An Inaugural Fail

By Alan Caruba

We are all now so accustomed to Barack Obama’s delivery of a speech and have heard so many Tele-Prompter recitations that his habit of raising his chin, of gazing off into some future only he perceives, and his now-annoying way of breaking a sentence into small chunks that render it a monotony is taken for granted.

After all the campaign speeches he delivered in 2008, the carefully-staged events, by January 20, 2009 the nation was ready to hear what the then-new President, the 44th, had to say. With the exception of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech and one or both of Lincoln’s, few such speeches are long remembered.

President Obama’s was no exception and, as he begins his campaign to be reelected, it seemed to me a good time to revisit it.

Believe it or not, he began by saying “I stand here today humbled by the task before us…” and I daresay there are few who would apply the word ‘humble’ to Barack Hussein Obama, then or now.

Here was a man who had already written two memoirs about a life without any of the touchstones of achievement we normally look for. He had never run a business or met a payroll. As a legislator, he was either absent or voted for liberal programs without fail.

He had leaped swiftly from being an obscure Illinois state legislator to being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. By February 10, 2007 he announced he was a candidate for President.

By November 2008 he was elected. It is a cliché to note that virtually the whole of the nation’s mainstream media did everything in its power to secure that outcome.

As he continued with his inaugural speech, Obama acknowledged that “Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred”, but we would learn in the months that followed that Obama would never put a name to it, never identify it as an Islamic terrorism network and, following the Fort Hood shooting, it would take weeks before the words “Islamic extremism” were even applied to it.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the inaugural speech was its rather mundane enumeration of the huge economic problems that faced the nation at the time. “We will act, not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.”

Based on his words, that speech was a huge fail. Based on the actions taken or not taken by his administration, jobs by the millions disappeared. The housing market is one of foreclosures from coast to coast. Consumer spending and consumer confidence remains stagnant.

We were, said Obama, to ask “not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…where the answer is no, programs will end.” Instead, his administration embarked on huge spending programs dubbed “stimulus” that vastly increased the national debt and, by common agreement, achieved little or nothing to get the economy moving.

As this is written, the Obama administration adamantly refuses to agree to any spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. The waste continues as various elements of the government pour millions into obscenely stupid programs and grants. The government continues to grow larger.

Rather than concentrate on the economic problems of the nation by cutting taxes and eliminating regulations, the Obama administration literally forced a 2,000-page piece of legislation dubbed Obamacare on Americans who largely opposed it. It is currently wending its way through the courts as 26 states have joined in rejecting it.

Obama’s inaugural outreach now seems infantile and naïve. “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Both were and are scarce, but Obama has ensured that the U.S. remains dependent on imported Middle East oil by thwarting every effort to explore and extract our domestic reserves.

His Libyan military adventure just adds to his list of failures, save one. Based on his predecessor’s groundwork, Osama bin Laden was delivered to justice.

Guantanamo remains open for business and 9/11’s terrorists will not be granted the protection of constitutional rights that belong solely to Americans.

In sum, present and future historians will conclude that Obama’s inaugural speech on January 20, 2009 was just so much blather and significantly devoid of any substance. That’s a pretty good description of the 44th President of the United States.

It is also a very good reason to ensure that Barack Hussein Obama does not get to deliver another inaugural speech in 2013.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Liberals Attack America's Security

By Alan Caruba

“Exactly thirty years after Bolshevism consumed St. Petersburg and Moscow, it created a firestorm in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. In October 1947 the U.S. Congress held dramatic hearings on the subject of Communist infiltration in Hollywood.”

Now, decades after repeated attacks on U.S. embassies, U.S. Marines in Beirut, the USS Cole, and, of course, nearly a decade since 9/11, Rep. Peter King is holding hearings on Islamic radicalization in America, the kind that led to the murder of soldiers at Fort Hood and which The Wall Street Journal identified as “more than 50 known cases, involving about 130 individuals, in which terrorist plots were hatched on American soil.”

The similarities between the 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities and Rep. King’s hearings are remarkable and, in both cases, the mainstream media played an extraordinary role in depicting them as a witch hunt. That metaphor was used by playwright Arthur Miller when he wrote “The Crucible” and Miller’s application to join the Communist Party of United States of America was one of the items the Committee made public.

Along with revelations that many Hollywood scriptwriters were CPUSA members, sworn to obey Russia and their Soviet masters and that a number of Hollywood stars had been duped by Communists to lend their names to anti-American activities has long been subsumed by a relentless campaign to depict the Committee as Un-American, not those working to undermine America. At the heart of that campaign, then and now, was the mainstream media and those in academia.

Liberals will always embrace totalitarian governments and movements. From Jane Fonda to former President Jimmy Carter, liberals have always seen America as the enemy and worked to further the aims of our enemies.

The opening quote to this commentary came from “Dupes”, a book by historian Dr. Paul Kengor that reveals not only the names and activities of Communist dupes in America from the years just following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia to the present day.

That history has been largely re-written by the many liberals in the nation’s media and in its colleges and universities. Among the most famous advocates of the Soviet Union were leading academics and, today, the revolutionaries of the 1960s, including some who bombed U.S. facilities, are found on America’s campuses, indoctrinating new generations.

To give you an idea of how great the threat to America truly is, Rep. King and his family have been protected, according to the Associated Press, by “round-the-clock security” provided by the New York Police Department and the Nassau County, N.Y. police.” Capitol police secured the congressional hearing room and surrounding areas, as well as his office.”

And, then, true to the media agenda to undermine and disparage the current and past hearings, the Associated Press report noted that “Critics have likened them to the McCarthy-era hearings investigating communism.” Bingo!

You would have to have read the March 10 Wall Street Journal editorial to learn that, among the efforts by jihadists to attack America being investigated, there were “plots to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, an office tower in Dallas, a federal court house in Illinois, the Washington, D.C. metro, and the trans-Alaska pipeline.”

“Most of these schemes were foiled at an early stage, though the Times Square bomber failed only at the moment of ignition. The worst attack was Major Nidal Hasan’s November 2009 murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.”

And the White House response in all these cases was, “Do not jump to conclusions.” The Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security, led by Janet Napolitano and the Attorney General, Eric Holder, have choked on the words “Muslim terrorist” or even the word “terrorism.”

If you want to see how the purpose of these hearings will be twisted, you need only pay heed to the top ranking Democrat on the committee, Bernie Thompson of Mississippi, who said he believes the hearings could be used to “inspire terrorists.”

Only terrorists don’t need to be inspired by a U.S. Congressional Committee. They are already inspired by the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

The Jihad Against America is Increasing

By Alan Caruba

Muhammad, the self-proclaimed prophet of Allah, died in 632 AD. As historian James Carroll notes in his forthcoming book about Jerusalem, “The next year, only two years after the Byzantine Christians had reconquered Jerusalem…a mounted force of Bedouin fighters who revered the Prophet’s memory invaded the Byzantine-controlled territory of Palestine, near Gaza.” They called themselves Muslims.

Only five years after Muhammad’s death, Umar ibn al-Khattab, his successor “led tribal bands as one army, quickly taking control of lands from Iraq to Egypt.” In 637 AD, “Muslim forces laid siege to Jerusalem.” With the exception of a brief period in the twelfth century, Muslim rule of Jerusalem, a city sacred to Jews and Christians, “would last one and a third millennia until 1917.”

A recent survey taken in Islamic countries by the Pew Research foundation revealed that a majority in the Muslim world still favor cutting off hands for theft, stoning people to death for adultery, and insist that Islam play a major role in politics. What many in the West still fail to understand is that the grip of Islam and its seventh century mindset remains fully intact for many of the more than a billion Muslims worldwide.

The resurgence of a militant Islam threatens to drag the entire world back to an era of barbarity and ignorance banished by Western civilization, the enlightenment, and the spread of Democracy. The brief period of tolerance for other faiths exhibited during the Islamic conquest of Spain was the exception, not the rule.

In our era it was George W. Bush who thwarted Muslim dreams of world domination. Following 9/11 it was his resistance that protected Americans against further attacks during his two terms in office.

In a November commentary, Dr. Walid Phares, a senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and author of “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America”, noted that “Throughout the summer and fall, U.S. authorities witnessed a significant rise in jihadist activity, using increasingly sophisticated operational strategies.”

“According to open-source reports, between 2001 and 2008, U.S. agencies stopped one or two terror attempts a year. However, from 2009 until today, the government has been uncovering one or two cases a month, a troubling growth in jihadist activities.”

It should be lost on no one that the increase coincides with the advent of the Obama administration and his absurd claims that America is not a Christian nation or that Muslims played any role in its history other than as Barbary pirates.

Largely unreported, on a weekly basis throughout the Middle East and elsewhere, Islam’s holy warriors continue to kill Muslims and Christians. In the West, they have perpetrated terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, and on 9/11 in New York.

On December 9, federal officials arrested a Maryland man and charged him with plotting to blow up an Army recruiting center near Baltimore. Antonio Martinez, a 21-year-old Muslim convert who calls himself Muhammed Hussain, wanted to kill as many U.S. soldiers as possible.

Earlier, in Portland, Oregon, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali youth, was thwarted from killing Americans during a Christmas tree lighting celebration. Farooque Ahmed, a Virginia man, was arrested in connection with a plot to attack the Washington, D.C. subway system; Ahmed, a native of Pakistan, had been granted U.S. citizenship.

Only the failure of his car bomb prevented Faisal Shahzad, also formerly of Pakistan and a U.S. citizen, from killing and injuring Americans in New York’s Times Square. A trial is set for Najibullah Zazi, the father of Mohammad Wali Zazi who pled guilty to a terrorist plot involving the New York subway system.

It is folly to think that America will not continue to be subject to terror attacks, but the Obama administration has largely refused to publicly confront this reality except in the form of the intrusive and objectionable airport pat-downs and scans. If a commercial airliner is bombed, it will surely have begun its flight in a foreign airport.

Incredibly, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security recently announced that Ari Alikhan, who DHS identified as “a devout Muslim”, as the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and swore in Kareem Shora, another “devout Muslim” born in Damascus, Syria, as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

How crazed is this? Or are we meant to wait until President Obama is voted out of office until we can begin to feel safe anywhere in America?

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Pat Me Down, Please

Islamaphobia is Really Islam-Awareness

By Alan Caruba

On November 5, a memorial to the twelve soldiers and one civilian killed by U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan was unveiled at Fort Hood, Texas, one year to the day when they were murdered while Hasan in full combat uniform shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!”, Arabic for “God is great!”

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and American-born Muslim, has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. An Article 32 hearing is scheduled to determine if there is enough evidence to send him to trial. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow.

The latest assault on humanity and civilization by Islamofascists is the news that al Qaeda’s Yemen branch is taking credit for having blown up a UPS air cargo plane a while back and that packages containing bombs were thankfully intercepted before they killed people on commercial airlines.

In the week of November 1 through 5, eleven children were among 67 worshippers at a mosque in Pakistan by a suicide bomber yelling—guess what?—“Allahu Akbar!” The same day in Afghanistan, nine people at a bazaar were blown to bits by a teenage suicide bomber; seven worshippers in Peshawar, Pakistan were killed when terrorists threw grenades into a mosque; a young boy was killed by rockets fired into Khyber, Pakistan; two people were killed in Yemen by al Qaeda bombers; and two civilians were killed by a Taliban attack in Helmand, Afghanistan. (Source: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/)

Ever since September 11, 2001, Americans have had a heightened sense of fear regarding Muslims, but it would appear that it is Muslims who have even more reason to fear other Muslims than Americans. This is not to say that some aren’t planning to kill Americans as this is being written.

The worst of this is President Obama’s continual efforts to whitewash a threat to the West and civilization in general as he has done again on his trip to India when he claimed that Islam is “distorted” by a few extremists. The problem, of course, is that there are more than a billion people worldwide who regard themselves as Muslims and the vast majority of whom who have remained conspicuously silent about Islamic terrorism.

What I don’t understand is the charge of “Islamaphobia” that is dragged out by various spokespersons for the Muslim community in America as if it is some sort of deranged response to the fact that Americans and everyone else in the world are at risk from those who get their kicks yelling “Allahu Akbar!” before killing either fellow Muslims or infidels, i.e. unbelievers, who do not want to embrace the religion of peace.

I would argue that Islamaphobia is just Islam-awareness that, at the street level, means keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior, cars parked in Times Square with smoke coming from their trunk, packages or backpacks left unattended in subways, and all the other nasty greetings from Allah’s most dedicated believers.

I’d like to say at this point that I have complete confidence in the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies charged with keeping us from being blown to hell, but I do not.

This is based largely on the glassy-eyed comments of Secretary Janet Napolitano who probably needs help selecting something from a menu or reminders what day it is. She is the very definition of clueless and this is why, I suspect, she was selected for the post by Barack Hussein Obama.

How Islamaphobic can Americans be when they elected the son of a Muslim father, a man who spent his boyhood in Indonesia with a Muslim step-father, and who just came within a hair’s breath of endorsing the building a mosque near Ground Zero after having been seen bowing to the kind of Saudi Arabia?

The greatest tribune I can pay Americans is that they have not gone on a rampage dragging native-born Muslims from their beds and slaughtering them. We are so attendant to their feelings that some judges want to incorporate Sharia law into their decisions concerning homicidal behavior, schools are now adding Islamic holy days to their calendars, and various other efforts to avoid hurting their feelings are widely found.

I do not care if Muslim’s feelings are hurt. I am still angry about having the Twin Towers destroyed and the Pentagon attacked with the loss of just over 3,000 American lives. I am increasingly unhappy about the billions being spent in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, along with the cost of the lives of our military personnel. I have pretty much concluded that we have wasted too much blood and treasure in these places where Islam resists precepts of democracy, tolerance, and moral, moderate behavior.

The Americans for whom I have real sympathy are Arab-Americans and here’s why. Two thirds (63%) of Arab-Americans derive from Christian minorities in the Middle East. These are people whose families have suffered at the hands of extremist groups in their former home countries. More than half of all Arab-Americans are Maronite Christians from Lebanon who fled Syrian Baathists, Palestinian terrorists, and the Shiite Hezbollah.

So do not talk to me about Islamaphobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of something. It is just common sense to fear members of a so-called religion more devoted to death than life; a religion that authorizes, sanctions, and demands that unbelievers be killed in the name of Allah.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Al Qaeda Sends a Message Again

By Alan Caruba

On March 11, 2004, just days before general elections in Spain, bombs went off on trains in a series of coordinated attacks that killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. An investigation determined that they were the work of an al Qaeda “inspired” terrorist cell, though it was said at the time there was no direct connection.

The ruling party, Partido Popular, had supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a policy that was generally unpopular with Spaniards. The result was that its opposition won the elections.

I do not believe in coincidences and news that two explosive devices were found on cargo planes headed for America just days before our general elections suggests a pattern.

The larger pattern, of course, has been a number of recent terrorist attacks from the Christmas Eve “underwear bomber” to the more recent Times Square bomber. The only thing that seems to have protected Americans from being murdered as infidels is the sheer incompetence of those involved.

That kind of luck does not last forever.

Ironically, on October 27th I posted a commentary that was intended to be a reminder that, as we got ready to go to polling places on November 2nd, we have been too distracted from the fact that outside of America there is still a dangerous world.

Al Qaeda has sent us a message. The first part of the message was that they are still around and still at war with the Great Satan, America. The second was that they believe they can influence the outcome of our midterm elections. Though unintentional, the third part of the message is that they are a bunch of incompetents who, unlike Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City infamy, cannot put together a decent bomb.

That, of course, is an overstatement because Arabs, whether al Qaeda or not, have been blowing up each other’s mosques with regularity throughout the Middle East. There’s an Arab saying that goes something like “I against my brother. My brother and I against our cousins. My brother, my cousins, and I against the world.”

Even the Mafia had more internal cohesiveness than these sons of Allah whose biggest problem in life is who to kill next.

Unlike the Spaniards who voted to run away from the Iraq conflict, these would-be bombers have seriously misunderstood how Americans think. You attack us, we send in the Marines—and the Army—and the Air Force—and we park a couple of Navy carrier groups off the coast..

If the Yemenese do not get serious about their jihadists, finding and killing them, they will eventually get a visit from Uncle Sam. They don’t have that many friends in the world and that includes their neighbors in Saudi Arabia, so it’s likely to get very nasty for them.

The American military will be exiting Afghanistan in 2011 because President Obama never wanted to be there in the first place. I hate to agree with anything the man says or does, but in this he is correct. The Afghanis are tribal. When not finding a reason to fight one another, they will join together to fight anyone from outside. And that is likely to include the Taliban at some point.

The troops we are leaving in Iraq will be there when our grandchildren have grandchildren. The U.S. has a long history of never leaving a nation once we have invaded. Just ask the Germans, the Japanese, or the South Koreans, all of whom appear to have found that arrangement to their advantage.

Aside from the operational failure of this latest terror attack, what stands out is the lack of terror among Americans. Even the stock market took it in stride on Friday.

On Tuesday Americans are going to clean house in a Congress whose members are so unpopular that the survivors and the new winners will have gotten the message voters will have sent.

That’s not just a problem for Democrats. It’s a problem for al Qaeda, too.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Iranian Hostage-Taking is Old News and that's the Problem

By Alan Caruba

Am I the only one who thinks it is absolutely bizarre that America, Great Britain, and the rest of the world views the Islamic Republic of Iran’s history of hostage-taking as just another problem to be dealt with by diplomats?

Kidnapping is one of the worst crimes committed in any society, but the Iranians do it with impunity. The latest news concerns the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans along with Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who we’re told strayed too close to the Iranian border while hiking. The two men are still being held.

Still unaccounted for is Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran in 2007. In the September 14 edition of The Wall Street Journal, his daughter had a letter published. “My father was in Kish Island, Iran, on private business when he disappeared without a trace on March 9, 2007.” She noted that Press TV, an Iranian media outlet reported that he was “in the hands of Iranian security forces.” Sarah Lawrence is planning her wedding and her letter pled with the government of Iran “to do everything possible to find my father and send him home to me, my mother, and my six brothers and sisters.”

American relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined on November 4, 1979 when 66 of our diplomats and embassy personnel were taken hostage. They were held for 444 days until the hour that Ronald Reagan took the oath of office for the first time.

Name a nation other than North Korea that routinely takes foreigners hostage. There simply could not be any comity between nations if hostage-taking was the rule instead of the exception. The taking of U.S. diplomats in 1979 broke centuries of tradition in which even ancient cultures understood that diplomats are engaged in missions determining issues too important to permit them to be imprisoned or killed.

The expression, “Do not kill the messenger” comes from this tradition.

What does this tell us about the ayatollahs running Iran? It brands them as little more than common gangsters, blackmailers, and thugs.

It was not for nothing that former President George W. Bush included Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea in his “Axis of Evil.” Such bold, clear identification of criminal nations was refreshing at the time and remains so today.

It comes as no surprise that Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Heydar Moslehi, recently told reporters that the three U.S. hostages are spies even though no charges have been brought against them since last July. Instead, Moslehi and other Iranian officials have let it be known that that there are eleven Iranians in custody in the United States and other nations that they want released.

Last September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly suggested that the three Americans could be released for Iranians currently held in Iraq, members of the Revolutionary Guards who were captured while posing as “diplomats.”
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 579 was adopted unanimously on December 18, 1985, in a meeting called by the United States. The Council expressed its deep concern at the prevalance in incidents of hostage-taking, primarily by Iran, knowing that this thuggish behavior has grave consequences for the international community and relations between states.

Except for the formalities, Iran has been at war with the United States since the day it took our diplomats hostage in 1979.

The UN Security Council resolution asked member states that were not party to the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages to participate. The resolution identified hostage-taking as "manifestations of international terrorism."
Iran is the epicenter of international terrorism these days and has been for years. It is the sponsor of two internationally recognized terror organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, and has had its hand covertly involved in countless acts of terror. It is widely believe that Iran is playing host to Osama bin Laden as it is known his family has been given sanctuary there.

And now Iran moves relentlessly toward acquiring nuclear weapons. There can be no good end to this scenario and it must be one that initiates the destruction of the leadership of Iran and its nuclear potential.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Why Are We Still Asking Why?

By Alan Caruba

We are now nearly nine years passed the attack on September 11, 2001 that killed some 3,000 Americans in the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and seventeen years since the first attack, a car bomb, failed to bring down the Twin Towers.

Jihadists have been killing Americans for a long time; from the 1983 attack on the Beirut Marine barracks to the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, the recent Fort Hood attack, and now the abortive car bomb attack in Times Square.

Why are we still asking why?

Why is the mainstream press publishing headlines such as the Associated Press gem, “NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery” or USA Today’s “Motive of NYC car bomb suspect remains a mystery.”

Why does the press continue to speculate or to publish the now standard “explanations” that the terrorist, whether it be Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed 13 Fort Hood soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar” or the latest manifestation, Faisal Shahzad, who tried to kill countless Americans in Times Square on Saturday evening is motivated by anything other than Islam?

Every other reason than Islam is offered and this opinion-shaping process is getting old. Since 2002 the U.S. has tried dozens of Muslims involved in various plots.

It’s not some odd mental derangement. It is Islam.

It is not all Muslims, many of whom have ample reason to fear the jihadists in their midst, but there have been enough jihadists and more than enough terrorist events worldwide to recommend a united front against them.

It can be argued that more Muslims have died at the hands of the jihadists than “infidels”. A website, www.thereligionofpeace.com, has recorded 15,247 Muslim terrorist incidents since 9/11 and yet all manner of U.S. officialdom keeps saying there must be some other reason than Islam.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first response was that the car bomb might have been put in Times Square by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” How detached from reality is the Mayor? Having asked, it’s worth noting that he also once proposed putting windmills on top of all the city’s buildings to generate electricity.

No one is more skilled at denying reality than Muslims themselves. Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, followed the breaking Times Square bomber story. “We are shocked, why did he do this?” asked one man in the street in Peshawar.

Did it have anything to do, as Dawn reported, with the fact that “In the 1980s, when Shahzad was a child, Peshawar was a staging post for the mujahideen who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a place frequented by Osama bin Laden and swollen by a morass of two million Afghan refugees”?

Dawn interviewed Advocate Kifayatullah Khan, a former member of the provincial bar council. “He said the family believed that Shahzad had been framed. ‘The entire family is highly educated and enlightened. The villagers don’t believe that Shahzad could act in such a manner.’”

As any observer will tell you, an advanced education is often a component of the jihadist’s decision to use terror against America. Major Hasan and even 9/11 pilot, Mohammed Atta, were college graduates and Shahzad was a 2000 graduate of the University of Bridgeport (CT) with a degree in computer science who is a naturalized American.

Islam is in confrontation with every other religion worldwide and has been since the seventh century. It lacks any theological impetus toward tolerance. Its holy book, the Koran, heaps calumnies on Jews, Christians, and “those without a book”, Buddhists and Hindus. Any criticism is justification for threats and worse. It sanctions the killing of infidels and apostates,

It is the state religion and the highest legal authority of Middle Eastern nations that have proven resistant to any true modernization beyond the adoption of Western technology. All, with the exception of Turkey, are dictatorships or monarchies though Iraq, liberated by U.S. intervention, is moving slowly toward democracy.

Despite a long history of terrorist acts in New York, Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, and in the nations of Israel, Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Russia, Iraq, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sudan, some people and elements of the nation’s media keep asking why!

For now and into the immediate future, it would be a good idea if the U.S. State Department stopped giving out visas like lollypops to Middle Easterners and others from predominantly Muslim nations.

It would be a good idea if the Department of Homeland Security would begin paying more attention to Arab visitors as well as native-born and naturalized Arabs in America instead of members of the Tea Party.

It would be a good idea of the U.S. military would take off the politically correct blinders and stop blathering about “diversity.”

It would be a good idea if we stopped listening to the eyewash of the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations and other apologists for Islamic terrorism.

At some point Americans have to stop asking why we are targeted.

We know why the car bomb was set to kill Americans in Times Square. We know why the Christmas Day bomber came close to killing those on the airliner. And we know that militant Muslims will try again.

For seven of the last nine years the Bush administration kept Americans safe from further attacks through vigilance and the preemptive use of power. Since the advent of the Obama administration in 2009, terrorist incidents have increased.

Worried about terrorism? We now have a president who, in his book, Audacity of Hope, wrote: “The stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their [Arab-Americans'] sense of security and belonging.... I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

© Alan Caruba, 2010

How the MSM Covers Terrorism

The Most Dysfunctional Place on Earth

By Alan Caruba

We now live in a nation that will not name its enemy. Homeland Security wants to eliminate terms like Islamic jihad or terrorism from its vocabulary lest we offend some of the people trying to kill us.

The United States has global enemies of every description. Pretending they don’t exist is an invitation to attack. The most potent of our enemies are found in the Middle East, but for many Americans, trying to “make sense” of those who determine policies in the Middle East is impossible; the region is a giant hall of mirrors, a funhouse filled with guns and bombs.

Recently I had occasion to read a 2004 speech given by Haim Harari. It is quite prescient and rings true today. Harari is a theoretical physicist. From 1998 to 2001 he was the president of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Suffice it to say he is an internationally respected Israeli scientist and educator.

While the audience may have expected him to discuss the situation in Israel, he began by noting that the millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel, nor did Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

Those who died from the genocide in Sudan where Christians are the target are unrelated to Israel. He reminded the audience that Syria’s former dictator, Assad, did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one week in El Hamma because of Israel.

Israel was and is a convenient excuse for the bad intentions of those in the Middle East who, when not continually killing one another, have attacked Israel repeatedly over the course of its existence since 1947. Poised on its borders and funded by Iran are two proxy forces, Hezbollah and Hamas. Barring a nuclear attack on Israel, if they succeed the West is next.

The West has tried to ignore this for a very long time. Bombings in Spain and in England, riots in France, fear throughout the Netherlands are all a portent of worse to come if militant Islam has its way. Even Russia has not been exempt.

Of the Middle East, Harari said, “The root of the trouble is that this entire Muslim region is totally dysfunctional by any standard of the world.”

He noted that “These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands, plus Belgium and equal to half of the GDP of California alone.”

There is no such thing as human rights throughout the Middle East. The social status of women is negated by Islam to that of mere chattel.

Harari took note of the “millions of decent, honest, good people who are either devout Muslims or are not very religious, but grew up in Muslim families…The problem is the vast silent majority of these Muslims are not a part of the terror and of the incitement, but they also do not stand up against it.”

Add to this the ceaseless lies and propaganda to which they are exposed from birth about the world and its events, and it becomes easier to understand why they have little real understanding of the world outside the Middle East.

Harari identified four elements of the Islamic war against the West. The first was the use of suicide murder as an instrument of terror. The second was the endless tide of lies told inside the Middle East and repeated by the Western media. The third element was the money that enables the Muslim militants.

Harari cited the most essential factor as “the total breaking of all laws.”

While the present administration seeks to encumber efforts to find these enemies within our borders, to provide legal assistance to those sworn to kill us, to threaten the interrogators who secured information about future attacks, and to close down the Guantanamo facilities where they are detained, our enemies do not feel bound by any laws, international or domestic.

“The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the role of law in a totally lawless environment.”

Why has the president thwarted delivery of “bunker buster” bombs to Israel? Why is it now U.S. policy to refuse visas for Israeli nuclear scientists seeking to come here to advance their knowledge in physics, chemistry, and nuclear engineering?

That is the quandary in which Israel now finds itself as it wrestles with what action to take against an Iran sworn to annihilate it. It has clearly been abandoned by the present administration and has few real friends among Western governments.

Beyond Israel remains the West itself. Harari warned that we must never surrender to terror. If we continue to find words to obfuscate the threat, we will lose the capacity to address it.

© Alan Caruba

Taking Terrorism Seriously

By Alan Caruba

I keep wondering when the world is going to begin to take Islamic terrorism seriously.

The world’s leaders and, in particular, the media could begin by calling it “Islamic” or “Muslim” terrorism. The media were, of course, thrilled to discover that America had a small band of homegrown nut cases, a Christian militia arrested before they did some serious harm. That’s the kind of thing that happens when the president and the government begins to be regarded as the anti-Christ.

I liked Vladimir Putin’s response to the Moscow bombings. He said of those responsible, “We will destroy them.”

The suicide bombers in Moscow will no doubt be identified—there was video of their entering the station—and an efficient national security apparatus will find out who they are, who their family is, who their friends are, and invite them in for some interrogation. They are not likely to be read Miranda rights, nor will their lawyers be present.

The reason for this is that they are potentially all terrorists.

America has been devoted to treating the terrorists we captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq as humanely as possible. Those incarcerated at Guantanamo were given copies of the Koran, their dietary laws were observed, ACLU and other lawyers were permitted access to advise them of their “rights.” Under the Geneva Convention, however, they are exempt from the rules of war and have no rights as combatants.

The Attorney General of the United States of America, a former resident of La-La Land, didn’t think it was the least bit odd to suggest trying Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the 9/11 mastermind, in a civil court in the heart of New York City.

Any number of the Gitmo detainees have been returned to their homelands and have since turned up on the battlefield again. This suggests we do not take terrorists seriously. These are, after all, people who cut the heads off of other people.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has an odd notion of who poses a threat to the nation. They identified “right-wing extremists” as their primary concern, particularly those who express concern about the central government’s expansion, opponents of abortion, opponents of illegal immigration, and “disgruntled” veterans returning from the battlefront. No mention of left-wing extremists.

The first rule of war is “know your enemy.” In the space of a decade, they have shown up in New York, London, Madrid, Bali, Mumbai, and in Moscow; all killing civilians indiscriminately on buses, on trains, in subways, in skyscrapers, and at resorts. Before that, they devoted themselves to kidnapping Americans in Lebanon and blowing up two of our embassies in Africa.

From the streets of Paris where Muslims rioted at will to Malmo, Sweden where attacks on local Jews are driving them to leave the country, the story is always the same. Wherever Muslims become a sufficient number of the population, they begin to make demands, harass the locals, and in the Netherlands to murder an outspoken opponent of Islam in broad daylight. The Dutch response has been to put on trial a man who is warning of these dangers.

The British cannot accommodate them enough, while the French have decided it is far better to be French than Muslim, passing several laws to protect their cultural traditions and society.

The impact on Americans has mostly been to turn a trip to the airport into a complete nightmare, but few other restrictions have interfered with their normal activities. Despite valiant efforts by our border patrol, our southern border goes largely unprotected. The insane murder rate from the drug wars in Mexico will arrive any day now in the U.S.A.

The small U.S. Muslim population has been free of harassment, but the organizations claiming to speak for them have all been identified as having links to the Muslim Brotherhood and related jihadist organizations.

Who takes the jihadists, the terrorists seriously? Saudi Arabia where they just rounded up a large ring of al Qaeda conspirators, Pakistan where they have finally begun to hammer the jihadis in Waziristan and other frontier provinces, and just about every nation with a Muslim majority.

The official and rather perfunctory response to the Fort Hood shootings and the “underwear bomber” on Christmas suggests that our government has forgotten the message that arrived on September 11, 2001 or has decided that “right-wing extremists” are the real problem.

That’s unfortunate because the terrorists have an agenda of their own and, unless the global effort is made to find them and kill them, the attacks will be as common as movie listings in the daily newspaper. Or should I say obituaries?

In Cairo, in 2009, President Obama said, “You might say the United States is a Muslim nation.” Some might call this seriously mistaken and some might say it is wishful thinking.

Islamic terrorism remains the great concern of most Americans who probably need to be more watchful of their Muslim neighbors and co-workers. That would have gone a long way toward saving the lives of the Fort Hood victims.

© Alan Caruba

American Al Qaeda is Captured

By Alan Caruba

The news on Sunday, March 7th, is that Adam Gadahn, an American who became a Muslim and then joined al Qaeda, was arrested in Pakistan by intelligence officers and the only question I have is how long will it take to ship his sorry ass back to the land of the free and the home of the brave?

This poor excuse for a human being grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, converted to Islam at a nearby mosque, and found his purpose in life with the enemies of his country and, for that matter, every country. Even the Pakistanis are not keen on al Qaeda and the Taliban.

If he stays in the Middle East, the chances of his being rescued by his al Qaeda buddies or that a sizeable enough bribe will leave his cell door unlocked escalate with each day. A bunch of these jihadists were broken loose from a prison in Yemen. It apparently was constructed from sponge cake and marshmallows.

If returned to the U.S., Gadahn, age 31, should be put before a military tribunal as an enemy combatant, tried, and then taken out to face a firing squad. This is the way the U.S. used to deal with traitors, but we have become so feminized that some will surely cry out that it is cruel and unusual punishment. There is, however, nothing unusual about it.

Briefly, Gadahn starred in several al Qaeda videos urging his fellow American Muslims to join the jihad against the Great Satan. After conversion, he moved to Pakistan in 1998 and went looking for an al Qaeda training camp. I’ve never been there, but you get the feeling that they have highway signs that say turn left for Rawalpindi and right for the Osama bin Laden Terrorist Camp.

By 2004 the Federal Bureau of Investigation put his face on a wanted poster and offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. In 2006, a U.S. court charged him with treason, making him the first American to face that charge in more than 50 years.

In his last video, he praised Major Hassan for having killed thirteen fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, calling him a role model for Muslims. To say the least, he is just one more twisted sister who has found the ultimate justification to kill civilians and military alike because Mohammed said it's okay.

What Americans need to draw from this is the reminder that mosques throughout our great, benevolent and tolerant nation are hothouses for jihadist recruitment and plots. Other favorite recruiting locations are prisons.

It doesn’t matter what the official spokesmen of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has to say. They are part of the “problem.”

To whom do all Muslims owe their loyalty? First, last, and always, it is to Islam.

Are there Muslim Americans who love America? Yes. Do some serve honorably in our military? Yes. Sorting them out from those who have bad intentions is the job of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA. It would probably help if their next-door neighbors kept an eye on them as well.

The good news is that the U.S. and its Pakistani ally are beginning to make real progress in degrading al Qaeda through the capture of its various serial killers. The bad news is that these people and wannabe groups are not going to go away for a very long time to come.

Gadahn, the show-off, got most of the attention, but any number of Americans, mostly young men, either converts or born into Islam, have demonstrated that killing their countrymen was perfectly fine with them. They are not “crazy”, they are Muslims.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

The Buck Stops Everywhere Else

By Alan Caruba

It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.

In the event that the White House has not made it perfectly clear: It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.

If, however, you have grown tired of hearing this excuse, er, reason, then you have between now and November to find a candidate of your choice to REPLACE every incumbent Representative and Senator in Congress who has ever uttered this lame excuse for the failure of Obama’s policies.

Some Obama policies and actions you might want to consider are:

Unprecedented national debt
Multi-Billion dollar bailout of General Motors and Chrysler
Multi-Billion dollar bailout of AIG
Multi-Billion Dollar job “Stimulus” Bill producing no real jobs, only “green” ones
A multitude of “czars” who were not approved by Congress
Obama’s “war” on coal
Denying exploration for oil in USA continental shelf and elsewhere
Supporting a “Cap-and-Trade” bill, a tax on all energy use
Trip to Copenhagen for Olympics in Chicago
Trip to Copenhagen to support global warming fraud
Trip to Cairo to tell Muslims America was wrong in the past
Trip to Oslo to accept an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize
Telling Americans not to “jump to conclusions” after Fort Hood murders
Waiting three days to respond to Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing
Selecting Janet Napolitano as Director of Homeland Security
Seeking to prosecute CIA operatives who interrogated enemy combatants
Authorizing a civil trial in New York City for the 9/11 mastermind
Continuing to try to close Guantanamo
Proposing an unconstitutional tax on a select group of banks
Supporting amnesty for illegal aliens
An overhaul of Medicare that would strip a half-trillion dollars from it
Exempting Nebraska, Florida, and union insurance plans from Medicare “reform”

But, remember,

It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.

The Circus Comes to Town

Obama: The Worst President Ever!

By Alan Caruba

Barack Obama’s deep bow to the emperor of Japan and earlier bow to the Saudi Arabian king is so deeply offensive to America’s history and traditions that it cannot and must not be explained away in any fashion.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution were particularly sensitive to the conditions under which a President could serve or any hint that a privileged, monarchal class might emerge.

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States. And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever from any King, Prince, or foreign state.”

It follows that no U.S. President or office holder shall ever bow to a king, prince or foreign state. Obama has done this twice now in less than a year of taking the oath of office. Stated or unstated, the protocol of such matters precludes bowing.

This protocol is reflected in flag etiquette that prohibits it from being “dipped to any person or thing.”

For a man who allegedly taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, it is doubtful that Obama does not know this. It is doubtful that he cares. His first instinct with foreign leaders and foreign nations is to toady to their perceptions in the belief that America will gain their acceptance.

Any leader, however, knows that it is wiser to be feared than loved. It is the reason the U.S. maintains a powerful military. It is well to remember that our present Department of Defense used to be known as the Department of War.

That is why Ovbama’s decision to bring the 9/11 perpetrators to the United States and accord them all the rights of the Constitution in a trial for acts of war is a further abomination. This was not Eric Holder’s decision as Attorney General. This was Barack Obama’s decision, completely in line with his continued obeisance to Middle Eastern and Muslim sensibilities.

It is in line with the recent announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that the Obama administration will push for “immigration reform” which is a euphemism for amnesty to an estimated 14 million illegal aliens. The American public has made it abundantly clear they oppose this.

The majority of Americans oppose healthcare “reform”, a euphemism for a government takeover of one sixth of the nation’s economy and an unholy intrusion into the privileged relationship between doctor and patient. It is socialism.

All Presidents have had to make decisions and take positions that are unpopular with some element of the public. No former President, however, ever increased the national debt more than all the previous presidents combined and did so within months of taking office.

This President simply does not care what Americans want. He does not “represent” Americans and cannot even manage to salute properly when the national anthem is played, though he did stage a photo opportunity to be seen saluting the returning war dead from Afghanistan.

This President may not even be “a natural born citizen” of the United States as required by the Constitution. He may have been born in Kenya. He may have been a citizen of Indonesia as a child and young man. We have no verifiable, authentic records of his early life, even as a college student.

None of his fellow students at Columbia University ever recall knowing him. His records at Occidental College and Harvard University remain sealed from view, as is his alleged Hawaiian certificate of birth there.

Based on his actions since January 20, 2009, he is in my opinion the worst President to ever hold that high office and he may have committed “a high crime or misdemeanor” when he took the oath of office. That is an impeachable offense.

In the meantime, by his actions, he gives every evidence of trying to bring this nation to a state of economic collapse, is deliberately undermining its Constitution, and by giving enemy combatants, terrorists, the stature of U.S. citizens, is encouraging our Islamo-fascist enemies to attack again.

He is an offense to every American and we are on a roller-coaster to a major Constitutional and economic crisis every day he remains in office.

Who's Terrorized?

By Alan Caruba

I’ve been thinking of late about “the war on terror” that was initiated by the Bush administration after 9/11.

One of the places where terrorist attacks have taken place with greater intensity than anywhere else has been Iraq. After five or more years of these attacks, the Iraqis found ways to identify and eliminate those making them. A lot came, not from Iraqis, but by wannabe jihadists from neighboring nations. So, one assumes, the terror levels are down in Iraq.

Granted, living under Saddam Hussein’s pathological regime must have be cause for serious nervousness, but it is useful to keep in mind he was and is still not the only such despot operating then or now. A lot of the world operates under such people, most of whom seem to thrive in the Middle East and Africa. Cuba and Venezuela come to mind in our part of the world.

This is why we are not surprised that bombings continue in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are presumably the work of al Qaeda, the Taliban, or other interests with various agendas. Overall, the primary agenda throughout the Middle East is to get the United States to leave.

Most notably, however, there have been no bombings in America since 9/11.

A partial answer for this is the fact that American military power was brought to bear in the heart of the Middle East, but the question remains, if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Saddam Hussein regime was not working with al Qaeda, and it was not likely to attack any of its neighbors because of no-fly zones and other restrictions, why the Bush administration made the invasion of Iraq a priority?

There is, however, another question that nearly eight years into the Bush administration and seven since 9/11, continues to be asked without a satisfying answer. Why hasn’t Osama bin Laden been captured?

If we can put military units in Afghanistan and fly lethal drones over that nation and Pakistan, why hasn’t there been any indication that bin Laden exists anywhere in the area we have been told he is hiding?

Ultimately, the question for all of us is whether you or anyone you know is “terrorized” at this point?

Do you believe that the Department of Homeland Security has made you any more secure today than the previous, separate agencies, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation, did prior to 9/11? And, to be fair, if you're an intelligence analyst or roomful of analysts drowning in a flood of reports of possible terror attacks, how do you pick the real one from all the rest?

I have a great personal regard for those who devote themselves to protecting the nation, but isn't it a legitimate questions to ask, if the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States cannot find one terrorist leader after seven years of looking for him, just how effective is it?

Or maybe, for reasons concerning the exercise of political power, they really aren't looking?

And do you actually feel any safer standing barefoot in line in the airport as some supposed security person checks your carry-on luggage for nail clippers or aftershave? After all, the likelihood is that the rest of the baggage in the belly of the plane has not been checked at all.

If more than a million illegal aliens can enter America every year just by walking or driving in, why should any of us feel “secure” from “terrorists”? What do we really know about any of those businessmen, tourists or students from foreign nations that fly into America every single day?

In short, we are all operating on the general belief that, somehow, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the NSA, the State Department, and the entire military intelligence apparatus of the United States is getting the job done.

Other than the absence of any terrorist attacks, we are mostly operating on faith. In the end, we have no choice.

I keep hearing that we live in a dangerous world. So did our parents and our grandparents. The world is by definition a dangerous place.

More to the point, I am increasingly skeptical of any government official, from the President on down, that tells me to “be afraid, be very afraid.” You should be, too.

Predicting Terrorist Attacks

By Alan Caruba

If, in fact, the United States or any other nation could predict terrorists attacks there would not be terrorist attacks. They’re not called terrorists for nothing and they don’t post the date and place of their next attack on their Internet sites.

Thus, when a friend sent me an article about Juval Aviv¸ a former Israeli agent famed for heading up the team that tracked down and killed the planners of the Munich Olympics murders of Israeli athletes, I was interested to read his prediction that the United States will suffer multiple terrorist attacks. Mr. Aviv was making such predictions back in July 2005 and possibly earlier.

As the CEO of Interfor, Inc., a company that provides foreign and domestic intelligence services to corporate and financial clients around the world, his stock in trade is being able to predict trouble.

In point of fact, I could make such predictions and, in the event of a terrorist attack, claim prescience. What is most striking, however, as we approach the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, is that there have been none since.

To a large degree I credit this to the very aggressive efforts undertaken by the Bush administration, the coordination of the FBI with other intelligence gathering agencies, and quite possibly to the fact that the U.S. and its allies, including many Arab nations, have been tracking down al Qaeda terrorists for some time now.

Terrorism has become a fact of life for nations around the world. Countering it has become part of the permanent budget of nations. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Contrast it, for example, with the Russian invasion of Georgia. It can, however, be very effective. The Madrid terror attack on train commuters totally transformed its government. There are reports floating about that the Italians made secret pacts to leave Islamic terrorists alone if they did not do anything in that nation.

The best way to deal with terrorists is (a) kill them or (b) lock them up. Extending them the full protection of the U.S. Constitution is about the dumbest idea ever, considering that they exist to destroy America. Detainees who have been returned to the Middle East have just as often been picked up later while engaged in attacks against our troops.

There are conservatives in America who complain that the measures taken to insure our safety are a danger to our right of privacy. Mr. Aviv criticizes our airport security measures and, for the most part, I think he’s right. Making everyone take off their shoes or restricting liquids is, in his words, “reactive” because, in his view, terrorists will never try to hijack a commercial airliner again. They don’t need to.

For my part, I mostly worry that Americans have grown less wary, less cautious and less conscious of the fact that the Islamic jihad, the belief that everyone must become a Muslim, has not gone away and remains the motivation for future attacks.

Mr. Aviv is right when he says that we are so politically correct that, short of seeing some guys wearing bombs strapped to their chest, we would not do or say anything about suspicious behavior, unattended suitcases or packages, and similar reasons to point authorities to someone or something for investigation.

I think, too, he is right when he says that our government treats us “like babies” and that, within the circles of power, too many believe we “can’t handle the truth” fearing Americans would panic.

Since some eighty million Americans own firearms, I think our first reaction would be to reach for them if needed. Consider, in this era of terrorism, how much safer we all would be if the right to carry concealed weapons was more widespread and accessible to law-abiding citizens. After 9/11, the first reaction of many Americans was to go out and purchase firearms.

As to predicting the next terrorist attacks, the only thing that is predictable is not “if”, but “when.”

The "Barbarity" of the West

By Alan Caruba

Every so often I receive an email from the London School of Islamics penned by Iftikhar Ahmad. They are so deceitful and filled with the sense of moral superiority that is endemic to Middle Eastern, i.e. Muslim, culture that they are utterly fascinating.

For all I know Ahmad and his school operates out of a store front with a laptop, but the man is a master of the most astonishing assertions.

“Honor killing and female infanticide come from Pagan-Hindu-Judeo-Christian traditions,” says Ahmad. It should be noted that Muslims say they respect Judaism and Christianity because they are religions that have a “book” whereas Hinduism is held in utter contempt instead of mere contempt.

“Muslim migrants,” writes Ahmad, “are worried about institutional racism, binge drinking, drug addiction, incivility, gun and knife crimes, high rate of abortions, and teen age pregnancies. An average of 20 English girls under the age of 16 falls pregnant every day.” That’s a lot to worry about and how Muslim migrants can even bear to allow their daughters out on the streets of London or any other English city or town boggles the mind.

A brief note at this point: Middle Eastern Muslims are totally obsessed with sex. Who has it. Who might have it. Who is not permitted to have it. If you think that American or British society is awash in sexuality, Muslim societies are so repressed and oppressed about sex that they are driven crazy by Western openness in movies, on television, in print, on the Internet, and everywhere else.

Mohammed apparently thought about it a lot. He had several wives, the last of whom was prepubescent.

“Muslim parents do not want their children to be integrated into such barbarity.” Okay, then take your Muslim-selves back to wherever you came if the thought of living in England is so abhorrent.

“The tragedy of forced marriage and honor killing could have been avoided if the poor girls were educated in a single-sex state funded Muslim school by female Muslim teachers.” Oh? So Ahmad does want to live in London? And it’s okay for other Muslims to live there (they cannot build new mosques fast enough) so long as Muslim children are kept apart from the British school system. Said Muslim schools, however, should be funded by the secular state.

This will “protect Muslim child from the onslaught of Eurocentrism, homosexuality, racism and secular values, and traditions.” Please, explain to me again why the hell you are still living in England????

In some Middle Eastern nations such as Iran, they have found a solution to homosexuality. They kill homosexuals. That’s right. It’s a crime. In nations like Afghanistan, it’s a crime punishable by death if you convert to Christianity. In Saudi Arabia there are so many capitol crimes that getting your head lopped off for just about anything is a strong possibility.

When it comes to "barbarity", I think it’s fair to say that we Westerners have seen enough Muslim-inspired barbarity than we ever wanted to know about. Beheadings shown on Muslim Jihadist Internet sites, suicide bombers in the subways and on the buses of London, and of course 9/11 here in the U.S. In Israel, the barbarity is a daily dose of rockets out of Gaza.

However, Ahmad’s solution to the “barbarity” of living in England is as follows: “There are hundreds of state schools where Muslims are in (the) majority. Such schools may be handed over to Muslim educational Trusts or charities for their management.”

Until those of us in the West, i.e., in Europe, Great Britain, Canada and the United States begin to understand that Muslims, once they gain any majority of population anywhere, intend to completely transform their host nations into Muslim nations, the destruction of Western values and traditions will continue.

There are some things worth fighting to preserve.

From what I know of England, there are fewer in the ruling elite willing to do this. In America, political correctness does not permit us to openly address this threat.

All of which is to say that having our troops in the Middle East to protect us—and them—from their barbarity is probably a good idea.

Explaining Islam to Muslims and Others

By Alan Caruba

I received an email today from "an Arab and a Muslim" who had read a 2001 commentary of mine, "Islam Versus the World"

"You are a bigot and misusing the freedom of America. People like you are so detrimental to the American interests."

The email arrived while I was contemplating blogging about the latest Islamic obscenity, a suicide bombing in Sherpo, Pakistan--in a mosque where Muslims had gathered for worship--that was at the home of the former interior minister in northwestern Pakistan. It killed at least 50 people inside the mosque.

Something is very wrong with any religion whose followers believe it is okay to (1) commit suicide and (2) kill a lot of innocent people at the same time. (3) In a place of prayer.

Many Muslims believe that Islam is under attack, but they seldom see how Islam is at war with the rest of the world, including as often as not, fellow Muslims.

The email ended by telling me I was "a bag of hate and hatred." Assuming that English was not the first language of the "Arab and Muslim" who sent it, I thought he did a good job in expressing himself, but was overlooking a few things.

The article was written shortly after 9/11 when a number of "Arabs and Muslims" killed over 3,000 Americans and people wanted to know who these people are, what they believe, and why they would attack a nation that was not at war with them. Indeed, America had expended considerable treasure and blood defending Arabs and/or Muslims in places like Kosovo and Kuwait. We had even assisted bin Laden and the Afghans in ridding that nation of the Soviet military occupation. Then we had to go back and rid it of the Taliban whom fellow Muslims seem to hate a great deal.

I can understand it when anyone gets angry reading a serious rebuke to their religion and especially one that requires one to face Mecca five times a day to pray. However, this same religion essentially says it's okay to kill "unbelievers" and has provided ample examples of killing those whom one might reasonably consider to be believers...particularly if they are praying in a mosque.

Islam is in great need of a Reformation not unlike that which the Christian Church underwent. Until it reforms itself it will remain locked into a seventh century mentality that will continue to hold Muslims back from having a decent relationship with the rest of mankind.

A Few Dates in October to Remember

On October 23, 1983 a Palestinian suicide attack on a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 Marines and sailors. They had been sent as part of a peace-keeping force.

On October 7, 1985, four Palestinian terrorists hijackers seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean for two days. One American, Leon Klinghoffer, was killed. He was in a wheelchair when he was pushed overboard.

On October 12, 2000, seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in a terrorist bombing of the USS Cole which was refueling in Aden, Yemen.

On October 7, 2001, the U.S. and Britain launched a sustained air-strike campaign against Afghan-based terrorists, member of al Qaeda, and the ruling Taliban militia.

Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2007