The Contradictions of Islam

In what is territory currently controlled by the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank (Judea/Samaria) there is a town called Kalkilya. Kalkilya happens to be a town fully controlled by Hamas, the Islamic Jihadists whose sworn goal is the destruction of Israel, and who are responsible for countless deaths of civilians through suicide bombers trained and financed by Hamas.

The Town Council of Kalkilya has banned a performing arts festival in the town being put on by a Palestinian Arab group from Ramallah, also on the West Bank.

The reason that the Hamas leaders of the town give for banning the festival is that it is against the Muslim religion for men and women to be dancing together. It is considered immoral.

Not only does this give a taste of what lies ahead for the Palestinians (and the French, Belgians, Dutch, etc.) but it is interesting to me that Hamas considers that men and women dancing together and enjoying life is considered immoral, but killing innocent men, women and children is not.

I suppose I will never understand the Religion of Peace.

President of Iran involved in U.S. Embassy Siege in 1979

According to Iran Focus, a photo has turned up linking newly-elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the taking of American hostages during the U. S. Embassy siege in 1979.

The article goes on to state that:

"Ahmadinejad was a founder of the group of young activists who swarmed over the embassy wall and held the diplomats and embassy workers hostage for 444 days."

As I noted in a previous post , the election of Mr. Ahmadinejad does not bode well for Iranian-American relations.

President Ahmadinejad went on to say:

During his first press conference as President-elect last week, Mr Ahmadinejad struck a moderate note. But today, at a memorial service for families killed in a 1981 attack on the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, he said he hoped his election victory would spark a new global Islamic revolution.

"Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 (the current Iranian year) will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," the official IRNA agency quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying.

"The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end. The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world. In one night, the martyrs strode down a path of 100 years."

I am surprised that we haven't had any news of incarceration or suppression of reformists yet. It's that "new" Islamic revolution that is going to reach the entire world that we have been dealing with, and will continue to have to deal with.

Update: It turns out that the picture may not be Ahmadinejad.

Mark Steyn Interview

You should read John Hawkins interview of Mark Steyn in Right Wing News.

Teaser:

John Hawkins: So how successful do you think the Israeli strategy of walling off the Palestinians will be?

Mark Steyn: I haven’t spent a lot of time in “Palestine,” but, when I have, I’ve never seen any sign anywhere in Gaza or the West Bank of anything remotely resembling a "nationalist" movement. There’s plenty of evidence of widespread Jew-hatred and the veneration of death-cult "martyrdom," but not that anybody’s seriously interested in building a nation for the “Palestinian people.” So if you leave it to the Palestinians there's never going to be a state, only decade after decade of suicide bombings. One can advance reasons for this - it's no coincidence that the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth are the ones who have been wholly entrusted to the formal care of the UN for three generations now. But the fact is what Israel is doing is the only thing that will force the Palestinians to get up off their allegedly occupied butts and run a state: the Israelis are walling off what they feel they need, or what they can get away with, and it will be up to the gangsters of Arafatistan to see if they now feel like dropping the jihad and getting on with less glamorous activities like running highway departments and schools.

The rest is just as good.

Army Recruits Unaware of Quagmire

Didn't I hear recently that the Iraq War is dramatically hurting military recruitment?

I guess that is why the Army announced today that it had exceeded its June recruitment goals.

The recruits must not have heard that we are in an impossible quagmire in Iraq.

Speaking Frankly to the President

The American Thinker writes an Open Letter to the President. It is a must read.

Some excerpts:

In war, public support is the equivalent of cash flow. So the question isn’t whether a war is going well, but whether a war is going well enough, and fast enough, to end in victory before public support gives out. And it’s obvious that public support for the war in Iraq has begun to erode, which means that from now on we are not only in a battle against our enemy overseas, but in a race against time here at home.

I don’t know how much time is left before public support for this war erodes to the point when victory will lie beyond our grasp. Your judgment will certainly be better than mine, because only you can combine the top-secret intelligence reports on your desk with your own superb “gut feel” for public opinion to estimate just when these two trend-lines will intersect. My only suggestion is that whatever projection you come up with – Three months? Nine months? Two years? – you cut it in half. History teaches that once public support for a war starts to erode – no matter what may be the actual, on-the-ground situation – it erodes at an accelerating rate. But what matters most isn’t so much the actual date you project for when the two lines will intersect. Rather, what matters most is that you recognize these two lines now are on a collision course, and that you understand what this means:

You have less time to win this war than you thought you had. So to win, you will need to fight harder.

And this:

First, you need to fight harder in Iraq. You keep saying that you are giving our generals all the troops they want. With all respect, sir, this couldn’t possibly be true. In the history of the world there has never been a general who thought he had enough troops. If your generals are telling you they have all the troops they want to finish the job in Iraq, either the generals are idiots – or they have gotten the word that asking for more troops will end their careers. Sit down with your generals privately – just you and them -- and find out how many troops they really think they need. If they still insist they don’t want more troops on the ground in Iraq, then get yourself a new bunch of generals. If they tell you they need another 250,000 soldiers and Marines – then fly them over from Korea, Germany or wherever they are stationed just as fast as possible. If we haven’t got them to send – then order a draft. One way or another, put enough troops on the ground in Iraq to secure that country -- fast. And while you’re at it, give the orders to either take out the governments of Syria and Iran or to hit them with so much force that they quit playing footsie with al Queda and the Baathists, because we cannot win in Iraq so long as Syria and Iran are providing support and sanctuary. In short, do whatever is necessary, and do it now.

Second – and in my judgment, even more important -- you need to fight harder in Washington. To explain why this will help win the war in Iraq, let me tell you about how one of your predecessors acted domestically in a way that had a huge foreign impact. Shortly after President Reagan took office, our country’s 13,000 air-traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan ordered them back to work, and when they refused he did the one thing neither the controllers nor anyone else ever imagined he would do: he fired them all.

More:

With all respect, sir, your performance in Washington has been too weak. You are letting Congress get away with stiffing John Bolton, you cut a compromise in the Senate that got a few judges confirmed but that left the Democrats in a position to filibuster whichever future nominees they choose, you haven’t vetoed a single bill despite all the budget-busting pork that is mortgaging our children’s future, and while you are out giving speeches to Rotary Clubs about how to save Social Security, your proposal to privatize a portion of future payments is being strangled in its crib by the Democrats. Whatever may be the domestic effects of all this, the foreign effects are catastrophic. The terrorists in Iraq, their leaders who are hiding in caves, the mullahs in Teheran, the creep in Damascus and the nut in North Korea – they all see what is happening to your programs and your people, and the judgment they are reaching is this: if you aren’t willing to fight to the death in Washington, you aren’t willing to fight to the death in Iraq.

The American Thinker is so right. You should go now and read this letter. I just hope the President does, and that he realizes he has a large constituency that agrees with it.

Baldwin Park Protest - This is Tolerance?

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday in an article entitled, "Immigration Protest in Baldwin Park is Peaceful", that the protest and counter-protest in Baldwin Park on Saturday was peaceful. It went on to state the following:

Next to City Hall, where about 60 protesters opposed to illegal immigration waved signs and American flags, about 600 counter-protesters sang, danced, chanted and beat drums to urge tolerance.

The Times neglected to show the examples of tolerance from the counter-protesters. You can see some of them here. Apparently, for the counter-protestors, tolerance means carrying signs that say, "Fight the Right, Fight Capitalism", and, "Racists, get out of Aztlan." Further examples of tolerance were T-shirts which said, "F*ck the Minutemen", "F*ck the SOS" (Save our State)and "F*ck the Police."

More signs: "Stop Anti-immigrant Fascism", "All Workers Unite", "Smash All Borders."

Another sign, in Spanish, "Un Mundo para los Trabajadores sin Fronteras" (One world for the workers, without borders).

The fact is that the counter-protesters showed little tolerance and no understanding that what was being protested was the anti-American text on the entrance to the metrorail station, “This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, And will be again.” and, "It was better before they came."

Some important questions.

Milblog has some questions for you.

Kelo IS the worst Supreme Court decision ever!

Jefferson101 at Redstate.org says it as well as anyone could:

"I told you so!"

Maybe I personally did not tell you, personally. But I couldn't resist starting off that way. A good number of us out here on the leading edge of the Right Wing have been loudly proclaiming for years that this was the way things were heading. And the crowd yawned. All I can say now is "Good morning, boys and girls. Are you awake now?"

I was reading the comments in Pejman's article, and someone stated that "this was the worst Supreme Court decision ever". And they were being called to task over that statement. "What about Plessy V. Ferguson? What about Dred Scott?"

What about them? Those decisions left some people enslaved and/or oppressed. That's bad enough, but this one leaves us all enslaved and oppressed at the whim of the Government. This is, beyond a doubt, the absolutely worst Supreme Court decision ever.

Property rights have always been the cornerstone of our system. The founding fathers recognized that there were some instances in which the public good could require that the Government acquire private property But this decision proclaims that the Government's economic interest is an overriding "public good" that trumps personal property rights.

The majority decision talks about "legitimate Government interest in promoting economic development". That is a pretty way of phrasing it, but I hope we all fully aware of what the purpose of this exercise is. New London, Conn., wants to increase it's tax base. And the Supreme Court has now said that the desire of Government to make more money overrides your property rights.

Pursue that line of thought for a moment. It makes visions of slippery slopes and of huge cans of worms opening dance in my head. Doesn't it do the same to you? Try one of my "off the top of the head" thoughts on what this decision appears to me to do, just to get started.

For instance, assume that the "municipality" in question has an income tax, in addition to a property tax. (Several do.) Since it is now legal for the Government to take your property and re-sell it to someone for a Mall, what is preventing that municipality with an income tax from taking it from you to sell to someone with a higher income. Does this not equally promote "economic development" for the municipality?

Then we have the lovely "penumbra" of this decision. Fifty or sixty years ago laws didn't seem to have penumbras, but now that they've been discovered, they seem to be finding them attached to most all of them. And I suspect that to a good left-wing jurist, this one has penumbras that glow in the dark. If the Government's economic interests are more protected by the Constitution than my property rights, how are any of my other rights any more protected if the Government finds an economic interest in violating them?

The Supremes just ruled that I have the right to be secure in my person and property for just as long as it is in the best economic interest of the Government for me to be. And only for that long.

There's no doubt in my mind. Worst Supreme Court decision ever.

Something Going On with the Supreme Court?

Redstate thinks something is brewing:

Consider the following:

Today, White House Counsel Harriet Miers met for several hours with multiple Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. These same members have been called to the White House multiple times over the past week to discuss the Supreme Court.

The Attorney General's office has sent representatives to the hill every day this week, and has had previously unseen amounts of contact with the leading members of the committee.

In the staff rooms of the committee offices, there are stacks and stacks of folders on potential Supreme Court nominees - their strengths and weaknesses enumerated at length. Lower level staff have been told to clear next week, and solely devote their work to research on Supreme Court Nominees - a handful of names.

Whoever it is - they're coming.

Freedom is Casualty in Iran Election

The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , in a fraudulent election where 1,000 potential candidates were disqualified including all 93 women who were candidates, is a disappointment to those who thought that the winds of freedom were wafting through the entire Middle East.

Ahmadinejad's victory doesn't bode well for any improvement in relations between Iran and the West. Ahmadinejad said that better ties with the United States would not be a priority. He doesn't support Western-style democracy and last week said:

"We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy."

A knowledgeable Iranian secular blogger, S'can-Iranic, sums it up this way:

To put what I am going to conclude in a nutshell, I suffice to say that Ahmadinejad is a radical Islamist Hugo Chavez at best.


Politically:

It is highly probable that within the next two days, most of the Islamist reformists (yes the Islamist veterans who created this regime's security and police apparatus) find themselves in jail, get assassinated, executed. The die is already cast for the non-Islamist ones who are secular. The world community, if it cares at all, should be worried that Akbar Ganji and Abbas Amir Entezam might perish in the course of the consolidation of the hardliners' power at all levels in the regime. The families of the people who have already been executed for political reasons should be aware that they can be persecuted on a mass scale.

Economically:

Europe and North America will restrict their relationship with Iran to oil, but will benefit from the capital flight that will ensure the first year of Ahmadinejad's Presidency.

Ahmadinejad, as a hardliner populist and with statist tendencies (please read very bad and inefficient socialism, which was the style of the former Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1980s), will deplete the present oil dollars savings of the treasury (collected thanks to high oil prices during the past three years).

Foreign investors, except the Chinese who are the main foreign power that was the winner of this election, are scared away from Iran for the foreseeable future. Capital flight from Iran will most probably happen in Iran on an unprecedented scale in the modern economic history of Iran.

Domestic and international Consequences of Ahmadinejad's Welfare policies:

Ahmadinejad's administration will generously distribute this money in poor neighbourhoods to shore up and solidify their unequivocal support. These working class neighbourhoods that have suffered most since the end of the war will constitute the bulwark of the populist militia that will be used to persecute lower and upper middle class in major urban centres.

This population will be used as suicide fighters against any possible attack and/or intervention by the United States or any other foreign power.

Socially:

Iran will eventually produce a mass refugee problem for Europe and North America if Ahmadinejad's administration goes on a rampage of radicalizing many aspects of life in Iran according to the Islamic dicta. However, the EU and the US will gain economically, and socially, by the Iranian brain drain.

Hardliners are already on the street harassing young men and women. European countries and North America should await an increasing number of social refugees escaping Youth Islamic vigilantes (Basijis) and the Revolutionary Guards. Iran's education system and school will become "brain washing" concentration camps with a curriculum. The parents will fight back by challenging the ideological teachings of the school, many might be betrayed by their own kids and arrested. Many would decide to send their kids abroad and/or escape the country with their kids for this main reason.
As a result of the ideological pressure on technocrats, many technocrats will join cohorts of immigrant population who are escaping Iran for other political, social, and economic reasons.

Security, Nuclear Policy and Defence:

Iran's hardliners might as well start to target their dissidents abroad by conducting terrorist operations. The regime will also take harsher stance against the United States. It will be seen to what extent they will alienate Europe, but it is highly possible that with a much renewed sense of confidence, the hardliners try to use China against Europe and the US. It will be seen how Russians under Putin will determine their course of action (because the US and EU offers of accommodation to Russia are an important variable in the Russian Foreign Policy decision making about Iran).

Israel has most probably already adopted its "Plan 'C'" (worst possible case scenario) on Iran, as most probably the hardliners will increase their financial and military support for the Hezbollah of Lebanon and the Palestinian militias. Israelis could be even more in trouble, because the hardliners of Iran might increase their support for the Islamists in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (not necessarily to cause regime change in these countries) but to infiltrate these regime's security apparatus to stir more anti-Israeli sentiments in each of these countries.

Overall Conclusion: Domestically and Internationally

Iran will not be as isolated as it was in the 1980s, but the hardliners can force the EU and the US to adopt a united policy against them. Why? Because the hardliners would have to adopt Khatami style social policies in order to convince the EU that they are not as radical and it is doubtful whether they would be willing to do so, especially after they have developed a dozen nuclear devices at least.

I would say Ahmadinejad's regime will increase the Islamic Republic of Iran's life expectancy for the short term (maybe another eight years). However, the new middle class that might emerge as a result of its social and economic welfare policies might still fail to offer the hardliners the kind of unequivocal support that they want. Iranians have an outstanding record in preserving their traditions and assimilating inside and outside invaders. As self-reflective as all Iranians are, after attempting to avoid the hardliners' cohorts for a while, a cultural war may ensue, which can incur Ahmadinejad's administration massive losses; if and only if the moderates (seculars and Islamists) are assisted by highly advanced telecommunication technologies (Hoder gets the last word here), and take a united and coordinated stance.

There could be a plus side to this event. The reformists in Iran who were frustrated with the slow pace of reform may now be motivated to create a true revolution.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that many of the reformers will conclude that a long vacation outside the country will be much healthier than staying in Iran. A major crackdown on dissenters is sure to be imminent.

Certainly the wealthy with funds in Iran will be moving them out of the country.

Too bad for the people of Iran.

Not a Good Day

Yesterday was not a good day. To wit:

Item I: The Supreme Court further eroded property rights in the Kelo decision and reaffirmed that the commerce clause power of the Federal Government is virtually limitless. More later on this terrible decision.

Item II: The weak-kneed liberals in the House and Senate in committees yesterday managed to rake Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld over the coals for not having put down the insurgency, providing Al-Jazeera with more headline news and encouraging those who think America is losing its will to win the war in Iraq. It's the "cut and run" group in Congress that had the floor yesterday.

Item III: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune supports Sen. Dick Durbin's description of Guantanamo as being similar to the conduct of the Nazis, the Soviet Gulag and Pol Pot. According to the Star-Tribune, "Durbin was spot-on in his assessment of Guantanamo." Thus enabling the Star-Tribune to pass the New York Times to assume the title of the most liberal, leftist, America-hating newspaper in the country.

I could go on....but today is another day, and who knows, there is always the possiblity that reason will prevail this day.

I know. I am an incurable optimist.

Why America is....One Nation Under God

Chronwatch has a must-read essay showing that America was always One Nation Under God.

Those who wish America a godless society have developed a plethora of arguments to support their agenda. But arguments are not facts. We watch as lawyers make arguments every day, seldom concerned with any facts or even any sense of real justice. But they can make an argument, sometimes a very successful argument. If their argument is not true, has justice been served? Is the argument right if it was made on a premise that was all wrong, even though the argument is effective?

The essay provides evidence that the Founding Fathers all were Christians. For example,

On May 2, 1778, George Washington charged his soldiers at Valley Forge that “To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.” In a speech on May 12, 1779, he claimed that what children needed to learn “above all” was the “religion of Jesus Christ,” and that to learn this would make them “greater and happier than they already are.” On June 8, 1783, he reminded the nation that “without a humble imitation” of “the Divine Author of our blessed religion” we “can never hope to be a happy nation,” as he resigned his post as commander-in-chief. Washington’s own adopted daughter declared of Washington that you might as well question his patriotism as to question his Christianity.

The essay talks about Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry and others and shows that their philosophy of the founding of the United States is based on the rights granted to the people by a divine Creator. The early Federal Government provided Christian missionaries to the native-Americans. For example:

Thomas Jefferson himself declared, “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” As President of the United States, Jefferson signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe wherein he provided—at the government’s expense—Christian missionaries.

Read the full essay to understand who the Founders really were.

The essay goes on...

Why was America formed as One Nation Under God? The answer is simple, yet of vital importance to every American, regardless of his religious beliefs. The answer begins with these two words, “self-governance.”

The point is this: it is historically indisputable that America was born One Nation under God. It does not require faith, but instead common logic to understand why. Men without a moral compass are incapable of long-term self-governance. The founders knew it because they had seen it. Few modern Americans have experienced what life would be like in a godless society, void of morality, so they question it. Many Americans place their trust in man over God, so they pursue it.



But there is no question what America was, is, should be, or must be in order to retain its position of strength as the freest nation of self-governed individuals on earth. We will either be free as One Nation under God, or we will be a nation of fools unaware of our common heritage and on the road to ruin under men in search of power. One does not have to be a Christian to understand this. One must only understand man and his insatiable hunger for power.



Those in search of that power must remove God from society in order to gain access to that power. Those who allow them, do so at their own peril. You are of course free to not like this simple truth. But this truth will never change. It is as it has always been--and as it shall always be.

Secularists from the Left, especially the ACLU, want to convince Americans that the Founders were Deists or secularists in order to remove the spiritual heritage of America. If the United States has no spiritual heritage, or is not One Nation under God, then our rights are not inalienable and come from man, not from The Creator. If they come from man, then they can be altered by man. If the bible is not the source of our moral code, then morality can be relative.

The truth is very different than the Left would have us believe.

Where is the ACLU?

It just occurred to me that if the ACLU is so concerned about preventing Federal funding on anything associated with religion....why haven't they started a legal action to prevent the Federal Government from funding the purchase of Quran's and prayer rugs which are given to the detainees in Guantanamo?

Why is that OK with the ACLU?

The answer is that the ACLU is only concerned about Federal funding having to do with anything Christian.

Any other possible explanation?

Female Terrorist Targets Israeli Hospital That Helped Her

Wafa al-Bis, a 21 year old Palestinian girl who, it turns out, belongs to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, was arrested carrying explosives in her pants at the Erez Crossing checkpoint in Gaza.



She was carrying more than 22 pounds of explosives and was caught thanks to anti-terror electronic equipment at the checkpoint. When caught, she tried to detonate the explosives at the checkpoint.

Wafa had received a border pass as a humanitarian gesture so that she could cross into Israel where she was being treated at a Beer Sheva hospital for burns she had received in a cooking accident. She admitted she had the explosives so that she could blow up the hospital (and all the patients, doctors and nurses) that had helped her.

On Israeli TV Wafa said she had dreamed of being a suicide bomber since she was a child and considers it an honor and a duty to Islam.

According to Israel Insider,

"Israeli officials said Bis, who comes from Jabaliya in Gaza, was burnt in a cooking accident five months ago, and had received treatment on humanitarian grounds in the Beersheba hospital.

They said she was making another trip for follow-up treatment on Monday, but planned to blow herself up instead.

The bombing attempt was only the latest in a series of terrorist attacks involving the exploitation of Israel's humanitarian flexibility in the face of a very real security threat.

Monday's abortive suicide attack at the Erez crossing is especially shocking for the Israeli public for a number of reasons:

To begin with, the female bomber was entering Israel using a special medical permit issue in order to provide her with follow-up treatment for burns sustained five months earlier in a home cooking accident. At that time, the woman's life had been saved by the same Israeli doctors and nurses who she was now planning to blow up.

Despite this difficult reality, many human rights groups are only too quick to criticize Israeli security procedures at checkpoints, such as its insistence on inspecting ambulances.

The attempted attack by a woman terrorist from Gaza illustrates again, in the most appalling terms, the terrorist organizations' cynical exploitation of the weaker elements of Palestinian society, such as women and children.

Israel had passed on specific intelligence to the PA concerning the terrorists' intentions of dispatching this bomber. However the PA did nothing to prevent the attack. This further demonstrates to Israelis the inability or unwillingness of the PA to prevent terrorism and dismantle terror infrastructures as it has repeatedly and publicly committed itself to do, both to Israel and the international community.

Anyone who thinks that peace is at hand between the Palestinians and Israelis does not have a grasp of what is going on in the Middle East. Even now, small children in the Palestinian territories are still being taught that the highest honor they can achieve is to commit suicide while blowing up innocent Israeli civilians - men, women and children. As long as the Palestinians continue to radicalize their children Israel will not be safe. I predict that as soon as Israel departs from the Gaza in August, the Palestinians will launch a major terrorist offensive against Israel.

If Sharon really thinks that Mahmoud Abbas is capable of controlling Hamas or Islamic Jihad, and that there will be peace with the Palestinians, he is leading Israel into dangerous waters.

Gitmo Interrogator Tells All

Right Thinking Girl obtained an exclusive interview with a Gitmo interrogator who sheds light on what really goes on with the detainees.

Her interviewee talks about Durbin's comments and about interrogation methods actually used in Gitmo.

If you want to know what really goes on there - not what some ranting Democrat wants you to believe, and not what the MSM want you to believe - read this interview.

Democrats' Rhetoric Highly Disturbing to American Jews

This from the e-Newsletter of the Republican Jewish Coalition:

Democrats' Rhetoric Continues to Disturb

Democrats are resorting more and more to images and messages that are deeply disturbing to the Jewish community.

Democrats, going after Bush, scapegoat Israel on Iraq
The latest incident was described by a Washington Post article. Democrats in the House of Representatives held a mock impeachment hearing against President Bush over the Iraq war. According to the article:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

At Democratic headquarters, where an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.

Claims that Israel is the reason for US efforts to free Iraq or that Jews knew about or profited from 9/11 may be common in the Arab world, but they were shocking material to disseminate in the Democratic National Committee's headquarters.

Part of a pattern
All this comes on the heels of other statements by prominent Democrats using Hitler references and other extreme language:

* The second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), likened the treatment of enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay with the victims of the Nazis.

* Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that the Republican Party was "pretty much a white, Christian party"

* Earlier this month, New York Democratic Congressmen Charlie Rangel and Jerry Nadler used inappropriate references to the Holocaust to try to score political points on unrelated issues. Rangel likened U.S. military action in Iraq to the Holocaust of World War II. Nadler referred to a Republican staff member of the House Judiciary Committee as "some Nazi on [Chairman James Sensenbrenner's] staff."

* Those remarks followed Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who said that Republicans trying to block the Democrats' filibuster of judicial nominees were using Nazi tactics.

* Just over a year ago, Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) claimed in a newspaper article that President Bush invaded Iraq "to secure Israel" and to "take the Jewish vote from Democrats."

* And Rep. James Moran (D-VA), who prompted the Israel question in the "mock hearing" last week, told constituents in 2004 that, "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction this is going, and I think they should."

Crossing the line on support of Israel
Commentator Richard Baehr thinks that Democrats in Congress can no longer be relied upon to support Israel.

He writes:

"I noted [a year ago], that at least in Congress, where support for Israel might be a bit stronger among the GOP than among Democratic members, the fever swamps of anti-Israel hate had not yet reached into the Democratic side of the aisle, with the exception of a very few members such as Cynthia McKinney, Jim Moran, and Fritz Hollings.
"But when the Democratic Party sponsors what amounts to a festival full of anti-Semitic hysteria and Israel bashing at its own headquarters, and invites anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists in to address members of their Congressional delegation, then I think that the line of basic support for Israel has been crossed. Arguably, when former President Jimmy Carter invited filmmaker and Israel hater Michael Moore to share his Presidential box at the 2004 Democratic convention, the line had already been crossed. Or maybe it was crossed when the entire Democratic establishment treated Jew-baiter Al Sharpton as a serious Presidential candidate and respected member of the Party in 2004. Now, there can be little doubt."

Democrats have publicized their efforts to reach out the Jewish community in recent months, but the disturbing, extremist rhetoric of some prominent Democrats remains on the record.

The Democrats can no longer be counted on to be a supporter of Israel, and if they keep up the current rhetoric will find that they will have lost even more Jewish votes in the next election. Democratic politicians, such as deplorable Dick Durbin, realize that they can't win issues by arguing the facts, so they have to resort to offensive hyperbole. I think we are seeing the death throes of the Democratic Party before our eyes.

My Father - A Tribute to his Life

Since it is Father’s Day, and my thoughts have gone to my Father, I thought I should write something about him.



My father, Dan Aminoff, was born in 1907 in Samarkand in what is today called Uzbekistan. He was born into a family of Bukharian Jews in a predominantly Moslem country. At the time of his birth the country was known as Turkestan and was under control of Russia. Much of Central Asia was known as the Emirate of Bukhara prior to the mid-nineteenth century and was part of the Persian Empire. There was an Emir of Bukhara who reported to the Shah of Persia.

In 1868 Czarist Russia conquered Bukhara and wrested it from Persia. They renamed it Turkestan. It included what are today the countries of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Our family was fairly well-to-do during my father’s childhood. My grandfather was a merchant who traveled the “Silk Road” bringing Bukharian rugs and Bukharian woven silk textiles and silver to China, where he would sell them, and then he would buy raw silk thread and other Chinese products which he would then bring back to Bukhara and sell there.

The family owned a farm/ranch outside of Samarkand where cattle and some vegetable crops were raised. The family worked hard on the farm and took the produce to the local outdoor marketplace – the Bazaar. My father was in a local yeshiva studying for the Rabbinate. My family had several generations of Rabbis and my father was the one who was designated to carry on the family tradition in his generation.

It was a fairly comfortable life until 1918, when the Soviet Revolution had come to Central Asia. The name of the country was changed to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. One day a local member of the Komsomol (Soviet Youth) came to the family farm to tell my family that they no longer owned the farm – it was now owned by the State, and henceforth all production would be delivered to State stores and not sold in the marketplace.

Uncle Mike, my father’s older brother answered the door. My Uncle Mike was a large, strong, well-developed man who picked up a nearby axe and told the young man to get off the family property, and if he came back again he could expect to have a very close encounter with the axe.

That, unfortunately was not the politically correct response. My Aunt Frieda went to the Bazaar later in the day and was told by friends that the local Communist Party had targeted Uncle Mike and planned to kill him and other members of the family as an example of what happens if one refuses to accept the nationalization of property in the Soviet Union.

My Aunt came back to the farm and told everyone that the family had to leave immediately or one or more family members would be killed. They gathered up some things of value that they could carry, silver pieces, Bukharian rugs, silks, etc. A family of 10, parents, children and 2 grandchildren went to the train station and bribed a local guard to let them board a train to Constantinople in Turkey. The voyage by train in 1918 through Central Asia to Turkey is the subject for another essay. I will just say that it was arduous, dangerous, long, and the family wound up in Constantinople with nothing.

The family mobilized upon arrival in Turkey. The local Turkish Jewish community was very helpful in finding family members a place to live, and finding work. My father and his siblings went to work in Turkey to support the family. It took them four years with all family members working in Turkey until they were able to accumulate enough money to travel by boat to New York. They traveled in steerage in the bowels of the ship with other Jews and poor immigrants and arrived at Ellis Island in 1922.

My father and his siblings went to work in New York. The family members were not afraid of work, and realized that hard work was the only way to make enough to provide for the family. No one from my family wanted a hand-out or government assistance. My father went to night school for a year or so, working during the day, until he had learned enough English to get by.

The family worked hard and were typical middle-class immigrant Jews in Brooklyn during the depression. Not wealthy, but not destitute. In 1931 a Jew from Bukhara, David Haimoff, who had moved to Los Angeles, but who knew the family in Samarkand, called my grandfather. He asked my grandfather to send one of his four sons to Los Angeles to help him in his linen store. My grandfather chose my father, and both came to Los Angeles in 1931. My father went to work for Haimoff, and my grandfather went back to New York.

My father learned the retail linen business and after a few years opened his own linen store on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. Working for Dave Haimoff, at the time my father was there, was a young sales clerk, Ruth Kahn. Romance developed, and my mother and father were married in Los Angeles in 1935. I was born in 1937, and my sister came along in 1940.

During the Second World War a friend of my father who was in the garment manufacturing business got a government contract to make uniforms. My father saw an opportunity and bought some sewing machines which he had installed in the mezzanine of his linen store. He hired some people who knew the business and began manufacturing shirts on the second floor of his linen store. He managed to get a government contract to manufacture shirts for the U.S. Army, which turned out to be a steady source of income.

My father decided to go out of the retail linen business and open a shirt factory, specializing in the manufacture of boy’s sport shirts. He was very successful. He became President of the Boys Apparel Guild of California, a manufacturer’s trade organization and, in 1947 won a license agreement to manufacture Hopalong Cassidy western shirts. Hopalong Cassidy was huge after the War, and people were standing in line to buy Hopalong Cassidy wear. The business grew. So much so that it attracted the attention of the unions. Now the men’s and boy’s garment manufacturing business in Los Angeles in the 1940’s and 1950’s were primarily owned by tough immigrants, like my father, who were self-made men and who didn’t take kindly to the interference of unions. Not that they exploited their workers. They treated them well and paid them well. It is just that my father felt that the factory was his, and that no one was going to dictate to him how to treat his employees.

Since the garment industry in post-war Los Angeles was a non-union industry, the unions needed to break into one factory to get a foothold. Because my father’s firm was the largest in the boy’s shirt business in 1950, they decided to try and organize his company. They took a vote of the workers, as required under the Taft-Hartley Act. The workers turned down the union. That began a cycle of violence and intimidation by the union against my father’s employees. The alleyway behind the plant was blocked by pickets, and trucks who were picking up goods wouldn’t cross picket lines, so my father hired some non-union truck drivers. Employees were followed home and told they would be hurt if they came to work. Some employees were beaten up outside the plant. The police did very little to protect any one. My father hired armed guards to protect his employees from violence. Eventually, in 1953, after several violent incidents with union goons, one of my father’s employees was sent to the hospital after a severe beating. My father decided to close down the business rather than give in to the unions.

There were some other manufacturers who had started importing shirts manufactured in the new emerging Japan after the War. My father decided that he would start importing shirts from Japan. He went to Japan in 1953 and contracted with a Japanese factory. Not pleased with the quality, and feeling he could do it better, he moved to Japan in 1954 and opened his own factory. Needless to say, that proved to be a successful and profitable move.

My father died of a heart attack at the age of 54 in his home in Nishinomiya Prefect outside of Osaka, Japan in 1962.

I learned a lot from my father. I learned that hard work, self-reliance and determination are qualities for success. I learned that in the face of adversity you do what you have to do to succeed. I learned that you don’t hang around when dictators want to take over your life. I learned that if an opportunity presents itself, you better take advantage of it, or it will be gone. I learned that you have to take a stand for your principles to be true to yourself. I learned humility, reverence and the value of tradition. I learned from him that G-d hears our prayers, but you better not depend on G-d for your physical sustenance. I learned that Jewish tradition is important to ones life, and should be passed on and preserved. I learned to love this country, as he loved his adopted country and the freedom he enjoyed here. I learned that a sense of humor is essential to one’s happiness, and I learned that love of your family is one of the most important things in life.

My father, to a great extent, made me who I am today.

I miss you, Dad.

Cartoonists weigh in on Dumb Dick Durbin

Gary Varvel is the first to indicate the damage Durbin does to this country.

Chris Muir shows the absurdity of Durbin's remarks.

How the voters of the State of Illinois can continue to send this disgraceful, dishonorable, deplorable human-being to the Senate is beyond my understanding.

The Senate has deteriorated in quality. I long for the days when it consisted of gentlemen with class whose primary concern was the welfare of the country and the military. Now the primary concern of many in the Senate is political advantage and partisan politics.

How low that body has sunk.

History isn' t taught in schools

David Gelernter writes a commentary today in the Los Angeles Times that ignorance of history is undermining society's ability to talk straight and to think straight. He states that by teaching ideology instead of facts, our schools are erasing the nation's collective memory.

"There is an ongoing culture war between Americans who are ashamed of this nation's history and those who acknowledge with sorrow its many sins and are fiercely proud of it anyway. Proud of the 17th century settlers who threw their entire lives overboard and set sail for religious freedom in their rickety little ships. Proud of the new nation that taught democracy to the world. Proud of its ferocious fight to free the slaves, save the Union and drag (lug, shove, sweat, bleed) America a few inches closer to its own sublime ideals. Proud of its victories in two world wars and the Cold War, proud of the fight it is waging this very day for freedom in Iraq and the whole Middle East.

If you are proud of this country and don't want its identity to vanish, you must teach U.S. history to your children. They won't learn it in school. This nation's memory will go blank unless you act."

I wrote the following letter to the Los Angeles Times today:

David Gelernter in his commentary today bemoans the fact that children are not taught history today, but rather ideology, and that schools are erasing the nation's collective memory. The reason for that is that it is Democrats, who are proponents of an ideological agenda, who write our children's history text books today.

As a result, African-American children will not learn from their history books that it was the Republican Party, the Party of Lincoln, that brought war against the Democratic slave-owners of the South to free the slaves, or that anti-war Democrats in the North strongly opposed the Civil War and voted to demand that President Lincoln rescind the Emancipation Proclamation, or that the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.

American children will not learn from their history books that the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were reforms that the "Radical" Republicans struggled to have enacted during Reconstruction, but were unsuccessful due to fierce Democratic opposition.

American children will not learn from their history books that along with pressing Congress to give Blacks the right to vote, Republicans supported Women's Suffrage for thirty years against Democratic opposition until it was finally passed in 1920.

American children will not learn from their history books that the 13th and 14th Amendments were passed by a Republican majority while most Democrats opposed their passage.

There are many other important messages in our history that American children will not learn from their history books, which is why I agree with David Gelernter that parents must teach U.S. history to their children. They won't learn it in school.

I don't expect them to publish it.