Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Free Republic has posted the text of Rick Santorum's new speech online here. I believe this speech is Churchillian in its open-eyed honesty. Once again the clouds are gathering.
Here are a few portions below:
Here are a few portions below:
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Amir Taheri makes the case: a defeat for the enemy in the combat zone, a victory in the American media. Well worth reading. Here. Hat tip Rush.
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Radio Netherlands is covering a developing story that a sermon in a mosque in the Netherlands may have inspired the murder of Dutch filmaker Theo van Gogh. A recording of the sermon exists. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.
I am a Christian pastor and have been leading prayers in church for 30 years. We pray for the conversion of our enemies, and for God to frustrate the plans of our enemies. I have never heard a Christian prayer like the excerpt from this Muslim sermon. And I have listened to a lot of sermons and services in person, over radio, and some on television.
In the recording of the sermon, Imam Fawaz calls Theo van Gogh a 'criminal bastard' and beseeches Allah to visit an incurable disease upon the filmmaker. He also condemns former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who was involved in writing the script for Submission. The imam asks Allah to make Ms Hirsi Ali go blind and give her cancer of the tongue and brain.
I am a Christian pastor and have been leading prayers in church for 30 years. We pray for the conversion of our enemies, and for God to frustrate the plans of our enemies. I have never heard a Christian prayer like the excerpt from this Muslim sermon. And I have listened to a lot of sermons and services in person, over radio, and some on television.
31/10: Pension Funds and Terrorism
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
What is your state, and your pension fund, doing in the War against Islamic Supremacists? From Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., in the Jewish World Review.
Under Treasurer Steelman's leadership, the Missouri Investment Trust (MIT) has become the first public pension fund in the nation to divest from its portfolio the stocks of companies doing business with state-sponsors of terror like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan. She has thereby ensured that the fund's beneficiaries are not unwittingly having their retirement savings invested in ways that are strategically counterproductive, morally reprehensible and even ill-advised from a financial point of view. (A study done for Ms. Steelman proved that the MIT would have performed better last year had it been terror-free than it was investing in companies partnering with our enemies.) She has also helped empower American investors to privatize the war for the Free World.
Under Treasurer Steelman's leadership, the Missouri Investment Trust (MIT) has become the first public pension fund in the nation to divest from its portfolio the stocks of companies doing business with state-sponsors of terror like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Sudan. She has thereby ensured that the fund's beneficiaries are not unwittingly having their retirement savings invested in ways that are strategically counterproductive, morally reprehensible and even ill-advised from a financial point of view. (A study done for Ms. Steelman proved that the MIT would have performed better last year had it been terror-free than it was investing in companies partnering with our enemies.) She has also helped empower American investors to privatize the war for the Free World.
28/10: On the European Front
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Absolute multiculturalism in Britain questioned by unlikely figures. From TCS Daily. Here Hat tip Instapundit.
In the last few days in Britain, three events have caused what was already a small crack in the paper-thin edifice of "multiculturalism" in Britain to widen to a noticeable fissure.
Muslims revolting in France. From Worldtribune. Here. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."
The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.
The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.
. . . .
France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.
Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.
Paging Charles Martel and Richard the Lion-Hearted.
In the last few days in Britain, three events have caused what was already a small crack in the paper-thin edifice of "multiculturalism" in Britain to widen to a noticeable fissure.
Muslims revolting in France. From Worldtribune. Here. Hat tip Jihadwatch.
"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," said Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union. "This is not a question of urban violence any more. It is an intifada, with stones and firebombs."
The French Interior Ministry has acknowledged the Muslim uprising. The ministry said more than 2,500 police officers have been injured in 2006. This amounts to at least 14 officers each day.
The battles have been under-reported but alarming to French authorities. Muslim street commanders, who run lucrative drug networks, have organized youngsters in housing projects to ambush police and confront security forces. The response time allows hundreds of Muslims to storm police cars and patrols within minutes.
. . . .
France's huge Muslim minority community has come under the influence of agents often influenced and financed by Al Qaida. These agents have recruited Muslim youngsters for urban warfare in which police and government representatives are injured daily.
Not surprisingly, Muslim neighborhoods are becoming autonomous zones, with police and government workers too scared to enter. The police union is demanding the Interior Ministry supply officers with armored cars.
Paging Charles Martel and Richard the Lion-Hearted.
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
Wizbang today has this post on changing Iraq strategy. I think it well worth reading. A portion below, read the whole thing.
As I understand it, there are three levels of planning in the military: objectives, strategies, and tactics. Objectives describe what we wish to do. Strategies describe how we will do that. And tactics are what we will do.
In Iraq, as I think it goes, the objective was to remove the Baathist government from power, help the Iraqi people establish a new, freer government, and work to make sure that new government was not the threat to its neighbors and vital US interests that Saddam had been.
The strategy was to invade Iraq, defeat and disband the military, and then establish a new civil and military structure that could maintain its own security without threatening others'.
The tactics involve careful use of airpower and ground power against select locales, groups, and individuals; establishment of civilian institutions and governing bodies; national elections; and rebuilding of key elements of Iraq's infrastructure.
There is an old saying that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, and it is true. It is true in a way that almost never translates into non-military matters, because only in actual warfare is there a real enemy determined to foil your plans, to the point of being more than willing to destroy, kill, or die in the attempt.
As I understand it, there are three levels of planning in the military: objectives, strategies, and tactics. Objectives describe what we wish to do. Strategies describe how we will do that. And tactics are what we will do.
In Iraq, as I think it goes, the objective was to remove the Baathist government from power, help the Iraqi people establish a new, freer government, and work to make sure that new government was not the threat to its neighbors and vital US interests that Saddam had been.
The strategy was to invade Iraq, defeat and disband the military, and then establish a new civil and military structure that could maintain its own security without threatening others'.
The tactics involve careful use of airpower and ground power against select locales, groups, and individuals; establishment of civilian institutions and governing bodies; national elections; and rebuilding of key elements of Iraq's infrastructure.
There is an old saying that no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, and it is true. It is true in a way that almost never translates into non-military matters, because only in actual warfare is there a real enemy determined to foil your plans, to the point of being more than willing to destroy, kill, or die in the attempt.
24/10: Islamic Civilization?
Great essay, as usual, by Victor Davis Hansen here. Hat tip Instapundit.
It is difficult in history to find any civilization that asks as much of others as does the contemporary Middle East—and yet so little of itself. If I were to sum up the collective mentality of the current Arab Middle East—predicated almost entirely on the patriarchal sense of lost “honor” and the rational calculation to murder appeasing liberals and appease murdering authoritarians— it would run something like the following: Read the whole thing.
It is difficult in history to find any civilization that asks as much of others as does the contemporary Middle East—and yet so little of itself. If I were to sum up the collective mentality of the current Arab Middle East—predicated almost entirely on the patriarchal sense of lost “honor” and the rational calculation to murder appeasing liberals and appease murdering authoritarians— it would run something like the following: Read the whole thing.
18/10: Darfur
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
More evidence that the government of Sudan is behind the genocide in Darfur. From BBC via the Khaleej Times.
LONDON - The Sudanese government is supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, which the United States accuses of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Citing an interview with a man identified only as ‘Ali’, a former member of the militia who admitted to killing innocent villagers in Darfur, the BBC said that Sudanese soldiers trained Janjaweed militiamen, and that the country’s air force bombed a village before the militia went in to kill villagers.
‘Ali’ served in the militia for two years, and is currently seeking asylum in Britain. The BBC consulted other Darfuri exiles in Britain and presented the interview to a psychologist who studied his interview, all of whom believed him.
‘The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained, they will give us guns and ammunition. We will be split into two groups -- one on horses, one on camels,’ the man told the broadcaster’s evening current affairs programme.
Asked how he knew the men training him were from the government, ‘Ali’ said: ‘They were wearing the uniforms of the military.’
When asked to name the members of the government who were ordering his forces, the man said that one ‘very well known and regular visitor’ was Sudan’s interior minister -- Abdul Rahim Hussein.
Article here. Hat tip Jihadwatch. My earlier post.
Thoughts below.
LONDON - The Sudanese government is supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, which the United States accuses of genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Citing an interview with a man identified only as ‘Ali’, a former member of the militia who admitted to killing innocent villagers in Darfur, the BBC said that Sudanese soldiers trained Janjaweed militiamen, and that the country’s air force bombed a village before the militia went in to kill villagers.
‘Ali’ served in the militia for two years, and is currently seeking asylum in Britain. The BBC consulted other Darfuri exiles in Britain and presented the interview to a psychologist who studied his interview, all of whom believed him.
‘The people who trained us came from the north, from the government. They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained, they will give us guns and ammunition. We will be split into two groups -- one on horses, one on camels,’ the man told the broadcaster’s evening current affairs programme.
Asked how he knew the men training him were from the government, ‘Ali’ said: ‘They were wearing the uniforms of the military.’
When asked to name the members of the government who were ordering his forces, the man said that one ‘very well known and regular visitor’ was Sudan’s interior minister -- Abdul Rahim Hussein.
Article here. Hat tip Jihadwatch. My earlier post.
Thoughts below.
From an OpEd in the New York Times.
FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
Read entire OpEd. Hat tip LGF.
FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”
A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
Read entire OpEd. Hat tip LGF.
95 things that anger Muslims here
