The Golden Gate

AnalPhilosoher asserts that it’s inappropriate for President Bush to call Jihadists fascists because “jihadists aren’t statists” (via Instapundit.)
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Okay, well, how can we square this assertion with the former Taliban government in Afghanistan or the current Iranian regime?
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If you read Paul Berman’s excellent book “Terror and Liberalism” (and everybody should), you’ll be AMAZED at just how many links there are between classic European fascism on the one hand and the Muslim movements we’re dealing with on the other. I mean what would you call the Baath movement of Iraq and of Syria but a classic fascist movement? (And you’ll find that their history is actually directly connected with European fascism). It’s true that the “Islamist” movements have some different wrinkles. But as the Buddhists say, are they more the same, or more different? And again, don’t forget about the Spanish Phalangists — widely considered to be a classic “fascist” movement — who incorporated the religous angle, albeit in a European and Christian form.

Here’s more Berman on the subject (but do check out his book.)

Also…we blogged about Berman and the meaning of Iraq at awhile back.

Personally, I am thrilled that Bush is finally articulating this.

Over at EU Referendum we see the Director’s Cut of Qana.

The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah’s media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore.

As best we can, we have pieced together the jumble of evidence which surrounded the production of the iconic photographs which were published around the world, and put them in perspective. Many of the photographs have been used before, some are new to this site and others are video “grabs”. But it is not the pictures, per se, that tell the story, so much as their ordering and analysis. Make of this what you will, but I can assure you that you are not supposed to see them in this light.

The “story” - for that is what it is - starts here, in the wreckage of the buiding at Qana which is performing the temporary and unwholesome function of a morgue. It is from here, that the bodies are extracted, the essential props of this theatre. And standing on the left of the frame is one of the two star characters of our story, Mr “White Tee-Shirt”. With equal accuracy, though, we could call him Mr Hezbollah, for reasons which will become apparent [...]

Captain Ed has ANOTHER great post. He also has some reasonable seculation and asks some daunting questions. Quotable:

One of the reasons that the DoD may have sat on the captured IIS files without translating or releasing them, some speculate, was that the contents may embarrass some of our allies in the overall war on terror. One document released yesterday seems to support that analysis. According to document CMPC-2003-000878, the Russians gave more active support to Saddam prior to the March 2003 invasion than previously known — and they used Syria as a conduit…

[...]

This doesn’t have much to do with WMD, of course, but the revelation of the movement of tank engines — seventy of them for every armored unit — has to raise some eyebrows about the relationship between Washington and Moscow. It also should remind people about the materiel conduit that Syria supplied to Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin, and whether or not that conduit operated bidirectionally. Perhaps the WMD that the US seeks did not stay in Syria at all, but made its way to Russia instead.

UPDATE and BUMP: Another look at our friends in Moscow comes in document CMPC-2003-001950, which details a meeting with the Russian ambassador in March 2003. The diplomats discussed the evacuation of Russian citizens from Iraq, but also discussed current American military assets deployed in the Gulf theater[...]

Be sure to check out all the materiel our Russian “allies” gave to Saddam in The Captain’s post.

Captain Ed has a great post about Yale’s courtship and eventual rejection of Hashemi, the Taliban’s former diplomat at large. Quotable:

It’s odd that Yale would have trotted out the diversity argument, considering the regime that Hashemi represented. Let’s recall that the Taliban beat women for not covering themselves from head to toe and men for shaving their faces. Ancient Buddhist carvings, considered artistic and historical treasures, exist no more thanks to Taliban tolerance. The Taliban also reintroduced the lovely Islamic tradition of tolerance by crushing homosexuals to death or throwing them off of towers.

The latter point seems especially germane when it comes to Yale. After all, they have taken the position that the American military cannot stage ROTC classes at the campus due to their “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military (which I also oppose, for several reasons). Yale’s students and faculty argued that the university would benefit from having Hashemi’s diverse viewpoint represented on campus, but they kicked out the military for a much milder viewpoint and action than that of Hashemi and his colleagues.And while they argue that Hashemi would have benefited the Yale community by his inclusion, no one appears to wonder whether Yale students might benefit from having the ROTC on campus and the diversity of political opinion it might create.

Yale invited Hashemi — he didn’t just show up and fill out an application. They went out of their way to get him to choose Yale, because as their admissions office stated, they didn’t want to lose another “high profile” candidate to Harvard. Regardless of all the arguments about diversity and openness, all of which get belied by Yale’s policies towards the American military, Yale obviously chose Hashemi as a tweak at the Bush administration. They thought that Hashemi’s presence would embarrass the White House and give Yale some sort of moral authority.

Instead, they have demonstrated themselves to be hypocrites, and still do with this decision.

A letter to the editor at the Lansing STate Journal:

Islam or death

I read Le Roy Barnett’s letter (“Muslims, speak up,” June 26) about Muslims’ opinion on Abdul Rahman’s conversion to Christianity.

Islam is not only a religion, it is a complete way of life. Islam guides Muslims from birth to grave. The Quran and prophet Muhammad’s words and practical application of Quran in life cannot be changed.

Islam is a guide for humanity, for all times, until the day of judgment. It is forbidden in Islam to convert to any other religion. The penalty is death. There is no disagreement about it.

Islam is being embraced by people of other faiths all the time. They should know they can embrace Islam, but cannot get out. This rule is not made by Muslims; it is the supreme law of God.

Please do not ask us Muslims to pick some rules and disregard other rules. Muslims are supposed to embrace Islam in its totality.

Nazra Quraishi
East Lansing

Hat Tip: LGF

Hoping We Fail: Who loses and who wins in the high-stakes poker in Iraq?

This was a piece Victor Hanson wrote in 2003. It was recently re-presenced on his web site with this preface:

The recent hysteria and rush to judgement over alleged Marine crimes at Haditha, and the downplaying of the significance of the capture of al Zarqawi suggest that many, here and abroad, simply wanted the United States to lose in Iraq, for a variety of political reasons. Almost three years ago, VDH outlined the motives of these parties and suggested it was unwise to bet against the Americans in Iraq, especially since democracy would eventually emerge and ties between al Qaeda and Saddam’s police state would probably come to light. [em. mine]

And of course, those ties are now coming to greater light through the slow, painful, understaffed and underemphasized process of translating Iraqi documents into English.

However Stephen F. Hayes has been on the case for a few years. This post is not the oldest, nor the most recent, but it had the highest google ranking for the terms I searched.

Anywho…

Hoping We Fail is an excellent roundup of all the usual suspects and some of their underlying pathologies that lead them to root for failure–or perceive it as primary where there is more evidence for success on the balance.

It begins thusly:

It is not hard to determine who wishes the United States to succeed in rebuilding Iraq along lines that will promote consensual government, personal freedom, and economic vitality: hardly anyone. At least, few other than the Iraqi and American people.

A long-ish piece by Victor Davis Hanson that covers many elements of this war we are engaged in. As always with VDH, it is well constructed, complex,  multi-faceted, and worth reading.

I give you this excerpt not as a good representation of the peice as a whole, but becasue this is one aspect that is particulaly poignent for me right now.  All the more reason to go read the whole thing.

Finally, we are witnessing a larger existential war, in which Iraq is the central, but not the only, theater. Put simply: will the spreading affluence and liberality of Westernization undermine the 8th-century mentality of the Islamists more quickly than their terrorists, armed with Western weapons, prey on the ennui of a postmodern Europe and America — with our large gullible populations that either don’t believe we are in a real war, or think that we should not be?

Americans know exactly the creed of the Islamists and what they have in store for us nonbelievers. Yet if we are not infidels, can we at least be fideles? That is, can we any longer articulate what we believe in, and whether it is worth defending?

The problem is not that the majority of Americans have voiced doubts about the future of Iraq — arguments over self-interest and values happen in every long war when the battlefield does not daily bring back good news.

Instead, the worry is that too many have misdirected their anger at the very culture that produced and nourished them. [...]

Emphasis mine.

A rational editorial from the pages of a Canadian Newspaper:

Thu, June 29, 2006

EDITORIAL: It’s time to stand with Israel

The Toronto conference of the United Church yesterday joined the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in calling for economic sanctions against Israel and a boycott of the Jewish state to protest its policies in the Palestinian territories.

Basically, both are calling on Canadians to choose sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fair enough. We choose Israel, which cannot be expected to negotiate with a Palestinian government led by Hamas, a terrorist group whose founding charter calls not only for the destruction of Israel, but for the annihilation of the Jewish people.

Further, we urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to continue Canada’s sensible policy of refusing to recognize Hamas and denying it foreign aid until it unequivocally recognizes Israel’s right to exist and renounces terrorism.

Like Harper, we support the creation of an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel.

But that has never been Hamas’ goal. [...]

Read it all.  What’s next? Pigs fly and France goes hawkish on the WOT?

Hat tips: LGF & Meryl Yourish

Dr. Rusty Shackleford:

After nearly two weeks of fighting a cyberterrorist attack launched by Turkish Islamists, and then wrestling with a new server, The Jawa Report is back!

We promise to continue the reporting the news the only way we know how–with mediocre analysis & plenty of offense. If that’s just a little bit more than Islam can allow, then to quote Kos, screw them.

For free thinking Muslims of the world we say: join us on our quest of exposing the danger of the bearded ones. While they may attack our website, we know you are exposed daily to much greater dangers which may result from offending their religous sensibilities.

Our website may have been beheaded for the last two weeks, but it is nothing compared to the barbarity, torture, and murder done in the name of Allah on a daily basis. We write from the luxury afforded by distance, while you face real danger on the front line. You have our sympathy and our solidarity.

Go visit the report.

Meryl Yourish, who is always a pleasure to read, has the latest on the IDF’s response to the incursion, kidnapping, and murder by the “palestinians”.

Cox and Forkum weigh in.

Excellent post by Jay Tea over at Wizbang!. Too much is quotable. It is a tight, well written, compelling essay. Just go read it.

Excellent response by Treasury Secretary Snow to Keller over at The Corner:

Mr. Bill Keller, Managing Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Keller:

The New York Times’ decision to disclose the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a robust and classified effort to map terrorist networks through the use of financial data, was irresponsible and harmful to the security of Americans and freedom-loving people worldwide.  In choosing to expose this program, despite repeated pleas from high-level officials on both sides of the aisle, including myself, the Times undermined a highly successful counter-terrorism program and alerted terrorists to the methods and sources used to track their money trails.

Your charge that our efforts to convince The New York Times not to publish were “half-hearted” is incorrect and offensive.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Over the past two months, Treasury has engaged in a vigorous dialogue with the Times - from the reporters writing the story to the D.C. Bureau Chief and all the way up to you.  It should also be noted that the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9-11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, met in person or placed calls to the very highest levels of the Times urging the paper not to publish the story.  Members of Congress, senior U.S. Government officials and well-respected legal authorities from both sides of the aisle also asked the paper not to publish or supported the legality and validity of the program.

Indeed, I invited you to my office for the explicit purpose of talking you out of publishing this story.  And there was nothing “half-hearted” about that effort.  I told you about the true value of the program in defeating terrorism and sought to impress upon you the harm that would occur from its disclosure.  I stressed that the program is grounded on solid legal footing, had many built-in safeguards, and has been extremely valuable in the war against terror.  Additionally, Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey met with the reporters and your senior editors to answer countless questions, laying out the legal framework and diligently outlining the multiple safeguards and protections that are in place.

You have defended your decision to compromise this program by asserting that “terror financiers know” our methods for tracking their funds and have already moved to other methods to send money.  The fact that your editors believe themselves to be qualified to assess how terrorists are moving money betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a deep misunderstanding of this program and how it works.  While terrorists are relying more heavily than before on cumbersome methods to move money, such as cash couriers, we have continued to see them using the formal financial system, which has made this particular program incredibly valuable.

Lastly, justifying this disclosure by citing the “public interest” in knowing information about this program means the paper has given itself free license to expose any covert activity that it happens to learn of - even those that are legally grounded, responsibly administered, independently overseen, and highly effective.  Indeed, you have done so here.

What you’ve seemed to overlook is that it is also a matter of public interest that we use all means available - lawfully and responsibly - to help protect the American people from the deadly threats of terrorists.  I am deeply disappointed in the New York Times.

Sincerely,

[signed]

John W. Snow, Secretary

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Amen.

Great video that sums up my sentiments, to be sure. Woo-hoo!

Not PC. Not work safe. Not PG-13. AND the truth.

AbbaGav was first to relay the information in my RSS feeder. Could be his time zone helped.

Cox & Forkum right on time:

From Allah:

And from MSNBC on how we got it done here. Excerpt:

Two U.S. F-16 jets on patrol over Iraq were scrambled Wednesday evening as part of an intense six-week manhunt for Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist. U.S. military officials tell NBC News the jets were tracking Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s top deputy, Abu Abdul Rahman, as he headed to a meeting with Zarqawi in an isolated two-story farmhouse 40 miles north of Baghdad.

When U.S. special forces confirmed Zarqawi was inside, they fired two 500-pound bombs. U.S. military officials, who swept the area after the attack, say Zarqawi, Rahman and four others were killed instantly.

“We have been able to identify al-Zarqawi through fingerprint verification, facial recognition and known scars,” said Gen. William Casey, the commander of the multinational force in Iraq.

Moonbat Reaction:

    Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.
    ”This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer” for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. “Iraq is still a mess — get out.”
    Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of “a growing anti-American insurgency” and that it’s time to get out.
    ”We’re there for all the wrong reasons,” Mr. Kucinich said.
    Officially, Democratic leaders reacted positively to the news and praised the troops that successfully targeted al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq with 500-pound bombs at his safe house 30 miles from Baghdad.
    ”This is a good day for the Iraqi people, the U.S. military and our intelligence community,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Read it at the Washington Times.

Over at the Gates of Vienna [the place to go for in depth analysis on all things Islam and our struggles with its global aims] the Fjordman has filed a report on the EU with a call for its destruction in order to save Europe. Here is a taste:

The Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, widely presented as the beginning of the efforts towards a European Union and commemorated in “Europe Day,” contains phrases which state that it is “a first step in the federation of Europe”, and that “this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation”. As critics of the EU have noted, these political objectives are usually omitted when the Declaration is referred to, and most people do not even know of their existence. A federation is of course a State and “yet for decades now the champions of EC/EU integration have been swearing blind that they have no knowledge of any such plans. EEC/EC/EU has steadily acquired ever more features of a supranational Federation: flag, anthem, Parliament, Supreme Court, currency, laws.” The EU founders “were careful only to show their citizens the benign features of their project. It had been designed to be implemented incrementally, as an ongoing process, so that no single phase of the project would arouse sufficient opposition as to stop or derail it.” Booker and North calls the European Union “a slow-motion coup d’état: the most spectacular coup d’état in history,” designed to gradually and carefully sideline the democratic process and subdue the older nation states of Europe without saying so in public.

In 2005, an unprecedented joint declaration by the leaders of all British political groups in Brussels called for PM Tony Blair to push for an end the “medieval” practice of European legislation being decided behind closed doors. Critics claim that the Council of Ministers, the EU’s supreme law-making body, which decides two thirds of all Britain’s laws (and the majority of laws in all Western European countries), “is the only legislature outside the Communist dictatorships of North Korea and Cuba to pass laws in secret.” As one of the signers put it: “We still have this medieval way of making decisions in the EU; people hide behind other member states, and blame them. It increases people’s sense of cynicism, but what we need is some straight talking.” According to British Conservative politician Daniel Hannan, this is how the EU was designed. “Its founding fathers understood from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer of power had to be referred back to the voters for approval. So they cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion.” “Indeed, the EU’s structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic.”

But be sure to read the whole thing.

UPDATE: this is good news:

Many adults in the Netherlands hold strong views on the way Muslims adapt to the European continent, according to a poll by Motivaction released by GPD. 63 per cent of respondents believe think Islam is incompatible with modern European life.

And they would be correct. And god help us all if modern European life is altered to accomodate Islam in its current form.

Ok. I am being dramatic. Well, at least in this context. However, we all know that if you leave Islam, you can be executed as an apostate. Makes me a little hesitant to join.

Quotable:

“We expect the government to make the enemy understand that it should change its hostile positions, as the future belongs to Islam,” it said.

The paper also recalled a letter once sent by Iran’s late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in which he suggested conversion to Islam.

[...]

In his letter, Ahmadinejad proposed a return to religious principles as a means of restoring confidence between the two countries and revisits many of the grievances that Tehran has against Washington.

“Will you not accept this invitation?” asks Ahmadinejad in the letter, written in English and sent on Monday.

“That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?” read the letter.

While for some reason Iranian’s are all excited about their “clever audacity” they US…well, shrugs:

US officials have dismissed the rambling 18-page letter — the first open, top-level communication by Iranian leaders since ties with Washington were cut in 1980 — as more of a philosophical treatise than a political overture.

They also said it did not change Washington’s position in a worsening dispute over Tehran’s disputed nuclear-energy programme, which despite Iranian denials is seen in the West as a cover for weapons development.

Check it here.

Update and error correction: the original post [just moments ago] stated NYT. The organization with hoaxy sourcing revealed by Rusty and others was the Sunday Times.

–

A response to a lunatic commenter in this post over at the Jawa Report. A good post worth reading for the clarity around what we are dealing with in terms of the character of the enemy AND fact-checking the Sunday Times.

Anyway, on to the time I wasted spraying moonbat repellent:

Not even sure that reasoning is possible with this john fellow, BUT there was too much insanity in this comment for me not to do a hack summary refutation of all things moonbat mentioned:

The colonial occupation forces are responsible of
of the beheading of (IRAQ) and not this journalist!!

You’re not from around here, are you? Heh.

Colonialization requires full or partial political control. We have limited to moderate influence, but no control. Not since the dissolution of the CPA. It also requires settlers and an exploitation of the economy or resources. Our military personnel hardly qualify as settlers. And if we were really in it for the oil, we would have seized the fields and ensured cheap and exclusive export to the US. Hell, all we needed to do was lift the sanctions on Saddam if it was really just for the oil and therefor cheap energy/gas. War and its uncertainties _negatively impacts_ export systems, price stability, production, and a times, gross supply as a result of two of those and other factors. No one with any common sense thinks it is about the oil. Makes a great bumper sticker, though. And the analysis is about as deep as the thickness of one of those stickers.

The fanatics who do the beheading are responsible for their heinous actions. you know–cuz THEY do it, Not the US. They achieved barbarism all on their own. The war is simply intensifying their actions and increasing exposure. All one needs to do is spend some time researching the “justice” systems and culture in Iran and Saudi Arabia to see that Islam and its Sharia=barbarism, except by medieval standards. COme to think of it, Islam is stuck 700 years ago, so the barbarism actually fits. It also needs to be stopped.

The US is not a terrorist organization. Terrorism specifically means _targeting civilians_ for the purpose of creating fear in the populace, instability, and influencing policy, etc. That is simply not something we do. We are more careful with civilians than any military in the history of mankind. By far.

…they invade that country to ensure democracy!!!!who believes them??

Most who are clear about the perhaps hopelessly idealistic, but nevertheless strategic vision of democratizing the Middle East. That’s who. Although I must say, we should have enforced secular constitutions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Separation of Koran and State, a free press, civilian control of the military, free markets, equal rights and universal suffrage, property rights, the rule of law and an independent judiciary…and the protection of the [negative not positive] rights of the individual above any group or organization…these are what is important. Democracy for democracy’s sake can get ugly with a tribal, islamofascist mentality. But yes, I believe them. Not the only reason we went to be sure, but certainly a major strategic element.

where is the mass weapons you came for???

Most who are informed think Bekka Valley and other points in Syria. Possibly Iran, but primarily Syria and the Bekka.

Abu Ghraib is a black spot in the forhead of the violent aggressive terrorists who invaded that country and destroyed it completely.

Abu Ghraib is certainly a black spot. And, in a military of hundreds of thousands of personnel strong, mistakes are made. To point to this and not to balance it with the attrocities of Saddam and other militaries [heck how about the UN Peacekeeping troops globally accused of child molestation?! only demonstrate a lack of clarity and balance [at best].

The larger point is war is always messy and mistakes will be made. What is important within that is to acknowledge our mistakes in a useful and forward fashion: learn and integrate the learning and change policy/standards where necessary.

that is the type of democarcy they want to establish! you can not fool people, these are more intelligent than the chief commander i.e. (Adolph) Bush!!

Ah yes. Bush is Hitler. All this assertion points out is the historical illiteracy of the writer. Bush is no Hitler. Hell, he is not even a Lincoln. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus, jailed newspaper editors and judges, etc. In terms of despotism/fascism Bush is a 2 on a Hitler scale of 10. And given we are AT WAR he should probably be a 3.

a simple question: what is the difference betwen
the Nazi actions and what we see now in Iraq?

Ummmm…it is less popular to kill Jews? Well, not really. Less organized/effective at same? Short answer: A Lot. Do a little research and get a grip.

they invaded that country for stealing the oil
and getting revenge for Sept. 11, and for the sake of Israel…

Not even gonna to waste more time on this tired tripe.

They will lose, in deed they lost the war: morally
(Abu Ghraib and Pucca), and militarilly (great
losses of the occupation forces every day…
the will of people can not be defeated!!??

Good. Cuz the “will of the people” is what Iraqi’s now get to exercise rather than the will of a person in Saddam. And they get to experience and evolve that process thanks to US intervention. There are many great reasons to have gone in that are still valid. But let’s just take one that is often not mentioned. Saddam violated DOZENS of U.N. Resolutions. The US military is [like it or not] the de facto enforcement body for the UN. No one else has the logistical capabilities, the precision, the skill, the will, and the volume of ordinance to do it. Even our allies have trouble communicating with us in the battle-space due to technology gaps we are closing with our anglo-shphere [you know, the credible countries] allies. The bottom line is that “mandatory” resolutions only mean something if they are back with swift and resounding force [or at least the credible threat of it]. Dude was makin’ a mockery of the UN Sec Council [and WMD's AND ties to training, supporting, funding [Palestinian suicide bomber families] terror. Plus, if we can get the Iraqis to be self-sustaining, Iraq makes a great staging ground for point East [Iran] and Northwest [Syria. Best point of entry in the longer war.

It would be great if our "allies" were wiling to do the peacekeeping/post major ops role to leave us free to do the heavy lifting elsewhere, but now I am really dreaming big.

/moonbat repellant

I am beginning to think that BDS [Bush Derangement Syndrome] is not a new ailment. Rather a renaming of one that existed already, and under recent events [including being out of the majority] just exposed the lunacy of many in the fevered left.

…for the pro-freedom rally at the Danish consulate yesterday:

The Only Republican in San Francisco has some first hand details:

“I just got back and it went well. We had 70-80 people, among them a Danish journalism student from Berkeley, many flags, a hottie handing out Havarti and a complete absence of local media.”

Let’s hope we see more events like this. I found out about it too late to make it over there, but I’d love to get to the next one…

Interesting to see that T.O.R.I.S.F. poses the following question in the header area of his blog: “Imagine being an empirical, free-market thinker in a liberal town.”

Hmmmmmmmm… Gee, I wonder what that WOULD be like?

Personal to TORISF: let’s talk.

Fuck Yeah:

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater. The Cormorant, a stealthy, jet-powered, autonomous aircraft that could be outfitted with either short-range weapons or surveillance equipment, is designed to launch out of the Trident missile tubes in some of the U.S. Navy’s gigantic Cold War–era Ohio-class submarines. These formerly nuke-toting subs have become less useful in a military climate evolved to favor surgical strikes over nuclear stalemates, but the Cormorant could use their now-vacant tubes to provide another unmanned option for spying on or destroying targets near the coast.

One thing’s for sure–no one wants to meet us in the traditional battlespace. No one sane.

Over at Armed and Dangerous:

Americans have never really understood ideological warfare. Our gut-level assumption is that everybody in the world really wants the same comfortable material success we have. We use “extremist” as a negative epithetic. Even the few fanatics and revolutionary idealists we have, whatever their political flavor, expect everybody else to behave like a bourgeois.

We don’t expect ideas to matter — or, when they do, we expect them to matter only because people have been flipped into a vulnerable mode by repression or poverty. Thus all our divagation about the “root causes” of Islamic terrorism, as if the terrorists’ very clear and very ideological account of their own theory and motivations is somehow not to be believed.

By contrast, ideological and memetic warfare has been a favored tactic for all of America’s three great adversaries of the last hundred years — Nazis, Communists, and Islamists. All three put substantial effort into cultivating American proxies to influence U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy in favorable directions. Yes, the Nazis did this, through organizations like the “German-American Bund” that was outlawed when World War II went hot. Today, the Islamists are having some success at manipulating our politics through fairly transparent front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Be sure to read the rest. He has a very interesting list that will look all too familiar.

Via the Blog Pappy.

Somehow “dumb idea” doesn’t quite convey the scope of this decision by the Bush Administration:

WASHINGTON - Two Republican governors on Monday questioned a Bush administration decision allowing an Arab-owned company to operate six major U. S. ports, saying they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states.

New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running the U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.

The British company, Peninsular and Oriental, runs major commercial operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.

“Ensuring the security of New York’s port operations is paramount and I am very concerned with the purchase of Peninsular & Oriental Steam by Dubai Ports World,” Pataki said in a news release.

According to the FBI, most of the funding for the 9/11 attacks came though UAE financial institutions. All it takes is this and Iran [with the shipped flagged UAE] floating a nuke into one of these ports on a cargo ship and we are fucked.

I am going to be generous and say that they just did nto think this through and they better fucking start thinking things through.

At least the governors still seem to have their wits about them. Jesus.

MAJOR UPDATE: Maybe I spoke too soon. Suddenly I am fascinated. This has become quite an interesting item with the President threatening a veto [it would be his first ever] of any legislation to bar this deal. Frist has spoken of overriding it. Hmmm.

Instapundit has a full round-up. Just go over there and keep on scrolling down this post.

More up-to-date UPDATE:

more at LGF.

This image of Pakistani protestors appeared on Germany’s TV station n-tv.de.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.

I don’t know about you, but seeing this picture makes me want to go out and by some Danish products.

Over at the Jawa Report.

For those of you who do not know, it was Flynt, Hustler Magazine’s Publisher, in the landmark Supreme Court case Flynt v. Falwell [yes, that Falwell] that forced this Country to decide that offending religious sensibilities was protected speech.

That was only 30 years ago folks.

Flynt:

Freedom of speech is only important if you’re gonna offend someone; if you’re not gonna offend someone, you don’t need free speech.

No shit.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Read the whole thing.

Sample:

We are being pissed upon

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of the great Danish statesmen of the last century, who – as the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [the Danish Parliament] – cast his gaze across the palace square and remarked: “I will not be pissed upon.”

Then he did what was necessary.

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

What is going on? I am not referring so much to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor to the burnt down Embassies. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.

That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It is used to deny or qualify what one has just said.

How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the Opinion Makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.

They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say ‘Islamists’ is that I do not for a moment believe all the world’s Muslims are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.

Can I get a fucking “amen”?

I say again, be sure to read the whole thing.

Patterico has a post on the proximity of airliners on approach at LAX:

Not just psychologically, but less dangerous as well. As a downtown pedestrian, I have often noticed how absurdly close jet airliners seem to come to downtown’s skyscrapers. I once asked a friend who is an amateur pilot how long it would take for one of these airliners to divert from its flight pattern and crash into L.A.’s tallest skyscraper. He said twenty seconds.

To me, it looks like it would take only ten. But even twenty seconds seems like a very short time. Terrorists could take over a cockpit and crash the plane into the tower before most passengers even knew what was happening.

He links to a story in the LA times on the topic.

Shortly after 9/11 I lived in the San Diego area and was commuting back and forth between SD and San Francisco on a bi-weekly basis on a Boeing 737. Downtown San Diego is no LA, but the flight path upon landing came eerily close to the buildings there.

My awareness always increased in intensity and I watched the aisle knowing that I would only have a few seconds to take counter measures if some suspicious looking fellow made a move toward the cockpit.

I never much enjoyed those flights.

–

BTW–Patterico is often a great read. He takes the LA times to task on a regular basis for bias and inaccuracies.

Tom Paine over at silent running thinks that this is unacceptable.

I disagree. And I say:

I actually think it is not only perfectly acceptable–but a good thing.

The islamofascists are showing the world it is not the American “imperialism” or our “irrational” support of the joooooos, or our foreign policy of the past, but rather the fevered mentality of a religiosity filled with hate and edicts to force all to submit to the will of Allah.

Perhaps now the appeasers and softball MSM will actually see the truth and begin to call an islamofascist an islamofascist rather than a “militant”, “dissident”, etc.

Maybe they will actually use “terrorist” to describe an attack on Paris. An attack, that while would be horrifying, may actually be needed to wake up the appeasers of all appeasers–the French.

No, I fear this is not only acceptable, but necessary to wake up the Left in America and the Europeans in general to the true threat we face. I hope they wake up quickly and join us in joining the enemy in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Sad, but true.

See Tom’s post here.

The cause of the tsunami has been discovered.

Glad they figured that out.

This is big stuff:

On Nov. 20, the Tribune began an inquest: We set out to assess the Bush administration’s arguments for war in Iraq. We have weighed each of those nine arguments against the findings of subsequent official investigations by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee and others. . . . After reassessing the administration’s nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of “the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq.” We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world’s security, stop the butchery–or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now–what this matrix chronicles– affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003.

Read the entire, detailed piece.

Via Instapundit and Steve Antler.