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I missed observing Stalin's birthday yesterday. What a colossus of evil. For an accounting of the deaths for which he is responsible see this post on Old War Dogs. Link from the Rott.

The 20th century showed the range of human potential. Poe was right--the human heart and mind hold terrors. What things someone will do with genetic engineering.
Gateway Pundit has the story on the recent executions in Iran, with links.
The Final Solution reached into Arab and Muslim lands. Some of this I knew, some I did not. From an op-ed by Max Boot in the LA Times here. Link from LGF. Portions of the essay:

POINTLESS though it may be to argue with a madman, it is worth noting that Muslims were not as blameless in the genocide of the Jews as Ahmadinejad and his ilk would have it. Arabs were, on a small scale, cheerleaders and enablers of the Final Solution. The most famous example was Haj Amin Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem (and uncle of Yasser Arafat), who took refuge in Berlin in World War II. A rabid Nazi, he personally lobbied Hitler to kill as many Jews as possible and even helped out by recruiting Bosnian Muslims to serve in the Waffen SS.

Robert Satloff, one of the world's smartest Arabists, reveals other links between the Arabs and the Holocaust in his groundbreaking new book, "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab Lands." He shows how the Nazis set up the machinery of death in North Africa. Although "only" 4,000 to 5,000 Jews died before the Allies liberated the area in 1943, many more were consigned to forced labor camps in hellish conditions.

"Arabs played a role at every level," Satloff wrote. "Some went door to door with the Germans, pointing out Jews for arrest. Others led Jewish workers on forced marches or served as overseers at labor camps."


. . .

Even worse, while Europe has disowned its terrible history, the Nazis continue to be glorified in the Middle East. ("Mein Kampf" is a perennial bestseller in the region.) Nowhere else in the world is Holocaust denial so prevalent. Ahmadinejad deserves thanks for calling the world's attention to this pervasive sickness
There are alternatives to the MSM for field reporting. Bill Roggio has been emedding with troops for a while and reporting back through the internet. He depends on donations to continue his work. I recommend his reporting. A recent post is here.

I like the phrase used by some for the new possibilities made possible by electronic communication: An Army of Davids.
Under-Reported News Story of the week so far: polls in Afghanistan show strong support for Karzai government and also for allied troops. Optimism that Taliban will not return to power. Story covered by Gateway Pundit.
Here is a link to LGF that will link you to a video expressing the anger toward jihadis that we need more of. Language warning.
To judge from CAIR press releases, one would think that Muslims were being hounded, harassed, and hung all over the US and in Europe. Not so. As I earlier pointed out, in the US it is much, much more dangerous to be a Jew.

But, is CAIR overstating the number of anti-Muslim hate-crimes in the US? Perhaps to aquire the coveted status of victim? That charge has been made in the blogosphere. Perhaps it is best to check an objective source. Here is a quote from the official FBI report on hate crimes in 2001. "A breakdown of the 2118 victims of hate crimes motivated by religious bias showed that the majority of victims were Jewish, 56.5 percent. Anti-Islamic bias accounted for 26.2 percent of victims of hate crimes motivated by religious bias, . . ." Report here . The statistics table shows 554 Muslim victims, compared with 1196 Jewish victims. For 2000 the FBI report indicates 36 Muslim victims, and 1269 Jewish. Report here. For 2002 the figures are 174 Muslim victims, and 1084 Jewish. Report here.

The same is true in Great Britain. This article from the Telegraph on persecution of Jews. A major culprit seems to be Muslims.

Jewish people are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than Muslims, according to figures compiled by the police. One in 400 Jews compared to one in 1,700 Muslims are likely to be victims of "faith hate" attacks every year. The figure is based on data collected over three months in police areas accounting for half the Muslim and Jewish populations of England and Wales. The crimes range from assault and verbal abuse to criminal damage at places of worship.

. . .

Rabbi Alex Chapper, 33, was the victim of a "faith-hate" crime in July last year. He was returning from a synagogue in Ilford, Essex, with three Jewish friends after conducting a service. All were wearing skull caps. Seven Asian teenagers followed them down the road shouting "Yehudi", which means Jew in Arabic. One of them shouted, "We are Pakistani, you are Jewish. We are going to kill you", before punching Rabbi Chapper in the face and hitting one of his friends over the head with a bottle.

"It was very frightening, we were all very shaken," said the rabbi. "I thought we were going to get seriously hurt but someone threatened to call the police and they ran off.

"We identified the youths and told the police but they were never prosecuted. They just did not seem interested. I feel very let down."


Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Today, Real Clear Politics features Charles Krauthammer's address to the Foreign Policy Research Institute from November 14, 2006 (full address here).

Some highlights:

"We are now in a period of confusion and disorientation, almost despair. I think it is worthwhile to look back historically to see how we got to where we are today."

"The Bush Doctrine held that besides attacking the immediate enemy who had perpetrated 9/11, it would have to engage in a larger enterprise of changing the underlying conditions which had given birth to this idea of Islamic radicalism, and to change the conditions that had allowed it to recruit and breed, particularly in the Arab world."

"Unless it [the Arab world] was somehow encouraged and brought along on that march [economic and political modernization], it would remain recalcitrant, alienated, oppressed, tyrannical, and the place from which the kind of atavistic attacks on America and the West that we have seen on 9/11 and since would continue.

"That's why the entire enterprise of changing the culture of the Arab world was undertaken. It was, as I and others had said at the time, a radical idea, an arrogant idea, a risky idea. But it was also the only idea of any coherence and consistency that anyone has advanced on how to change the underlying conditions that had led to 9/11 and ultimately to prevent the kind of conditions that would lead to a second 9/11."

"What we have seen [after three years of great successes], however, in the last almost two years now is what I think historians will write of as the setback.

» Read More

Understanding someone means attempting to discover what that person means by his or her speech. Not what you first think the utterance might mean. Take the word "innocent." Here is a link to a video of a BBC interview with a radical Muslim. In the interview he affirms that non-Muslims are by definition not innocent since they have rejected Islam.

So, therefore, please be aware that in the mind of a radical Islamist, no Western civilian is really an innocent life. What you mean by "innocent life," is not the same thing that a radical Muslim means by "innocent life."

In commenting on this video, Jihadwatch observes "Choudhury can and no doubt does easily support his view from the Qur'an, in which Jews and Christians are under Allah's curse (9:30) and unbelievers are the "vilest of creatures" (98:6)."
Tagging on to the previous post on topic, this link is to a 2004 note in Middle East Quarterly on the supposed influence of the book The Arab Mind on Neocons. The Arab Mind by Raphael Patai, a cultural anthropologist, is a book first published in 1973 with very politically incorrect conclusions.

The 2002 edition contains a forward that summarizes the book. Full text of the forward is at the above link. A portion is below, though I encourage you to go to the link and read the entire forward.

» Read More

A question I have raised before. See this piece by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the LA Times. A portion of the article.

ONE DAY IN 1994, when I was living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I were both immigrants from Somalia and had both applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted it; she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half-sister couldn't.

In order for me to be admitted to the university I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: a language course, a civics course and a history course. It was in the preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old at that time, and my half-sister was 21.

In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe.

I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor. I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said was as awful as the information in my book.

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later, as a teenager in Kenya, when Saudi and other Persian Gulf philanthropy reached us, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies and for epidemics such as AIDS, and they were believed to be the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. If we ever wanted to know peace and stability, and if we didn't want to be wiped out, we would have to destroy the Jews. For those of us who were not in a position to take up arms against them, it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.

15/12: Islam Update

I have mentioned before that we are seeing Muslims in Muslim lands converting to Christianity in unprecedented numbers. Although still small, the fact this is happening at all is extremely significant. Part of the motivation for the violent radical Islamic reaction to the West is that Islam perceives correctly that it is challenged from two sides--on the one hand the freedom and hedonism of the West, on the other from Christianity.

This article, copied by Dhimmiwatch, on the growing numbers of evangelical Christians in Morocco. Due to that famous Islamic tolerance, they must meet clandestinely.

Below is a portion of the article, and remember, Morocco is one of the most tolerant Muslim countries:

» Read More

A quote from the opening of Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941-45 by Evan Thomas:

In 1943, American sailors and soldiers entering the harbor at Tulagi, the front-line U.S. Navy base in the South Pacific, passed a billboard telling them to

Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill more Japs!


The billboard was signed by Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., their commander.


Whatever the political goal of war, the form of war always is the same: kill the enemy. Inflicting death is the harsh essence of the conduct of war. Somehow between 1943 and today the American public seems to have forgotten this elemental truth. Wars cannot be clean and neat. They of necessity will be bloody, messy, and painful.

When we went into Iraq, war was the reality we chose. We should not be surprised. No amount of precision munitions will change the basic reality: people will die. Ours and theirs. We want to kill many, many more of theirs, and must to win. Any attempt to lay down Rules of Engagement based on legal conventions will endanger our troops and victory itself. We will, as a nation, accept the risk of certain basic conventions--no execution of those who actively surrender or who are wounded beyond ability to fight--but cannot please "world opinion," whatever that means, by accepting more restrictive conventions. War is what it is. See the earlier post on Rules of Engagement in Iraq.

13/12: UN Legit?

Question: Do you believe "That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed?" Do you also believe "that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it?"

If you answer yes, please read the next paragraph. If you answer no, then how much of the Declaration of Independence do you affirm?

Question: does it not follow that many, many of the governments sending representatives to the United Nations are unjust and deserving abolition?

Question: that being the case, in what sense is any vote of the United Nations morally legitimate?

I think it is time to seek alternatives to the corrupt morass of despotism that is the United Nations. Kofi Annan has no more moral standing to lecture anyone than the average prison inmate, and maybe less.
We have had some discussion here and here about Muslims in the US playing the Victim Card. Organizations such as CAIR certainly understand how to use the rhetoric, and the courts, to portray themselves as victims of discrimination, attempting to put themselves into the line that includes freedom riders. Farmer has pointed out that such a policy will backfire with the American public, but apparently CAIR does not take advice from this website.

From Jihadwatch: linking to The Washington Times:

Muslim pilgrims urged to complain
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 13, 2006

American Muslims making a religious pilgrimage to Mecca are being encouraged to file civil rights complaints if they feel discriminated against by airlines.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), citing what it called the "airport profiling" of six imams removed from a recent flight, yesterday said Muslims traveling this month to the holy site in Saudi Arabia need to be aware of their rights.
"Given the increase in the number of complaints CAIR has received alleging airport profiling of American Muslims, we believe it is important that all those taking part in this year's hajj be aware of their legal and civil rights," said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman.


Full article.


Jihadwatch has a great response:

The Council on American Islamic Relations, apparently oblivious to the public relations disaster that their trumped up Flying Imams controversy is becoming for them, is pressing on, asking Muslims flying on their way to Mecca to lodge complaints against airlines if their complementary pretzels are stale.

Memo to Ibrahim Hooper: I hereby volunteer to fly to Mecca. I promise you I'll keep close tabs on the airline service, Ibrahim, and will give you a full report as soon as I get back. What's that? As a non-Muslim, I am forbidden to enter Mecca? Any practice of faith by a non-Muslim in Saudi Arabia could land me in a Saudi Arabian prison? What are you, some kind of a kafirophobe?

I mention the fact that non-Muslims cannot enter Mecca to put CAIR's civil rights mau-mauing into perspective. In no majority Muslim country in the world today do non-Muslims enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims; at very least they are forbidden to proselytize, while Muslims are not so forbidden. But CAIR, although it has not hesitated to speak out about affairs in other countries, has never spoken out against that fact. It is in this light that its persistent attempts to gain victim status for Muslims in the U.S., with all the privileges that come with that status in this politically correct and silly age, should be evaluated.
I don't think the Arab world understands compassion, civility, restraint, the same way we do. It seems that Arab culture interprets restraint as weakness. And, what it cannot respect it cannot befriend.

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler links to this post on Blackfive by a NCO in Iraq on the negatives of our current Rules of Engagement.

I think we need to remember that on our own Western Frontier, the rule of law was not established among white settlers by late-twentieth-century-judicial procedure. Cow Towns and Mining Towns were tamed by "Wanted Dead or Alive," armed posses who shot first, and quick rope justice.

In the history of the English language, "outlaw" meant one who lived outside the rule of law and therefore outside the protection of the law; in other words, one who could be killed with impunity.

Paging General Sherman.
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Wow! It turns out Sean Hannity has not been making this stuff up. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really does deny the Holocaust, and Iran really did host a scholarly conference investigating the conventional wisdom that six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis during WWII. They even invited my old neighbor and eminent scholar, David Duke, who praised Iran for its courage to facilitate a free discussion of this volatile issue.

How do I know Sean was right? I read it in the Washington Post (full story here) and heard it on NPR (listen here).

Does this mean that Okie Gardener's coverage of Iran, the 12th imam and Mr. Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic world view might be true as well?

You may review one of his earlier posts on the subject here.

What does all this really mean? Iran is a nation whose foreign policy seems akin to "waving its hands in the air like they just don't care." Iran is playing to a different audience. They are playing by their own rules. Negotiate with Iran? Negotiate with Hitler? Negotiate with Stalin? Sure. Why not? What do we have to lose? But keep Ronald Reagan's advice in mind: Trust but verify.

11/12: 1938 Alert

According to this article on an unreleased UN report, the UN has determined that Iran is looking for uranium in Somalia, in exchange for arms. Also, that Al Qaeda has a presence there. Link from Instapundit.

We seem to be seeing the establishment of a Taliban-like Islamist state in Somalia. Unlike Afghanistan, however, Somalia is not landlocked, is close to vital sea-lanes, and near both the Middle East and Africa. Lots of potential for deadly mischief.

And, Iran and the Palestinians agree, on to Jerusalem. Here. Links from Gateway Pundit.
Muslim violence is causing Buddhists to flee southern Thailand. Story from AP. Here. Link from Jihadwatch.

Thailand's Muslim insurgency has prompted hundreds of Buddhists to flee their homes in the restive south, creating refugee-like communities of Thais in their own country. So far, the migration is limited to a handful of villages, but it has alarmed Thai authorities who fear the daily violence of the three-year-old rebellion could provoke a larger Buddhist exodus and leave the three southern provinces exclusively Muslim. Buddhist monks have been beheaded, Buddhist teachers slain, and leaflets distributed around Buddhist villages warning that raising dogs and drinking alcohol are offensive to Muslims.

I am sure that if the US withdraws from Iraq, and Israel dissolves itself as a nation, then all this Muslim violence will end. (alert for the irony impaired)
We have lost one of the great heroes of the international relations side of the Reagan Revolution.

From the Washington Post:

"Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a conservative political scientist who became the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, died at her home outside Washington late Thursday, colleagues announced today. She was 80" (full obit here).

We will add obits and tributes as the day progresses. You are invited to comment on the life of Kirkpatrick.

From the New York Times: “When she put her feet under the desk of the Oval Office, the president listened,” said William P. Clark, Mr. Reagan’s national security adviser during 1982 and 1983. “And he usually agreed with her" (full obit here).

Norman Podhoretz, in the Weekly Standard, offers this tribute to Kirkpatrick and a defense of neo-conservatism.

From CNN.com: the famous "Blame America First" speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention.
Islamic demands for Western humility and tolerance have all been one-way, us to them. How about a two-way street? It'll never happen, Islam is too wrapped up in its own superiority. Here is an excellent essay on what the Pope should have said in Turkey by Bruce Thornton from the Victor Davis Hanson website.

Would that the Pope had stood in Hagia Sophia and asked the Turks to restore this Christian monument to the Orthodox Church, as a sign that Turkey is sincere about entering the modern world and accepting its canons of reciprocal tolerance, not to mention showing the sort of regret for its ancestors’ crimes that the West is continually dunned to show.
Some interesting numbers on deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, etc., courtesy of The Mudville Gazette.
Once again China leads the world in the number of jounalists imprisoned. Cuba is a trailing second. This article includes information and links on the Chinese government's moderately successful efforts to shut down free speech on the internet, a project they are receiving help with from American companies (the last two capitalists . . .). Link from Instapundit.

I cannot understand the logic of those who claim that increased economic liberalization of China will automatically lead to increased political freedom. Even Milton Friedman, if I understand him correctly, argued that economic freedom was a necessary but not a sufficient condition of political freedom.

Philosophically, I am not a fan of any theory of Determinism, including Economic Determinism.
Since World War 2 the Christian population in Muslim lands has been declining. In the Palestinian Administration area the drop has been from 20% Christian to less than 2%. By contrast, the Christian population in Israel is growing. Yet some Christian leaders (heirs of the apologists for Russia & Co. in the Cold War) want to blame Israel for the decline. See this post from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Link from Dhimmiwatch.

Some Religion of Peace and Tolerance, huh.
A great editorial on Islamic arrogance from the LA Times. The author is Raymond Ibrahim, a research librarian at the Library of Congress. His book, "The Al Qaeda Reader," translations of religious texts and propaganda, will be published in April.


Islam demands to be respected in non-Islamic countries, yet has a history of desecrating, destroying, or turning into mosques, the churches and temples of lands Muslim armies conquer. Not to mention demanding equal treatment in the West while relegating Christians and Jews to second-class citizenship in Muslim lands.
This report on Niger from Jihadwatch. The Islam in this African nation formerly was of the syncretistic variety, easy-going toward non-Muslims. In the last few years Saudi money has been supplying hard-line imams who are transforming the religion/culture of Niger.

When you drive alone, you drive with the sheiks. SUV Drivers for Wahhabism. Freeway Speeders for Radical Islam. Accountants Driving Big Pickups for Terrism.

In the words of Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
I am not sure if this article reporting on an interfaith dialogue represents sloppy reporting on the Christian theologian, or sloppy thinking on his part. Whichever the case, between his comments and those of the Muslim leader what is obvious is that Christianity and Islam in their traditional and historic forms are mutually incompatible. Moreover, they are necessarily competitors because they each make universal claims that are mutually exclusive. Each claims a revelation that supercedes all others.
Tocqeville urges a reading of this essay by Andrew J. Bacevich in Commonweal. In it the author urges us to consider our nation and its history realistically and truthfully, in order to make our way in the world. Bacevich offers a sober assessment for our consideration. Guaranteed to provoke, stimulate, and enlighten. Well worth the read, I think.