressive, expansionist ideology bent on world domination. It is extremely well-funded with oil monies (from the West) and being advanced by a large and growing percentage of true believers among the 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide. It is a threat that no political party in the U.S. dares confront, as has been the case in Europe. In Britain, 20 years of denial have resulted in a large Muslim population 40% of whom want Islamic law to replace British law. Even in the United States, a recent poll of American Muslims found that 26% of young people 14 to 30 felt that suicide bombings were justifiable sometimes. That's not a threat?

Cologne's Anti-Islamization Conference Shut Down by Mayor, Police and Thugs

Diana West, Syndicated Columnist
Thursday, September 25, 2008

Continue reading "ISLAMIC POWER SHUTS DOWN FREE SPEECH IN GERMANY"

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September 11, 2001 was a public declaration that the 1400-year war proclaimed by Mohammad against the rest of the world had entered a new and very dangerous phase.

This war is being waged every day throughout the world, usually not making headlines, but being proclaimed anew and plotted in mosques in such places as London, Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, New York and Islamabad.

The goal of the war of Islamic supremacism is global rule, with, in the United States, the Constitution being replaced by Sharia, Islamic law.

The enemy is patient, clever and determined and works not only through warfare and terror, but also quietly by such techniques as demands for special treamtment and cries of victimhood and discrimination, using our very openness, tolerance, political correctness and laws to subvert our way of life.

We cannot forget, we cannot rest.

Iranian exile Amir Tahiri takes the occasion of a joint visit by McCain and Obama to Ground Zero to contrast their views on the existential threat of Islam to the rest of the world. McCain calls it the "transcendent challenge" of our times. Obama doesn't see it.

WHEN all is said and done, this election may well have only one big issue: the existential threat that Islamist terrorism poses to America's safety. Since McCain and Obama offer radically different policies for facing that threat, American voters do have a real choice.

Tahiri's article:

THE LESSONS OF 9/11 By AMIR TAHERI in the New York Post

September 11, 2008 --
TODAY's joint visit to Ground Zero may give the impression that John McCain and Barack Obama share a common analysis of the causes of 9/11 and how to deal with its legacy. They don't.

The divide starts with the question: Why was America attacked?

McCain's answer is simple (or, as Obama might suggest, simplistic): The United States was attacked because a resurgent Islam has produced a radicalism that dreams of world conquest and sees America as the enemy.

In different shapes and sizes and under a range of labels, that radical streak of Islam has waged war on America since 1979, when Khomeinists seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.

The killing of 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983, the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and a host of other operations that claimed more American lives were episodes in a war - the reality of which the United States faced only after 9/11.

McCain doesn't hesitate to acknowledge that his country is engaged in a Global War on Terror. He doesn't believe that 9/11 might've been prompted by some wrong America did to others. To him, the nation was an innocent victim of "Islamic terrorism."

McCain asserts, "America faces a dedicated, focused and intelligent foe in the War on Terrorism. This enemy will probe to find America's weaknesses and strike against them. The United States cannot afford to be complacent about the threat, naive about terrorist intentions, unrealistic about their capabilities, or ignorant to our national vulnerabilities."

He'd pursue and fight these "enemies" wherever they are - including, especially, in Iraq. "If we run away," he says, "they are going to follow us home."

OBAMA, by contrast, doesn't use terms such as "the Global War on Terror" or "Islamic terrorism." Nor does he claim that America was simply an innocent victim.

In one speech, he used the image of a US helicopter flying over the poor countries in Africa and Asia, where it's seen as a symbol of oppression. He says his objective is to turn that helicopter into a symbol of American aid to the downtrodden.

For Obama, the threat comes not from terrorists but from "extremists" and their "program of hate." He never uses such terms as "jihadist," judging them hurtful to Muslims. He speaks of "violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims."

In one speech, he claimed that the Islamists aim only at "creating a repressive caliphate." He seemingly hasn't heard of jihadist movements whose declared aim is to destroy the United States in the name of Islam.

For McCain, the War on Terror is a "just war" in which Americans fight for their security and their allies'. Obama rejects the concept of "just war." He dismisses the Iraq war as both "unnecessary and unjust" - though the struggle in Afghanistan is "a necessary war."

ONE constant Obama theme is the claim that poverty and economic factors breed terrorism; this echoes the analysis of Jimmy Carter back in the '70s. Strengthening that impression is Obama's pick of Sen. Joseph Biden as running mate.

Read it all.

Robert Spencer is the modern-day equivalent of Paul Revere, seeking to awaken the American people to a threat that is closing in on us and which we must fight to the death.

In 1775 the American people awakened and a great nation, the greatest on earth, was born.

In 2008, whatever new awakening may have taken place in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, seems to have run its course. Americans by and large have gone back to sleep. We have forgotten, if we ever grasped it in the first place, what the aims were of those true believers of Islam who brought mass murder to America.

We aren't fighting a Global War on Terror. We are the target of a Global War of World Conquest being waged by the true believers of Islam, who are carrying out Mohammad's command to make the world subject to Islamic power.

Continue reading "REAWAKENING AMERICA"

Why does John McCain describe radical Islam as the "transcendent challenge" of our times?

Unless there is a revolution of the natives, European civilization in Europe will disappear before the end of this century. Already 20 to 50 million Muslims are in Europe, most of whom have refused to assimilate. They cluster in their own neighborhoods living as they would in Pakistan or Sudan, maintaining their alien Islamic culture and intimidating the natives to change their practices and ways. Continuing immigration and high birth rates -- while the natives are failing to even reproduce their numbers -- are leading to increasing Muslim dominance. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for example, are close to being majority Muslim cities now.

What will a Muslim-dominated Europe be like?

Under Islamic law, if one refuses to become Muslim, one is subject to death unless he or she agrees to a humiliating, underclass status (dhimmitude) and pays special (historically onerous) taxes not levied on Muslims. During the so-called Golden Age of Islam Islamic centers such as Baghdad and Damascus flourished with the riches of those taxes and the hired talents of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and other non-Muslims. As the generations went on, non-Muslims tired of their underclass status and converted to Islam and became as warlike and and uninterested in real work as their fellow Muslims. So Muslim society collapsed and has been revived only because of the discovery and development in Muslim lands -- by westerners -- of oil and gas vital to the West.

Europe is succumbing to a demographic and ideological takeover, the kind of jihad that is already being waged against the United States.

Muslims are smart enough to realize they have the best chance now in 1400 years to take over the world: They have the oil, they have the money, they have the true believers (growing greater in numbers every day as Saudi madrassas recruit the young to what Mohammad commanded was every Muslim’s duty – jihad until Islam rules the world). What Iran’s leaders say about killing Americans (Great Satan) and Israeli (Little Satan) is no aberration, no departure from Koranic teaching at all. They and the House of Saud may be contending for leadership of the Islamic masses or ummah, but they are united in their goal of achieving power over the world.

With their supreme sense of superiority, an imperial ideology, more than a billion adherents (whom they are willing to sacrifice in the millions) and, soon, nuclear weapons facing off against an anxious-to-please, politically correct, pacifist, let-us-reason-together West, who will have to lead the fight against them if not the United States?

Unflortunately, for America's and the world's sake, Obama doesn't see the challenge at all. As he said in Berlin, all walls between Muslims and the rest of the world should come down and peace will prevail. History tells a different story.

Turkey has slowly and steadily been dismantling the secular state created by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s. Ataturk recognized the insidious nature of Islam and barred that ideology from public life. As a result, Turkey began developing a functioning economy, established close ties with the United States and became a member of NATO, the only Muslim-majority nation to do so.

It also sought to join the European Union, which has caused great unease among the European peoples because that would add anywhere from 70 to 90 million Muslims to the 20 to 50 Muslims already in Europe, most of whom are not assimilating but seem bent on making Europe Islamic.

The election of the Islamist AK Party in 2002 under Prime Minister Recep Erdogan began the transformation towards a de facto Islamic state. It has accelerated since his party’s reelection. Caroline Glick, the world’s leading analyst of the Middle East, details the challenge this presents to the U.S., which challenge the U.S. is currently flunking.

What is Erdogan’s party doing? A sampling:

SINCE TAKING office in 2002, the AKP under Erdogan has taken control over Turkey's bureaucracy. It has weakened women's rights. It has launched brutal campaigns against its foes in the media, taking over opposition television stations and arresting and intimidating anti-Islamic editors and reporters. It has taken over the Turkish secret police and regular police forces. It has stacked the Turkish courts with its loyalists. It has enabled the opening of radical Islamic madrassas. It has penetrated the military and demoralized and intimidated the senior officer corps. It has ignored court judgments against it.

Since 2002 Turkey has changed from a staunch American ally to become the most anti-American society in the world, inflamed by the strident fundamentalist Islamic agenda fostered and encouraged by the AKP. It is becoming a threat to the West.

Turkey's Abandonment of the West

Aug. 11, 2008
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

Russia's invasion of Georgia should serve as proof that there are some regimes that simply cannot be considered strategic allies of the West. And as the US and NATO try to assess the wreckage of their attempt to forge a post-Soviet alliance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, another erstwhile ally is showing that it too, cannot be trusted.

On Wednesday, Iran's genocidal, nuclear weapons-seeking leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will arrive in Istanbul for a "working visit" with Turkish leaders. This visit represents a diplomatic triumph for Teheran. Since assuming office three years ago, Ahmadinejad has feverishly pursued diplomatic ties with Western-allied states in an effort to weaken the West's will to take action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Turkey is the first NATO member to welcome him to its territory.
late.

Continue reading "TURKEY TURNING TO ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM"

Sometime ago the Canadian-born writer Mark Steyn, who now lives in New Hampshire, wrote this paragraph which encapsulates the entire problem with how blind Americans are to what is in reality an existential threat:

I found myself behind a car in Vermont, in the US, the other day; it had a one-word bumper sticker with the injunction "COEXIST". It's one of those sentiments beloved of Western progressives, one designed principally to flatter their sense of moral superiority. The C was the Islamic crescent, the O was the hippie peace sign, the X was the Star of David and the T was the Christian cross. Very nice, hard to argue with.

But the reality is, it's the first of those symbols that has a problem with coexistence. Take the crescent out of the equation and you wouldn't need a bumper sticker at all. Indeed, coexistence is what the Islamists are at war with; or, if you prefer, pluralism, the idea that different groups can rub along together within the same general neighbourhood.

There are many trouble spots across the world but, as a general rule, even if one gives no more than a cursory glance at the foreign pages, it's easy to guess at least one of the sides: Muslims v Jews in Palestine, Muslims v Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims v Christians in Nigeria, Muslims v Buddhists in southern Thailand, Muslims v (your team here). Whatever one's views of the merits on a case by case basis, the ubiquitousness of one team is a fact.

This is why John McCain says radical Islam is the "transcendent challenge" of our times.

Bruce Bawer is an American homosexual who move to Europe in hopes of finding a more compatible culture. He first settled in the Netherlands and then moved to Norway. To his shock and dismay, Europe was not what he imagined: the presence of Muslims had made the continent not only more hostile to gays such as himself, Muslims were more hostile to the native-born, who increasingly live in fear of aggressive, violent Muslim youth. His 2006 first hand account of his experience became a best-seller and is well worth reading: While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within.

Bawer chooses a single example (and alludes to another) to demonstrate how Norwegian Muslims play their game and how craven the natives are, pretending that their Muslims are integrating so well.

What both of these stories underscore is that on every front, and with every weapon they can find — lawsuits, veiled threats, guilt-tripping, and puff pieces masquerading as journalism — Islamists are poking and prodding at the edifice of European democracy in a tireless effort to weaken the system and bend it ever more surely toward sharia. They’ve realized that the work of jihad — of restoring the caliphate, of making Europe a part of the umma — doesn’t require suicide bombs and airplane missiles; for the prevalence in the West of useful idiots who’ve been brainwashed by multiculturalism makes such weapons superfluous.

John McCain has repeatedly warned that radical Islam is the "transcendent challenge" of our times. No doubt most people think he's talking about Iraq and Afghanistan. He's not. He is referring to a global war by true believers of Islam, funded in the trillions by oil sales to the West, to make Islam supreme in the world. As Bawer notes, conquest doesn't always require suicide bombs when multicultural brainwashed idiots can't see what's happening before their very eyes.

The basic question under discussion in Norway is whether gays should be executed. A Norwegian Muslim says he's waiting word from the Fatwa Council of Europe, but is sure the Council will say European law must control (for now). So how are the bureaucrats and media treating this equivocation?

Read the story and you'll know exactly what is already happening in the United States as well -- an unrelenting effort to make this nation part of the universal Islamic ummah which is being deliberately ignored by media and government alike, because the implications are too hard to deal with.

European Muslims Debate: Should Gays Be Executed?

August 7, 2008 - by Bruce Bawer

One of the pillars of the future totalitarian state in 1984 is the practice of doublethink, which Orwell defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.”

As it happens, this is a precise description of exactly what’s been going on in many parts of Europe in recent years, as multicultural ideology has been confronted by realities about Islam that, in a doublethink-free world, would send that ideology crashing to the ground in flames.

Continue reading "CONFRONTING (?) ISLAM IN EUROPE"

Posted by Republican on Sunday, August 10, 2008 at 7:48 PM
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As we count the reasons why, consider this one.

Ah, free speech, that Western concept.

What do you do when publishers assert their devotion to free speech, but then say they are afraid someone is going to get killed if they publish your work?

Not in America, you say? Well, think again.

Publishers who regular print books that demean Jesus and trash Christianity (think The Da Vinci Code) think differently when the book is about Islam.

An American writer Sherry Jones labored in research for years to produce her novel about one the most interesting of Muhammad's 12 wives. ((When Muhammad came across what would have been wife number five, after Allah had said up to four wives per man was ok with him, Allah appeared to Muhammad and said the Prophet, as his special messenger on earth, could have as many wives as he wanted.)

Aisha was married to Muhammad at six and had her first sexual relations with him when she was nine. She was a favorite of Muhammad and, from reports, was quite intelligent and truthful. In the morning after the night when Muhammad said Allah had lifted him out of his bed for a whirlwind tour of Jerusalem, Hell and Heaven, Aisha said she was at his elbow all night and he hadn't gone anywhere. (This magical ride is the main reason for Jerusalem being considered islam's third most holy site.)

The American writer's novel was scheduled to be released August 12th (next week).

Then last May Random House choked and said it wouldn't be publishing the novel out of fear of deadly retribution. Defenders of Islam said there would be killings if anything was published that they considered insulting to the memory of Muhammad -- even though what was imagined was well within the bounds of what was known about Muhammad's lustful life.

To this day "The Jewel of Medina" is without a publisher. For more details about Islam's disdain for freedom of speech, click here.

This kind of pressure and threats is achieving great success in shutting down criticism of Islam in Europe -- and in the United States. Even the truth, not just opinion, can be stifled if the threat of violence is considered real. A scholarly review "Free Speech in an age of jihad" can be obtained here.

Israel's UN Ambasador's final speech before the UN Security Council has urgent meaning for Americans.

Ambassador Gillerman said the world is not dealing with a clash of civilizations, but rather with a "clash of civilization, in the singular" - within Islam.

Most of the horror, most of the bloodshed, most of the killings, and most of the violence… is sadly and tragically within Islam. Not only are the majority of terrorists Muslim, but also the majority of terror victims around the world.

The Ambassador deplored the "eerie silence of the Muslim world" in the face of terrorism, and expressed his hope to see a Muslim leader emerge who would say "enough is enough, what are we doing?"

The Islam that seems to breed violence, hatred and death is increasingly a threat in Europe and the United States. What Israel has experienced can happen in America unless the nation takes effective steps to prevent it. As Gillerman said,

Imagine a bulldozer cruising down Fifth Avenue or the Champs Elysees and crushing cars.

Sitting in a coffee house in Paris, Moscow and New York, costs a few dollars. Sitting in a coffee house in Jerusalem could cost many lives.

McCain recognizes the threat. Strong leadership is needed to thwart Islamic supremacism's threat to our way of life, wherever it appears, be it in Jerusalem, Baghdad, Kabul, London or New York.

For a report on Gillerman's speech, click here.

The New Yorker chuckles with glee that its Manchurian candidate will make it to the Oval Office despite who he is.

Though this is presumably satire by the left-wing magazine, many will see the cover as making it legitimate to raise questions about such things as Obama's sympathy for the Palestinian cause, why he downplays the seriousness of the War on Terror and his friendship with terrorists who blew up buildings in Washington and New York and with his Muslim cousin Raila Odinga who ran for president of Kenya reportedly promising to Muslim groups that, if elected, he would impose Sharia, Islamic law, and stamp out all Christian missionary activity.

If The New Yorker can raise such issues, why can't others?

Obama has been working diligently to shut down all questioning about his lack of experience, his unsavory associations and his extremism by equating criticism of him with racism. The New Yorker has blown that strategy with its cover. Freedom of speech wins.

For other views on what looks like a bungled effort to show support for Obama, see PowerLine and Michelle Malkin.

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The West's premier analyst of the Middle East Caroline Glick, who writes for the Jerusalem Post, was in the audience when President Bush gave his address to Israel's Knesset pledging American support for Israel in the face of Iran's threat to wipe it off the map.

In particular, the President said this:

'Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided. We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Glick had this to say:

‘To Israeli ears, Bush's words were uncontroversial. Israel is beset by enemies who daily call for its physical annihilation and while doing so, build and support terror forces who attack Israel. For most Israelis, the notion that these enemies can be appeased is absurd and deeply offensive.’

‘From an Israeli vantage point then, it was shocking to see that immediately after Bush stepped down from the rostrum, Obama and his Democratic supporters began pillorying him for his remarks. Most distressing is what Obama's reaction said about the Democratic presidential hopeful.’

‘OBAMA'S RESPONSE to Bush's speech was an effective acknowledgement that appeasing Iran and other terror sponsors is a defining feature of his campaign and of his political persona. As far as he is concerned, an attack against appeasement is an attack against Obama.

She went on to observe:

‘LIKE HIS life story, Obama's policies are not based on facts, but on his attitude. And his attitude, like Mencken's in the 1930s, is based on a naïve and arrogant belief that the worst thing that can happen is to have someone who talks about evil in the White House.

Peter Osnos, Obama's former publisher told the Times that Obama's meteoric rise to the pinnacle of politics is due in large part to his gift as a storyteller. In his words, "It's almost all based on these two books, two books not based on a job of prodigious research or risking one's life as a reporter in Iraq. He has written about himself. Being able to take your own life story and turn it into this incredibly lucrative franchise, it's a stunning fact."

Indeed, it is stunning. And frightening. It says that in a world in which evil men are combining and preparing for war and genocide, good men are preparing for pleasant chitchat with their foes because they have come to prefer attitude to substance. It is a world in which indignation can be summoned as readily (and perhaps more easily) for partisan political attacks as for delusional dictators’ open preparation for genocide. And it is a world in which it is more important to discuss "healing" emotional wounds than devising policies capable of coping with an ever-more-dangerous international coalition of murderers.

That Glick was shocked and dismayed at Obama's naivete, self-absorption and indifference to reality is to state the obvious. Indeed, "frightening." To read her entire article, click here.