The Bosque Boys

China has an extensive and aggressive network in the U.S. working hard to aquire military technology. See this article. (link from Instapundit). So when do we impose sanctions against the Chicom government? We are enabling a powerful enemy to become more powerful by our trade policies.

Wonder why the Iranians have stated that they will not respond to the latest proposal till August 22? Here is a chilling thought from Zionist. Link from LGF.
August 22 is the Muslim celebration of the reconquest of Jerusalem. Combine that with Ahmadinejad's belief that he and Iran have a special role to play in the return of the Hidden Imam, and it could hit the fan. (Which I think it will when the Iranians have the bomb and a capable delivery system.)

See my earlier post on Deterence and the Mullahs.

In the last several weeks I have had occasion to meet, and in some cases to talk with, a few ex-Muslims who now are Christians. And I have had occasion to talk with several folks in a position to know about Muslim conversions to Christianity in Africa, Asia, even the Middle East. As I mentioned in a previous post, we today are seeing the conversion of Muslims in numbers that are unprecedented in history. Part of the fear driving the violent Muslims may be the weakness of today's Islam, a weakness that tries to hide itself with violence.

See this earlier post.

The last couple of days I've had suspicious thoughts about a couple of world events, but have not posted since I thought--no, I'm just paranoid. However, some others on the web have posted such thoughts.

First, Russia kills a major Chechen enemy commander (link to Wizbang), and Chechen rebels experience a bad "work accident" that kills a significant leader. (link to Jihadwatch) Is it a coincidence that these events happen during the time when Iran needs Russia to block any actions by the U.S. in the Security Council? Jihadwatch raises that question: reminding readers that the Iranians have been supporters of the Chechens.

Second, the media, and U.S. government, assumes that Communist China tried very hard to stop the North Koreans from launching those missles. Did they indeed? The Chicoms said they did, but . . . . Fact: the Chinese regard us as their chief adversary; Fact: it is to their benefit that we concentrate on numerous threats around the world; Fact: the Chicoms got an opportunity to glean intelligence from our response to the missles. A former Reagan administration official expressed his suspicions of the Chicoms. (link from Drudge)

If these suspicions are correct, then diplomacy has about as much chance with NK and Iran as it had with Saddam, for similar reasons.

Most of earth's territory has been conquered, often many times, by a succession of peoples. In the U.S. we think of our own conquest of native tribes (who themselves were often conquerors, e.g. the Sioux did nor originate in the Dakotas nor the Comanche in Texas or Oklahoma). And, most Anglos, even those most sympathetic to Native Peoples, are not getting on boats or planes and going back to Europe. Of course that would not solve the problem. Celts might demand that Germanic peoples move back east, ad infinitum. Those Hispanics who claim the southwestern U.S. should go back to Mexican peoples could be met by claims from Navajo or Apache.

Regardless of what our moral sense is regarding conquest, after a while we accept the movement of peoples as an accomplished fact. Which brings me to a question I have asked regarding the nation of Israel. To the Arab nations: how long does the nation of Israel have to be in place before you recognize it as legitimate? If the answer is "never, we will always regard it as conquered land," then I ask this question: why should we accept the Arab conquest of the Middle East about 1400 years ago as legitimate? Why should not Egypt be the land of the Copts, Iraq the land of the Chaldeans and others, Morocco the land of the Berbers? Arabs back to Arabia! In other words, if the position is taken that the Jews never can be legitimate occupiers of Israel, no matter how long they are there, then Islamic Arab claims on huge chunks of territory have no logical basis, no claim on the land either.

Of course, the real motivation, I maintain, is not nationalist, but religious. In Islamic thought, none of the Land of Submission ever can be given up (call it the Al Brezhnev Doctrine).

The Roman Catholic Church is beginning to take a harder line against Islamic denials of the rights of Christians in Muslim lands. Read the article. Link from LGF.

We have done previous posts on this topic. Here and Here

To have a reasoned discussion, both sides must be reasonable. See this article in the Times on Muslim attitudes in Britain uncovered by an undercover reporter. Link from LGF.

Here is an excerpt.

Focus: Undercover on planet Beeston
Sunday Times reporter Ali Hussain spent six weeks in Beeston, where three of the 7/7 bombers came from. He found an enclosed community, rife with conspiracy theories

The rich smell of Indian spices wafted along the road. Voices babbled in Urdu and Sylheti, a Bangladeshi dialect that my own family speak. Thick-bearded men in robes strolled the streets and youngsters wore their jeans rolled above the ankle after leaving the mosque, as Muslim custom requires.

I felt both at home and in a foreign land. This could almost be an Asian city, I thought, rather than Beeston, the suburb of Leeds where two of the July 7 bombers had lived.

I had come to gauge the mood of the community after the 7/7 attacks, which struck London a year ago this week. The world I knew as a British Muslim sprang from cosmopolitan roots, and I wanted to discover what the people of this more insular community really felt about the bombers and western culture.

I found myself both drawn to the warm embrace of the Muslim community that dominates Beeston, and shocked by the views it espoused in private.

Jihadwatch today has a great post contrasting the statements in the Declaration of Independence with statements by Muslim leaders. Read the post.

Here is a portion:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." — Declaration of Independence

"Thus if [a] Muslim commits adultery his punishment is 100 lashes, the shaving of his head, and one year of banishment. But if the man is not a Muslim and commits adultery with a Muslim woman his penalty is execution...Similarly if a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash....Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim…then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain...Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed....Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them." — Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, F. J. Goulding, translator, London, 1970.

The Timesonline has this excerpt from Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book The Caged Virgin. Link found in LGF. Here is a portion of her essay to ponder.

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My parents belonged to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State the whole time I was growing up. The group's magazine usually could be found on the coffee table in the living room. My parents later dropped their membership, if I understand the story correctly, because AU chose to view abortion as a Church/State issue and push for unrestricted abortion. Now, another organization seems poised to make a similar mistake.

Amnesty International is moving toward the view that abortion is a fundamental human right, the denial of which is oppressive. Ironic that an organization dedicated to human life and rights should embrace human death and denial of rights to the unborn. Cardinal George Pell has a recent column on the issue.