How did they forget?

Melanie Phillips notes that an article by Charles Moore which appeared in the Telegraph a couple of days ago made a point about Israel that "was as simple and eloquent as it was crucial. How did we forget, he asked, that Israel’s story is the story of the west?"

If one stands back from the moral argument that rages round Israel, and just looks at this as a story, it reminds one intensely of that of ancient Israel's enemy, the Roman republic. An austere nation builds its power in the face of enemy neighbours. It does so by great feats of arms, and so its soldiers often become its political leaders. The commitment those leaders must give to the nation is absolute, lifelong, life-threatening. The deeds done in the nation's defence are frequently brave, sometimes appalling. Some would see Sharon as Milosevic, but might he not be Caesar?

But there's also an important difference from Rome: the purpose of victory has been more about security than conquest for its own sake. Israeli politics for the past dozen years has been the attempt to reconcile extrication from territory with security. That is what Sharon thinks about all the time, as did his Labour predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak.

Taking note of the extraordinary circumstances in which this heroic and besieged little country became transformed by the West into a monstrous oppressive tyrant, Moore chillingly concludes:

Israel, which was attacked, has come to be seen as the aggressor. Israel, which has elections that throw governments out and independent commissions that investigate people like Sharon and condemn him, became regarded as the oppressive monster. In a rhetoric that tried to play back upon Jews their own experience of suffering, supporters of the Palestinian cause began to call Israelis Nazis. Holocaust Memorial Day is disapproved of by many Muslims because it ignores the supposedly comparable "genocide" of the Palestinians.

Western children of the Sixties like this sort of talk. They look for a narrative based on the American civil rights movement or the struggle against apartheid. They care little for economic achievement or political pluralism. They are suspicious of any society with a Western appearance, and in any contest between people with differing skin colours, they prefer the darker. They buy into the idea, now promoted by all Arab regimes and by Muslim firebrands with a permanent interest in deflecting attention from their own societies' problems, that Israel is the greatest problem of all.

Well, some will say, that is the way it is: Israel has abused power, and is reaping the whirlwind. I don't want to argue today about the rights and wrongs of Israel's actions, though I think, given its difficulties, it stands up better than most before the bar of history. All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world's fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is "the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance", the world of the West. He is busy building his country's nuclear bomb.

How to win in Iraq

Both the Democrats and Republicans are wrong about what to do now in the Iraq war.

The Democrats want to retreat immediately and the Republicans want to "stay the course." Neither proposal will make America safe from Islamic terrorism.


As Republicans have noted, withdrawal at this time would be perceived by the Islamic fundamentalists as a major defeat of the West and draw more recruits to their cause. But as the Democrats have noted, staying our current course--which has no standard of victory and no clear connection to protecting America from Islamic terrorism--is a disaster that has already resulted in the death of two thousand Americans.


The solution is neither embracing defeat nor staying a losing course;
the solution is to pursue victory.

We must define war objectives designed solely to protect the American
people from Islamic terrorism, and then execute those objectives by
any means necessary. Above all, we must make it our objective, not to bring the good life to every corner of the Middle East, but to make the terrorist states of the Middle East non-threatening--which means that we must end state sponsorship of terrorism.


In Iraq, we must crush the insurgency immediately--which includes choking its backers, Iran and Syria--and let the Iraqis themselves take on the responsibility of establishing a government that will not threaten America. Once the insurgency is crushed the priority should be on eliminating the regime that is the greatest terrorist and nuclear threat to the United States in the Middle East: Iran. Such a policy would serve as a death blow to bin Laden, al-Zarqawi and the rest of the fundamentalists, who attract their recruits with the hope that America can slowly be defeated. [Emphasis added]


Dr. Yaron Brook
Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA

On Vacation

I will be on vacation outside the country until November 30th so the posting for the next week will be rather light, if at all. See you when I get back on the 1st of December, although it is possible I will find myself compelled to post something while I am gone.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We have a lot to be thankful for in America. God Bless our military forces for protecting our liberty and freedom.

Chris Matthews - Islamic killers not evil

In a talk at the University of Toronto yesterday, Chris Matthews said that the Islamofascists who routinely kill innocent civilians, behead Westerners, blow up weddings and send car bombs to schools and to Iraqi police stations are not evil. Apparently we just don't understand them.

In a speech to political science students at the University of Toronto yesterday, the host of the CNBC current affairs show Hardball had plenty of harsh words for U.S. President George W. Bush, as well as the political climate that has characterized his country for the past few years.

"The period between 9/11 and Iraq was not a good time for America. There wasn't a robust discussion of what we were doing," Matthews said.

"If we stop trying to figure out the other side, we've given up. The person on the other side is not evil -- they just have a different perspective."

That is the problem with liberals. They don't know evil even when it is staring them in the face.

Not a good day for al-Zarqawi

First this:

Al-Khalayleh tribe disowns al-Zarqawi

Family members of Jordanian-born al-Qaida in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have renounced the terror leader, telling King Abdullah II on Sunday that they were "sever links with him until doomsday."

Al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadeel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 deadly attacks on three Amman hotels, which killed 58 people.

In half-page advertisements in Jordan's three main newspapers, 57 members of the al-Khalayleh family, including al-Zarqawi's brother and cousin, also reiterated their strong allegiance to the king

Al-Zarqawi had threatened to kill the king in an audiotape Friday.

"As we pledge to maintain homage to your throne and to our precious Jordan ... we denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi," the family members said.

"We announce, and all the people are our witnesses, that we - the sons of the al-Khalayleh tribe - are innocent of him and all that emanates from him, whether action, assertion or decision."

Then, this:

Report: al-Zarqawi may have been killed in Mosul

The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The unconfirmed report claimed that the explosions occurred while coalition forces surrounded the house in which al-Zarqawi was hiding. American and Iraqi forces are looking into the report.

N. Y. leftist Jewish group pressures Rice on Israel

According to Haaretz

NEW YORK - New York Jewish leaders encouraged U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to intervene aggressively in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the Gaza border crossings, telling her this would gain the support of American Jews, according to sources affiliated with the community's liberal wing.

In particular, the sources said, they urged her to take a tough line against Israel, especially on issues such as a settlement freeze and dismantling illegal settlement outposts. The sources said several leading New York Jews held talks with Rice recently at which these issues, as well as the impasse over the border crossings, were discussed.

However, they also urged her to press the Palestinian Authority to meet its commitment to fight terror.

Among others, Rice met in Washington earlier this month with the heads of the left-wing Israel Policy Forum, who expressed their views on various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The article reports that other Jewish leftist groups, Americans for Peace Now and the Reform Movement, for example, all urge Rice to take a tough stand with Israel.

Secretary Rice may need to be informed that the New York Jewish Left does not represent the views of many Jews in this country and she should not consider that those groups speak for all American Jews.

Bipartisan support for Iraq War - 403-3

Democrats in the House of Representatives backed down from their "cut and run" policy when a vote was held in the House last night on a Resolution to bring home the troops from Iraq forthwith.

Hugh Hewitt writes:

Many Democrats were emotionally undone by the exercise of having to confront their own rhetoric, and the anti-war left must be stunned this morning: Only three votes? All that work? All those marches? All those posts at the fever swamp bulletin board? For three votes?


The Dems have more excuses than a teenager: It wasn't the real Murtha resolution; it's a terrible political trick; I will not participate in the assault on Congressman Murtha etc, etc, etc.


But the talk around the turkey this week should review that the elections in 2002, 2004 and the vote on Friday night in the House underscore the country is committed to victory in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and everywhere else the GWOT is being waged. That talk should also dwell on the profound hypocrisy of the left and its Congressional representatives, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." They only believe what they believe when the country as a whole isn't watching. Supermen on the web, when Congress assmebled they went into their phonebooths/cloakrooms and came out as Clark Kent.

The Democratic Party policy has been to try to undermine the President by whatever means. Criticizing the war, challenging the President's veracity, disputing that the President had the same intelligence as everyone else. It is time, at last, when the Republicans found their backbone and have challenged the lies forthcoming from Democrats.

President Bush's speech on November 11th finally addressed those who choose to rewrite history. Vice-President Cheney came out this week and addressed those who are attempting to discredit the Administration for political purposes. Finally, after Congressman Murtha (D-PA) stated on the House floor that we ought to bring the troops home immediately, with great support from House Democrats, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) decided to put a resolution on the floor to do just that. With all the bluster of the Democrats about bringing troops home now, only 3 voted for the resolution. Why? Because they know that bringing the troops home now is not what the majority of Americans want. Because they know that whoever went on record voting to bring the troops home now would have difficulty being re-elected next year.

One other thing became evident during this process. Republicans found their backbone. As Hugh Hewitt says in the same post

If the GOP stays the course of clarity, and keeps its purposes front and center, the elections of 2006 will be another milestone in the Democrats road to Whigdom.

GOP Hypocrisy Births Third Party

Right Faith thinks that the GOP will give birth to a third party in 2008:

In 2008, Republicans will be vulnerable to the attacks of fiscal and social hypocrisy while Democrats will be tied to the champions of secular progressivists. The Presidential election in 2008 will be the year of the third-party candidate.

Gone are the days of fiscal conservatism. Congressional Republican have rejected conservative economics in favor of pork and soaring deficits. They failed to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, inflation is up, and they can’t muster enough votes to cut the growth in spending from 7.3% to 7.0%. Fiscal conservatism in the Republican Party is beginning to look like a fairy tale: a long, long time ago in a land far, far away. One begins to wonder if the term “fiscal conservatism” was not so much a principled position as much as it was a stand against the Democrat-controlled purse strings for the 40 years prior to the Reagan administration.

Meanwhile, legislative leaders in the GOP are waning on issues close to the heart of social conservatives such as the marriage amendment; they are slow in rejecting embryonic stem-cell research and hate-crimes legislation. Republican leader and Virginia Representative Tom Davis manifested to social conservatives a lack of integrity by suggesting a negative political consequence to the moral issue of abortion. Regardless of his intent, to publicly consider the political consequences of morally right decisions is translated by social conservatives: “fake and unprincipled." Political calculations were at the heart of President Bush’s stealth nomination of Harriet Meirs; social conservatives responded and it cost him dearly.

On the other hand, Democrats have pigeon-holed their agenda through the incremental placation of their wacky, far-left base over the past 5 years and, losing all touch with reality, now look like phony ideologues to the average American. It would take a revolution in the Democrat party occurring through the replacement of Dean, Durbin, Reid, Kennedy, Bayh, and Biden, for this to occur. While Hillary will have stiff competition, she will probably win the Democratic nomination; but, assuming this, not even she will be able to separate herself from, or her need for the support of, Hollywood, the ACLU, George Soros, and Michael Moore.

If Republicans lose in 2008 to Clinton, it’s not going to be because of Clinton’s moderate positions; it will be because they have alienated either fiscal or social conservatives. The primary question (pun completely intended) for Republicans to consider is which nominee eliminates the foothold of a third-party candidate?

Read more of this very insightful observation about the failings of our party to adhere to its principles. Once we stray from our basic principles we will go down in flames.

CAN WE AFFORD $50 BILLION MORE DEBT?

Governor Schwarzenegger has been talking about a new $50 Billion bond issue to fund infrastructure rehabilitiation in the State of California. Steve Frank of California Political News asks the question, "Can we afford it?"


"There is talk about a proposed $50 billion bond issue. The money will be spent for roads, schools, harbors, high speed transportation and water projects. Before we determine to vote for this we need to have a complete understanding of the proposal, the full impact.

In 2002 Bill Simon, the GOP nominee for Governor did a survey and found, at that time, that the minimum cost of repairing and building the California infrastructure was $180 billion. So, the $50 billion is just a stop gap measure.

For instance--I could make the $50 billion into almost $75 billion without a dime added to the $50 billion cost. Just get rid of prevailing wage and Davis-Bacon, union monopoly measures meant to pay off goons for not striking or disrupting government business. Then, as Senator Ackerman has pointed out, the high speed rail project is a worthless boondoggle. Do we really need to build a system that is not cost effective and doesn't solve any problems, while at the same time road projects, like fixing the 101 in the south and the 50 and 80 in the north, would go a long way to helping end gridlock.

We need a coordinated plan, not one that is piecemeal. What about toll roads? School classrooms? We have more than we need. We could get class size down to 20 per class, give every teacher a 15% pay raise and still have money left over, without building another school. How? By enforcing our Federal immigration laws. In 1990, 15 years ago, LA Unified School District estimated they had 125,000 illegal aliens in the classrooms..on a base of 700,000 students. We don't need more schools, we need law enforcement.

Political leadership needs to come to the people of California voters with a full scale program. Of course, this is only the start of the debate. I am sure the Governor and the Democrats in Sacramento know they need to promote this as a full scale program, not just throwing money to the wind, to pay off the unions--again.

The deficit this year is $7 billion with a possible $12 billion next year. We can't afford new programs or interest on more debt. The results of the election show that politicians want to spend more money, not cut wasteful programs. And the voters bought it. That is the reality. California, with the next budget and the passage of massive bond measures will bring our economy to a halt and make us a Third World state. Nissan is about to leave California because of the high cost of living and tax policy. By leaving they won't have to spend productive money on phony "Don't sexually harass" training for managers. Instead the managers will have the time to build a better car and how to sell them. No wonder Nissan is leaving. Personally, I would fire any CEO that expanded in California, if they could build elsewhere.

One key fact has come out of the Special Election, the voters trust NO one in Sacramento. If the Governor and the Democrats go forward with this plan, they will have to show this is not just another payoff to special interests, that this will actually be done in a cost effective manner and that it will solve some of the problems--gridlock, law enforcement, prioritize education spending, etc.

Now is the time to speak up--write letters to the editor, call talk radio. Lets get the budget of California in order, pay off the over $50 billion debt we already have, make the current dollars go further, before we decide to spend money we don't have.

This is FRANK DISCUSSION NOT LECTURE FOR CONSERVATIVES. This is your opportunity to be heard by the media, elected officials and activists. Do not email me with your comments. Post them directly on the web site at www.capoliticalnews.com. Go to the topic, which is in blue, click on it, go to the bottom, read the other comments and write, then post your own. Join the debate.

Thanks.

Steve Frank"

We are all "victims"

John Leo thinks we are all becoming victims. In this article he cites the ten top victim stories of 2005. Excerpt:

Children of witches are victimized by Halloween. Coming to class dressed as a witch on Halloween is a violation of "equitable schools policies," according to the Toronto district school board. The board said it feared "traumatic shock" if children treat "the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs as 'fun.' "

British Muslims are victimized by Piglet and piggy banks. Novelty pig calendars, toys, and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet have been banned in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, out of deference to Muslim sensibilities.

Students are victimized by the disappearance of low weekend prices in bars. Pressured by the University of Wisconsin and a federal campaign against binge drinking, 24 bars near the Madison campus agreed to end cut-rate weekend prices. Three students and a Minneapolis law firm failed to convince a Wisconsin circuit judge that this represented conspiracy and price fixing. But they are suing again in federal court. Legal costs to the bar owners so far: $250,000.

Read the whole article about people unwilling to assume responsibility for their lives and assuming a "victim" mentality.

An interview with terrorists

WND reports that talk show host, Rusty Humphries, conducted an interview with seven gun-toting members of the Islamic terrorist group, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, led by Ala Sanakreh, the Al Aqsa leader in the area. You can read the whole interview here, but I wanted to include some excerpts to show you what these guys really believe. They are not saying this for the interviewer, they really believe this stuff:

Humphries: I have studied history and the Temple Mount ... was that not built by King Herod for the Jews?

Unnamed Terrorist #1: In what period of history?

Humphries: You had the first temple built by King Solomon, the second temple built by King Herod ...

Unnamed Terrorist #1: We would rather not enter into this religious debate because we can't hurt one's religion. Some Jews say that they were promised by God to have the state of Israel – this is nonsense, and God never promised them. They falsified history.

Humphries: So the Bible is not correct then?

Unnamed Terrorist #1: I have historical proof the Bible and the New Testament were falsified.

Humphries: I was in the City of David yesterday and went down to the water and the tunnels but does that not prove that King David existed?

Unnamed Terrorist #1: I do not know the answer, I do not know the answer.

Monica Lewinsky an Israeli agent? AIDS/homosexuality killed Arafat?

Humphries: I have heard this rumor: Jews sent Monica Lewinsky to Bill Clinton so they could run the country? True or false?

Sanakreh: Of course.

Humphries: That is true?

Sanakreh: Yes. OK.

Humphries: Did Jews send the planes to the World Trade Center to start that war against Muslims in America?

Unnamed Terrorist #2: 5,000 Israelis that were in the World Trade Center were evacuated.

Humphries: OK, so the answer to that is yes?

Unnamed Terrorist #2: Yes, and we heard that the Israelis told the U.S. that something will take place in a few hours the day of the attacks.

Humphries: Yasser Arafat died because of poisoning or natural causes?

Sanakreh: The president died of poison.

Humphries: Now I have heard that it is possible, it's one of those things that people said, that he died of homosexuality and AIDS.

Sanakreh: This is not true! If someone says this we will cut his head!

Muslim violence kills non-Muslims in India and Phillipines.

According to an article at World Net Daily, Muslims from India have gone on an anti-Christian rampage.

They came in buses to the small village of Sangla Hill in the Nankana district of Punjab in India.

Some 2,000 organized Muslims first vandalized three churches, a nuns' convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest, a girls' hostel and some Christian homes, according to Asia News.

Then they burned them to the ground, while about 450 Christian families fled yesterday. They have not returned.

The Justice and Peace Commission accuses the police of "criminal negligence" because they did not intervene.

Lawrence John Saldanha, archbishop of Lahore Archdiocese and chairman of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, said "the attack seems to have been planned and organized as the attackers were brought to the site in buses and instigated to commit violence and arson. It gave our people a lot of fear and anxiety but we hope the government will do something."

The violence began 10 a.m. Saturday and was apparently motivated by the latest blasphemy case. On Friday, a Christian, Yousaf Masih, allegedly burned some copies of the Koran and disappeared. One of his brothers, Salim Masih was arrested the day before. The Commission of Justice and Peace in Lahore ruled that the blasphemy accusations were false and stemmed from the accusers having a financial dispute with the families they accused.

Saqib Sohail Bhatti, a Christian in Sangla Hill, explained Masih is an illiterate who would not even be able to distinguish the Koran from any other book.

Muslim clerical leaders yesterday called their flocks to gather outside the Jamia Madni Masjid central mosque where they urged them to attack the Christians. In fiery speeches, the leaders provoked the mob to set to fire each and every Christian place of worship.

The angry mob started with Masih's house and then turned on the house of his brother. Then they headed for the Presbyterian Church, setting ablaze the building, books and the house of the local pastor, Tajamal Perveiz. Then they turned on the Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit and the adjacent convent as well as the home of the Father Semson Dilawar, the parish priest.

The crowd of some 2,000 Muslims also caused severe damage to the Saint Anthony schools, destroying furniture, records, laboratories and the library.

The Church of the Salvation Army was also damaged.

A Christian member of Parliament, Akram Gill, accused police of sitting on their hands during the rampage.

He telephoned for help but got none. Anwar Sohail, who also witnessed the incidents, told Asia News that "police were there when the mob came to attack the Catholic Church but they fled away and let the protesters enter the Church."

Hat tip: Stop the ACLU

In other news, "Twenty slain as soldiers, Muslim extremists battle in Philippines."

As many as 20 people are believed to have been killed as fighting between soldiers and members of an Al-Qaeda-linked Muslim militant group went into its third day in the southern Philippines on Sunday.

Heavy rains were hampering the military's pursuit of members of the Abu Sayyaf on the outskirts of the town of Indanan in the southern island of Jolo, said Brigadier General Alexander Aleo, who heads an anti-terror task force on the island.

Aleo said the total number of soldiers killed had risen to four, with 21 others wounded.

Intelligence reports and radio intercepts revealed that 16 Abu Sayyaf members had been killed, although soldiers had only recovered three bodies, Aleo said.

The Abu Sayyaf, a feared Muslim outlaw group, has also received extra support from additional armed guerrillas as the troops advanced, Aleo said.

Fighting broke out on Friday when Abu Sayyaf members attacked a military patrol in Indanan.

Aleo said his soldiers discovered that the rebels had been forcing residents in outlying areas to leave their homes, for an as yet unknown reason. Troops had been sent to help the forced evacuees.

The Abu Sayyaf is a group of Muslim militants who have staged various kidnapping and bombing attacks against Christians and foreigners in this largely Roman Catholic nation.

It has been linked by both Washington and Manila to the Al-Qaeda network.

Hat tip: LGF

Inaccurate population data in Palestine costs U.S.

Palestinian Demography –
Squandering US Policymakers and Taxpayers
by Yoram Ettinger
yoramtex@netvision.net.il

Grossly erroneous demographic assumptions underline US policy on the Palestinian issue and US contributions to Palestinian-related international organizations and to the Palestinian Authority.

2.5MN Palestinians reside in Gaza (1.1MN) and Judea & Samaria (1.4MN), and not 3.8MN, as contended by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). The latter is a 1998 projection, and not a tangible figure. It has been embraced by the UN, the Department of State and by the CIA without scrutiny.

Corroboration of the 2.5MN figure was concluded with the Palestinian Ministries of Health and Education, the PA Election Commission and Jordan’s Bureau of Statistics, which sharply depart from the PCBS projection. For example:

a) 325,000 Overseas Palestinians are included in the projection, according to the PCBS web site, and according to a March 1998 statement by the PCBS director.

b) 210,000 Jerusalem Arabs, who benefit from Israel’s social security, are doubly-counted (as Israeli Arabs by Israel and as West Bankers by the PA).

c) 238,000 Palestinian Babies have never been born (1997-2003), when comparing the PCBS projection to the documented births by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (from midwives to clinics and hospitals deliveries).

d) 310,000 Deduction from Projection. Rather than 236,000 projected net positive migration there was an actual 74,000 net negative migration (1997-2003).

e) 105,000 Palestinians received Israeli ID cards via marriage (since Oslo 1993) and are doubly-counted (by the PA as well).

f) The 59%:41% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River (including Gaza) is more sustainable in 2004 (systematic decline in Arab population growth) than it was in 1967 (initial rise in Arab population growth). It could be upset by a significant net positive Palestinian migration, which has not occurred since the early 1940s.

The aforementioned data, scrutinized by leading DC demographers, is based on a January 2005 study, led by Ben Zimmerman of LA, which will be shortly published (www.pademographics.com).

Liberal Illusions in France

Jack Kelly, the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, writes an article that hits the proverbial nail on the head.

It's harder to ignore the elephant in the living room when the elephant is setting fire to it.

The elephant in France -- whose name begins with the dreaded M-word journalists dare not mention -- hasn't been allowed in the living room. He's been locked in the shed out back.

This gives liberals an excuse to blame the rioting in France -- which has finally died down after two weeks -- on the standard liberal villains, poverty and racism.

But if racism is a cause of the rioting, poverty isn't. As Theodore Dalrymple noted in a prescient article in the City Journal three years ago ("The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris"), those whom the media choose to describe as "French youths" have cell phones, cars, boom boxes, gold chains around their necks. "They enjoy a far higher standard of living than they would in the countries of their parents' or grandparents' origin, even if they labored there 14 hours a day."

His article is all about the fact that liberal solutions won't work and haven't worked in France.

For the children of immigrants to have the same opportunities in France they do in the United States, taxes must be cut, regulations slashed, the minimum wage reduced, trade restrictions eased, labor unions weakened. But no politician in France would dare propose such remedies.

So there is a search for less controversial ones. "We are victims of our architecture," Guillaume Permentier told the Washington Post's Jim Hoagland, referring to the high-rise ghettos designed by the Stalinist architect Le Corbusier.

Looking everywhere but at the elephant gives liberals an illusion of control. A problem "caused" by ugly buildings can be cured by prettier buildings, with skateboard parks to calm the passions of "disaffected youths."

The elephant isn't really there, the media assure us. "The violence in France has not taken on religious overtones," said The New York Times. "Islamic ideology and leaders play no role in the disturbances," said The Washington Post.

But the "disaffected youth" shout "Allahu Akbar" as they toss Molotov cocktails into churches and synagogues. They talk of turning Paris into "Baghdad on the Seine."(emphasis added)

He concludes his article with an insightful, cutting, but highly accurate statement:

Going up in smoke along with thousands of Peugeots are liberal illusions. Multiculturalism is social poison. Toleration of intolerance isn't sophistication, it's suicide. Work, not welfare, is the key to social integration. Making excuses for violence begets more violence.

We cannot corral the rampaging elephant until we see the elephant for what he is. Liberals prefer blindness.

How refreshing to have a journalist "tell it like it is."

Read the whole article

ADL loses its direction

FOXMAN UNCOVERS CONSPIRACY TO "CHRISTIANIZE" AMERICA
By Don Feder

Abraham Foxman has gone from nuisance to embarrassment to self-parody.

The national leader of the Anti-Defamation League has declared war on conservative Christians. In doing so, he's not only attacking the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have, he's also repudiating Torah-based morality.

At a New York meeting of the ADL's national leadership recently, Foxman experienced a near total meltdown. Groups like Focus on The Family and American Family Association are leading a full-scale assault on tolerance and diversity, Foxman foamed.

As reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Foxman declared: "Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!"

Foxman went on to explain that the ominous agenda of the Christianizers includes working to confirm conservative judicial nominees, restricting abortion and stopping gay marriage.

"They intend to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports; from the military to SpongeBob SquarePants," the ADL chief warned. Is Sponge Pants Jewish? Has he been slated for forced baptism?

Perhaps Foxman could turn his conspiracy theory into a documentary for cable television -- "Christians Gone Wild."

And how, exactly, are James Dobson, Don Wildmon and their colleagues going to accomplish their Christianizing mission?

Is keeping "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance Christianizing America? Is maintaining the traditional definition of marriage (you know, the one found in that Jewish book, Genesis) Christianizing America? Is public display of The Ten Commandments Christianizing America? In Hebrew school, they forgot to tell me that Moses was a Christianizer.

For the most part, conservative Christians are defending the status quo. Except in Massachusetts, where radical change was mandated by the judiciary, marriage as the union of a man and a woman is the norm. Foxman is arguing that self-defense, by the likes of the Alliance Defense Fund and Arlington Group, constitutes a proselytizing campaign.

Thus, according to Foxman, whenever the left tries to force a supremely dumb and dangerous social experiment on the nation, and Christian conservatives resist, the latter are engaged in a holy war designed to save or suppress the infidels.

Regarding so-called church-state issues, here religious conservatives do indeed want to turn back the clock -- to an era before the federal courts began reading their secularist dogma into the First Amendment, to a time when "establishment of religion" meant just that -- no national church -- as opposed to today, when (according to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court) it means an acknowledgement of the God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Imagine the chutzpah of those notorious Christianizers -- Jefferson and Adams -- making God the focal point of The Declaration of Independence. ("That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights... . That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.") For the Founding Fathers (those Christian zealots), God was the basis for self-government.

Foxman is furious because he detests the political agenda of Christian conservatives, and sees them making headway. That is his right -- just as it's the right of Dobson and company to do what their opponents on the left (the ACLU, People for the American Way, MoveOn.org, etc) are doing to the best of their ability -- using the political process to advance their cause.

This is neither sinister, conspiratorial nor coercive. It's called democracy.

The last time Foxman lost it was when Reverend Jerry Falwell distributed bumper stickers that proclaimed: "I Vote Christian." ("Directly at odds with the American ideal, and should be rejected," the ADL-ayatollah fumed.)

The poster boy for militant secularism never explained why it's legitimate for environmentalists to vote for environmental issues, for feminists to try to legislate the values of feminism, for Democrats to be guided by redistributionism, but ominous and intimidating for Christians to base their political choices on Christian values.

If there is a crusade here, it's Foxman and friends who are unfurling the banners. The ADL has been transformed from an organization working to combat anti-Semitism to just another leftist group bent on severing America from its religious roots.

For instance, in June, the ADL National Director wrote to the superintendent of the United States Naval Academy demanding an end to the practice of grace being offered before midshipmen take their lunch.

These are voluntary prayers, led on a rotating basis by one of the academy's Protestant, Catholic or Jewish chaplains. (Foxman called the invocations "coercive" and a violation of church-state separation.) If resistance to this demand reflects a desire to Christianize America, put me down as a Christianizer.

Where does Foxman think these Christianizers got their morality from anyway -- "The 700 Club," Dobson's daily broadcasts or the curriculum of Liberty University?

What's called Judeo-Christian morality comes from the Jewish Bible, as transmitted to the West by Christianity. It's the Torah that says "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination." The Torah tells us God commanded man to leave his father and his mother and "cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." (Anita Bryant used to famously quip that "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.")

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late leader of the world's largest Hasidic group, once expressed his support for a nondenominational school prayer by rhetorically asking what harm it did for students to begin the school day by affirming the existence of One to whom they are answerable?

The Alliance for Marriage, a group pushing a Federal Marriage Amendment, numbers among its advisors Rabbi Yoels Schonfeld of the Queens Board of Rabbis, Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition and Barry Freundel, rabbi of Kesher Israel, the most prominent Orthodox synagogue in our nation's capital.

On its website, Agudath Israel, lobbying arm of yeshiva Orthodoxy, reports that it "has urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its holdings in Roe v. Wade, and supports legislation that restricts abortion on demand." Agudath takes its marching orders not from Colorado Springs (headquarters of Focus on The Family) but from Sinai.

While there are plenty of organizations with the word Jewish in their titles on the other side, as commentator and Jewish scholar Dennis Prager notes, the more a Jew understands Jewish law and is committed to Torah values, the more apt he is to support social conservative positions. In other words, the more likely he is to find himself politically aligned with those Foxman calls Christianizers. Perhaps one should speak of Judeo-Christianizers.

While synagogues are attacked by Muslim rioters in France and Jewish students are harassed and assaulted on our college campuses, while Israel is slandered by vocal leftists like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan (who says the Iraq War was a Neo-Con conspiracy to aid Israel), Abe Foxman has located the real threat to Jews in a group of church ladies who want to erect a Nativity scene in the public park at Christmas.

There's no nation on earth where Jews have been more welcomed -- no nation that has made a greater contribution to the survival of the Jewish people -- than America.

It's no coincidence that America is also the only nation since ancient Israel specifically founded on a Biblical worldview. Does Foxman imagine that Jews will be safer in a secular America (one cut off from its spiritual roots)? Are the Jews of Europe safer on a continent that can't even acknowledge its Christian heritage?

Would Foxman feel safer walking the streets of Biloxi, Mississippi or one of those towns around Paris illuminated by the glow of burning Citroens?


[Comment: As a religious Jew I think that Abraham Foxman and the ADL have lost direction. They want a secular U.S., similar to the ACLU. The ADL should be supporting Christianity in the U.S. There are no stronger supporters of Judaism or Israel than Christians in this country. Gary Aminoff]

The French Intifada Continues

The Muslim riots in France continue - Day 17 - and show no prospect of ending: French Police Clash With Youths in Lyon

Thousands of Parisian police guarded the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees and train stations on Saturday, as part of emergency measures enacted in response to text messages and Internet postings that called for "violent actions" in the capital.

In Lyon, France's third largest city, police fired tear gas to disperse stone-hurling youths at the historic Place Bellecour. It was the first time in 17 days of unrest that youths clashed with police in a major city.

Hours earlier, authorities had announced a weekend curfew in Lyon, barring youths under 18 from being outside without adult supervision between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

In separate incidents Saturday night in the southern city of Carpentras, rioters rammed burning cars into the side of a retirement home and a school. A second school and linen store were also set ablaze there.

The violence started in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27 when about 100 youths rioted to protest the accidental deaths of two Muslim teens who were electrocuted while hiding from police in an electricity substation.

The turmoil, marked by arson and clashes with police, quickly spread across France in housing projects plagued by unemployment and alienation. The unrest has forced France to confront its failure to integrate minorities and the anger simmering among its large African and Arab communities.

The emergency measures in Paris came a day after cell phone text messages and Internet blog postings called for "violent actions" in Paris on Saturday evening. Authorities banned public gatherings considered risky in an effort to keep the unrest from reaching inside the capital.

"This is not a rumor," National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said. "One can easily imagine the places where we must be highly vigilant."

No trouble anywhere in Paris was reported overnight into Sunday.

In the northern Paris suburb of La Courneuve, a police officer was injured after being hit with a metal ball dropped from an apartment building, said national police spokesman Laurent Carron, who also detailed the troubles in Carpentras.

Rioting has weakened in intensity since the government declared a state of emergency Tuesday, empowering regions to impose curfews and conduct house searches.

Some 40 towns, suburbs and small cities have imposed curfews on minors.

Paris police banned public gatherings that could "provoke or encourage disorder" from 10 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday. It was the first such ban in the French capital in at least a decade, said police spokesman Hugo Mahboubi.

Police counted 315 cars torched and said 161 people were arrested across France overnight before dawn Sunday.

Calls for peace and political change mounted.

Several hundred people demonstrated against the state of emergency in Paris' Latin Quarter, a gathering that police allowed because it was not deemed risky. Under tight police surveillance, the protesters called the new security measures a "provocation" that would not resolve the social and economic problems underlying the unrest.

The protesters, many from left-wing political groups and Communist-backed unions, called for the resignation of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of inflaming the violence by calling troublemakers "scum."

A similar rally in the southern city of Toulouse drew about 700 people.

In Blangnac, on the outskirts of Toulouse, arsonists set fire to an electronics store on Saturday night, the regional government said. No injuries were reported.

Late Friday, two gasoline bombs slightly damaged a mosque in Carpentras, a city grimly remembered for a 1990 neo-Nazi attack on a Jewish cemetery that sparked national outrage.

President Jacques Chirac called on investigators to find the perpetrators.

Some 2,503 people have been detained since the trouble started, with 364 of them convicted in expedited trials. Nearly 460 minors have gone before juvenile courts, 103 of whom were in the process of being charged, the Justice Ministry said.

In Brussels, Belgium, police detained about 25 youths near the Stock Exchange building on Saturday and the RTBF radio network said up to 50 were detained across the capital. Police were on high alert after Internet postings urging youths to attack downtown shops.

About 60 vehicles have been burned in Belgium in the past week, including more than a dozen already over the weekend, but the country has not seen rioting similar to that in France.

It has now also spread to Belgium.
Hat tip: LGF

French riots continue over weekend

You won't see this anywhere in the mainstream media, since they have decided not to report on the French riots, but they are still going on. Captain's Quarters reports:

Although no one would know this by reading American newspapers, which now follow the French lead and refuse to report on the ongoing uprising, but the riots in France once again started to rise in intensity, even by the odd metric given by police. The BBC reports that over 500 cars got torched last night despite a heavier police presence that resulted from intelligence that points to a massive demonstration sometime this weekend:

A ban on all public meetings likely to provoke disturbances has come into effect in the French capital. The move - imposed under new emergency measures - started at 0900 GMT and will remain in force until Sunday morning. ...
Rioting that erupted two weeks ago is now less intense across France, but unrest continued on Friday night, as more than 500 cars were set on fire.

Two police officers were wounded and 206 people were detained across the country. This was an increase on the previous night, when 395 vehicles were torched and 168 people were arrested.

The arrests have not stamped out the nightly riots, and neither has a heavy police presence, although the latter seems to displace the violence to other, less-patrolled areas. The French now have suspended speech and assembly rights in its capital to avoid further protest, but have shown little ability over the past two weeks to enforce it. After all, they have hardly been able to enforce the existing laws against arson.

Read more...

Denial is not a river in Egypt

Melanie Phillips, in the U.K., heard on the BBC the acclaimed French thinker Bernard-Henri Levy declare that it was a great mistake to assume that the French riots are about Islam. They are merely an outbreak of nihilism, apparently.

Now I happen to like much of what Bernard-Henri Levy has written, particularly about anti-semitism in Europe. I have to agree with Melanie, in this case, however.

This 2003 article by Olivier Guitta puts a different perspective on the Muslim population of France:

This extremist indoctrination also extends to French schools, where non-Muslim teachers are subject to daily insults and racist remarks. For instance, the principal of the Trappes’ primary school described how, "An 11-year-old kid insulted his female teacher because she was not wearing the hijab. Intolerant behaviors especially against teachers and other religions have skyrocketed in the past three years." These young children are taught from the time they can walk that Islam is the answer to everything the Ultimate Truth and that is why even six-year-olds are now fasting during Ramadan.


Therefore, is not surprising that ten-year olds call for the institution of Shariah, or Koranic law, during class. Or that during a high school History lesson regarding the Crusades, a Muslim student yelled: "Anyway, the Arabs are going to kill the Christians and the Jews." The teacher then asked him, "When?" and the child replied, "I do not know. It was not mentioned on the imam’s tape." Or that on a course on the Holocaust, Muslim children demanded to be let go to ask their imams if what they were being taught was true.

But school is not the only place in France where militant Islam is omnipresent. For example, in Avignon, Muslim extremists distribute loads of Koranic tapes in French and drive around town with their windows open and propaganda blasting through the speakers. In French hospitals, most Muslim women, sometimes under the family’s pressure, refuse to be examined by male doctors and many Muslim men by female doctors. Many Muslim defendants refuse to be tried by Jewish judges, and some municipal pools have different hours for women and men to accommodate the Muslim population. A number of supermarkets carrying non-Halaal products (food not permitted by the Koran), have been vandalized by Muslims and then surrendered to this violent blackmail by taking the products off their shelves. This is what France has become.

Whenever you have violence or riots or beheadings or murder by Muslims, you can be sure it is about Islam. The Muslims of France, which have lived there since the 1950's have been peaceful and have lived their lives, while not integrated into French society, at least integrated into a French Muslim society. Over the past 15 to 20 years, Saudi Arabia has been sending in Imams, books and funding to promote their radical Wahabism form of Islam. The result will not be pleasant for France or for Europe.

If the United States does not prevent Saudi Arabia from spreading its cancerous Wahabism form of Islam in the U.S., we will also face similar problems here.

What kind of action hero would I be

Well, I had five minutes so I went here to find out what kind of action hero I would be.

You scored as Maximus. After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus's assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him.

Veteran's Day

Veterans' Day (formerly Armistice Day)

November 11, is the anniversary of the Armistice which was signed in the Forest of Compiegne by the Allies and the Germans in 1918, ending World War I, after four years of conflict.

At 5 A.M. on Monday, November 11, 1918 the Germans signed the Armistice, an order was issued for all firing to cease; so the hostilities of the First World War ended. This day began with the laying down of arms, blowing of whistles, impromptu parades, closing of places of business. All over the globe there were many demonstrations; no doubt the world has never before witnessed such rejoicing.

In November of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson issued his Armistice Day proclamation. The last paragraph set the tone for future observances:

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nation.

In 1927 Congress issued a resolution requesting President Calvin Coolidge to issue a proclamation calling upon officials to display the Flag of the United States on all government buildings on November 11, and inviting the people to observe the day in schools and churches...But it was not until 1938 that Congress passed a bill that each November 11 "shall be dedicated to the cause of world peace and ...hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day."

That same year President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill making the day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia. For sixteen years the United States formally observed Armistice Day, with impressive ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the Chief Executive or his representative placed a wreath. In many other communities, the American Legion was in charge of the observance, which included parades and religious services. At 11 A.M. all traffic stopped, in tribute to the dead, then volleys were fired and taps sounded.

After World War II, there were many new veterans who had little or no association with World War I. The word, "armistice," means simply a truce; therefore as years passed, the significance of the name of this holiday changed. Leaders of Veterans' groups decided to try to correct this and make November 11 the time to honor all who had fought in various American wars, not just in World War I.

In Emporia, Kansas, on November 11, 1953, instead of an Armistice Day program, there was a Veterans' Day observance. Ed Rees, of Emporia, was so impressed that he introduced a bill into the House to change the name to Veterans' Day. After this passed, Mr. Rees wrote to all state governors and asked for their approval and cooperation in observing the changed holiday. The name was changed to Veterans' Day by Act of Congress on May 24, 1954. In October of that year, President Eisenhower called on all citizens to observe the day by remembering the sacrifices of all those who fought so gallantly, and through rededication to the task of promoting an enduring peace. The President referred to the change of name to Veterans' Day in honor of the servicemen of all America's wars.

Excerpts from All About American Holidays by Mayme R. Krythe.
Hat tip to Stuck on Stupid

President finally speaks out against those who would rewrite history

For the longest time we on the right have been wondering when President Bush was going to come out swinging against his critics on the war. As time has progressed and our victory in Iraq become more manifest, the drumbeat of leftwing lies and slanders about the war has merely grown louder and more strident. The endless shriek of leftwing lies have become more and more echoed in the MSM and in the senior leadership of the Democratic Party - to listen to the critics, the liberation of Iraq was begun with no justification whatsoever and has been an unmitigated failure from start to finish. President Bush, in his speech earlier today, finally answered these critics directly:

While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war.

These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: 'When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.' That's why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our Nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory. (emphasis added)

It is about time the President spoke out against the critics who would rewrite history and whose lies - sick and cruel lies -encourage the enemy to kill more people, including American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. There is not the slightest truth in the anti-war criticism - each and every assertion they have made about pre-war intelligence and the course of the war in Iraq has been false from the start. I am sick and tired of it - and I'm glad that the President is sick and tired of it.

The Bush-haters are so desperate to derail the conservative agenda of the President that they have no compunction about lying to the public, about damaging the morale of the American troops in harms way, and about putting those brave servicemen in jeopardy.

For a full transcript of the President's speech, go here.

For other commentaries go to Blogs for Bush, Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Stop the ACLU and Daily Pundit.

MORE: Don Surber says it was Bush's Gettysburg Address

Ominous Warnings

President Bush was not alone among U.S. leaders in being alarmed about the threat Saddam Hussein posed.

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program." Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq is a long way from (here), but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Clinton secretary of state, Feb 18, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has 10 times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton national security adviser, Feb, 18, 1998.

"(W)e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspected Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry and others, Oct. 9, 1998.

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Dec. 16, 1998.

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Albright, Nov. 10, 1999.

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, signed by Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and others, Dec, 5, 2001.

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
Sen. Levin, Sept. 19, 2002.

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Sept. 27, 2002.

"The last U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons."
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., Oct. 3, 2002.

"I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
Kerry, Oct. 9, 2002.

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Oct. 10, 2002.

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant U.N. resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do."
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Oct. 10, 2002.

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Oct 10, 2002.

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
Graham, Dec. 8, 2002.

"(W)ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ... And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."
Kerry, Jan. 23. 2003.
_______________________

Instructions to Liberals, Democrats and other anti-war activists:
1) Print out the above
2) Paste on refrigerator door or bathroom mirror
3) Read out loud at least once a day (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein should read out loud twice a day).

ACLU now able to accept money from terrorists

From the ACLU web site:

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and 12 other national non-profit organizations today said they have successfully challenged Office of Personnel Management’s Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) requirements that all participating charities check their employees and expenditures against several government watch lists for "terrorist activities" and that organizations certify that they do not contribute funds to organizations on those lists.

"This is a major victory for non-profit organizations that refused to be subjected to vague government requirements forcing us to become law enforcement officers for the federal government," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “We feel vindicated. List checking is not and has not been required by law.”

More on this story at And Rightly So:

Now we have proof positive that the ACLU is anti-American. Right down to the core. To make such declarations as the one above, with gleeful tone, should concern people who care about this country. It’s well known that Muslim freaks use their Mosques and the charities that are set up as a front to cover terrorist activity. Money is gathered and used to train future terrorists; the money is given to peace loving groups such as Hamas. Yes, the ACLU is looking out for the people of America.

Stop the ACLU also reports on this story.

Obviously the ACLU had a problem exluding terrorists from its funds and employment. What a shame. It begs two major questions here. Why would the ACLU have a problem exluding its funds from terrorists? And what is the CFC thinking by dropping this?

I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already. Thanks ACLU!

Jawa Report also comments on this breaking news.

Well I don't understand why the ACLU needs to accept money from what might turn out to be terrorist organizations. It seems to me they have plenty of donors around the U.S.

A Masterful Campaign to Discredit Governor Schwarzenegger

The unions, with their war chest of $140 Million, had a brilliant strategy. Discredit the Governor early so the people lose faith in him, and then make the initiative campaign about him against the public service employees and the "working man" and not about the issues.

William Saracino, writing in the California Political Review has an excellent analysis of the Special Election Campaign, titled, "Be ye men of valour."

It would be foolish to disguise the gravity of the hour. It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage. — Winston Churchill, May 19, 1940

Winston Churchill’s speeches, the best of which were given during the darkest hours for Britain of World War II, retain a remarkable degree of cogency for 21st century conservatives. Churchill’s style and oratory were so powerful we sometimes overlook the actual thoughts he was imparting. But for California conservatives — eying the wreckage of election night 2005, surveying destruction as devastating as Churchill saw inspecting London during the Blitz — the quote above, especially the second half, is particularly apropos.

Actually, there is this major difference between England’s situation at the time and California’s now: then, the Nazis were on the march, having just rolled over France and expected, by almost everyone but Churchill, soon to make similar short work of England. But now Republicans are on offense, hammering away at the left’s anti-democratic gerrymanders and extortionary campaign funds-gathering mechanisms. This GOP assault was repulsed, absolutely, and there’s no point trying to sugarcoat the returns or spin them into anything other then what they are — a complete victory for the Democrats and their public employee union allies. But we have less excuse than the English for losing heart and courage on account of this. Our position is more like that of Gen. George Washington enduring repeated set-backs trying to free America of an entrenched occupying foe. Persistence won out in the end. Just how apropos Churchill’s advice is becomes particularly clear when you step back and look at exactly what the voters rejected yesterday.

They said “no” to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Exactly why they did so, and the details of how a governor riding so high at the beginning of this year could be brought so low a mere 11 months later will be gist for pundits, columnists, and sooth-sayers in the weeks ahead. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if most of them miss the obvious — and most salient — dynamic of this election: this was a referendum much more on Gov. Schwarzenegger than on the substance of the propositions.

When the governor announced his “year of reform” in January you did not need to be an Albert Einstein, Carl Rove, or even a Harold Stassen to be able to lay out the following scenario:

1) legislative Democrats would enact none of the governor’s reforms;

2) he would therefore circulate the reforms as initiatives and call a special election;

3) voters, being “real people” as opposed to political junkies, would not become familiar with the details of any of these initiatives; therefore

4) the election would come down to a “who do you trust” decision by the voters — having to trust either Schwarzenegger or the Democrat messenger(s) who would probably be cops, firefighters, and other sympathetic public employees; so

5) the Democrats, in order to have any chance of defeating the initiatives containing ideas popular with the public, would have to destroy voters’ faith in the governor well in advance of the election; and voilà

6) if they succeeded sufficiently, his initiatives — even if they were Mothers’ Day resolutions — would lose (and, conversely, if they failed to destroy that faith, his initiatives would win even if they called for drowning newborn kittens).

This election was lost in late spring and over the summer when Team Schwarzenegger committed the inexplicable blunder of failing to answer the Democrat/union multi-million dollar character assassination media campaign.

Once the Democrat mendacities and smears took root with the voters the election was essentially over. That the Democrats adopted this routinely (for them) dishonest and dishonorable approach should surprise no one. That the highly- (and I do mean highly) paid professionals around the governor let it happen should surprise Republicans of all stripes.

Now the governor and his team are in a tough spot. It will be interesting to see how they now maneuver. But what conservatives should realize is that the Democrats created and defeated a straw man, and that a competently-run campaign could well have beaten them on all the conservative-backed props. Not that that makes next year’s tasks of re- electing Schwarzenegger and electing Lt. Gov. Tom McClintock any easier. But it should — it must — give conservatives reason to understand why it would, in Churchill’s words, be foolish to lose heart and courage.

With the governor perhaps in a hunker-down mode, now is the time for Tom McClintock (coincidentally a fellow Churchillophile) and his common-sense conservative ideas to come to the forefront. At the end of the speech quoted above, Churchill added: “Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: ‘Arm yourselves and be ye men of valour’” — words, too, for conservatives, now, to adopt and act upon.

Who is lying about Iraq?

Norman Podhoretz writing in Commentary Magazine asks the question, "Who is lying about Iraq?" Everyone who believes the statement that President Bush lied to get us into war in Iraq should read this article:

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.

Read the whole article here.

UPDATE: Roger Simon says:

After reading Norman's article, what I first thought about was this - If I were an Iraqi citizen thankful for my freedom from dictatorship (the vast majority, I imagine), I would despise Senator Harry Reid. Reid is either hugely immoral or butt stupid. Take your choice.

The Decline and Fall of the MSM

The Mainstream Media in the United States have failed in their mission to bring the news to the American people. There are good reasons why circulation of newspapers and newsmagazines is diving. TV news viewing is down everywhere except at Fox News.

Why? Because the MSM do not report the news. They report what they want you to know.

For example, have you seen anywhere in the MSM that the riots and burning in France are done by Muslims? No. They report about "disaffected youth" and "unemployment in the suburbs." Why don't they tell you that it is Muslims causing the destruction?

As Reliapundit puts it so well after reporting about the destruction of synagogues in France by Muslims:

I just did a word search at BBC, on synagogue, and it turned up ZERO relevant responses. DITTO GOOGLE NEWS and DITTO THE NYTIMES and DITTO NEWSNOW.CO.UK (another news search engine). This further proves a deliberate attempt to censor the truth by the MSM.


ALSO: The recent PIRATE ATTACK on the cruise ship off the coast of Somalia... NOT ONE MSM outlet said that these pirates are Muslim. (In general they avoid this truth.) Well: piracy has long been a Muslim specialty - REMEMBER THE BARBARY COAST, ANYONE?!


WHY DOES THE MSM DO THIS? For the same reason that Chirac and Villepin think that throwing more money at the islamothugs will work: The MSM - (and France and the Left) - are captives of multiculturalism; therefore they deny that we are fighting another culture, one which has declared a religious war against us - and all the other "non-believers."

No matter what we say or don't say, no matter what we do, or don't do, because our enemies have initiated - and are waging - a religious war, IT IS ONE - whether we like it or not.

The sooner we accept that and target the REAL enemy, the sooner we will win.

Bush gets this. In his last big speech on the war he used the term islamofascist. When Chirac does he will have become a true ally. Until then he - and his cronies - are nothing more than cowardly appeasing surrender monkies. Whether they eat cheese or not.

The American Thinker says

And while this may shock Tim Russert and Chris Matthews, this is a bigger story than Lewis Libby's alleged perjury, or Joe Wilson's latest charges. But it puts Europe, not America or George Bush, in a bad light, so for the mainstream media, it is sheer agony for this to be the big story. On Sunday the Paris story did not make the New York Times front page.

It got one column on the front page Monday, almost unavoidable at this point. Regrettably for the Times, no CIA leaker can pin these events on Bush. It is hard not to smirk a bit at all this. Karl Rove was not indicted. A brilliant conservative judge is likely to get approved for the Supreme Court for the second time in a few months. And Europe's social and racial tensions are now on display, not America's, and the story is forcing its way onto the TV screens and front pages. All of a sudden, life is unfair for Pinch Sulzberger and his minions. George Bush was to go up in flames this Fall, not Paris.

And the newspapers are wondering why circulation is dropping.

Anti-Islamist Blogger Arrested in Egypt

According to Ritzy Mabrouk, anti-radical-Islam blogger, Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman, was arrested by state police at his home.

The whereabouts of blogger Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman who was abducted from his home by Egyptian state security on Wednesday Oct. 26 is still not known. The police refused to answer questions by AP, the first wire to run the story. The last report about his whereabouts said he was on his way to an unknown detention center.

It was 3 a.m. when seven police officers took the 21 year old blogger away from his family home in Alexandria. His mother, Yousseira, says the house was searched; books and copies of Seliman’s writings were confiscated.

His friends and family says Seliman was targeting radical Islam in his writings, despite his strong connections to the Muslim community. Seliman is a student of law at Al-Azhar, the world’s highest seat of learning for Sunni Muslims. His pious Muslim family had returned from a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca just days before his arrests

"He is stubborn, he has ideas that contradict the true religion and he posts that on the Internet, serving no one but himself,” Seliman’s mother said.

Another blogger who closely followed Seliman’s detention says it is the fundamentalist Islamic Salafi movement that is behind the arrest. The blogger, Malik Moustafa, said Seliman recently had accused the Salafis of inciting the latest sectarian tensions in his neighbourhood of Mouharm Bay.

Read more.

Democracy and freedom are needed badly in the Middle East.

Update: It turns out that I had it wrong, according to the Sandmonkey. He is not a anti-radical Islam blogger, he is a radical anti-Islam blogger. Nonetheless, no one should be arrested for expressing his thoughts. Thank God our forefathers had the foresight and wisdom to make Freedom of Expression one of the rights granted in the First Amendment of our Constitution. Now if only we can get some of the Islamic regimes and other non-democracies in the world to do the same.

This is who teaches our children

Did you know that the GOP is very clearly a pro-war, racist, anti-immigrant, sexist, anti-labor anti-environmental and anti-human rights party.

Well it is, according to a k-12 LAUSD teacher who sent a letter to the Riverside GOP office.

Read the letter at www.cc4truth.com

You might be amazed... Then again the only thing that amazed me was that he sent him from his LAUSD email address.

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism - Bogle

JOHN C. BOGLE is the founder and former CEO of Vanguard mutual funds. In 2004, Time magazine named him one of the most influential people in the world. In 1999, Fortune magazine named him one of the four investment giants of the twentieth century. He has written a book called The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism. Yale University Press has reviews of the book.

His introduction gives an idea of the contents of the book

As the twentieth century of the Christian Era ended, the United States of America comprehended the most powerful position on the earth and the wealthiest portion of mankind. The frontiers of the nation were guarded by two great oceans, and her values and ideals at once incurred the respect, the envy, and the ill-will of much of the rest of mankind. The gentle but powerful influence of her laws, her property rights, her manners, and her business institutions and financial institutions alike had combined to produce her power. Her peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. Her free constitution had gradually cemented the union of the states and was preserved with decent reverence.


As some readers will recognize, that paragraph, aptly describing our nation as the twenty-first century began on January 1, 2001, is a play on the words of the famous opening paragraph of Edward Gibbon’s 1838 epic, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And yet, Gibbon continued, “the Roman Empire would decline and fall, a revolution which will be ever remembered and is still felt by the nations of the earth.” By the end of his epic, the Roman Empire was no more. Constantinople had fallen, the fruitful provinces overwhelmed by Vandals; Britain was lost; Gaul was overrun; and the brutal Goths had conquered Rome itself, as in 410 A.D. the Imperial City was delivered to the licentious tribes of Germany and Sythia.



Why did the Roman Empire fall? One answer seems to lie in its citizens’ unshaken demand for material goods (“bread”) and the self-indulgence of its civic order (“circuses”); the acceptance of money as the measure of their worth, their wants, and the value of their property; their need for honor and recognition, even as their vision of freedom, liberty, and greatness was fading. As Saint Augustine suggested, it was self-love that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon’s conclusion is expressed in this profound warning: “O man! Place not thy confidence in this present world.”



Gibbon’s history reminds us that no nation can take its greatness for granted. There are no exceptions. So I am concerned about the threats we face, not only the external threats to America’s greatness in this present world, but the internal threats we face at home. This book is my attempt to address one of those major threats: the remarkable erosion that has taken place over the past two decades in the conduct and values of our business leaders, our investment bankers, and our money managers.



My vantage point is that of an American businessman (and a lifelong Republican) who has spent his entire half-century-plus career in the financial field—writing an idealistic thesis on the mutual fund industry during 1949 – 51; then spending a near-quarter century working at and finally heading fund pioneer Wellington Management Company; founding the Vanguard Group of Investment Companies in 1974 and serving as its CEO through early 1996; and subsequently, to this day, researching, writing, and lecturing on investment issues. For better or worse, my youthful idealism—the belief that any truly sound business endeavor must be built on a strong moral foundation—still remains today, at least as strong as it was all those years ago.



By the latter years of the twentieth century, our business values had eroded to a remarkable extent. Yes, we are a nation of prodigious energy, marvelous entrepreneurship, brilliant technology, creativity beyond imagination, and, at least in some corners of the business world, the idealism to make our nation and our world a better place. But I also see far too much greed, egoism, materialism, and waste to please my critical eye. I see an economy overly focused on the “haves” and not focused enough on the “have-nots,” failing to allocate our nation’s resources where they are most needed—to solve the problems of poverty and to provide quality education for all. I see our shocking misuse of the world’s natural resources, as if they were ours to waste rather than ours to preserve as a sacred trust for future generations, and I see a political system corrupted by the staggering infusion of money that is, to be blunt about it, rarely given by disinterested citizens who expect no return on their investment.

Bogle is critical of the shift in capitalism from what he calls "owner's capitalism" where the owner of the capital received the lion's share of the reward for risking the capital to "manager's capitalism" where the lion's share of the reward goes to those whom we have entrusted to manage our enterprises.

Today’s capitalism, however, has departed, not just in degree but in kind, from its proud traditional roots. Over the past century, a gradual move from owners’ capitalism—providing the lion’s share of the rewards of investment to those who put up the money and risk their own capital—has culminated in an extreme version of managers’ capitalism—providing vastly disproportionate rewards to those whom we have trusted to manage our enterprises in the interest of their owners. Managers’ capitalism is a betrayal of owners’ capitalism, a system that worked, albeit imperfectly, with remarkable effectiveness for the better part of the past two centuries, beginning with the Industrial Revolution as the eighteenth century turned to the nineteenth.



The human soul, as Thomas Aquinas defined it, is the “form of the body, the vital power animating, pervading, and shaping an individual from the moment of conception, drawing all the energies of life into a unity.” In our temporal world, the soul of capitalism is the vital power that has animated, pervaded, and shaped our economic system, drawing its energies into a unity. In this sense, it is no overstatement to describe the effort we must make to return the system to its proud roots with these words: the battle to restore the soul of capitalism.

Bogle has important things to say about our financial world. The book is worth reading.