Happy 2008, everyone! May the upcoming year bring you all peace, prosperity, health and happiness, from the entire BHG clan!
:-D
Monday, December 31, 2007
The ongoing Islamicization of Europe
Daniel Pipes has a fascinating entry in his blog, which can be found here: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/812. It goes over the number of Muslims in major European cities, and he goes on to predict which European city will be the first to have a Muslim majority (his mone is on Stockholm or Malmo, in Sweden, with Moscow as a dark horse candidate).
Here are the numbers:
Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000)
Malmö - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000)
Aarhus - ~10 percent
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million)
Pipes has sources for every number. What I found fascinating was that the vast majority of the cities--all but Marseilles, in fact--are northern European cities, and I had no idea that Moscow had that many Muslims.
Here are the numbers:
Marseilles - 25 percent (200,000 of 800,000)
Malmö - ~25 percent (67,000 of 270,000)
Amsterdam - 24 percent (180,000 of 750,000)
Stockholm - 20 percent (>155,000 of 771,038)
Brussels - ~20 percent (some say 33 percent)
Moscow - 16 percent-20 percent (2 million of 10-12 milllion)
London - 17 percent (1.3 million of 7.5 million)
Luton - 14.6 percent (26,963)
Birmingham 14.3 percent (139,771)
The Hague - 14.2 percent ( 67,896 of 475,580)
Utrecht - 13.2 percent (38,300 of 289,000)
Rotterdam - 13 percent (80,000 of 600,000)
Copenhagen - 12.6 percent (63,000 of 500,000)
Leicester - 11 percent (>30,000 of 280,000)
Aarhus - ~10 percent
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8 percent
Paris - 7.38 percent (155,000 of 2.1 million)
Antwerp- 6.7 percent (>30,000 of >450,000)
Hamburg - 6.4 percent (>110,000 of 1.73 million)
Berlin - 5.9 percent (~200,000 of 3.40 million)
Pipes has sources for every number. What I found fascinating was that the vast majority of the cities--all but Marseilles, in fact--are northern European cities, and I had no idea that Moscow had that many Muslims.
An award that is/was long overdue
Rosie O'Donnell, according to Parade Magazine, was 2007's most annoying celebrity: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lynn-davidson/2007/12/28/rosie-voted-2007s-most-annoying-celebrity. Gee, ya think? I mean, I know that she had some tough competition from perennial contenders Sean Penn, Sheryl Crow and Johnny Depp, but really, her "contributions" to the lunacy on the left really left others in her jetstream. Whether it was calling the United States a "terrorist" country or denying that fire and heat can melt steel, Rosie was indeed head and shoulders above everybody else in terms of her ability to annoy.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
An angry leftie boils over
This one is truly worth the read, because it builds up, like a good suspense novel, until the writer explodes into a Bush-hating diatribe the likes of which I have rarely seen: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11783.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have no love for Bush 43. He has completely lost my support. That said, one would have thought that the level of Bush-hatred by the Angry Left would have dropped as the 2008 General Election approached and the prospect of seeing him out of office would have given them a goal on which to focus. Instead, it seems as though their BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is only getting worse...................
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have no love for Bush 43. He has completely lost my support. That said, one would have thought that the level of Bush-hatred by the Angry Left would have dropped as the 2008 General Election approached and the prospect of seeing him out of office would have given them a goal on which to focus. Instead, it seems as though their BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is only getting worse...................
Spiderman, U.N. Hero
Thanks to Soccer Dad (on my blogroll) for this gem. The United Nations is joining forces with the web-slinging superhero to show that the U.N. is on the side of peace justice and the right way of life: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22408081/.
Hmm. I wonder if Spiderman will attend those U.N. general assembly meetings where Israel is called a racist state. Maybe he'll show up at Durban II. Maybe he'll deliver the keynote speech at the conference. It would be appropriate, when you think about it, given the farcical nature of the conference.................
Hmm. I wonder if Spiderman will attend those U.N. general assembly meetings where Israel is called a racist state. Maybe he'll show up at Durban II. Maybe he'll deliver the keynote speech at the conference. It would be appropriate, when you think about it, given the farcical nature of the conference.................
All the stereotypes, neatly gathereed together
Of course, it would have to be he Israel-hating Los Angeles Times which published this Op-Ed, which expounds nicely on the (false) analogizing between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, the "right of return" for ALL "Palestinian Refugees", etc., etc.: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ageel1dec01%2C0%2C7237674.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail.
How much does anyone want to bet that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice read this Op-Ed when it was published and nodded her head in agreement?
How much does anyone want to bet that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice read this Op-Ed when it was published and nodded her head in agreement?
Friday, December 28, 2007
An unfathomable possibility
Imagine the Taliban (and its al Qaeda brothers) with nuclear weapons. That is the goal of the Jihadist movement, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was but one step along the road towards that goal: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110011053.
The Wall Street Journal has it exactly right. Blame has been leveled at Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for Bhutto's assassination, and Bhutto herself had written an e-mail just days before her death in which she apparently said that Musharraf should receive the blame in the event that she was killed. Logically, though, and ironically, Musharraf is the one with the most to lose by what happened yesterday, and like him or not, trust him or not, he is no dummy. He realized that. As facts continue to come out, I may be proven wrong, but I would be very, very surprised if he was behind the assassination.
On the other hand, the instability created by Bhutto's death benefits the Islamofascists (and their many supporters in the Pakistani military apparatus). The more unstable the Pakistani government becomes, the more likely it is that an Islamist could end up in charge of the country and its nuclear weapons. That would and should concern everyone in the West, and equally importantly, it would cause a lot of concern in the country directly to the east of Pakistan, India. You can be sure that New Delhi is watching the goings on in Pakistan with great concern, and don't be surprised to see an increase in the military preparedness of the Indian Army. As well, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some kind of plan put into place to seize the Pakistani nukes in the event of an Islamofascist takeover of the country.
The Wall Street Journal has it exactly right. Blame has been leveled at Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for Bhutto's assassination, and Bhutto herself had written an e-mail just days before her death in which she apparently said that Musharraf should receive the blame in the event that she was killed. Logically, though, and ironically, Musharraf is the one with the most to lose by what happened yesterday, and like him or not, trust him or not, he is no dummy. He realized that. As facts continue to come out, I may be proven wrong, but I would be very, very surprised if he was behind the assassination.
On the other hand, the instability created by Bhutto's death benefits the Islamofascists (and their many supporters in the Pakistani military apparatus). The more unstable the Pakistani government becomes, the more likely it is that an Islamist could end up in charge of the country and its nuclear weapons. That would and should concern everyone in the West, and equally importantly, it would cause a lot of concern in the country directly to the east of Pakistan, India. You can be sure that New Delhi is watching the goings on in Pakistan with great concern, and don't be surprised to see an increase in the military preparedness of the Indian Army. As well, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some kind of plan put into place to seize the Pakistani nukes in the event of an Islamofascist takeover of the country.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Rape Israel
Amazingly, this is not the expressed statement of Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or even David Duke. Nope, this was the express wish, made to United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, of David Landau, the Editor of Haaretz newspaper, one of Israel's two major newspapers: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/805.
If this is a guy who Israel permits to meet foreign dignitaries (and yes, I know that he's not a government official, but he was still at an official dinner meeting with a foreign state representative), then truly, all hope is gone for the country.
If this is a guy who Israel permits to meet foreign dignitaries (and yes, I know that he's not a government official, but he was still at an official dinner meeting with a foreign state representative), then truly, all hope is gone for the country.
Global Warming Refugees
One of the "worst case scenario" types who believes that a good chunk of the United States will be underwater due to man-made global warming in the next 20-30 years or so has almost gleefully written about what parts of the country will be underwater: http://www.baltimorechronicle.com/2007/122407Lindorff.shtml. You see, he sees a lot of Red States being underwater, or being depopulated due to global warming-induced drought, while the Blue States (the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, Upper Midwest, etc.) will largely be unaffected.
Inevitably, he feels as though there will be refugees, who he advocates should be kept in certain confined areas, so that they can't cause anymore environmental crises.
If nothing else, the Angry Left is very creative in its doomsday scenarios.................
Inevitably, he feels as though there will be refugees, who he advocates should be kept in certain confined areas, so that they can't cause anymore environmental crises.
If nothing else, the Angry Left is very creative in its doomsday scenarios.................
The vanishing Palestinian Christian
I'm a big fan of David Warren, one of the few sane political writers left in Canada. He has a great Op-Ed in the Ottawa Citizen about how Christians in the Palestinian "territories" are rapidly being erased, generally through intimidation that is forcing them to relocate: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=dd11a1d1-bfe8-4260-8415-b1a62992f2af. Ironically, this relocation is often to Israel, though the MSM seems to believe that it is Israel which is forcing them to leave (see my previous post on this subject). However, as Mr. Warren writes, it is Islamic oppression which is causing the move.
The nicest thing that can be said about the reporting on this subject is that if ignorance is bliss, then the MSM reporters on this subject must be one incredibly happy lot. However, I think that there is a darker undercurrent here, which is that the MSM reporters know very well that what they are reporting is wrong. They simply don't care, because Israel is in their view always wrong, and they start with that premise and then build their story around it.
The nicest thing that can be said about the reporting on this subject is that if ignorance is bliss, then the MSM reporters on this subject must be one incredibly happy lot. However, I think that there is a darker undercurrent here, which is that the MSM reporters know very well that what they are reporting is wrong. They simply don't care, because Israel is in their view always wrong, and they start with that premise and then build their story around it.
Benazir Bhutto Assassinated
Breaking news from this morning: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071227/ap_on_re_as/pakistan. At this point, we don't know much about the attack, other than the fact that approximately 20 others were killed. We don't know who did this at this point, but suspicion is rightfully centering around either current Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf or al Qaeda-aligned terrorists.
Either way, the law of unintended consequences may apply here. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in 1914, no one expected that it would trigger WWI and lead to a redrawing of the world map. We had best watch with great concern what goes on in Pakistan now, a country with nuclear weapons. If Pakistan falls the wrong way, the world will be come a much more dangerous place than it already is.
Either way, the law of unintended consequences may apply here. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip in 1914, no one expected that it would trigger WWI and lead to a redrawing of the world map. We had best watch with great concern what goes on in Pakistan now, a country with nuclear weapons. If Pakistan falls the wrong way, the world will be come a much more dangerous place than it already is.
Does our Air Force deserve the best?
It seems like a silly question to ask. One of the things that has made this country's armed forces the best in the world is the cutting edge technology in the equipment to which it has access. That may unfortunately be changing. The Air Force has been flying F-15s for 35+ years now. It is a very old plane which doesn't do well against modern competition: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110011043. There is a much more advanced plane available, the Raptor, which completely outclasses every other plane out there. The cost is high, though as the link above demonstrates, the cost goes down with each and every plane that is purchased.
To me, it seems like this is an investment well worth making. We can't pretend to have the best armed forces if our soldiers, be they Army, Navy or Air Force, don't have the best equipment.
To me, it seems like this is an investment well worth making. We can't pretend to have the best armed forces if our soldiers, be they Army, Navy or Air Force, don't have the best equipment.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
A thread that merits its own posting
My posting on Iran earlier today got someone by the name of "Doug", who is actually a Las Vegas talk show host, a little bit peeved. He commented twice in response to my posting, both of which I addressed succinctly (his two posts are first, followed by my comments which are interspersed with his). I thought that the entire exchange merited its own heading, with the headline being the final posting (NOT by me, but by someone who is obviously much more clever than I am). That last one is an absolute scream:
Doug said...
BHG: Let's see................It has been pretty much established that Iran is funding the terrorists
Doug: No it hasn't. We have been offered no proof what so ever of "Iran's" involvement in Iraq. The Bush administration keeps saying so, and the conservative, corporate controlled keeps repeating it (like they did all the administration's 'gloom and doom' 'mushroom cloud' Iraq dishonesty), but no, it hasn't been "established" at all - only to partisan right wingers desperate to believe an inherently dishonest Bush administration.
And let's face it. "Iran" is the proper name for a country. "Iran" can't do anything. Only people can. So the question then becomes, WHO in Iran is the Bush administration accusing of being involved in Iraq. Citizens? Or members of the government? And if government, how high up in the government? All valid questions that unfortunately you are just not willing to challenge this administration on. You're happy just to accept their word, when they haven't told you the truth about anything yet. To accuse "Iran" of doing anything is just plain sloppy and stupid.
BHG: the terrorists (or as Michael Moore calls them, "freedom fighters") in Iraq.
Doug: And Moore is correct. Again, the Bush administration has been calling everyone who resists their Iraqi occupation "terrorists" to keep garnering support for their overall, equally idiotic 'war on terror.' The reality is - and this has been backed up by the military commanders on the ground - only 3-5% of the insurgency is from 'foreign fighters', which I'm sure would fall under your definition of 'terrorist', and al-Qaeda is only part of that. The overwhelming majority of the insurgency in Iraq comes from Iraqis who resent being invaded, occupied, raped, tortured and killed, and use whatever means are available to them. Why would detonating a car bomb that kills American soldiers warrant the title of 'terrorist', while a 500 pound bomb that kills Iraqis not? The results are the same, except... we invaded them. So when they fight back, they're 'terrorists'?! Again, stupid, nationalistic, unrealistic and dishonest thinking. The word 'terrorists' had been so overused and abused by this horrible administration, I am amazed it still has power or influence over you.
BHG: It is now becoming pretty much unequivocal that it is also supplying the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan: Doug: See above response to it being 'established' that Iran is involved in Iraq. And please think and ask questions. You appear pathetically partisan and inherently stupid when you say things are general consensus that clearly are not.
December 26, 2007 2:10 PM
Doug said...
BHG: I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)?
Doug: Probably not, but the overall question no-one asks is, what makes you think you have the right TO knock out ANY-thing in Iran? Jesus. What is wrong with you people? Y'all profess to be these devout, right wing Christians, and yet you shamelessly promote and cheer lead war. Who would Jesus bomb? Are you so dense you really believe Iran would nuke Israel? For Christ's sake, there are half a million Jews living in Iran presently, and one of Iran's members of Parliament is a Jew. If Ahmadinejad is such a 'Jew killer', why wouldn't he start with the Jews in his own country? Or perhaps you can't grasp that he feels it necessary to pander to the minority, religious right wing nuts in HIS country... just as Bush panders to you in this country. Bottom line? ALL religious, right wing nuts are crazy, both in Iran and here in America. You think you're better because we have bigger bombs? Jesus Christ. Wake up. You embarrass yourselves.
December 26, 2007 2:20 PM
Bald Headed Geek said...
Wow, I attracted the attention of an actual talk show host. Well, it's always nice to be read..........I guess. I'll deal with your comments in reverse order. First of all, I thank you for stopping by my blog, regardless of whether you agree with me or not. Second, I'm not going to resort to name-calling, as you have done at the end of your comment. It does nothing to further debate. Rather, it debases it. Now, on to the comments:
BHG: Let's see................It has been pretty much established that Iran is funding the terroristsDoug: No it hasn't. We have been offered no proof what so ever of "Iran's" involvement in Iraq. The Bush administration keeps saying so, and the conservative, corporate controlled keeps repeating it (like they did all the administration's 'gloom and doom' 'mushroom cloud' Iraq dishonesty), but no, it hasn't been "established" at all - only to partisan right wingers desperate to believe an inherently dishonest Bush administration.
Uhh........yeah, it HAS been well established. I trust what soldiers who have served in Iraq and to whom I have personally talked over what you have to say. I trust General Petraeus over you. End of story.
And let's face it. "Iran" is the proper name for a country. "Iran" can't do anything. Only people can. So the question then becomes, WHO in Iran is the Bush administration accusing of being involved in Iraq. Citizens? Or members of the government? And if government, how high up in the government? All valid questions that unfortunately you are just not willing to challenge this administration on. You're happy just to accept their word, when they haven't told you the truth about anything yet.
If you want to quibble with me on semantics, fine. I can amend my post to say "THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT" if it will make you happy. Iran (okay, IT'S GOVERNMENT) has been at war with the United States since 1979. I commend Mark Bowden's "Guests of Ayatollah" book to you. I think that you would find it informative and enlightening.
To accuse "Iran" of doing anything is just plain sloppy and stupid.
See my comment above.
BHG: the terrorists (or as Michael Moore calls them, "freedom fighters") in Iraq.
Doug: And Moore is correct. Again, the Bush administration has been calling everyone who resists their Iraqi occupation "terrorists" to keep garnering support for their overall, equally idiotic 'war on terror.' The reality is - and this has been backed up by the military commanders on the ground - only 3-5% of the insurgency is from 'foreign fighters', which I'm sure would fall under your definition of 'terrorist', and al-Qaeda is only part of that. The overwhelming majority of the insurgency in Iraq comes from Iraqis who resent being invaded, occupied, raped, tortured and killed, and use whatever means are available to them. Why would detonating a car bomb that kills American soldiers warrant the title of 'terrorist', while a 500 pound bomb that kills Iraqis not? The results are the same, except... we invaded them. So when they fight back, they're 'terrorists'?! Again, stupid, nationalistic, unrealistic and dishonest thinking.
You're simply wrong. What is the source for your comment that the "overwhelming majority" of insurgents are Iraqis? I can dig up any number of MSM (which is hardly friendly to the Bush 43 Administration) articles which concede that the majority of these so-called insurgents are foreign-born.
The word 'terrorists' had been so overused and abused by this horrible administration, I am amazed it still has power or influence over you.
BHG: It is now becoming pretty much unequivocal that it is also supplying the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan:
Doug: See above response to it being 'established' that Iran is involved in Iraq. And please think and ask questions. You appear pathetically partisan and inherently stupid when you say things are general consensus that clearly are not.
Again, I'll leave the personal comments aside; I don't know you, you don't know me. If you want to discount everything the current U.S. Administration says, fine. What's the Canadian agenda here?
BHG
December 26, 2007 2:29 PM
Bald Headed Geek said...
BHG: I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)?
Doug: Probably not, but the overall question no-one asks is, what makes you think you have the right TO knock out ANY-thing in Iran? Jesus. What is wrong with you people? Y'all profess to be these devout, right wing Christians, and yet you shamelessly promote and cheer lead war. Who would Jesus bomb?
You obviously don't read my blog all that often, or all that carefully. I am not Christian.That said...........no one likes war. I wish that everyone would just get along with each other, but that's not the way of the world. It never has been, either. Nations, like people, have interests. Those interests frequently clash. Again, to refer back to my earlier respons, I will take the words of General David Petraeus over left wing talking points anyday.
Are you so dense you really believe Iran would nuke Israel? For Christ's sake, there are half a million Jews living in Iran presently, and one of Iran's members of Parliament is a Jew. If Ahmadinejad is such a 'Jew killer', why wouldn't he start with the Jews in his own country? 500,000 Jews in Iran? Really? Since when? Even anti-Semite in Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledges that there are only about 25,000 Jews in his country (minus the 40 or so who escaped to Israel over this past weekend.The problem I see with what you are seeing is that you simply don't acknowledge the mentality of the Iranian regime. You need to read a little bit more about Shiite apocalyptic thought (of which Mr. Ahmadinejad is a disciple). Or perhaps you can't grasp that he feels it necessary to pander to the minority, religious right wing nuts in HIS country... just as Bush panders to you in this country.
Again, I am NOT a Christian, and if you read my posts in total, you'd realize how disappointing he has been to me. I'm not a huge fan of his. But, why let facts get in the way of a good rant, right?
Bottom line? ALL religious, right wing nuts are crazy, both in Iran and here in America. You think you're better because we have bigger bombs? Jesus Christ. Wake up. You embarrass yourselves.
Really? When Christians start flying planes into buildings in Riyadh in order to kill office workers, then I'll start considering your false moral equivalency.BHG
December 26, 2007 2:41 PM
GM's Corner said...
BHG... fun ain't it? On the other hand, just because someone is a talk show host doesn't mean he is smart, it just means he is probably entertaining and I've certainly found his comments here to be so. Ludicrous, but entertaining none-the-less.Besides, if you can piss him off that easy, just think about the state of his mental health when the Dems tank in November. ;-)
December 26, 2007 3:11 PM
American Power said...
BHG: This Doug here doesn't know what he's talking about. U.S.forces captured Iranian operatives working inside Iraq:"Multinational Forces Iraq and the Iraqi military continue to attack the Iranian-backed Special Groups while interdicting weapons flowing from the neighboring country. Fifteen members of the Special Groups were captured in Baghdad on Sunday. The US military has disclosed the identity of the Qods Force officer captured in the northern Kurdish province of Sulimaniyah on September 20, and has stated Iran is sending portable surface-to-air missiles to Shia insurgents."
See Long War Journal:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/09/captured_iranian_age.php
Also, nation-states are ruled by a leadership who acts in the name of the citizenry. The scare quotes around "Iran" demonstrate a sorry ignorance of world politics. Michael Moore has no credbility whatsoever.
See "The lies of Michael Moore":http://www.slate.com/id/2102723/
I'm not amazed that guys like Doug identify with the terrorists, which explains the attempted delegitimization of the term.
As for Iran supplying proxy groups? That's what Tehran does, in Iraq:http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/05/iran-supplied-al-qaeda-in-iraq-with-aa.html
And in Somalia, aid which then shifts to support al Qaeda's global operations: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/11/irans_involvement_in.php
As for "rights"? There are no "rights" in power politics, except the right to act for self-preservation. Nations rely on self interest, from Thucydides to Machievelli to Kissinger, scholars through the ages have accepted fundamental axioms about how states interact. Iran's going to do what it thinks is in its interests, and the U.S. has legitimate interests in protecting American and allied security.
Don't waste much time on this guy, BHG! Old Doug is not only clueless, but an embarassment to not only to himself, but to thoughtful liberals who can at least make a decent argument.
December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
Wilbur Underhill said...
BHG: You are way too nice. Yes, name-calling and expletives can debase the discussion, but I like a debased discussion. You keep arguing the facts with a leftist terrorist-pimp like Doug, and I'll go ahead and return the punch.
That having been said....
Let's look at the past 40 years of treachery by our home-grown, back-stabbing bolsheviks like Doug, and one realizes that there was never an enemy of this country that they never sided with. The Soviet Union? Misunderstood victims of American aggression & imperialism. The North Vietnamese? Ditto. The Stalinistas? Same script. Bin-Laden, Al-Qaeda and the current crop of head-chopping jihadists? You guessed it. All helpless victims of the oil-obsessed, war-mongering, BushitlerhalliburtonJesusfreak plutojunta. After all, America is the Fourth Reich, and Christianity is the National Socialism which drives it, right? No enemies, and no terrorists, only those wild-eyed, Bible-waiving followers of the Nazarean who have brought endless war & devastation upon those, poor, oppressed, peaceful indigenous desert nomads.
As for the phony terrorist threat, we know that Adolf Bush remote-piloted those planes into the WTC buildings anyway. Or maybe you got a big laugh when your terrorist friends (oh, I'm sorry, I mean your freedom-fighter friends) gave the Great Satan what was coming to it back in '01. After all, every time one of you America-hating communist pieces of shit blasphemes Christ in one of your government-funded "art" exhibits, Catholic mobs pour into the streets to lynch college professors, right? I know, we're so out of control-- if we could only do something about that pesky & annoying religious freedom thing in the 1st Amendment, we'd have Doug leading the dhimmi thought police in making wahabbism the national religion in the name of cultural diversity, complete with wife-beatings and honor killings. Hey Doug, when you're not sucking the dick of radical Islam, go see what happens to a Jew who enters Saudi Arabia. Or someone who's found possessing a rosary or a Bible by the Kingdom's religious police. Question-- when was the last time someone was sentenced to death in a Christian-majority country (or Israel) for converting to islam or another minority faith? Oh, I forgot about the current leftist psycho-drivel on Islam-- it's excused from acting pluralistic (and civilized) because they have a right to be offended over the existence of non-muslims. Who cares if the holy qoran wasn't really flushed down a toilet? The very existence of non-dhimmi Christians and Jews justifies the occasional muslim world-wide riot and a few acts of revolutionary liberation (like offing some American imperialist occupiers, or, say, flying a jumbo jet into a big, imperialist sky-scraper full of little Eichmanns). Hey, that little 11 year-old girl on flight 175-- being blown to smithereens was some groovy revolutionary justice, right? Maybe you and Pete Seeger can collaborate on a song about it, eh? Oh, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting. It wasn't Mohammed Atta's pals who were up to some mischief on September 11, it was Bush behind the remote controls....
Hey Doug-- Go fuck yourself. Drop dead. Maybe one of these days the country will wake up to the threat posed by the jihadists and their Vichy-pimp friends (like you) on the American Left, but I'm not holding my breath. Hmm, my rosary-praying, conservative Catholic mother is the moral equivalent of wahabbist belt-bombing Jew killers? Take your nihilistic leftist moral equvalency and shove it up your ass. I'm not interested in a debate with you-- unlike BHG, I'm not going to debase myself by engaging in a civilized exchange with a neo-bolshevik gulag commissar-in-the-making who cheers our enemies to murder our troops (one of whom included a friend of mine-- KIA on April 27, 2007, by one of Doug's freedom-fighter friends), and who cheers my country's defeat. Hopefully, this misbegotten country will start taking treachery and enemy collaboration seriously again, but methinks that will require Doug's freedom-fighter jihadist comrades-in-arms to do something really horrendous in this country-- damn, I keep forgetting, there are no terrorists; only Bush, Cheney, Israel and consevative Christians are the terrorists! Oh, well. Still, I look forward to the day when the pimps for jihadist Islam like Doug are recognized for who they are-- pimps for jihadist Islam. But really, all kidding aside-- when Doug's freedom fighter friends deploy a nuke in, say, Milwaukee, maybe a good portion of us will awaken from our politically-correct stupor and turn some of the blame upon those who have been encouraging our enemies for the past six years. Hey Doug, ever think about taking your pimping-for-radical-Islam over to Al-Jazeera?? Maybe you can cover the assassination of some chauvanist Cahtolic nun in Somalia-- I know that would give you a real orgasmic Leninist thrill. Or maybe you could pass a few imperialist military secrets over to the freedom-loving quds forces? Since this country is so bad, why don't you put your America-murdering money where your America-murdering mouth is and really take up the revolutionary struggle with the other freedom fighters? Or should we just give peace a chance? Yeah, let's all groove to John Lennon's 'Imagine,' and maybe we can forget about Nick Berg's blood-curdling shrieks as al-Zarqawi was sawing off his head with a dull knife. Or maybe we can forget about how the jihadists forced Daniel Pearl to "confess" that he was a Jew before they decapitated him-- oh, silly me, I keep lapsing. It's only Christians who commit such wretched atrocities like that, not Doug's brave & courageous islamic freedom fighters! Oh, how obtuse I am!
What's the difference between Doug and Axis Sally? Axis Sally had the courage to act on her beliefs....
December 26, 2007 4:25 PM
Doug said...
BHG: Let's see................It has been pretty much established that Iran is funding the terrorists
Doug: No it hasn't. We have been offered no proof what so ever of "Iran's" involvement in Iraq. The Bush administration keeps saying so, and the conservative, corporate controlled keeps repeating it (like they did all the administration's 'gloom and doom' 'mushroom cloud' Iraq dishonesty), but no, it hasn't been "established" at all - only to partisan right wingers desperate to believe an inherently dishonest Bush administration.
And let's face it. "Iran" is the proper name for a country. "Iran" can't do anything. Only people can. So the question then becomes, WHO in Iran is the Bush administration accusing of being involved in Iraq. Citizens? Or members of the government? And if government, how high up in the government? All valid questions that unfortunately you are just not willing to challenge this administration on. You're happy just to accept their word, when they haven't told you the truth about anything yet. To accuse "Iran" of doing anything is just plain sloppy and stupid.
BHG: the terrorists (or as Michael Moore calls them, "freedom fighters") in Iraq.
Doug: And Moore is correct. Again, the Bush administration has been calling everyone who resists their Iraqi occupation "terrorists" to keep garnering support for their overall, equally idiotic 'war on terror.' The reality is - and this has been backed up by the military commanders on the ground - only 3-5% of the insurgency is from 'foreign fighters', which I'm sure would fall under your definition of 'terrorist', and al-Qaeda is only part of that. The overwhelming majority of the insurgency in Iraq comes from Iraqis who resent being invaded, occupied, raped, tortured and killed, and use whatever means are available to them. Why would detonating a car bomb that kills American soldiers warrant the title of 'terrorist', while a 500 pound bomb that kills Iraqis not? The results are the same, except... we invaded them. So when they fight back, they're 'terrorists'?! Again, stupid, nationalistic, unrealistic and dishonest thinking. The word 'terrorists' had been so overused and abused by this horrible administration, I am amazed it still has power or influence over you.
BHG: It is now becoming pretty much unequivocal that it is also supplying the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan: Doug: See above response to it being 'established' that Iran is involved in Iraq. And please think and ask questions. You appear pathetically partisan and inherently stupid when you say things are general consensus that clearly are not.
December 26, 2007 2:10 PM
Doug said...
BHG: I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)?
Doug: Probably not, but the overall question no-one asks is, what makes you think you have the right TO knock out ANY-thing in Iran? Jesus. What is wrong with you people? Y'all profess to be these devout, right wing Christians, and yet you shamelessly promote and cheer lead war. Who would Jesus bomb? Are you so dense you really believe Iran would nuke Israel? For Christ's sake, there are half a million Jews living in Iran presently, and one of Iran's members of Parliament is a Jew. If Ahmadinejad is such a 'Jew killer', why wouldn't he start with the Jews in his own country? Or perhaps you can't grasp that he feels it necessary to pander to the minority, religious right wing nuts in HIS country... just as Bush panders to you in this country. Bottom line? ALL religious, right wing nuts are crazy, both in Iran and here in America. You think you're better because we have bigger bombs? Jesus Christ. Wake up. You embarrass yourselves.
December 26, 2007 2:20 PM
Bald Headed Geek said...
Wow, I attracted the attention of an actual talk show host. Well, it's always nice to be read..........I guess. I'll deal with your comments in reverse order. First of all, I thank you for stopping by my blog, regardless of whether you agree with me or not. Second, I'm not going to resort to name-calling, as you have done at the end of your comment. It does nothing to further debate. Rather, it debases it. Now, on to the comments:
BHG: Let's see................It has been pretty much established that Iran is funding the terroristsDoug: No it hasn't. We have been offered no proof what so ever of "Iran's" involvement in Iraq. The Bush administration keeps saying so, and the conservative, corporate controlled keeps repeating it (like they did all the administration's 'gloom and doom' 'mushroom cloud' Iraq dishonesty), but no, it hasn't been "established" at all - only to partisan right wingers desperate to believe an inherently dishonest Bush administration.
Uhh........yeah, it HAS been well established. I trust what soldiers who have served in Iraq and to whom I have personally talked over what you have to say. I trust General Petraeus over you. End of story.
And let's face it. "Iran" is the proper name for a country. "Iran" can't do anything. Only people can. So the question then becomes, WHO in Iran is the Bush administration accusing of being involved in Iraq. Citizens? Or members of the government? And if government, how high up in the government? All valid questions that unfortunately you are just not willing to challenge this administration on. You're happy just to accept their word, when they haven't told you the truth about anything yet.
If you want to quibble with me on semantics, fine. I can amend my post to say "THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT" if it will make you happy. Iran (okay, IT'S GOVERNMENT) has been at war with the United States since 1979. I commend Mark Bowden's "Guests of Ayatollah" book to you. I think that you would find it informative and enlightening.
To accuse "Iran" of doing anything is just plain sloppy and stupid.
See my comment above.
BHG: the terrorists (or as Michael Moore calls them, "freedom fighters") in Iraq.
Doug: And Moore is correct. Again, the Bush administration has been calling everyone who resists their Iraqi occupation "terrorists" to keep garnering support for their overall, equally idiotic 'war on terror.' The reality is - and this has been backed up by the military commanders on the ground - only 3-5% of the insurgency is from 'foreign fighters', which I'm sure would fall under your definition of 'terrorist', and al-Qaeda is only part of that. The overwhelming majority of the insurgency in Iraq comes from Iraqis who resent being invaded, occupied, raped, tortured and killed, and use whatever means are available to them. Why would detonating a car bomb that kills American soldiers warrant the title of 'terrorist', while a 500 pound bomb that kills Iraqis not? The results are the same, except... we invaded them. So when they fight back, they're 'terrorists'?! Again, stupid, nationalistic, unrealistic and dishonest thinking.
You're simply wrong. What is the source for your comment that the "overwhelming majority" of insurgents are Iraqis? I can dig up any number of MSM (which is hardly friendly to the Bush 43 Administration) articles which concede that the majority of these so-called insurgents are foreign-born.
The word 'terrorists' had been so overused and abused by this horrible administration, I am amazed it still has power or influence over you.
BHG: It is now becoming pretty much unequivocal that it is also supplying the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan:
Doug: See above response to it being 'established' that Iran is involved in Iraq. And please think and ask questions. You appear pathetically partisan and inherently stupid when you say things are general consensus that clearly are not.
Again, I'll leave the personal comments aside; I don't know you, you don't know me. If you want to discount everything the current U.S. Administration says, fine. What's the Canadian agenda here?
BHG
December 26, 2007 2:29 PM
Bald Headed Geek said...
BHG: I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)?
Doug: Probably not, but the overall question no-one asks is, what makes you think you have the right TO knock out ANY-thing in Iran? Jesus. What is wrong with you people? Y'all profess to be these devout, right wing Christians, and yet you shamelessly promote and cheer lead war. Who would Jesus bomb?
You obviously don't read my blog all that often, or all that carefully. I am not Christian.That said...........no one likes war. I wish that everyone would just get along with each other, but that's not the way of the world. It never has been, either. Nations, like people, have interests. Those interests frequently clash. Again, to refer back to my earlier respons, I will take the words of General David Petraeus over left wing talking points anyday.
Are you so dense you really believe Iran would nuke Israel? For Christ's sake, there are half a million Jews living in Iran presently, and one of Iran's members of Parliament is a Jew. If Ahmadinejad is such a 'Jew killer', why wouldn't he start with the Jews in his own country? 500,000 Jews in Iran? Really? Since when? Even anti-Semite in Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledges that there are only about 25,000 Jews in his country (minus the 40 or so who escaped to Israel over this past weekend.The problem I see with what you are seeing is that you simply don't acknowledge the mentality of the Iranian regime. You need to read a little bit more about Shiite apocalyptic thought (of which Mr. Ahmadinejad is a disciple). Or perhaps you can't grasp that he feels it necessary to pander to the minority, religious right wing nuts in HIS country... just as Bush panders to you in this country.
Again, I am NOT a Christian, and if you read my posts in total, you'd realize how disappointing he has been to me. I'm not a huge fan of his. But, why let facts get in the way of a good rant, right?
Bottom line? ALL religious, right wing nuts are crazy, both in Iran and here in America. You think you're better because we have bigger bombs? Jesus Christ. Wake up. You embarrass yourselves.
Really? When Christians start flying planes into buildings in Riyadh in order to kill office workers, then I'll start considering your false moral equivalency.BHG
December 26, 2007 2:41 PM
GM's Corner said...
BHG... fun ain't it? On the other hand, just because someone is a talk show host doesn't mean he is smart, it just means he is probably entertaining and I've certainly found his comments here to be so. Ludicrous, but entertaining none-the-less.Besides, if you can piss him off that easy, just think about the state of his mental health when the Dems tank in November. ;-)
December 26, 2007 3:11 PM
American Power said...
BHG: This Doug here doesn't know what he's talking about. U.S.forces captured Iranian operatives working inside Iraq:"Multinational Forces Iraq and the Iraqi military continue to attack the Iranian-backed Special Groups while interdicting weapons flowing from the neighboring country. Fifteen members of the Special Groups were captured in Baghdad on Sunday. The US military has disclosed the identity of the Qods Force officer captured in the northern Kurdish province of Sulimaniyah on September 20, and has stated Iran is sending portable surface-to-air missiles to Shia insurgents."
See Long War Journal:http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/09/captured_iranian_age.php
Also, nation-states are ruled by a leadership who acts in the name of the citizenry. The scare quotes around "Iran" demonstrate a sorry ignorance of world politics. Michael Moore has no credbility whatsoever.
See "The lies of Michael Moore":http://www.slate.com/id/2102723/
I'm not amazed that guys like Doug identify with the terrorists, which explains the attempted delegitimization of the term.
As for Iran supplying proxy groups? That's what Tehran does, in Iraq:http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/05/iran-supplied-al-qaeda-in-iraq-with-aa.html
And in Somalia, aid which then shifts to support al Qaeda's global operations: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/11/irans_involvement_in.php
As for "rights"? There are no "rights" in power politics, except the right to act for self-preservation. Nations rely on self interest, from Thucydides to Machievelli to Kissinger, scholars through the ages have accepted fundamental axioms about how states interact. Iran's going to do what it thinks is in its interests, and the U.S. has legitimate interests in protecting American and allied security.
Don't waste much time on this guy, BHG! Old Doug is not only clueless, but an embarassment to not only to himself, but to thoughtful liberals who can at least make a decent argument.
December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
Wilbur Underhill said...
BHG: You are way too nice. Yes, name-calling and expletives can debase the discussion, but I like a debased discussion. You keep arguing the facts with a leftist terrorist-pimp like Doug, and I'll go ahead and return the punch.
That having been said....
Let's look at the past 40 years of treachery by our home-grown, back-stabbing bolsheviks like Doug, and one realizes that there was never an enemy of this country that they never sided with. The Soviet Union? Misunderstood victims of American aggression & imperialism. The North Vietnamese? Ditto. The Stalinistas? Same script. Bin-Laden, Al-Qaeda and the current crop of head-chopping jihadists? You guessed it. All helpless victims of the oil-obsessed, war-mongering, BushitlerhalliburtonJesusfreak plutojunta. After all, America is the Fourth Reich, and Christianity is the National Socialism which drives it, right? No enemies, and no terrorists, only those wild-eyed, Bible-waiving followers of the Nazarean who have brought endless war & devastation upon those, poor, oppressed, peaceful indigenous desert nomads.
As for the phony terrorist threat, we know that Adolf Bush remote-piloted those planes into the WTC buildings anyway. Or maybe you got a big laugh when your terrorist friends (oh, I'm sorry, I mean your freedom-fighter friends) gave the Great Satan what was coming to it back in '01. After all, every time one of you America-hating communist pieces of shit blasphemes Christ in one of your government-funded "art" exhibits, Catholic mobs pour into the streets to lynch college professors, right? I know, we're so out of control-- if we could only do something about that pesky & annoying religious freedom thing in the 1st Amendment, we'd have Doug leading the dhimmi thought police in making wahabbism the national religion in the name of cultural diversity, complete with wife-beatings and honor killings. Hey Doug, when you're not sucking the dick of radical Islam, go see what happens to a Jew who enters Saudi Arabia. Or someone who's found possessing a rosary or a Bible by the Kingdom's religious police. Question-- when was the last time someone was sentenced to death in a Christian-majority country (or Israel) for converting to islam or another minority faith? Oh, I forgot about the current leftist psycho-drivel on Islam-- it's excused from acting pluralistic (and civilized) because they have a right to be offended over the existence of non-muslims. Who cares if the holy qoran wasn't really flushed down a toilet? The very existence of non-dhimmi Christians and Jews justifies the occasional muslim world-wide riot and a few acts of revolutionary liberation (like offing some American imperialist occupiers, or, say, flying a jumbo jet into a big, imperialist sky-scraper full of little Eichmanns). Hey, that little 11 year-old girl on flight 175-- being blown to smithereens was some groovy revolutionary justice, right? Maybe you and Pete Seeger can collaborate on a song about it, eh? Oh, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting. It wasn't Mohammed Atta's pals who were up to some mischief on September 11, it was Bush behind the remote controls....
Hey Doug-- Go fuck yourself. Drop dead. Maybe one of these days the country will wake up to the threat posed by the jihadists and their Vichy-pimp friends (like you) on the American Left, but I'm not holding my breath. Hmm, my rosary-praying, conservative Catholic mother is the moral equivalent of wahabbist belt-bombing Jew killers? Take your nihilistic leftist moral equvalency and shove it up your ass. I'm not interested in a debate with you-- unlike BHG, I'm not going to debase myself by engaging in a civilized exchange with a neo-bolshevik gulag commissar-in-the-making who cheers our enemies to murder our troops (one of whom included a friend of mine-- KIA on April 27, 2007, by one of Doug's freedom-fighter friends), and who cheers my country's defeat. Hopefully, this misbegotten country will start taking treachery and enemy collaboration seriously again, but methinks that will require Doug's freedom-fighter jihadist comrades-in-arms to do something really horrendous in this country-- damn, I keep forgetting, there are no terrorists; only Bush, Cheney, Israel and consevative Christians are the terrorists! Oh, well. Still, I look forward to the day when the pimps for jihadist Islam like Doug are recognized for who they are-- pimps for jihadist Islam. But really, all kidding aside-- when Doug's freedom fighter friends deploy a nuke in, say, Milwaukee, maybe a good portion of us will awaken from our politically-correct stupor and turn some of the blame upon those who have been encouraging our enemies for the past six years. Hey Doug, ever think about taking your pimping-for-radical-Islam over to Al-Jazeera?? Maybe you can cover the assassination of some chauvanist Cahtolic nun in Somalia-- I know that would give you a real orgasmic Leninist thrill. Or maybe you could pass a few imperialist military secrets over to the freedom-loving quds forces? Since this country is so bad, why don't you put your America-murdering money where your America-murdering mouth is and really take up the revolutionary struggle with the other freedom fighters? Or should we just give peace a chance? Yeah, let's all groove to John Lennon's 'Imagine,' and maybe we can forget about Nick Berg's blood-curdling shrieks as al-Zarqawi was sawing off his head with a dull knife. Or maybe we can forget about how the jihadists forced Daniel Pearl to "confess" that he was a Jew before they decapitated him-- oh, silly me, I keep lapsing. It's only Christians who commit such wretched atrocities like that, not Doug's brave & courageous islamic freedom fighters! Oh, how obtuse I am!
What's the difference between Doug and Axis Sally? Axis Sally had the courage to act on her beliefs....
December 26, 2007 4:25 PM
Jesue Christ, shaheed wannabe?
If you believe the left wing, dhimmi language of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation movement, sure: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=113EDE8C-3D0D-4AA6-AB52-44B585E8FD60. You see, Israel is the new Rome, and the Palestinians are the 21st century answer to the oppressed Christians of Jesus' time. As well, and as the supposedly "objective" United Nations rapporteur (ha ha) asserts, Israel is WORSE than South Africa, "because at least South Africa was honest about what it was".
Where is the response to this false, foul commentary?
Where is the response to this false, foul commentary?
What will it take?
Let's see................It has been pretty much established that Iran is funding the terrorists (or as Michael Moore calls them, "freedom fighters") in Iraq. It is now becoming pretty much unequivocal that it is also supplying the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/25/mackay-afghanistan.html. Are we doing ANYTHING at all about this? I mean, other than to tremble with fear at the feat of a nation that has been at war with the United States since 1979?
At what point do we say, "enough is enough"? I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)? If that is beyond our capability, then maybe we don't deserve the title of "superpower"...................
At what point do we say, "enough is enough"? I'm not saying that we need to invade Iran, but would it really be that impossible for a superpower to knock out Iran's weapons plants? It's nuclear facilities? It's refineries (the few that it has)? If that is beyond our capability, then maybe we don't deserve the title of "superpower"...................
An angry leftie loses his last, tenuous connection to reality
I've often linked to Ted Rall (WARNING: I'm about to do it again), because he is so typical of the deluded way that the Angry Left speaks and thinks. His latest rant has not been (surprise, surprise) about Iraq. No, he's on to Afghanistan, which he is moaning is an even less "justifiable" war than Iraq: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20071222/cm_ucru/democratstheotherwhitemeat. In his bizarro world, the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11 and we are only in that country so that ultimately we can build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Gee, invading a country seems like an awfully expensive and inefficient way to rent real estate, even for President Chimpy/McHaliburton/Nazi/Fascist Bush. But hey, why let rational thought get in the way of a good rant?
Why isn't this man running for President?
UPDATE (8:05 a.m., 12/27/07): Here is the link for the Gingrich speech: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1385641.
I was not a big fan of Newt Gingrich when he was the Speaker of the House in the 1990s. However, I have come to greatly respect the man, who has as clear a grasp of the situation around the world as any politician. Even more, he isn't shy about speaking the truth. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a listserv of which I am a recipient, and it contained the remarks Speaker Gingrich made to an audience at a Jewish National Fund function. More so than any Republican or (especially) any Democrat, he gets it. Here is the full text of the remarks (I am trying to get a link):
Must Read-- Great stuff from Newt--
Sleepwalking Into A Nightmare - Gingrich TranscriptFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich delivered the following remarks to a Jewish National Fund meeting at the Selig Center
I just want to talk to you from the heart for a few minutes and share with you where I think we are.I think it is very stark. I don't think it is yet desperate, but it is very stark. And if I had a title for today's talk, it would be sleepwalking into a nightmare. 'Cause that's what I think we're doing. I gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute Sept. 10 at which I gave an alternative history of the last six years, because the more I thought about how much we're failing, the more I concluded you couldn't just nitpick individual places and talk about individual changes because it didn't capture the scale of the disaster.
And I had been particularly impressed by a new book that came out called Troublesome Young Men, which is a study of the younger Conservatives who opposed appeasement in the 1930s and who took on Chamberlain. It's a very revealing book and a very powerful book because we tend to look backwards and we tend to overstate Churchill's role in that period. And we tend to understate what a serious and conscientious and thoughtful effort appeasement was and that it was the direct and deliberate policy of very powerful and very willful people. We tend to think of it as a psychological weakness as though Chamberlain was somehow craven. He wasn't craven. Chamberlain had a very clear vision of the world, and he was very ruthless domestically. And they believed so deeply in avoiding war with Germany that as late as the spring of 1940, when they are six months or seven months into they war, they are dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the Rohr, and they are urging the British news media not to publish anti-German stories because they don't want to offend the German people.
And you read this book, and it makes you want to weep because, interestingly, the younger Tories who were most opposed to appeasement were the combat veterans of World War I, who had lost all of their friends in the war but who understood that the failure of appeasement would result in a worse war and that the longer you lied about reality, the greater the disaster. And they were severely punished and isolated by Chamberlain and the Conservative machine, and as I read that, I realized that that's really where we are today. Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need.
Because we are told if you are for a strong America, you should back the Bush policy even if it's inadequate, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can't work. So your choice is to defend something which isn't working or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. So this is a catastrophe for this country and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem.
Let me work back. I'm going to get to Iran since that's the topic, but I'm going to get to it eventually. Let me work back from Pakistan. The dictatorship in Pakistan has never had control over Wiziristan. Not for a day. So we've now spent six years since 9/11 with a sanctuary for Al-Qaida and a sanctuary for the Taliban, and every time we pick up people in Great Britain who are terrorists, they were trained in Pakistan. And our answer is to praise Musharraf because at least he's not as bad as the others. But the truth is Musharraf has not gotten control of terrorism in Pakistan. Musharraf doesn't have full control over his own government. The odds are even money we're going to drift into a disastrous dictatorship at some point in Pakistan. And while we worry about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, the Pakistanis already have 'em, So why would you feel secure in a world where you could presently have an Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan with a hundred-plus nuclear weapons? What's our grand strategy for that?
Then you look at Afghanistan. Here's a country that's small, poor, isolated, and in six years we have not been able to build roads, create economic opportunity, wean people off of growing drugs. A third of the GDP is from drugs. We haven't been able to end the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. And I know of no case historically where you defeat a guerrilla movement if it has a sanctuary. So the people who rely on the West are outbribed by the criminals, outgunned by the criminals, and faced with a militant force across the border which practiced earlier defeating the Soviet empire and which has a time horizon of three or four generations. NATO has a time horizon of each quarter or at best a year, facing an opponent whose time horizon is literally three or four generations. It's a total mismatch.
Then you come to the direct threat to the United States, which is Al-Qaida. Which, by the way, we just published polls. One of the sites I commend to you is AmericanSolutions.com. Last Wednesday we posted six national surveys, $428,000 worth of data. We gave it away. I found myself in the unique position of calling Howard Dean to tell him I was giving him $400,000 worth of polling. We have given it away to both Democrats and Republicans. It is fundamentally different from the national news media. When asked the question "Do we have an obligation to defend the United States and her allies?" the answer is 85 percent yes. When asked a further question "Should we defeat our enemies?" - it's very strong language - the answer is 75 percent yes, 75 to 16.
The complaint about Iraq is a performance complaint, not a values complaint. When asked whether or not Al-Qaida is a threat, 89 percent of the country says yes. And they think you have to defeat it, you can't negotiate with it. So now let's look at Al-Qaida and the rise of Islamist terrorism. And let's be honest: What's the primary source of money for Al-Qaida? It's you, recirculated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy. Now that's what a serious national strategy would look like, but that would require real change.
So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that's true while they attack Israel for being a religious state is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice that is stunning. It's not complicated. We're inviting Saudi Arabia to come to Annapolis to talk about rights for Palestinians when nobody is saying, "Let's talk about rights for Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabia. Let's talk about rights for women in Saudi Arabia." So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don't even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable.
This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they're Saudis. You keep pumping billions of dollars a year into countries like Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and you are presently going to have created people who oppose you who have lots of money. And they're then going to come back to your own country and finance, for example, Arab study institutes whose only requirement is that they never tell the truth. So you have all sorts of Ph.D.s who now show up quite cheerfully prepared to say whatever it is that makes their funders happy - in the name, of course, of academic freedom.
So why wouldn't Columbia host a genocidal madman? It's just part of political correctness. I mean, Ahmadinejad may say terrible things, he may lock up students, he may kill journalists, he may say, "We should wipe out Israel," he may say, "We should defeat the United States," but after all, what has he done that's inappropriate? What has he done that wouldn't be repeated at a Hollywood cocktail party or a nice gathering in Europe?
And nobody says this is totally, utterly, absolutely unacceptable. Why is it that the No.1 threat in intelligence movies is the CIA? I happened the other night to be watching an old movie, To Live and Die in L.A., which is about counterfeiting. But the movie starts with a Secret Service agent who is defending Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the person he is defending Ronald Reagan from, is a suicide bomber who is actually, overtly a Muslim fanatic. Now, six years after 9/11, you could not get that scene made in Hollywood today. Just look at the movies. Why is it that the bad person is either a right-wing crazed billionaire, or the CIA as a government agency.
Go look at the Bourne Ultimatum. Or a movie like the one that George Clooney made, which was an absolute lie, in which it implied that if you were a reformist Arab prince, that probably the CIA would kill you. It's a total lie. We actually have SEALs protecting people all over the world. We actually risk American lives protecting reformers all over the world, and yet Hollywood can't bring itself to tell the truth, (a) because it's ideologically so opposed to the American government and the American military, and (b), because it's terrified that if it said something really openly, honestly true about Muslim terrorists, they might show up in Hollywood. And you might have somebody killed as the Dutch producer was killed.
And so we're living a life of cowardice, and in that life of cowardice we're sleepwalking into a nightmare. And then you come to Iran. There's a terrific book. Mark Bowden is a remarkable writer who wrote Black Hawk Down, has enormous personal courage. He's a Philadelphi a newspaper writer, actually got the money out of the Philadelphia newspaper to go to Somalia to interview the Somalian side of Black Hawk Down. It's a remarkable achievement. Tells a great story about getting to Somalia, paying lots of cash, having the local warlord protect him, and after about two weeks the warlord came to him and said, "You know, we've decided that we're very uncomfortable with you being here, and you should leave." And so he goes to the hotel, where he is the only hard-currency guest, and says, "I've got to check out two weeks early because the warlord has told me that he no longer will protect me." And the hotel owner, who wants to keep his only hard-currency guest, says, "Well, why are you listening to him? He's not the government. There is no government ." And Bowden says, "Well, what will I do?" And he says, "You hire a bigger warlord with more guns," which he did. But then he could only stay one more week because he ran out of money. But this is a guy with real courage. I mean, imagine trying to go out and be a journalist in that kind of world, OK? So Bowden came back and wrote Guest of the Ayatollah, which is the Iranian hostage of 1979, which he entitled, "The First Shots in Iran's War Against America." So in the Bowden worldview, the current Iranian dictatorship has been at war with the United States since 1979. Violated international law. Every conceivable tenet of international law was violated when they seized the American Embassy and they seized the diplomats. Killed Americans in Lebanon in the early '80s. Killed Americans at Khobar Towers in '95 and had the Clinton administration deliberately avoid revealing the information, as Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, has said publicly, because they didn't want to have to confront the Iranian complicity.
And so you have an Iranian regime which is cited annually as the leading supporter of state terrorism in the world. Every year the State Department says that. It's an extraordinary act of lucidity on the part of an institution which seeks to avoid it as often as possible.
And you have Gen. Petraeus come to the U.S. Congress and say publicly in an open session, "The Iranians are waging a proxy war against Americans in Iraq." I was so deeply offended by this, it's hard for me to express it without sounding irrational. I'm an Army brat. My dad served 27 years in the infantry. The idea that an American general would come to the American Congress, testify in public that our young men and women are being killed by Iran, and we have done nothing, I find absolutely abhorrent.
So I'm preparing to come and talk today. I got up this morning, and a friend had sent me yesterday's Jerusalem Post editorial, which if you haven't read, I recommend to you. It has, for example, the following quote: "On Monday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, 'The problem of the content of the document setting out joint principles for peace-making post-Annapolis has not been resolved. One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime's insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state. We will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined.' " What truly bothers me is the shallowness and the sophistry of the Western governments, starting with our own. When a person says to you, "I don't recognize that you exist," you don't start a negotiation. The person says, "I literally do not recognize" and then lies to you. I mean the first thing you say to this guy is "Terrific. Let's go visit Mecca. Since clearly there's no other state except Israel that is based on religion, the fact that I happen to be Christian won't bother anybody." And then he'll say, "Well, that's different." We tolerate this.
We have created our own nightmare because we refuse to tell the truth. We refuse to tell the truth to our politicians. Our State Department refuses to tell the truth to the country. If the president of the United States, and again, we're now so bitterly partisan, we're so committed to red-vs.-blue hostility, that George W. Bush doesn't have the capacity to give an address from the Oval Office that has any meaning for half the country.
And the anti-war left is so strong in the Democratic primary that I think it's almost impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to tell the truth about the situation. And so the Republicans are isolated and trying to defend incompetence. The Democrats are isolated and trying to find a way to say, "I'm really for strength as long as I can have peace, but I'd really like to have peace, except I don't want to recognize these people who aren't very peaceful."
I just want to share with you, as a grandfather, as a citizen, as a historian, as somebody who was once speaker of the House; this is a serious national crisis. This is 1935 or 1936, and it's getting worse every year. None of our enemies are confused. Our enemies don't get up each morning and go, "Oh, gosh, I think I'll have an existential crisis of identity in which I will try to think through whether or not we can be friends while you're killing me." Our enemies get up every morning and say, "We hate the West. We hate freedom." They would not allow a meeting with women in the room.
I was once interviewed by a BBC reporter, a nice young lady who was only about as anti-American as she had to be to keep her job. Since it was a live interview, I turned to her halfway through the interview and I said, "Do you like your job?" And it was summertime, and she's wearing a short-sleeve dress. And she said, "Well, yes." She was confused because I had just reversed roles. I said, "Well, then you should hope we win." She said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, if the enemy wins, you won't be allowed to be on television." I don't know how to explain it any simpler than that.
Now what do we need? We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they're weak, are ruthless when they're strong, demand mercy when they're losing, show no mercy when they're winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we're living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You'll be able to tell who won and who lost by who's still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn't going to stop this war. They're just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this happened.
We had better design grand strategies that are radically bigger and radically tougher and radically more honest than anything currently going on, and that includes winning the argument in Europe, and it includes winning the argument in the rest of the world. And it includes being very clear, and I'll just give you one simple example because we're now muscle-bound by our own inability to talk honestly.
Iran produces 60 percent of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil but only has one refinery. It imports 40 percent of its gasoline. The entire 60 percent is produced at one huge refinery. In 1981, Ronald Reagan decided to break the Soviet empire. He was asked what's your vision of the Cold War. He said, "Four words: We win; they lose." He was clearly seen by The New York Times as an out-of-touch, reactionary, right-wing cowboy from California who had no idea what was going on in the world. And 11 years later the Soviet Union disappeared, but obviously that had nothing to do with Reagan because that would have meant he was right. So it's just a random accident the Soviet Union disappeared.
Part of the war we waged on the Soviet Union involved their natural gas supply because we wanted to cut off their hard currency. The Soviets were desperate to get better equipment for their pipeline. We managed to sell them through third parties very, very sophisticated American pipeline equipment, which they were thrilled to buy and thought they had pulled off a huge coup. Now we weren't playing fair. We did not tell them that the equipment was designed to blow up. One day in 1982, there was an explosion in Siberia so large that the initial reflection on the satellites looked like there was a tactical nuclear weapon. One part of the White House was genuinely worried, and the other part of the White House had to calm them down. They said, "No, no, that's our equipment blowing up."
In the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since Gen. Petraeus publicly said they are killing young Americans, we have not been able to figure out how to take down one refinery. Covertly, quietly, without overt war. And we have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful navy in the world to simply stop the tankers and say, "Look, you want to kill young Americans, you're going to walk to the battlefield, but you're not going to ride in the car because you're not going to have any gasoline."
We don't have to be stupid. The choice is not cowardice or total war. Reagan unlocked Poland without firing a shot in an alliance with the Pope, with the labor unions and with the British. We have every possibility if we're prepared to be honest to shape the world. It'll be a very big project. It's much closer to World War II than it is to anything we've tried recently. It will require real effort, real intensity and real determination. We're either going to do it now, while we're still extraordinarily powerful, or we're going to do it later under much more desperate circumstances after we've lost several cities. We had better take this seriously because we are not very many mistakes away from a second Holocaust. Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. Our enemies would like to get those weapons as soon as they can, and they promise to use them as soon as they can. I suggest we defeat our enemies and create a different situation long before they have that power.
I was not a big fan of Newt Gingrich when he was the Speaker of the House in the 1990s. However, I have come to greatly respect the man, who has as clear a grasp of the situation around the world as any politician. Even more, he isn't shy about speaking the truth. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a listserv of which I am a recipient, and it contained the remarks Speaker Gingrich made to an audience at a Jewish National Fund function. More so than any Republican or (especially) any Democrat, he gets it. Here is the full text of the remarks (I am trying to get a link):
Must Read-- Great stuff from Newt--
Sleepwalking Into A Nightmare - Gingrich TranscriptFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich delivered the following remarks to a Jewish National Fund meeting at the Selig Center
I just want to talk to you from the heart for a few minutes and share with you where I think we are.I think it is very stark. I don't think it is yet desperate, but it is very stark. And if I had a title for today's talk, it would be sleepwalking into a nightmare. 'Cause that's what I think we're doing. I gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute Sept. 10 at which I gave an alternative history of the last six years, because the more I thought about how much we're failing, the more I concluded you couldn't just nitpick individual places and talk about individual changes because it didn't capture the scale of the disaster.
And I had been particularly impressed by a new book that came out called Troublesome Young Men, which is a study of the younger Conservatives who opposed appeasement in the 1930s and who took on Chamberlain. It's a very revealing book and a very powerful book because we tend to look backwards and we tend to overstate Churchill's role in that period. And we tend to understate what a serious and conscientious and thoughtful effort appeasement was and that it was the direct and deliberate policy of very powerful and very willful people. We tend to think of it as a psychological weakness as though Chamberlain was somehow craven. He wasn't craven. Chamberlain had a very clear vision of the world, and he was very ruthless domestically. And they believed so deeply in avoiding war with Germany that as late as the spring of 1940, when they are six months or seven months into they war, they are dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the Rohr, and they are urging the British news media not to publish anti-German stories because they don't want to offend the German people.
And you read this book, and it makes you want to weep because, interestingly, the younger Tories who were most opposed to appeasement were the combat veterans of World War I, who had lost all of their friends in the war but who understood that the failure of appeasement would result in a worse war and that the longer you lied about reality, the greater the disaster. And they were severely punished and isolated by Chamberlain and the Conservative machine, and as I read that, I realized that that's really where we are today. Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need.
Because we are told if you are for a strong America, you should back the Bush policy even if it's inadequate, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can't work. So your choice is to defend something which isn't working or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. So this is a catastrophe for this country and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem.
Let me work back. I'm going to get to Iran since that's the topic, but I'm going to get to it eventually. Let me work back from Pakistan. The dictatorship in Pakistan has never had control over Wiziristan. Not for a day. So we've now spent six years since 9/11 with a sanctuary for Al-Qaida and a sanctuary for the Taliban, and every time we pick up people in Great Britain who are terrorists, they were trained in Pakistan. And our answer is to praise Musharraf because at least he's not as bad as the others. But the truth is Musharraf has not gotten control of terrorism in Pakistan. Musharraf doesn't have full control over his own government. The odds are even money we're going to drift into a disastrous dictatorship at some point in Pakistan. And while we worry about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, the Pakistanis already have 'em, So why would you feel secure in a world where you could presently have an Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan with a hundred-plus nuclear weapons? What's our grand strategy for that?
Then you look at Afghanistan. Here's a country that's small, poor, isolated, and in six years we have not been able to build roads, create economic opportunity, wean people off of growing drugs. A third of the GDP is from drugs. We haven't been able to end the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. And I know of no case historically where you defeat a guerrilla movement if it has a sanctuary. So the people who rely on the West are outbribed by the criminals, outgunned by the criminals, and faced with a militant force across the border which practiced earlier defeating the Soviet empire and which has a time horizon of three or four generations. NATO has a time horizon of each quarter or at best a year, facing an opponent whose time horizon is literally three or four generations. It's a total mismatch.
Then you come to the direct threat to the United States, which is Al-Qaida. Which, by the way, we just published polls. One of the sites I commend to you is AmericanSolutions.com. Last Wednesday we posted six national surveys, $428,000 worth of data. We gave it away. I found myself in the unique position of calling Howard Dean to tell him I was giving him $400,000 worth of polling. We have given it away to both Democrats and Republicans. It is fundamentally different from the national news media. When asked the question "Do we have an obligation to defend the United States and her allies?" the answer is 85 percent yes. When asked a further question "Should we defeat our enemies?" - it's very strong language - the answer is 75 percent yes, 75 to 16.
The complaint about Iraq is a performance complaint, not a values complaint. When asked whether or not Al-Qaida is a threat, 89 percent of the country says yes. And they think you have to defeat it, you can't negotiate with it. So now let's look at Al-Qaida and the rise of Islamist terrorism. And let's be honest: What's the primary source of money for Al-Qaida? It's you, recirculated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy. Now that's what a serious national strategy would look like, but that would require real change.
So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that's true while they attack Israel for being a religious state is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice that is stunning. It's not complicated. We're inviting Saudi Arabia to come to Annapolis to talk about rights for Palestinians when nobody is saying, "Let's talk about rights for Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabia. Let's talk about rights for women in Saudi Arabia." So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don't even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable.
This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they're Saudis. You keep pumping billions of dollars a year into countries like Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and you are presently going to have created people who oppose you who have lots of money. And they're then going to come back to your own country and finance, for example, Arab study institutes whose only requirement is that they never tell the truth. So you have all sorts of Ph.D.s who now show up quite cheerfully prepared to say whatever it is that makes their funders happy - in the name, of course, of academic freedom.
So why wouldn't Columbia host a genocidal madman? It's just part of political correctness. I mean, Ahmadinejad may say terrible things, he may lock up students, he may kill journalists, he may say, "We should wipe out Israel," he may say, "We should defeat the United States," but after all, what has he done that's inappropriate? What has he done that wouldn't be repeated at a Hollywood cocktail party or a nice gathering in Europe?
And nobody says this is totally, utterly, absolutely unacceptable. Why is it that the No.1 threat in intelligence movies is the CIA? I happened the other night to be watching an old movie, To Live and Die in L.A., which is about counterfeiting. But the movie starts with a Secret Service agent who is defending Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the person he is defending Ronald Reagan from, is a suicide bomber who is actually, overtly a Muslim fanatic. Now, six years after 9/11, you could not get that scene made in Hollywood today. Just look at the movies. Why is it that the bad person is either a right-wing crazed billionaire, or the CIA as a government agency.
Go look at the Bourne Ultimatum. Or a movie like the one that George Clooney made, which was an absolute lie, in which it implied that if you were a reformist Arab prince, that probably the CIA would kill you. It's a total lie. We actually have SEALs protecting people all over the world. We actually risk American lives protecting reformers all over the world, and yet Hollywood can't bring itself to tell the truth, (a) because it's ideologically so opposed to the American government and the American military, and (b), because it's terrified that if it said something really openly, honestly true about Muslim terrorists, they might show up in Hollywood. And you might have somebody killed as the Dutch producer was killed.
And so we're living a life of cowardice, and in that life of cowardice we're sleepwalking into a nightmare. And then you come to Iran. There's a terrific book. Mark Bowden is a remarkable writer who wrote Black Hawk Down, has enormous personal courage. He's a Philadelphi a newspaper writer, actually got the money out of the Philadelphia newspaper to go to Somalia to interview the Somalian side of Black Hawk Down. It's a remarkable achievement. Tells a great story about getting to Somalia, paying lots of cash, having the local warlord protect him, and after about two weeks the warlord came to him and said, "You know, we've decided that we're very uncomfortable with you being here, and you should leave." And so he goes to the hotel, where he is the only hard-currency guest, and says, "I've got to check out two weeks early because the warlord has told me that he no longer will protect me." And the hotel owner, who wants to keep his only hard-currency guest, says, "Well, why are you listening to him? He's not the government. There is no government ." And Bowden says, "Well, what will I do?" And he says, "You hire a bigger warlord with more guns," which he did. But then he could only stay one more week because he ran out of money. But this is a guy with real courage. I mean, imagine trying to go out and be a journalist in that kind of world, OK? So Bowden came back and wrote Guest of the Ayatollah, which is the Iranian hostage of 1979, which he entitled, "The First Shots in Iran's War Against America." So in the Bowden worldview, the current Iranian dictatorship has been at war with the United States since 1979. Violated international law. Every conceivable tenet of international law was violated when they seized the American Embassy and they seized the diplomats. Killed Americans in Lebanon in the early '80s. Killed Americans at Khobar Towers in '95 and had the Clinton administration deliberately avoid revealing the information, as Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, has said publicly, because they didn't want to have to confront the Iranian complicity.
And so you have an Iranian regime which is cited annually as the leading supporter of state terrorism in the world. Every year the State Department says that. It's an extraordinary act of lucidity on the part of an institution which seeks to avoid it as often as possible.
And you have Gen. Petraeus come to the U.S. Congress and say publicly in an open session, "The Iranians are waging a proxy war against Americans in Iraq." I was so deeply offended by this, it's hard for me to express it without sounding irrational. I'm an Army brat. My dad served 27 years in the infantry. The idea that an American general would come to the American Congress, testify in public that our young men and women are being killed by Iran, and we have done nothing, I find absolutely abhorrent.
So I'm preparing to come and talk today. I got up this morning, and a friend had sent me yesterday's Jerusalem Post editorial, which if you haven't read, I recommend to you. It has, for example, the following quote: "On Monday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, 'The problem of the content of the document setting out joint principles for peace-making post-Annapolis has not been resolved. One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime's insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state. We will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined.' " What truly bothers me is the shallowness and the sophistry of the Western governments, starting with our own. When a person says to you, "I don't recognize that you exist," you don't start a negotiation. The person says, "I literally do not recognize" and then lies to you. I mean the first thing you say to this guy is "Terrific. Let's go visit Mecca. Since clearly there's no other state except Israel that is based on religion, the fact that I happen to be Christian won't bother anybody." And then he'll say, "Well, that's different." We tolerate this.
We have created our own nightmare because we refuse to tell the truth. We refuse to tell the truth to our politicians. Our State Department refuses to tell the truth to the country. If the president of the United States, and again, we're now so bitterly partisan, we're so committed to red-vs.-blue hostility, that George W. Bush doesn't have the capacity to give an address from the Oval Office that has any meaning for half the country.
And the anti-war left is so strong in the Democratic primary that I think it's almost impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to tell the truth about the situation. And so the Republicans are isolated and trying to defend incompetence. The Democrats are isolated and trying to find a way to say, "I'm really for strength as long as I can have peace, but I'd really like to have peace, except I don't want to recognize these people who aren't very peaceful."
I just want to share with you, as a grandfather, as a citizen, as a historian, as somebody who was once speaker of the House; this is a serious national crisis. This is 1935 or 1936, and it's getting worse every year. None of our enemies are confused. Our enemies don't get up each morning and go, "Oh, gosh, I think I'll have an existential crisis of identity in which I will try to think through whether or not we can be friends while you're killing me." Our enemies get up every morning and say, "We hate the West. We hate freedom." They would not allow a meeting with women in the room.
I was once interviewed by a BBC reporter, a nice young lady who was only about as anti-American as she had to be to keep her job. Since it was a live interview, I turned to her halfway through the interview and I said, "Do you like your job?" And it was summertime, and she's wearing a short-sleeve dress. And she said, "Well, yes." She was confused because I had just reversed roles. I said, "Well, then you should hope we win." She said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, if the enemy wins, you won't be allowed to be on television." I don't know how to explain it any simpler than that.
Now what do we need? We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they're weak, are ruthless when they're strong, demand mercy when they're losing, show no mercy when they're winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we're living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You'll be able to tell who won and who lost by who's still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn't going to stop this war. They're just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this happened.
We had better design grand strategies that are radically bigger and radically tougher and radically more honest than anything currently going on, and that includes winning the argument in Europe, and it includes winning the argument in the rest of the world. And it includes being very clear, and I'll just give you one simple example because we're now muscle-bound by our own inability to talk honestly.
Iran produces 60 percent of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil but only has one refinery. It imports 40 percent of its gasoline. The entire 60 percent is produced at one huge refinery. In 1981, Ronald Reagan decided to break the Soviet empire. He was asked what's your vision of the Cold War. He said, "Four words: We win; they lose." He was clearly seen by The New York Times as an out-of-touch, reactionary, right-wing cowboy from California who had no idea what was going on in the world. And 11 years later the Soviet Union disappeared, but obviously that had nothing to do with Reagan because that would have meant he was right. So it's just a random accident the Soviet Union disappeared.
Part of the war we waged on the Soviet Union involved their natural gas supply because we wanted to cut off their hard currency. The Soviets were desperate to get better equipment for their pipeline. We managed to sell them through third parties very, very sophisticated American pipeline equipment, which they were thrilled to buy and thought they had pulled off a huge coup. Now we weren't playing fair. We did not tell them that the equipment was designed to blow up. One day in 1982, there was an explosion in Siberia so large that the initial reflection on the satellites looked like there was a tactical nuclear weapon. One part of the White House was genuinely worried, and the other part of the White House had to calm them down. They said, "No, no, that's our equipment blowing up."
In the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since Gen. Petraeus publicly said they are killing young Americans, we have not been able to figure out how to take down one refinery. Covertly, quietly, without overt war. And we have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful navy in the world to simply stop the tankers and say, "Look, you want to kill young Americans, you're going to walk to the battlefield, but you're not going to ride in the car because you're not going to have any gasoline."
We don't have to be stupid. The choice is not cowardice or total war. Reagan unlocked Poland without firing a shot in an alliance with the Pope, with the labor unions and with the British. We have every possibility if we're prepared to be honest to shape the world. It'll be a very big project. It's much closer to World War II than it is to anything we've tried recently. It will require real effort, real intensity and real determination. We're either going to do it now, while we're still extraordinarily powerful, or we're going to do it later under much more desperate circumstances after we've lost several cities. We had better take this seriously because we are not very many mistakes away from a second Holocaust. Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. Our enemies would like to get those weapons as soon as they can, and they promise to use them as soon as they can. I suggest we defeat our enemies and create a different situation long before they have that power.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Fewer Christians? Blame the Joooooosssssssssss!
It happens like clockwork at this time every year. There are numerous stories in all of the major media outlets on how Israel is stifling Christianity in Bethlehem and other historic Christian towns. The fact that it's not really Israel that's doing this is immaterial, as the MSM refuses to deviate from its narrative that Israel alone is persecuting Christians in the Holy Land: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3486144,00.html. There was even an Op-Ed from the normally reliable Wall Street Journal yesterday (to which I intentionally did not link) on how Israel is walling off Bethlehem from Christians, even though the writer casually admitted in the article that he hadn't been to Israel in seven years, so he really couldn't be sure what was going on there.
All of these articles are part of the same project, which is to subtly and surreptitiously delegitimize Israel by praying on emotions of those who would otherwise support the state.
All of these articles are part of the same project, which is to subtly and surreptitiously delegitimize Israel by praying on emotions of those who would otherwise support the state.
Rest in Peace, Oscar Peterson
I don't know how many readers of my blog are jazz fans. I love the musical genre, though I will always be a rock fan first. I was fortunate enough, though, to grow up in Montreal, a city that has one of the best jazz festivals in North America, and during one of those festivals--I can't unfortunately remember which one--I saw Oscar Peterson play. Peterson was a virtuoso, a true musical genius. I am honoured that I was able to see him play. He passed away the other day at the age of 82: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/12/24/obit-peterson-oscar.html. He will be missed............
When being anti-Israel becomes absurd
The anti-Israel crowd never shies away from proclaiming its position, and they think of all sorts of reasons as to why they are anti-Israel, as well as examples of supposed Israeli perfidy which justifies their animus. Yesterday, I read an article which reached a new low in terms of justifying anti-Israeli beliefs.
It is a matter of well-settled historical fact that when armies invade other countries, the male soldiers sometimes rape local females. It's a stain on human behaviour, but it is a fact. Well, some genius decided that the only reason Israeli soldiers DON'T rape Arab women is purely for political reasons: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124674. Translation: If they thought they could get away with it, they probably would.
First of all, Israel has rarely (until recently) given a hoot about international public opinion, so I doubt very much that this would have mattered to the IDF members. Second, is it just me, or is there a particular absurdity in a study such as this one?
It is a matter of well-settled historical fact that when armies invade other countries, the male soldiers sometimes rape local females. It's a stain on human behaviour, but it is a fact. Well, some genius decided that the only reason Israeli soldiers DON'T rape Arab women is purely for political reasons: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/124674. Translation: If they thought they could get away with it, they probably would.
First of all, Israel has rarely (until recently) given a hoot about international public opinion, so I doubt very much that this would have mattered to the IDF members. Second, is it just me, or is there a particular absurdity in a study such as this one?
Monday, December 24, 2007
Ron Paul.....Ron Paul........Ron Paul............Ron Paul, Part Six
Ron Paul expounds once again on Israel: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=937480&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1. It seems as though he really thinks that those nefarious Jews (though he cleverly uses the term "Neoconservatives", the anti-Semitic euphemism of choice) want us to go and bomb Iran for them.
Like Israel has ever been shy about fighting its own wars. That fact seems to escape the Texas Congressman.
Like Israel has ever been shy about fighting its own wars. That fact seems to escape the Texas Congressman.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
To all of my Christian friends, colleagues and blog readers, please accept my very best wishes for the merriest of Christmases! May this holiday bring you, your families and friends nothing but joy and happiness!
BHG
BHG
A true sign of the times
In the U.K., Mohammed (or one of its many variants) is set to become the most popular boy's name next year: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/12/20/noindex/njack120.xml.
Is anyone else alarmed about this, or even remotely concerned?
Is anyone else alarmed about this, or even remotely concerned?
Bankrolling Durban II
Who would be doing that? Well, the United Nations of course, which never shies away from an opportunity to fund anti-Israel and/or anti-American sentiments: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGE3NGMyOWEwNDA3MzMyNjM3MjAzMDM3NzllNThmMDU=. With Libya heading the preparation for the Durban followup, does anyone really expect anything other than another rabid exercise in Israel-bashing?
Where's Israel?
Apparently, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party doesn't have any geographers on staff, because their map of the State of Israel doesn't show, well, Israel: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847406095&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.
Gee, I wonder if the State Department will issue any statements about this? Where is Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's moaning and outrage over the Israel-free map? I guess that she's too busy comparing Palestinians to the Black civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s...............
Gee, I wonder if the State Department will issue any statements about this? Where is Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's moaning and outrage over the Israel-free map? I guess that she's too busy comparing Palestinians to the Black civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s...............
Those racist Republicans
The left in general and Democrats in particular are fond of tarring Republicans with the "racist!" label, but there is a much longer and more sordid history of racism in the Democratic Party: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110011033. Funny, but no one ever seems to talk about this. Where are the MSM articles on the subject?
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The ongoing uncivil war
Mark Steyn has a wonderful piece in Macleans Newsmagazine about the ongoing "cold war" in the United States, though this war is not between communism and capitalism, but is instead a political battle between the domestic left and the right: http://www.macleans.ca/columnists/article.jsp?content=20071022_110242_110242&id=7&page=1.
I share his sentiments, but prefer the term I used in my caption for this blog entry (Uncivil War). All one has to do to see how far the debate has degenerated is to go to Zombietime's website and see the level of hatred on the part of the far left for the United States in general and conservatives/Republicans in particular. This is not strictly a phenomenon of the far left, either. Too often I read blogs of fellow conservatives whose views I largely share, and see an animus directed not just at those on the far left (which is deserved) but to those who are merely "liberal" in their views. Derogatory, hateful terms are used ("Leftard", "libtard", "Feminazi", etc., etc.) which do nothing to advance any position. Rather, these terms serve no purpose other than to demean and hurt.
That is the current state of the United States. It is not a particularly good one.
I share his sentiments, but prefer the term I used in my caption for this blog entry (Uncivil War). All one has to do to see how far the debate has degenerated is to go to Zombietime's website and see the level of hatred on the part of the far left for the United States in general and conservatives/Republicans in particular. This is not strictly a phenomenon of the far left, either. Too often I read blogs of fellow conservatives whose views I largely share, and see an animus directed not just at those on the far left (which is deserved) but to those who are merely "liberal" in their views. Derogatory, hateful terms are used ("Leftard", "libtard", "Feminazi", etc., etc.) which do nothing to advance any position. Rather, these terms serve no purpose other than to demean and hurt.
That is the current state of the United States. It is not a particularly good one.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Quebec can't help itself
More linguistic idiocy out of the Province/Planet of Quebec, where xenophobic French nationalists are irate because (gasp!) one of them was greeted by a doctor who spoke English to him: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/12/21/qcc-frenchhospital1221.html. Oh, the horror! Imagine the humiliation!
This is why Quebec, for all of its natural beauty and many virtues, will never again be anything more than a second-rate society.
This is why Quebec, for all of its natural beauty and many virtues, will never again be anything more than a second-rate society.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Medical Myths
This is fascinating. I talked to a few doctors today, and even they believed some of these: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071221/sc_livescience/7medicalmythsevendoctorsbelieve. I can't even count how many times I was lectured by my mother as I grew up (or tried to, anyway) that I shouldn't read in the dark........................
Not good
The top Roman Catholic cleric in Israel has come out against Israel being designated as a Jewish state: http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106011.html (and see here for more: http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106009.html).
You can be sure that Hamas is going to crow about this development. I wonder what he was thinking. I can tell you what I am thinking: DHIMMI.
You can be sure that Hamas is going to crow about this development. I wonder what he was thinking. I can tell you what I am thinking: DHIMMI.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
I almost missed this!
That wonderful friend of the Jewish people, Cynthia McKinney, is going to seek the nomination of the Green Party to be its candidate in the 2008 Presidential Election: http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2007/12/19/mckinney_1219_web.html. McKinney now lives in Marin County (how perfect is that?) and has been closely linked to the 9/11 "Truth Movement" (just check Zombietime's website for photos of her at their "rallies").
I hope that she receives the nomination. If nothing else, it should be entertaining.
I hope that she receives the nomination. If nothing else, it should be entertaining.
Recognition for others
It's not just the United States which is fighting the forces of depravity and barbarism in Afghanistan, as President Bush recognized when he singled out Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands for their service in the war-torn country: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/20/bush-afghan.html. Notably absent from the President' s thanks were France and Germany (a/k/a France East), both of which have made sure that their troops got to areas which aren't seeing any real combat action.
Canada's commitment to the NATO mission in Afghanistan is scheduled to end in 2009, and the ruling Conservative Party has refused to rule out extending the mission. The opposition Liberals (the party which agreed to send Canadian troops there in the first place), along with the socialist NDP, has demanded that the troops be brought home in 2009, bolstered by a public which views even one Canadian soldier's death as too many. Given that Canadian soldiers have shouldered the toughest role in Afghanistan outside of the American forces, we should do everything we can to persuade the Canadian government and people that this is a mission which must not be abandoned, no matter how long it takes to complete.
Canada's commitment to the NATO mission in Afghanistan is scheduled to end in 2009, and the ruling Conservative Party has refused to rule out extending the mission. The opposition Liberals (the party which agreed to send Canadian troops there in the first place), along with the socialist NDP, has demanded that the troops be brought home in 2009, bolstered by a public which views even one Canadian soldier's death as too many. Given that Canadian soldiers have shouldered the toughest role in Afghanistan outside of the American forces, we should do everything we can to persuade the Canadian government and people that this is a mission which must not be abandoned, no matter how long it takes to complete.
Whither Syria?
Syria is an intransigent enigma. I don't know how else to describe that country. At least under Hafez Assad, there was SOME predictability to the regime. Under the chinless wonder, a/k/a Basher Assad, it has become as inscrutable as North Korea: http://www.meforum.org/article/1819. The only things of which I or anyone else should be sure is that it presents a danger to us (through its alliance with Iran and funnelling of arms and terrorists into Iraq) and to Israel (through its domination of Lebanon and support of Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups).
Another one from the "Birds of a feather" department
I've already blogged about the ominous natures of the growing ties between Iran and Venezuela. Now, we have reports of growing ties between Iran and Nicaragua: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA121607.01A.Nicaragua.297e041.html. As the article notes, there is no reason at all for Iran to be interested in this poverty-stricken Central American nation..........except for the fact that it is run by a former Sandanista, Daniel Ortega, who harbours no love for the United States.
Watch and worry, my friends. Watch and worry....................
Watch and worry, my friends. Watch and worry....................
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Contrast
Yesterday, I blogged about a Briton of Jewish descent who has hit the British pop charts with a version of Hava Nagilah, a fun, optimistic song. Well, in the Muslim World, they sing a different kind of song, one that involves killing and Jihad: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=503195&in_page_id=1770.
I ask you, is there a better example out there of how Islam's loudest voices are also its most warped?
I ask you, is there a better example out there of how Islam's loudest voices are also its most warped?
More revisitionist history
It turns out that the accepted story line of Israel being the underdog and defending itself in 1967's Six Day War is a myth. You see, what REALLY happened was that Israel engaged in a land grab: http://www.mg.co.za/zapiro/imageToday.aspx?YearId=2007MonthId=6DayId=8.
That this type of idiocy would come out of South Africa, as unfriendly a country to Israel as exists, is entirely unsurprising.
That this type of idiocy would come out of South Africa, as unfriendly a country to Israel as exists, is entirely unsurprising.
Don't let up now!
If Hamas is reduced to making pleas for ceasefires or "truces" in the Israeli media, then you would think that things HAVE to be bad for it: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians. If that's the case, Israel cannot and should not let up now. The only question I have is whether "international pressure" will mount to the point where Israel will not be allowed to finish its work.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Ben Franklin, anti-Semite
I'm not the one who's saying that. It is the "considered opinion" of yet another fruitcake Syrian politician: http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1629.htm. Read what he had to say; it's not very long at all, though it still manages to incorporate so many of the most hateful, base anti-Semitic stereotypes.
And these are the people to whom James "F--- the Jews" Baker, President Peanut Farmer, Governore Huckabee of Arkansas and a whole host of others want us to talk.
UPDATE (5:14 p.m.): For more on this fraudulent prophecy, which the ADL has said Franklin never made, go here: http://www.adl.org/special_reports/franklin_prophecy/franklin_documenting_fraud.asp. On the other hand, for just one example of who believes this hate propaganda go here (at your own peril): http://realmofky.blogspot.com/2007/11/benjamin-franklin-on-jews.html.
And these are the people to whom James "F--- the Jews" Baker, President Peanut Farmer, Governore Huckabee of Arkansas and a whole host of others want us to talk.
UPDATE (5:14 p.m.): For more on this fraudulent prophecy, which the ADL has said Franklin never made, go here: http://www.adl.org/special_reports/franklin_prophecy/franklin_documenting_fraud.asp. On the other hand, for just one example of who believes this hate propaganda go here (at your own peril): http://realmofky.blogspot.com/2007/11/benjamin-franklin-on-jews.html.
Words of peace and joy this holiday season
From, who else, al Qaeda: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD178707. Let's see, what's on their holiday wish list?
1) Trashing the Jews? Check.
2) Trashing the apostate Shiites? Check.
3) Trashing the Spanish for, well, existing? Check.
4) Trashing the United States? Check.
5) Calling for the reestablishment of the Caliphate? Check.
6) Threatening neverending war, killing and mutilation? Check.
Looks like they've got their bases covered!
1) Trashing the Jews? Check.
2) Trashing the apostate Shiites? Check.
3) Trashing the Spanish for, well, existing? Check.
4) Trashing the United States? Check.
5) Calling for the reestablishment of the Caliphate? Check.
6) Threatening neverending war, killing and mutilation? Check.
Looks like they've got their bases covered!
Hava Nagilah
Hava Nagilah may be my favourite Jewish song of all time--it reminds me of joyous, happy times in general, and weddings in particular, either those of of family members or of good friends. British teeny bopper singer Lauren Rose has released a version which is climbing the charts in the U.K., and amazingly enough, it has a chance to be the #1 song in Great Britain by Christmas Day: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/935420.html.
I just love stories like this...............
I just love stories like this...............
Monday, December 17, 2007
More warm, fuzzy talk from Hamas
Hamas does not hide what it is, and it never has, which is one of the most virulently anti-Semitic organizations on the planet. Of particular note is its television station, which has featured the Mickey Mouse lookalike, and more recently it aired a children's television show which, in not so many words, said that every Jew in Israel would be wiped out: http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1625.htm.
I know that I'm asking a stupid question, but where is the New York Times or Washington Post story on this?
I know that I'm asking a stupid question, but where is the New York Times or Washington Post story on this?
When he's right, he's right
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proclaimed the NIE which claimed that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003 a "surrender" on the part of Washington to Iran in their standoff: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSDAH66861820071216. I think that he's 100% correct. And, when you factor in the screeching by people such as Presidential hopeful Joe Biden that he would move to impeach President Bush immediately if there were now an attack on Iran, you can see that Ahmadinejad is not misreading the American political scene.
As an aside, I would also note to the Delaware Senator that it's the House of Representatives that moves to impeach, not the the Senate, but why let a technicality like that get in the way of a good television soundbite?
As an aside, I would also note to the Delaware Senator that it's the House of Representatives that moves to impeach, not the the Senate, but why let a technicality like that get in the way of a good television soundbite?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The nazi/evil/fascist/imperialist/colonialist/murderous Bush Regime gets put in its place
So argues angry leftie Chris Hedges in today's Philadelphia Inquirer: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20071216_Is_Bush_stopped_in_his_tracks_on_Iran_.html. I don't know what it was about this Op-Ed, but it was almost too much to stomach. Maybe it was his palpable disdain for the use of military force for any reason. Maybe it was the underlying current of rabid anti-Israeli sentiment (read Hedges' other stuff. It's a common theme in his writings). Maybe it was the worship of the NIE, which is so typical of those who want to politicize everything (even though this very report may have been political in terms of its findings). Regardless, it was still disheartening to read it..............
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Jennifer Love Hewitt
I almost never blog about the comings, goings and happenings of athletes or Hollywood actors and actresses, beyond when they offer their generally uninformed observations on political issues. For one thing, what they are doing at any moment really doesn't interest me. I couldn't care less. Second, it has virtually no impact on my life or what is going on "in my world".
I'm not a particularly big fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt. I don't dislike her, either. She's just one of those typically pretty Hollywood faces that appears and disappears without me really noticing. Recently, however, photos were taken of her in Hawaii by paparazzi which showed her in a less than flattering light (horror of horrors, she wasn't a Size Zero dress size anymore)........or so some believe. You know what she looked like to me? A normal, very pretty woman, the type that if she walked by me on the street, I would definitely have turned my head. And no, I will not link to the pictures. Just search for them on the internet--you can't miss them.
The issue I have here is this: In a nation where there is supposedly an obesity epidemic, we have hypocritically demanded that female television and movie stars be almost impossibly and continuously thin. Don't even get me started about models, who now look like stick figures. It is unfair, and it is wrong.
I'm not a particularly big fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt. I don't dislike her, either. She's just one of those typically pretty Hollywood faces that appears and disappears without me really noticing. Recently, however, photos were taken of her in Hawaii by paparazzi which showed her in a less than flattering light (horror of horrors, she wasn't a Size Zero dress size anymore)........or so some believe. You know what she looked like to me? A normal, very pretty woman, the type that if she walked by me on the street, I would definitely have turned my head. And no, I will not link to the pictures. Just search for them on the internet--you can't miss them.
The issue I have here is this: In a nation where there is supposedly an obesity epidemic, we have hypocritically demanded that female television and movie stars be almost impossibly and continuously thin. Don't even get me started about models, who now look like stick figures. It is unfair, and it is wrong.
A local front in the battle over illegal immigration
I've weighed in a couple of times on this issue, but have been wary of saying too much. After all, I myself am an immigrant to the United States, albeit a legal one, and I arrived already equipped with a full command of the English language (those who know might dispute that).
That said................I don't think that it's too much to ask immigrants to the United States to speak English. This country was built on a shared culture, the primary unifying element of which is the common language. When this country absorbed millions of German, Italian, Russian, Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian (etc., etc.) immigrants, they weren't offered services in their native languages. It was a "sink or swim" crash course in learning the local culture, and the think is, they did it. Even if parents couldn't speak English all that well, they learned enough to get by. In my mind, this forced assimilation created a shared bond that turned everyone into AMERICANS. Now, it seems as though there is an attitude that focusses on individual cultures at the expense of a national one. That's not healthy for the nation's future, in my view.
The local angle on this is that the owner of one of Philadelphia's most famous Cheesesteak shops, Geno's, posted a sign which asked those who were ordering food to do so in English: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20071215_Vento__No_barrier__just_a_view_on_English.html. The sign was not rude, and it was agreed by all that not one single person had ever been denied service if they were unable to do so in English. Nonetheless, some were "offended" by the sign (and we now live unfortunately in a time where PC mandates that no one should ever be offended), and a complaint was filed with the local human relations commission. The stakes are quite high, as Geno's could be fined heavily or even lose its business license: http://www.kyw1060.com/Owner-of-Geno-s-Faces-Hearing-on---Speak-English--/1338950. There was a quote from one of the commissioners which made me do a double-take. He commented that the sign reminded him of the signs he used to see in the segregated southern states when he grew up (you think that he's tipping his hand as to which way he's going to vote?).
Look, I know that I'm not a "visible minority", so I can't pretend that I understand what they feel., but to me that comment seems patently absurd, especially given the stipulation that no one was ever denied service (or given preferential service) at Geno's. This rhetoric is inflammatory and unhelpful. Joey Vento, the owner of Geno's, has said that anything less than a complete exoneration will lead him to shut his business down. I can't say that I blame him.....................
That said................I don't think that it's too much to ask immigrants to the United States to speak English. This country was built on a shared culture, the primary unifying element of which is the common language. When this country absorbed millions of German, Italian, Russian, Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian (etc., etc.) immigrants, they weren't offered services in their native languages. It was a "sink or swim" crash course in learning the local culture, and the think is, they did it. Even if parents couldn't speak English all that well, they learned enough to get by. In my mind, this forced assimilation created a shared bond that turned everyone into AMERICANS. Now, it seems as though there is an attitude that focusses on individual cultures at the expense of a national one. That's not healthy for the nation's future, in my view.
The local angle on this is that the owner of one of Philadelphia's most famous Cheesesteak shops, Geno's, posted a sign which asked those who were ordering food to do so in English: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20071215_Vento__No_barrier__just_a_view_on_English.html. The sign was not rude, and it was agreed by all that not one single person had ever been denied service if they were unable to do so in English. Nonetheless, some were "offended" by the sign (and we now live unfortunately in a time where PC mandates that no one should ever be offended), and a complaint was filed with the local human relations commission. The stakes are quite high, as Geno's could be fined heavily or even lose its business license: http://www.kyw1060.com/Owner-of-Geno-s-Faces-Hearing-on---Speak-English--/1338950. There was a quote from one of the commissioners which made me do a double-take. He commented that the sign reminded him of the signs he used to see in the segregated southern states when he grew up (you think that he's tipping his hand as to which way he's going to vote?).
Look, I know that I'm not a "visible minority", so I can't pretend that I understand what they feel., but to me that comment seems patently absurd, especially given the stipulation that no one was ever denied service (or given preferential service) at Geno's. This rhetoric is inflammatory and unhelpful. Joey Vento, the owner of Geno's, has said that anything less than a complete exoneration will lead him to shut his business down. I can't say that I blame him.....................
Why I STILL love Senator John McCain
I was one of those so-called "McCainiacs" eight years ago, and even though I am supporting Mayor Rudy Giuliani this time around, I would not be upset at all if Senator John McCain were the Republican nominee for the Presidency in 2008. Why? He is STILL the most honest and direct of all the presidential candidates: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010997. Agree with him or not, it doesn't matter to him. He wants you to vote either for or against him because you know exactly where he stands. You have to respect that.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Hezbollah Ascendant
This is not a pleasant read for a supporter of Israel: http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=21&incat=&read=1383. It's a brutally honest assessment of the many Israeli failures in last summer's Israel-Hezbollah War, and it essentially states that the next war--because we all know that there will be one--will be even more devastating for Israel. Simply put, Hezbollah learned far more from the 2006 conflict than did Israel. This is hardly a surprise, of course, given Israel is still led by Tweedledumb Olmert.
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser remain in Hezbollah hands (assuming that they are still alive), Israel had a tremendous opportunity to effectively eliminate Hezbollah as a force, or at least to seriously erode its military power. Instead, it tried to fight a war in a politically correct fashion, and the end result was a slightly blodied and completely unbowed Hezbollah at the end of the hostilities. Now, Hezbollah by most accounts has rearmed to the point where it is stronger than it was in August of 2006. Thanks, Mr. Olmert.
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser remain in Hezbollah hands (assuming that they are still alive), Israel had a tremendous opportunity to effectively eliminate Hezbollah as a force, or at least to seriously erode its military power. Instead, it tried to fight a war in a politically correct fashion, and the end result was a slightly blodied and completely unbowed Hezbollah at the end of the hostilities. Now, Hezbollah by most accounts has rearmed to the point where it is stronger than it was in August of 2006. Thanks, Mr. Olmert.
Ron Paul.....Ron Paul........Ron Paul............Ron Paul, Part Five
The Texas Congressman has about as much chance of becoming President as I do, but it would be foolish to ignore the movement he has managed to get started: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110010994. I can't divorce Mr. Paul from his kooky supporters, many of whom are nothing more than garden variety anti-Semites. Sorry, but that's the fact. When you're getting endorsed by Holocaust denier Hutton Gibson, that speaks volumes to me.
THAT said.......................you can't--or more appropriately, you shouldn't--ignore the other parts of his message, though unfortunately the other Republican candidates are doing just that. Mr. Paul has spoken forcefully about revamping the tax code, which would have the effect of wiping out the IRS (count me in on that one), putting the dollar back on the gold standard (a fabulous idea which I wish more people would discuss) and of a limited, truly conservative government (unlike the government run by the current inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who spends our money like a drunken sailor). These are all good ideas, and worthy of legitimate debate. It's our loss that Mr. Paul's refusal to disavow and distance himself from his more "extreme" supporters and his naive foreign policy have resulted in his legitimately good ideas getting lost in the shuffle.
THAT said.......................you can't--or more appropriately, you shouldn't--ignore the other parts of his message, though unfortunately the other Republican candidates are doing just that. Mr. Paul has spoken forcefully about revamping the tax code, which would have the effect of wiping out the IRS (count me in on that one), putting the dollar back on the gold standard (a fabulous idea which I wish more people would discuss) and of a limited, truly conservative government (unlike the government run by the current inhabitant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who spends our money like a drunken sailor). These are all good ideas, and worthy of legitimate debate. It's our loss that Mr. Paul's refusal to disavow and distance himself from his more "extreme" supporters and his naive foreign policy have resulted in his legitimately good ideas getting lost in the shuffle.
A story I should NOT have ignored
And this one comes right out of my homeland of Canada, as a father murdered his daughter (with the assistance of one of his sons, apparently) in what was evidently an honour killing: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=162252. And what was this girl's horrible crime? She didn't want to wear a Hijab. Can you believe her nerve? OBVIOUSLY, she deserved to die for her horrible transgression.
I note that the article doesn't once call this killing what it was. I'll ask the same question I've asked numerous times previously: How can you address a problem (and for the record, the problem to which I am referring her is honour killings) when you can't even refer to it by its proper term?
UPDATE (9:12 a.m.): Phyllis Chesler has a thorough but disheartening piece on Pajamas Media's website about how western feminists have ignored this issue or, worse yet, have condemned those who raise the subject as being "racist": http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/2007/12/13/honor_murders_in_the_west_i_im.php. Nothing like letting your leftist political agenda destroy any sense of morality you might have.
I note that the article doesn't once call this killing what it was. I'll ask the same question I've asked numerous times previously: How can you address a problem (and for the record, the problem to which I am referring her is honour killings) when you can't even refer to it by its proper term?
UPDATE (9:12 a.m.): Phyllis Chesler has a thorough but disheartening piece on Pajamas Media's website about how western feminists have ignored this issue or, worse yet, have condemned those who raise the subject as being "racist": http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/phyllischesler/2007/12/13/honor_murders_in_the_west_i_im.php. Nothing like letting your leftist political agenda destroy any sense of morality you might have.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Kowtowing to Islamists
CNN's debates have apparently featured planted spokespeople for CAIR and its ilk: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=282355201739100. Why am I not surprised? You can be 100% certain that if David Horowitz' Center for the Study of Popular Culture had planted questioners in the audience like this, it would have been splashed all across newspapers.
Funding terrorism is a-ok in Denmark
So says a judge who ruled that a Danish t-shirt company which had been charged with funding terrorism when it printed t-shirts with the logos of the Colombian terrorist group FARC and the Palestinian terrorist grous PFLP (People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine) could go on selling the shirts and donating part of the proceeds of each sale to the group: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7142569.stm.
Umm..........if this isn't funding terrorism, then what is?
Umm..........if this isn't funding terrorism, then what is?
Another offended Muslim
Really, you can't go more than ten minutes without hearing or reading about some perceived slight against Muslims. Did I write ten? I meant to write five. It hasn't resulted in rioting or people being killed (yet), but a Muslim lawyer in Italy was greatly "offended" when traditional Italian soccer power Intermilan played a game against a Turkish squad wearing uniforms which contained a red cross on a white background: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3035438.ece. The fact that the cross is part of the city of Milan's symbol seems not to concern this lawyer in the least, who argues that the soccer shirts were intended to "humiliate" Muslims.
Honestly, when does this end? WILL it end? I just hope that Intermilan doesn't give in to this latest act of Muslim legal aggression.
Honestly, when does this end? WILL it end? I just hope that Intermilan doesn't give in to this latest act of Muslim legal aggression.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Unhinged Left continues to lose its marbles
Look, President Bush is hardly my favourite, especially these days, but can we STOP ALREADY with the asinine impeachment talk: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/340904_focusimpeachment25.html? Don't these people have lives? You really have to wonder what they will say and do once he leaves office.
Oh wait, that's right, he's planning a coup to stay in power forever................
Oh wait, that's right, he's planning a coup to stay in power forever................
I feel SO sorry for him
Norman Finkelstein, the former Depaul University professor, is whining about how horrible his life has been since he was denied tenure by the university: http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/41838/.
Don't you feel sorry for him? I sure do...............
Don't you feel sorry for him? I sure do...............
A lobby with REAL power
With all of the obsessive focus on the "power of the Israel Lobby", it's fascinating to me how no one at all talks about the Saudi Lobby, which is steadily buying influence on college campuses in North America and around the world: http://washingtontimes.com/article/20071210/SPECIAL/112100027/1001. Why doesn't anyone talk about this? Where do you think that all of that oil money is going?
Going for the gold
That's what Qatar is doing, as it contemplates a bid for the 2016 Olympic Games: http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110010980. The article author sings the praises of the Arab nation, and talks about a flawlessly executed Asian Games in 2006 (omitting, of course, that little tidbit of information that Israeli athletes were not allowed to attend, despite the fact that Israel is in Asia).
You have to wonder--would Israel be banned from the Olympic Games, assuming that Qatar won the right to host them? It's not that farfetched..................
You have to wonder--would Israel be banned from the Olympic Games, assuming that Qatar won the right to host them? It's not that farfetched..................
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Hmm, I wonder who did THIS?
Twin bombings in Algeria, at least 2o people killed:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/11/algeria.html. Which reminds me, it's almost time for another pronouncement out of the White House that Islam is truly a "Religion of Peace" (official motto: "Call us violent and we'll kill you!"). Maybe the President can invite CAIR mouthpiece Ibrahim Hooper to the White House and assure him that we are sorry that Muslims were even considered as suspects for this terrorist attack.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/11/algeria.html. Which reminds me, it's almost time for another pronouncement out of the White House that Islam is truly a "Religion of Peace" (official motto: "Call us violent and we'll kill you!"). Maybe the President can invite CAIR mouthpiece Ibrahim Hooper to the White House and assure him that we are sorry that Muslims were even considered as suspects for this terrorist attack.
More on the Annapolis farce
Pamela Geller Oshry, former Associate Editor of the New York Observer and founder of the "Atlas Shrugs" blog (on my blogroll), is never one to pull her punches. We agree on many things, disagree on others. On the subject of Israel, and the seeming abandonment of Israel by the Bush 41--I'm sorry, the Bush 43 White House--we march to the beat of the exact same drum: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7603.
Her assessment of the disgraceful treatment of Israel at the conference, as true an example of apartheid as has occurred since the end of the minority white regime, is spot on. That the dhimmi Israeli leadership seemingly accepted it is immaterial. It was appalling, and this administration should be ashamed of itself for condoning (if not encouraging) it.
Her assessment of the disgraceful treatment of Israel at the conference, as true an example of apartheid as has occurred since the end of the minority white regime, is spot on. That the dhimmi Israeli leadership seemingly accepted it is immaterial. It was appalling, and this administration should be ashamed of itself for condoning (if not encouraging) it.
Monday, December 10, 2007
I'm not only selfish.........I should be taxed for it
Some nutcase doctor in Australia has written to the Medical Journal of Australia suggesting that any family with more than two kids should pay a "carbon use tax" on those extra kids (bad news for me, with my four little BHG's roaming the house): http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/187_11_031207/wal10921_fm.html. This tax would continue ad infinitum.
Look, anybody who reads my blog knows that I am a conservationist and environmentally-friendly guy--Mrs. BHG does not refer to me as "The Recycling Nazi" for no reason--but I have to ask, what is this whack job thinking? I'll pay the tax on my kids when former V.P. Al Gore gives up his house which uses more carbon in a year than my family will probably use collectively in its lifetime.................
Look, anybody who reads my blog knows that I am a conservationist and environmentally-friendly guy--Mrs. BHG does not refer to me as "The Recycling Nazi" for no reason--but I have to ask, what is this whack job thinking? I'll pay the tax on my kids when former V.P. Al Gore gives up his house which uses more carbon in a year than my family will probably use collectively in its lifetime.................
Let we forget
In September, we passed the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 Islamofascist terrorist attacks. In just over a month's time, we will mark another somber anniversary in the neverending Islamofascist Jihad against the West. On January 23, 2002, journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and brutally beheaded by Islamic terrorists (Not "militants". Not "fundamentalists". Not "insurgents". TERRORISTS).
As the anniversary approached, I was pleased to read that President Bush invited Daniel Pearl's parents to light a Menorah at the White House: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071210/pl_afp/usattackshanukkahbushpearl. We should never forget what these primitives did to Daniel Pearl..............
As the anniversary approached, I was pleased to read that President Bush invited Daniel Pearl's parents to light a Menorah at the White House: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071210/pl_afp/usattackshanukkahbushpearl. We should never forget what these primitives did to Daniel Pearl..............
The Religion of Peace loves everyone..............
...................just don't be a Muslim who dares to convert to another faith: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/12/09/noindex/nmuslim109.xml. Under a best case scenario, you will get kicked out of your family. I'll let you read between the lines as to what happens when it is not the "best case scenario". And yet, from everything I have read, Islam is the fastest growing religion, especially in the West.
All I can do is ask "WHY?".
All I can do is ask "WHY?".
We may be willing to let Iran off the hook, others are not
The latest NIE, about which I have already blogged, is much the rage in the media and among the Democrats. The thing is, even the increasingly dhimmi Brits aren't buying it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/09/wiran109.xml. The way they see it, this NIE will embolden the Iranians (gee, ya think?), may very well be wrong (given the failures of U.S. intelligence in the Middle East, not a stretch of the imagination by any means), and will likely spur the Israelis to attack Iran on their own (which would be universally condemnded worldwide, just as the 1981 attack on Osirak was, until, years later, people acknowedge that it was the right thing to do).
The Brits are likely right on this one. We trust the Iranians at our own peril.
The Brits are likely right on this one. We trust the Iranians at our own peril.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Arming those who want to kill Jews
That's what the United States, and more amazingly, Israel, have done. They have supplied arms to the Palestinians, who are now going to use those arms to kill Israelis: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,315488,00.html.
Somehow, "I told you so" isn't quite adequate here............
Somehow, "I told you so" isn't quite adequate here............
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Shutting down free speech
Those who read my blog know that I am a big Mark Steyn fan. However, not everyone else is. And, that "not everyone else" includes the Canadian Islamic Congress, which has successfully petitioned two human rights commissions (whatever those are) in Canada, one federal, one provincial, to hear complaints that Steyn's writings constitute "Islamophobic hate speech": http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzgzNmFmODNmNDJkMWYzMTdkYjlkNDI2ZTA2NmI1ZTU.
This would never happen in the U.S.--well, let me correct that. It won't happen right now, but if CAIR gets its way, it will soon.
This would never happen in the U.S.--well, let me correct that. It won't happen right now, but if CAIR gets its way, it will soon.
The solution to Global Warming
It's not signing on to the Kyoto Protocol. It's not going childless (see my post from yesterday for more on that). It's not getting rid of all of those eight-cylinder SUV's. Nope.............it's kangaroo farts: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22879806-29277,00.html.
I admit to being a juvenile twit, but this makes me giggle...............
I admit to being a juvenile twit, but this makes me giggle...............
The Muslim to whom we SHOULD be listening
There is a great article in the Middle East Forum from an American Muslim which neatly exposes the litigation fraud that is the Flying Imams lawsuit as well as the terrorist apologist front group, CAIR: http://www.meforum.org/article/1809.
The writer is a Muslim. He is exactly the type of voice we should be hearing all the time, instead of CAIR. But, then again, why would the MSM ever want to publicize Muslim voices who actually condemn terror? As an aside, that same MSM has NO problem at all propagandizing for Jews who condemn Israel................
The writer is a Muslim. He is exactly the type of voice we should be hearing all the time, instead of CAIR. But, then again, why would the MSM ever want to publicize Muslim voices who actually condemn terror? As an aside, that same MSM has NO problem at all propagandizing for Jews who condemn Israel................
Sobering thoughts
By now, everyone has heard about, if not actually read, the news reports that the National Intelligence Estimate says that Iran is apparently not pursuing nuclear weapons technology (rhetorical question #1: When the 2005 NIE said that Iran WAS seeking nuclear weapons, it was a "lie" according to many pundits and members of the MSM. Why is it now the gospel truth?). I'll leave aside for the moment my considerable doubts about this determination (rhetorical question #2: If NIE's early in this decaded said that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons technology, and they were wrong, why are they right now?).
With or without nuclear weapons, Iran represents a clear and ever-present danger to American interests in the Gulf: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110010950. It represents an existential threat to Israel. In fact, if you're Israel, do you REALLY want to trust your survival to the determinations of a bunch of eggheads in Washington, D.C.? I'd bet that the answer to that question is no, or it should be (no), anyway.
With or without nuclear weapons, Iran represents a clear and ever-present danger to American interests in the Gulf: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110010950. It represents an existential threat to Israel. In fact, if you're Israel, do you REALLY want to trust your survival to the determinations of a bunch of eggheads in Washington, D.C.? I'd bet that the answer to that question is no, or it should be (no), anyway.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
I'm selfish
Why am I selfish? Because I have had kids. How do I know this? Because a woman who has never had kids--and never will--got pregnant, had an abortion, and subsequently had herself sterilized so that she can never have kids because anyone who has kids is selfish: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=495495&in_page_id=1879.
Here's the thing. My kids aggravate me. Every kid aggravates their parents. Sometimes, it seems as though that is their sole mission in life. And you know what? I wouldn't trade having any of them for anything in this world. This shallow, incredibly self-absorbed woman can spout off all she wants about this subject, but she has no clue, and she never will.
Here's the thing. My kids aggravate me. Every kid aggravates their parents. Sometimes, it seems as though that is their sole mission in life. And you know what? I wouldn't trade having any of them for anything in this world. This shallow, incredibly self-absorbed woman can spout off all she wants about this subject, but she has no clue, and she never will.
Munich-ing Israel, Part Three
The more I read and hear about Munich--I mean, ANNAPOLIS--the more I become disheartened about the direction that the United States has decided to take vis-a-vis Israel. It is pretty obvious to even the most ardent defender of the Bush 43 Administration that in the space of two short years, his administrion has gone from being the most friendly U.S. administration to Israel to a clone of the Bush 41 Administration, which was the most unfriendly Israel has seen since the Eisenhower Administration. Just witness the actions of the American ambassador to the U.N., who tried to outdo even Neville Chamberlain in his perfidy: http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/386171/bolton-he-is-not.thtml.
And, WHY is Zalmay Khalilzad hanging out with George Soros?
And, WHY is Zalmay Khalilzad hanging out with George Soros?
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The ugly (non) American
So, the British dhimmi teacher who was convicted in Sudan and then expelled from the country for allowing her class to name its teddy bear "Mohammed" is now safely back in England, and as the enlightened hosts on ABC's "The View" have established, it's HER fault for what happened to her. Worse yet, and even though she's English, she apparently is an example of an "ugly American": http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2007/11/30/view-co-hosts-blame-woman-persecuted-sudan.
Those Nazi Jews
Someone forwarded this to me. One year after the last "Israeli Apartheid Week", it's back again, new and "improved":
Subject: [NJS] Help Support 2nd Annual Israeli Apartheid Week in NY/NJ!
Please help us educate and organize against occupation, oppression and apartheid! Your donations are critical to this event's success!
December 3, 2007
Dear Friends, In February of 2007 a broad coalition of New York community groups hosted a landmark week of educational and cultural events to draw attention to Israel's apartheid regime, and to highlight the growing movement in Palestine and around the world calling for boycott, sanctions, and divestment from Israel. This was New York's first participation in the International Israeli Apartheid Week programs, which took place in eight cities around the globe. These events not only raised awareness about the urgency of this work, but brought together a broad base of students, community members, leaders, and activists. This coming February, an expanded coalition will build on last year's success to host once again a week of events from February 3-9, 2008. Your support made possible panels with internationally renowned speakers including Joseph Massad, Sari Makdisi, Tanya Reinhart, Bashir Abu Manneh and Robert Robideau.
Other events during the week included a "digital resistance" experience, featuring videos by Palestinian youth from Balata refugee camp, West Bank activists speaking about Palestinian nonviolent resistance, a film and discussion on Israel's discriminatory marriage laws, and presentations on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These are just a few examples of last year's incredible events, which spanned Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester County and New Jersey ( http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net/nyc). This year's activities are of special significance, because 2008 marks the 60th year since the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe), when over 800, 000 Palestinians were displaced from their lands to become what remains one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
In addition, momentum continues to build following the past year's significant achievements internationally in the effort to hold Israel accountable through the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. This year, New York's Israeli Apartheid Week Coalition has expanded, and we are actively planning an engaging and powerful series of events for the New York Israeli Apartheid Week Coalition. Your tax-deductible donation today can make this work possible. By building local conversations to strategize and mobilize, we can take real steps towards ending Israel's apartheid regime. Your support will build programs featuring prominent activists and scholars from the U.S., South Africa, Palestine and Israel who will reflect on 60 years of struggle, to offer lessons from the past, and to engage the New York community in strategies for building a just and equitable future.
We will also expand our activities to include an emphasis on Palestinian cultural resistance, hosting at least one broad-based event and several more targeted programs featuring poetry, music, and dance by local artists. Our events will have an expansive focus and participation to reflect the diversity of skills and areas of work within our coalition, as well as the varying needs, and interests of the New York community. We need your financial support today in order to make Israeli Apartheid Week's second year in the New York City area even more successful and effective than last year. IAW will require a budget of $7500, primarily to bring distinguished speakers from overseas and around the US, but also to cover educational materials, and other organizing expenses.
Once again, WESPAC Foundation: A Peace and Justice Action Center in Westchester ( www.wespac.org) has generously agreed to serve as fiscal sponsor for IAW in New York.Please make your checks payable to:WESPAC FoundationPO Box 488White Plains, NY 10602Please note "Israeli Apartheid Week" in the memo line of your check.With your support Israeli Apartheid Week in New York will again be a great success.
Sincerely,The Organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week
The organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week in New York City are a coalition of student and community groups who have come together to promote critical, strategic discussion on this issue, while also strengthening the ties between various student and community groups. The organizers include: NYU Students for Justice in Palestine; Falasteen and the Arab Students Association at Columbia University; Action Wednesdays Against the War; Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition - NY; New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine; the Palestine Education Project, WESPAC Foundation, and Arab Students United NYU. IAW is a coordinated international initiative with other cities in North America and Europe ( http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net).
IAW began in Toronto, Canada in 2004 and has grown annually to include more cities and campuses. One of our achievements last year involved networking with other cities in the U.S ., so that IAW 2008 will include several more U.S. cities.-- Charlotte L. Kates charlotte.kates@gmail.comhttp://www.newjerseysolidarity.orghttp://www.rutgersdivest.orghttp://www.al-awdany.org
Read Al-Awda Newspaper! http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org -- New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/info@newjerseysolidarity.org973-954-2521
Subject: [NJS] Help Support 2nd Annual Israeli Apartheid Week in NY/NJ!
Please help us educate and organize against occupation, oppression and apartheid! Your donations are critical to this event's success!
December 3, 2007
Dear Friends, In February of 2007 a broad coalition of New York community groups hosted a landmark week of educational and cultural events to draw attention to Israel's apartheid regime, and to highlight the growing movement in Palestine and around the world calling for boycott, sanctions, and divestment from Israel. This was New York's first participation in the International Israeli Apartheid Week programs, which took place in eight cities around the globe. These events not only raised awareness about the urgency of this work, but brought together a broad base of students, community members, leaders, and activists. This coming February, an expanded coalition will build on last year's success to host once again a week of events from February 3-9, 2008. Your support made possible panels with internationally renowned speakers including Joseph Massad, Sari Makdisi, Tanya Reinhart, Bashir Abu Manneh and Robert Robideau.
Other events during the week included a "digital resistance" experience, featuring videos by Palestinian youth from Balata refugee camp, West Bank activists speaking about Palestinian nonviolent resistance, a film and discussion on Israel's discriminatory marriage laws, and presentations on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These are just a few examples of last year's incredible events, which spanned Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester County and New Jersey ( http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net/nyc). This year's activities are of special significance, because 2008 marks the 60th year since the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe), when over 800, 000 Palestinians were displaced from their lands to become what remains one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
In addition, momentum continues to build following the past year's significant achievements internationally in the effort to hold Israel accountable through the movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. This year, New York's Israeli Apartheid Week Coalition has expanded, and we are actively planning an engaging and powerful series of events for the New York Israeli Apartheid Week Coalition. Your tax-deductible donation today can make this work possible. By building local conversations to strategize and mobilize, we can take real steps towards ending Israel's apartheid regime. Your support will build programs featuring prominent activists and scholars from the U.S., South Africa, Palestine and Israel who will reflect on 60 years of struggle, to offer lessons from the past, and to engage the New York community in strategies for building a just and equitable future.
We will also expand our activities to include an emphasis on Palestinian cultural resistance, hosting at least one broad-based event and several more targeted programs featuring poetry, music, and dance by local artists. Our events will have an expansive focus and participation to reflect the diversity of skills and areas of work within our coalition, as well as the varying needs, and interests of the New York community. We need your financial support today in order to make Israeli Apartheid Week's second year in the New York City area even more successful and effective than last year. IAW will require a budget of $7500, primarily to bring distinguished speakers from overseas and around the US, but also to cover educational materials, and other organizing expenses.
Once again, WESPAC Foundation: A Peace and Justice Action Center in Westchester ( www.wespac.org) has generously agreed to serve as fiscal sponsor for IAW in New York.Please make your checks payable to:WESPAC FoundationPO Box 488White Plains, NY 10602Please note "Israeli Apartheid Week" in the memo line of your check.With your support Israeli Apartheid Week in New York will again be a great success.
Sincerely,The Organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week
The organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week in New York City are a coalition of student and community groups who have come together to promote critical, strategic discussion on this issue, while also strengthening the ties between various student and community groups. The organizers include: NYU Students for Justice in Palestine; Falasteen and the Arab Students Association at Columbia University; Action Wednesdays Against the War; Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition - NY; New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine; the Palestine Education Project, WESPAC Foundation, and Arab Students United NYU. IAW is a coordinated international initiative with other cities in North America and Europe ( http://www.endisraeliapartheid.net).
IAW began in Toronto, Canada in 2004 and has grown annually to include more cities and campuses. One of our achievements last year involved networking with other cities in the U.S ., so that IAW 2008 will include several more U.S. cities.-- Charlotte L. Kates charlotte.kates@gmail.comhttp://www.newjerseysolidarity.orghttp://www.rutgersdivest.orghttp://www.al-awdany.org
Read Al-Awda Newspaper! http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org -- New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/info@newjerseysolidarity.org973-954-2521
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