"Destroy all the Churches"

By Alan Caruba

News Report, March 19, 2012: “Four people, including three children, have been killed after a man opened fire outside a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse Monday. Police say the bullets came from the same gun that was used last week in the murder of three soldiers.”

Recently, according to several Arabic news sources, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufi of Saudi Arabia, declared that is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.” By “region” one assumes he was referring to the Middle East, but he might as well have been referring to the entire world.

There are no churches in Saudi Arabia and no bibles either. No evidence of or access to any other religion is permitted and one has to pause to ask whether Islam is a “religion” in any other than its outward appearance. It has mosques for “religious” worship. It has clerics in the form of imams and ayatollahs. It has a holy book, the Quran. And it has more than a billion people who identify themselves as Muslims.

As Raymond Ibrahim noted in a recent article, “Likewise, consider the significance of the Grant Mufti’s rationale for destroying churches; it is simply based on a Hadith. But when non-Muslims evoke hadiths—this one or the countless others that incite violence and intolerance against the ‘infidel’—they are accused of being ‘Islamophobes’, of intentionally slandering and misrepresenting Islam, of being obstacles on the road to ‘dialogue’, and so forth.”

Islam translates as “submission” and it is a common human trait to let someone or some institution do all one’s thinking as opposed to personally having to grapple with ethical, social, moral, and academic issues. Authoritarian regimes exist to stamp out all independent thought or action.

Reviewing a book by Robert R. Reilly, “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern islamist Crisis”, Imbrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowtiz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, notes that, in Islam, “Reilly chronicles how the giants of Muslim philosophy, such as Ghazali and Ashari, concluded that knowledge was unknowable, that moral truths can only be ascertained through revelation. Accordingly, all knowledge—the very bounds of reality—came to be limited to the words of the Quran and its pronouncer, Islam's prophet Muhammad.”

This explains why the burning of some Qurans in Afghanistan brought scores of Afghanis into the streets in protest and resulted in the killing of American soldiers, but the massacre of Afghanis by an American soldier has not produced the same response. They are regarded merely as “martyrs.” Indeed, what the West has witnessed countless times, the killing of infidels does not result in any calls for an end to the murders.

Mosques are hotbeds of violence planned and perpetrated against “infidels”, unbelievers.

There is, from a Western, Judeo-Christian point of view a total incomprehension of Islam’s utter contempt for any other system of faith or governance.

This is why Christians and those of other faiths are fleeing the whole of the Middle East if they can because they have no protection from either Islam or from their respective governments against the violence that has been preached and practiced against them since the rise of Islam. Christianity literally has no future in the Middle East and anywhere else where Islam is the dominant force.

This is why, if Iran acquires the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons, it will use them against Israel first, America second, and the rest of the West unless it is stopped.

In Dr. Peter Hammond's book: “Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat”, he describes Islam, saying that it “is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a ‘beard’ for all of the other components.”

“Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges. When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.”

What current generations in the West and around the non-Islamic world are witnessing is the absolute evil that lies at the heart of Islam, repeated on a daily basis. It is most evident in the Middle East from where the threat emanates, but it is a part of the daily life of Europe where an increasing Muslim population will reverse many of the advances of civilization and democracy the West takes for granted.

This accounts for Islam’s intense hatred of Judaism for its ethical philosophy, its spirit of intellectual inquiry and the way this was eventually adopted with the rise of Christianity in the West after it was largely driven from its Middle Eastern origins.

It is the greatest folly to dismiss a call to “destroy all the churches” as just the uttering of some Muslim madman. The call lies at the very heart of Islam’s total contempt for any other faith—Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Bahai—and its determination to rule the whole of the world’s population through terror and intimidation.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

The Mysterious Middle East

By Alan Caruba

I don’t think anyone knows what’s going to happen in the Middle East and that includes the people who live there as well as those who have ruled them despotically for decades, if not centuries.

The bad news about the Middle East is that all this rioting, insurrection, et cetera, has very little to do with “freedom” and everything to do with its peoples wanting Sharia law and mullah control. In that area of the world that is what Islam preaches and what Muslims want. When you have to pray five times a day, there's not a lot of time left over for an objective understanding of the world.

Muammar al-Gadhafi is doing what one would expect him to do. He’s trying to stay alive and to keep his hold on the oil riches of Libya. To accomplish this, he will kill as many Libyans as necessary. We tend to forget that despots in Syria and Iraq, the late masseurs Hafez al Assad and Saddam Hussein, slaughtered thousands of their own people to gain and retain power. One can only guess at the death toll in Iran.

Egypt gave the impression of being a not too horrible place to live, so long as you lived in America or somewhere else. The military essentially owned Egypt and everyone else there resents it. What do we want in Egypt? Stability. Therefore we want the military to stay in power since most of its officers were trained by U.S. military and we give them over a billion a year not to attack Israel. Again. And get whipped. Again.

Only at this point there is no stability in Egypt and typically everyone at the bargaining table wants a piece of whatever wealth there is to be had. The Muslim Brotherhood wants a return to the seventh century as soon as possible.

The real action will be in Saudi Arabia where the wealth really exists and has been carefully tended by the “royal” family of Saud. They have worked closely with America because, oddly enough, we are the only major power they trust. We need their oil. If it takes every carrier, destroyer and cruiser we have in that part of the world, plus a lot of Marines, Army, and Air Force, you can bet we will ensure they stay in power and in the oil business.

The other Gulf States are strategic U.S. assets. We park our Navy in Bahrain. We do a lot of business in Abu Dubai. We want the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to keep pumping oil and sending it to us. They want to avoid being taken over by Iran.

Nobody, but nobody knows how Iran will end up. A lot depends on whether a whole generation of young Iranians can stage a successful revolution, drag the ayatollahs into the streets, and hang them from telephone poles. So long as the nut jobs remain in power they will get nuclear weapons and force everyone to bomb the crap out of them.

Not mentioned at this point is Pakistan, a failed state beset by the Taliban with whom it has tried to maintain good relations despite the threat they present. Pakistan remains insanely afraid India will sneak in one night and reclaim their territory. It has nuclear weapons that the U.S. and all other nations want to ensure do not become the property of either al Qaeda or Iran. Islam is killing Pakistan.

There are three wild cards at this point, Lebanon, Jordan, and Yemen. The first two have large Palestinian populations. Lebanon is now controlled by Iran and Syria via Hezbollah. Jordan’s fallback position is the Bedouin tribes that support its king, but there is increased clamoring in the streets because that’s what Palestinians do.Yemen like other Arab states is in turmoil and only military analysts pay it much attention. Then there is Somalia, pretty much "Apache country" because no one who goes there comes back alive.

Lastly, there’s Afghanistan, a nation that has been unsuccessfully invaded by great powers who never learn one of the first lessons of history, never invade Afghanistan.

If you harbor the illusion that the White House, Department of State or the Pentagon has the slightest idea what is happening in the Middle East or what will happen in the Middle East, you are mistaken. And they are currently led by the most pro-Islam President in the history of the nation.

No one knows. Everyone wishes they did.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Wheat is more than just a crop

By Alan Caruba

Long ago I was in a class studying history and a professor said something I never forgot. He said that no nation is more than two weeks away from revolution if it cannot feed its people.

We know, however, that dictatorships like the former Soviet Union used famine as a political weapon against the Ukraine, that China has experienced famines, and that North Korea barely manages to feed its people. Food is so essential to political control that all nations pay attention to its provision.

Perhaps no single crop is more essential than wheat. In the 1980s I traveled everywhere in the U.S. as a writer and often visited farmers, learning about what new techniques and products they were using to enhance crop yield. It gave me a lesson regarding the role of agriculture that this suburban New Jersey boy could never have acquired.

With a tip of the hat to Wheat Life, a publication of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, here’s a quick look at the role of wheat around the world. Though farmers represent only about two percent of America’s population, they produce an abundance of wheat and other crops, enough to feed all of us and to export internationally. They are a major contributor to the nation’s economy.

The share of the world’s wheat market in 2008 showed America’s dominance with 29%. This was followed by 14% from Russia and 12% from Australia.

A word of caution about any foods coming out of China; there have been too many cases of adulterated foods whether it was pet food, milk, or flour. One firm, Yuzhong Food Additive Company, has occasioned a flurry of warnings against doing business with it.

For years, self-anointed environmentalists have warned against the greatest advance in crop growth of modern times, those that have been genetically modified to withstand drought, fend off various insect pests, and increase vitamin A so children in nations where it is not naturally available can benefit. The Canada Wheat Board led the fight against GMO wheat, but has now recognized that a zero tolerance policy makes no sense.

Iceland was in the news when its unpronounceable volcano, Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, but scientists worry that another volcano, Katla, could erupt. It is considerably larger and could affect northern hemisphere farming. It erupted in 1918 and is estimated to be a hundred times larger than Katla. Scientists say it is overdue to erupt.

Saudi Arabia is a big importer of wheat because it does not have much arable land to grow it. It has announced that it plans to stop growing wheat in the spring of 2016 and that means US, Argentine, European, and Australian growers will benefit. In 2010-11, it is expected to import two million metric tons.

Iran, when it isn’t secretly trying to produce nuclear weapons and rule the entire Middle East, is a wheat producer and is expected to export two million metric tons to Oman, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates this year. Its wheat crop is expected to reach nine to twelve million tons. Connect the dots and you will see why its wheat crop influences the decisions of Gulf states.

Despite diplomatic and other differences we may have with Russia these days, Deere & Company, the iconic tractor and implement manufacturer, plans to expand its investment and operations there. Russia has nearly 9% of the world’s arable land, 20% of its forested land, and 8% of its fresh water. The Chairman of Deere says it has the potential of being one of the world’s major food-producing areas.

It doesn’t matter where you look on the globe of the world, wheat, the stuff of bread, cakes, pizzas, pasta, and just about anything you will eat today plays a significant and subtle role in the economies of nations. That means you can count on the governments of the world and its international institutions to always pay it close attention while meddling as much as they can.

With a population of more than six billion people, keeping them fed is fundamental to maintaining peace no matter what other threats exist.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

The Ayatollahs Are Asking for It

By Alan Caruba

The announcement by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that Iran was now “a nuclear state” was an invitation to have its nuclear facilities attacked by Israel.

Israel, after all, is a nation that Ahmadinejad said should be “wiped off the map” and hardly a day has gone by for the past 31 years that some Iranian leader has not called for death to Israel and, yes, death to America.

Let us, for a moment, cast a look back at the Israeli response to earlier nuclear threats. When the French built the Osirak nuclear reactor in Baghdad, the Israelis destroyed it on June 7, 1981 in a daring air raid. When the Syrians built a facility described as a “nuclear cache”, the Israelis destroyed it on September 6, 2007 in another air raid.

For months now the Israeli air force has been practicing long-range bombing runs, putting their planes on a run to the straits of Gibraltar and back; about the same distance from Jerusalem to Tehran. The U.S. has been supplying “bunker-buster” bombs and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Israel has its own nuclear weapons.

This Israeli response to the wars perpetrated against it since the day it declared its sovereignty in 1948 has been to turn out the entire nation to defeat their enemies.

The U.S. will be among the last to know when the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will take place. The current administration is no friend to the Israelis, but they have dispatched their top intelligence and military people to Israel and to Saudi Arabia to sound out the when and wherefore of an attack. Meanwhile, the Israelis and their Saudi counterparts have been meeting to discuss the logistics of such an attack.

No one knows better than the Saudis that a nuclear Iran poses a threat of incalculable proportions to their oil fields and facilities. No one knows better the vital importance of the Persian Gulf in the transport of oil.

The Israelis will not wait for the first Iranian missile to be fired at them. In his book, “A World of Trouble”, Patrick Tyler wrote of the history of U.S. Middle East relations from the days of Eisenhower to George W. Bush.

“The first reports of an Israeli air attack on Egypt reached the duty officer at the White House Situation Room at 2:38 a.m. on June 5, 1967. They came from news agencies whose correspondents could hear the bombs going off at air bases on the outskirts of Cairo.”

In 1967, Egypt was ruled by Gamal Abdel Nasser, an advocate of Arab unity and the very definition of a loose cannon. “Lucius Battle, the insightful American ambassador who had just completed two years in Cairo, was deeply troubled by the ‘ungovernable problem’ of Nasser’s demagoguery.”

The problem that has faced every president since the 1979 uprising in Iran has been the demagoguery of the Supreme Guides of the Iranian government since the Ayatollah Khomeini had led the overthrow of the Iranian Shah and the subsequent hostage taking of American diplomats whose release was not achieved until 444 days later when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

The Six Day War, a preemptive attack on an Egypt that had massed troops in the Sinai, was an unmitigated disaster for Egypt and expanded the territory of Israel in the wake of its taking of Syria’s Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai (later returned).

The Arab response was a conference in Khartoum in which the Arabs asserted its now-famous three no’s. No negotiation, no recognition, and no peace with Israel. Under the leadership of Anwar Sadat, peace with Egypt was achieved and his reward was to be assassinated. A similar peace was achieved with Jordan.

Every U.S. president since then has demanded that Israel return territory in return for peace, but there has never been peace and there is not likely to be any. Islam is a warrior cult based on the Koran; essentially a battle plan to impose Islam on the world.

The Iranian people are a wonderful people, but they are prisoners in their own nation and are currently struggling to rid themselves of the ayatollahs. Israel, however, does not have the privilege of waiting to see whether they are successful or not.

The ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are literally begging the Israeli’s to attack. They have mocked and deceived the West for decades in their quest for nuclear status and power.

No amount of United Nations “sanctions” will have any more effect on the situation than they did against the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein.

One of these mornings, the White House Situation Room will be informed of the Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and you can be very sure that the entire West and the Middle East will breath a sigh of relief when they do.

The hypocrisy of condemnation that will follow will be vast, but tiny Israel will have saved the world and freed the Iranian people.

Americans--Real Ones--Do Not Bow to Anyone

How many more ways can Barack Obama find to disgrace the office of the presidency with his bowing to foreign leaders? Since the day the nation was founded, NO AMERICAN bowed to foreign leaders, their representatives, or their flags. Obama's behavior is an insult to our nation's history and most fundamental values.

Seen above is a bow to the emperor of Japan and a bow to the king of Saudi Arabia.

Someone at the U.S. State Department better send him a memo on proper protocol.

The Saudis Choose Sides

By Alan Caruba

Bit by bit the news is getting out. First it was a news report of Israelis, Egyptians, and Saudis getting together to discuss their mutual interests and concern. In other words, Iran!

Now The Times (UK) is reporting that “The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.”

This was followed by news of an ABC News interview with Vice President Biden who said, “Look, Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else, whether we agree or not.”

Translation: We hope they will bomb the heck out of Iran’s nuclear facilities because we do not have the guts to do it ourselves. The President then said Biden had misspoken and that no “green light” had been given. Apparently, it’s okay to “meddle” in Israel’s internal affairs, but not Iran’s.

The least likely partners in the Middle East are Israel and the Saudis, but both have a common enemy and the Saudis have always been shrewd in their judgment as to whom to back in a fight. They also prefer having others do their fighting for them. Unless you haven’t checked lately, Saudi Arabia shares a very long border with Iraq and is just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, along with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

So now the Saudis are in league with the Israelis, just like they coordinate with the oil-importing United States of America. Why not? We’re too stupid to tap our own extensive national oil reserves, so they are perfectly happy to sell us theirs.

Iran is a direct competitor to the Saudis and cannot be expected to play nice at OPEC meetings. The good news for the Saudis is that the Iranians have so mismanaged their oil industry that they don’t even have a refinery to make their own gasoline. Their equipment is getting old and their income from oil is surely dwindling as a result. It doesn’t help them that the price per barrel is falling of late.

But they sure do know how to make some great long-and-short range missiles and have been hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapon capability for some twenty years or more. While they have poured billions into that little project, they have ignored their own population which has high unemployment and a host of other problems, not the least of which is a shaky hold on power.

A serious international boycott of the current Iranian regime would bring it to its knees. The protests in the streets may have been crushed, but the spirit of protest has not. Iranians are angry with their Supreme Leader and the rest of the stooges in their allegedly elected government.

I have no doubt whatever that the Israelis will choose the day and hour to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. It’s no great secret where they are, but I bet the Mossad has blueprints!

It is ironic that Iran has managed to do what sixty years of Arab warfare on Israel has not. It has brought two antagonists to the table to discuss an even greater common enemy.

Iran's Mullahs Threaten the World

By Alan Caruba

In the more than four decades of the Cold War following World War Two, a cadre of specialists called “Kremlinologists”, academics, diplomats, and military, developed for the purpose of figuring out what the Soviet Union was doing and how best to counteract it. As often as not, they were wrong. The fall of the Berlin War came as a surprise to them, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now we are watching the same thing occur as various “experts” struggle to tell us what is happening in Iran and why.

What I really want to know is why the President of the United States thought it best not to “meddle” with a nation that had taken American diplomats hostage for 444 days, was funding two Middle East terrorists organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, and striving mightily to become a nuclear power with which to threaten their region and the world.

President Obama’s muted and belated response to the protests in the streets of Tehran by thousands of Iranians was a national and international disgrace. If America will not speak out boldly for liberty and support a popular uprising for democracy, who will?

My friend, Amil Imani, an Iranian-American who has forcefully spoken out for regime change in his former homeland, has posted a petition calling for an end to the slaughter of Iranians who only want what we in America and the West have, freedom.

You can add your name at http://www.petitiononline.com/ai2d2009/petition.html

Addressed to the leaders of the free world, the citizens of the world, and even to the Secretary-General of the useless United Nations, Imani states what we all know. “The mullahs and their mercenaries are wasting precious human life to maintain themselves in power through terrorizing the population.”

Islam is not about democracy. It is a political system called a theocracy. The clerics rule and, in effect, they only answer to Allah. Turkey, an Islamic nation, has maintained secular rule by splitting off Islam from governance. Other Islamic nations hold “elections” but it is understood by their citizens that they frequently are rigged, that those who rule them, secular or not, are corrupt, and protest gets you put in jail or dead.

One Middle Eastern nation that fashioned a working democracy, Lebanon, has been struggling for decades to throw off the dictators that would rule them, whether it is Syria or Hezbollah, a terrorist group of Palestinian terrorists whose sole purpose is the destruction of Israel.

Imani’s petition calls on “the free governments of the world, as well as all other businesses, organizations, and individuals to enlist in a non-violent campaign of ending the reign of terror of the belligerent clerical regime.”

Towards that end he seeks to protect the lives of Iranians through “a comprehensive program of assistance to all democratic Iranian opposition groups, both inside and outside of Iran, in their struggle to accomplish the regime change themselves.”

“Proclaim wide and far, the cardinal reason for taking these measures against the mullah’s reign of terror is to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons, the threat they pose to the region as well as the world, and the stimulus they provide for other nations to develop their own nuclear arsenal..”

There are a number of other proposals in the petition which I urge you to read and sign, but the issue to my mind is the failure of the United States, that is to say our President, to demonstrate any understanding of the fact that one cannot “negotiate” with a “Supreme Leader” intent on having nuclear weapons with which to threaten the region and the world.

That “Supreme Leader” and his minions subscribe to a Shiite myth of a “Twelfth Imam” who can only return to rule the Earth after widespread death and destruction has paved the way.

Little known and underreported have been the discussions underway between Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia as to “strategic” actions they can take to secure the safety of their nations and to bring down the Iranian regime before it achieves nuclear status. Let me repeat that roster. Israel. Egypt. And Saudi Arabia.

America has the misfortune to be led by a President who has been fixated before and since election on a diplomatic resolution to the enmity between Iran and America. He apparently thinks he can talk them out of securing nuclear weapons. That is never going to happen. Israel knows this. Egypt knows this. And Saudi Arabia knows this.

Obama’s willful ignorance and personal arrogance is going to keep the Iranian people enslaved and get a lot of people in the region and beyond killed.

The Iranian mullahs are a pestilence that must be eradicated and removed from power. History teaches this lesson. A nation’s sovereignty is not an excuse to permit its leaders to plunge the world into war.

The Turmoil in the Middle East

By Alan Caruba

It sometimes seems like we have been reading and hearing about turmoil in the Middle East for our entire lives, but the facts are otherwise. For most of the last century and earlier, the Middle East was a backwater of age-old Islamic repression.

Things began to change with the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War One. They had backed the Germans and, already in decay, it didn’t take much of a push to end it. The winners of the war, primarily England and France, met in Versailles where they took out their maps of the region and divided it between them. Nations were created, some with ancient names like Syria and Lebanon, some with new ones like Trans-Jordan. A nation called Iraq was created.

The Saudis got very little for having cast their lot with the English. They would never trust them again and when Americans came knocking with a request to search for oil, they got the nod, not the British.

It was World War Two and its aftermath that really got the pot boiling. The Middle East had not played much of a role. Initially the war had been fought in North Africa with an eye on Libya’s oil reserves and the need to protect the Suez Canal from the Germans.

Shortly after the war’s end, India declared its independence from Great Britain and, at the same time, was partitioned to create Pakistan and Bangladesh for those of its Muslim population that did not want to live with their Hindu neighbors. By 1971, Bangladesh parted company with Pakistan and declared its own independence.

Former UK colonies became independent, but with the exception of Lebanon, nations like Syria and Iraq were controlled by despots and their cronies. Turkey opted for modernity, but sheikdoms such as Saudi Arabia remained sleepy, oil-rich backwaters of the region.

The introduction of Israel into this mix, recognized as a sovereign nation in 1947, was the catalyst for some the troubles that roil the region today. Islam’s argument with Israel is that its existence invalidates Islam’s claim to be the single religion destined to rule the world, let alone the Middle East.

If one believed the ravings of its mullahs, Iran exists for no other reason than to destroy Israel and to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam, a mythical Shiite figure, through massive global death and destruction.

More than sixty years and several lost wars later, Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and the West Bank have no other purpose than to destroy Israel in the name of Palestine, a non-state entity that exists only as a welfare recipient of the United Nations and other donors. Hezbollah, located in Lebanon, is a client of Iran.

Even if there were no Israel, the endless dissatisfaction of Muslims with their lot in life would ensure that there would be strife. The issue is not Israel. It is modernity and the tantalizing prospect of true democracy for a people that have never experienced it.

The real problem for the Middle East, however, was and is Islam, a political as well as social and religious entity. Until the rest of the world is prepared to admit this, we shall all be forced to pretend that Pakistan has merely been having a few problems since its founding in 1947, that the so-called Palestinians have any legitimacy, that Islam is "a religion of peace."

Similarly, the genocide taking place in the Sudan is based in Islamic intolerance. Other human rights abuses, endemic to the Middle East, exist because the United Nations has been largely captured by its Islamic bloc of member states.

When Iran experienced its Islamic Revolution in 1979, it is doubtful its ruling mullahs ever expected to see Muslims by the tens of thousands in the streets of Tehran in 2009 protesting their brutal oppression.

It took a Green Revolution in Lebanon to expel Syria from the domination of its neighbor state. Afghanistan, as the former Soviet Union learned, should be left to itself, Islamic or not, because its tribes are a friend to neither each other nor intruders of any description.

With the exception of North Korea, the world’s attention has been captured by a Middle East in turmoil, not because Islam offers a better, more just and humane way of conducting political and social affairs, but because it fails on all counts.

The rest of the world has to stand with those brave Muslims in the streets of Tehran and everywhere else they demand what the West enjoys and represents, modernity, freedom, democracy, and a chance for a better life for all who embrace it.

Commander-in-Cliche

By Alan Caruba

Some of my favorite science fiction villains are the “shape-shifters” like the cyborg from the 1984 “Terminator” movie. Barack Hussein Obama reminds me a lot of those creatures.

All during the campaign, the use of his middle name was decried as a subtle form of racism, suggesting his Muslim roots, but when he took the oath of office, there it was and, in Cairo, Obama stressed those same roots. Salaam Alaykum everyone!

His Cairo speech, however, was met predictably by his Arab Muslim audience with less than enthusiasm and, as always, the endless complaints by people for whom democracy is an illusion and oppression is a way of life.

Our Commander-in-Cliché did not disappoint anyone by saying anything original. “We have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek.” No kidding! Wow! Obama is under the impression that America and the nations of the Middle East “share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

I suppose that explains all the bombings of mosques, the beheadings, the endless turmoil from so-called Palestinians who have refused to accept a two-state solution for six decades or been assimilated into Muslim nations for all that time. For Obama, their situations was one of “occupation” but it doubtful that Obama will ever reference the many Arab “settlements” in the West Bank or the way Arabs have pushed out Jewish and Christian residents from Israeli cities whenever they gained a majority foothold.

For the Arabs, the response to his speech was the very tired claims about the Palestinians (there is not, nor ever was, a “Palestinian” state. Palestinians are stateless Arabs.) The Arab man in the street tended to dismiss Obama as “just a prettier face,” as one Cairo electrician put it. “I don’t expect much from the man.” Both newspapers and ordinary Arabs who had previously welcomed Obama’s election warned against emulating George W. Bush by “lecturing Muslims about democracy.”

Osama bin Laden put out the word that Islam was locked into a very long war with America, democracy, human rights, whatever. The man desperately needs killing.

There is, of course, one genuine democracy in the Middle East and that is Israel. Iraq’s first steps toward democracy were made possible by an American invasion, the removal of Saddam Hussein, and our continued military presence. If we go, democracy is likely to leave with us. That leaves Turkey which has practiced democracy with some success so long as its army can keep Islamists from taking over.

With considerable irony, having stopped in Saudi Arabia just prior to his Cairo speech, a Saudi newspaper warned Muslims against having high expectations. “The Islamic world should not think that Obama is coming to be an ally or a supporter,” said an Al Riyadh editorial.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the guy that runs Iran, said “The nations of this part of the world…deeply hate America because during many years they have seen violence, military interference, rights violations, discrimination…from America.” Not like Iraq under Saddam who invaded Iran and made war for eight years; that guy was a real statesman. In Iran, you can get hanged for just about anything including littering.

As for Israel, Khamenei called it a “cancerous tumor in the heart” of the Muslim world. And Iran backs up that bile by funding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the two Palestinian terrorist organizations. Egypt and Jordan who both signed peace accords with Israel probably disagree.

Obama called the bonds between America and Israel “unbreakable”, but it’s hard to know what this presidential shape-shifter will say tomorrow, so proceed with caution.

For his Middle East Muslim audience, Obama’s speech largely fell on deaf ears. The only things they want is for Israel to go away, for the U.S. to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and for Islam to be the lone religion of the world. With more than a billion Muslims in the world, however, it is doubtful they all agree on any common view of America or the future.

One thing we do know, however, even if Obama does not, is that there are just over two million Muslims in America and one assumes most are happy living here. His deliberate tripling of that number suggests ignorance or his rather odd notion that America is not a Christian nation and is, in fact, a major Muslim one.

Is Obama sincere in his latest appearance on the world stage outside of the White House? He could be just the pathological narcissist we have come to know from the days of his campaign. He could be a Muslim with a secret agenda. It is hard to know anything for sure about Obama except that, since taking the oath of office he has tirelessly worked to destroy our economy in every way possible. Overseas, no one appears to take him seriously.

On June 5, Obama visits Buchenwold, the former Nazi concentration camp. He might just make a connection between that place and Israel’s right to exist on its own terms, not his. In Tehran, Mamoud Ahmadinejad will be busy telling everyone who will listen that the Holocaust never happened.

Fortunately for our Commander-in-Cliché, he gets to strut and fret his stuff upon the world stage again as he pays homage to D-Day on June 6, the 65th anniversary of when Americans continued their tradition of rescuing Europeans from themselves. Now there is very little left of Europe to rescue. It has long since become Eurabia.

No doubt he will deliver another speech filled with hope and change and, well, whatever. We’ve heard it all before. He’s beginning to bore everyone, but worse, he’s beginning to scare everyone, too.

US Presidents DO NOT bow to Foreign Monarchs!

This photo of President Obama bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an offense to every American.

U.S. Presidents by common protocol and common sense do not bow to foreign monarchs. The entire history of America is based on a Declaration of Independence that broke with royal rule and rebuked it. Immigrants of every description came here to free themselves of the tyranny of royal rulers.

When taking an oath of office or service (mine was service in the U.S. Army), Americans vow to stand against the enemies of the nation, "foreign and domestic." What are we to make of our nation's elected leader who bows to the king of a nation that spawned the vast majority of the men who perpetrated the 9/11 attack on our nation?

And what are we to think of an American press that almost uniformly ignored this appalling act?

Bin Laden Morphs into Che Guevera

By Alan Caruba

It’s become so commonplace as to receive only a minor mention in the news. Predator drones under the command presumably of the CIA or the Air Force find and kill some ranking member of al Qaeda in far-off Waziristan.

Silently traversing the skies above the otherwise impenetrable region, death must come as a surprise to the masters of Islamic hatred and terror.

Recently a senior Saudi cleric, Sheikh Saleh bin Muhammad Al-Luhaidan, the head of the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council, had some harsh words for al Qaeda and its founder. The scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s most distinguished families outside of the royal one, Osama bin Laden has been a pariah there for years. The Saudis were among the earliest to recognize the danger he posed.

“His actions speak for him,” said the Sheikh of bin Laden. “He is not the one to direct a person onto the right path. Indeed, he is a promoter of evil and depravity, and whoever follows him, pursues depravity.”

The Sheikh said of his followers, “These deviants, who were not tolerated in their (own) countries, went to Iraq and to other countries with the purpose of destroying of (Saudi) kingdom.” He called them criminals.

I don’t know what he thought of the 15 Saudis who participated in 9/11, but presumably he thinks they’re criminals as well. The fact is that Saudi Arabia has been a major center for al Qaeda recruitment for years. The Sheikh’s comments reflect this unpleasant truth.

It is a great irony that a nation that has spent billions for the propagation of Islam around the world has spawned this terrorist response as an outgrowth of its efforts. Worse yet for them, the jihadists want to overthrow the Royal family.

While the U.S. predator drones circle lazily above the frontier areas of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is morphing slowly into the Che Guevera of the Islamist movement; more symbol than active participant.

Bin Laden is frequently said to be dead, but when one of our drones finds him, he will join the growing list of others who have been delivered to paradise with an assist from a guided missile or two.

We can take comfort in knowing that terrorists tend to rapidly wear out their welcome. Iraq is a perfect example of that. Those who continue to insist it was a mistake to go there and kill jihadists have been proven wrong. Unfortunately, one of them is running for President.

The fact is, we have neither heard, nor seen much from Bin Laden. As Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.”