I’ve been busy, so I haven’t commented on the death of Osama bin Ladin, and it’s not like there was a dearth of comment anyway.

And frankly, it’s been much more interesting to wait and see what the reaction has been. Osama himself really wasn’t a very interesting person.

Think about it, if he hadn’t done what he’d done, do you think he’d have attracted any attention as a fiery Islamist preacher? Other than as a figure of fun for late-night comics that is.

There’s been the usual soft-headed logic of those who think Osama should have been given “due process.”

Yes of course, just like when the Greatest Generation hit the beaches of Normandy armed with writs, summons, and legal injunctions telling the Nazis to suspend all concentration camp operations and executions of hostages pending further investigation.

Boy that showed them!

Then there was Heinz Uthmann, the judge in at the Labor Court in Hamburg, who filed criminal charges against German Chancellor Angela Merkel for “rewarding and approving an intentional homicide,” after she expressed pleasure at the death of bin Ladin.

You know, I believe some day it’s going to be impossible for even the most cowardly and muddle-headed to deny that our civilization is at war. Against that day, shouldn’t somebody be keeping a list? I suggest the categories on that list might include: useful idiots, appeasers, and collaborators.

Then there are those who approve of bin Ladin’s killing on principle, but think the boisterous American rejoicing was somehow vulgar and unseemly.

Lately I have meditated a lot on one of those one-line gems of wisdom Thomas Sowell tosses off with such apparent ease.

“If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”

Mark Steyn pointed out when General Gorden’s death at Khartoum was avenged by Lord Kitchener at Omdurman, he had the corpse of the Mahdi dug up and took his skull for a paperweight.

At first, I thought the disposal of bin Ladin’s body was seemly and civilized. After hearing the outpouring of wimpishness from American and Europe – I say he should have been treated more like Danny Pearl’s body was.

Cut it in pieces, take his skull for the Smithsonian, and for good measure bury the rest of him in a pig yard.

Oh, and I see Omar bin Ladin is actually making noises about suing over his father’s death.

Let him show up in court. Then shoot him.

No wait, that’s an honorable death. Lynch him.

No tags

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”
- Thomas Sowell

“Shver tzu zein a Yid” Yiddish saying, “It’s hard to be a Jew.”

Back in Reflections on Itamar, part 1, I said I had to wait a bit before commenting to maintain a certain degree of equanimity.

For part 2 I’ve waited a bit longer to see how the international reaction would shake down.

Sadly, it seems my suspicions were correct. Attention to the murders of both parents and three young children in the Fogel family is already fading. Some say it’s news in competition with the dramatic ongoing crisis in Japan. Others think the world is sick of hearing about dead Jews.

Pro-jihadist Arabic-language sites are full of praise and the blessings of Allah for the murderers. That is perhaps to be expected.

Apologists for terrorism point to the sufferings of the Palestinians. This too is to be expected, though to my mind it’s eerily like a lot of semi-apologies for the Holocaust I’ve heard over the years.

No one seems willing to consider the sufferings of the Palestinians are very largely self-inflicted. Nor that a fundamental difference between the two sides is, there are Israeli advocates for the Palestinians who live unmolested in Israel. There are no Palestinian advocates for Israel who dare voice their opinions in public.

The most inane comment on the murders comes from those who hope this won’t “adversely affect the peace process.”

This is so far out of touch with reality you have to wonder what planet these people live on. Can no one see the truth staring them in the face?

There will never be peace between Israel and its enemies in the foreseeable future.

Eric Hoffer once pointed out that Israel is the only nation that has to sue for peace after winning a war. Israel can never make enough concessions to satisfy an enemy that hates them beyond reason.

What strategic purpose was served by murdering the Fogel family? What goal was moved forward by beheading a three-month-old baby girl?

None. They did it because it felt good. They did it to win praise and admiration from their people. And they did it to taunt the Israelis, “You can’t defend your women and children.”

The Israelis respond by announcing they are going to build still more settlements. Oooo, that’ll show them! Put more potential victims in reach.

Oh yes, and they’re going to hunt down the killers and bring them to justice.

Justice in Israel means lengthy confinement – perhaps until terrorists grab some hostages and offer to exchange them.

Israel does have the death penalty – which has been imposed precisely once by civil authority. And the executed was Adolph Eichman!

“It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.” – Moses Maimonides, Sefer Hamitzvot, Negative Commandment number 290.

What can you do to deter an enemy who gleefully announces they can lose fifteen of their own to your every one and still win?

Nothing we are willing to even consider.

How can you persuade a people not to murder your children, when they readily murder their own children in so-called “honor killings“?

You can’t. Not by any means we’re willing to use.

The Israelis could of course, surround the village the murderers fled to – the one where they handed out sweets to celebrate them, and threaten to shell it flat with artillery and napalm the rubble if they don’t hand over the murderers pronto. World opinion would call them Nazis for it, but they do that already.

They won’t. Israelis including people close to the dead family have already preemptively denounced any suggestion of collective punishment to avenge the murders.

Times like this remind me of one of Thomas Sowell’s most interesting, and disturbing insights, “The law of diminishing returns applies to morality as well. It is possible to be too moral.”

And since I seem to be quoting Sowell a lot here, let me end with one more. “If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”

No tags

Good news on the free speech front from Europe. Lars Hedegaard was acquited in Denmark of charges of saying true, but not nice things about Muslims resident in his country.

The hate-speech trial of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff in Austria is still ongoing though. Frau Sabaditsch-Wolff is facing similar charges stemming from… well it appears that in support of her xenophobic, racist, etc etc rants she (this is shocking but I have to say it) actually quoted the Koran

And in America a big-time Washington D.C. lawyer Paul Mirengoff, who happens to be a conservative blogger was made to grovel in public, take down a blog post, and shut up.

Mirengoff is a partner in the employment law group at the firm of Akin Gump, and one of the founders of Power Line blog.

The offending post was about the Tuscon tragedy. The specific offensive part concerned a prayer offered by a Yaqui Indian shaman. Luckily the post was preserved elsewhere – and now here. Take a half-minute and read the offending thing in its entirety..

In the post immediately below, I praised President Obama’s speech in Tucson this evening in honor of the victims of that horrific shooting spree. His speech was part of a larger ceremony which, on the whole, was rather a mixed bag.

In any event, the invocation could have used more God, less Mexico, and less Carlos Gonzales.

That’s it. The unforgivable offense was to suggest that prayers for Christian victims might appropriately be… Christian.

I myself cheerfully accept anybody’s prayers for my safety, salvation, or good luck with the lottery. The good wishes of a good person may or may not help, but they certainly can’t hurt.

Of course, that’s not the whole story as you find out when you follow the money.

But that was not good enough for one of Mirengoff’s law partners, James Meggesto, who issued a sanctimonious statement saying he was “shocked, appalled and embarrassed” by Mirengoff’s “insensitive” “web posting” (emphasis mine):

Mirengoff obviously feared for his position at the firm, because he issued a confession/apology worthy of a political prisoner in (insert name of tyranny here):

OK, I have to say I support Mirengoff 100 percent – but I can’t help but think he’s kind of a wuss.

Dammit shyster, couldn’t you have taken the hit and sued the bastards? That’s what lawyers do!

Maybe I should be more charitable, and maybe I’m not in the mood because I’ve just come back from Belarus where a friend and comrade was forced to make public statements by threats on the lives of his partners.

Mr. Mirengoff I’m sure you have a family to support, but that redskin lawyer (yes I’m being deliberately offensive, sue me) isn’t going to scalp your wife and children. “Attorney” is a portable skill you can take damn near anywhere. And if you have sons, wouldn’t you rather they saw their father as a man who stands up for himself, than a provider of new BMWs for graduation?

I’m living a lot closer to the margin of poverty than you are – and I’ll say whatever I damn well please on my blog PRECISELY BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE TELLING ME I CAN’T.

No tags

The guy in the picture is Faleh Hassan Almaleki. He looks like a fairly normal, kind of nerdy guy doesn’t he?

In October, 2009 he murdered his lovely daughter Noor, by running her over with an SUV. As a journalist, I’m supposed to say “allegedly.”

Oh please, he did it in broad daylight, in front of witnesses, and made no attempt to deny it. In point of fact, he justified it as being entirely right and proper by his lights. And it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. There was a long set-to of threats and stalking beforehand. In fact, the autocide happened in the parking lot of the state Department of Economic Security office in Peoria, outside Phoenix.

You see, Noor disgraced the family “honor.” It appears she wanted to live a normal life. You know, work at a job, date, get married to a guy she knew – rather than a guy back in Iraq her father picked.

On Monday Faleh is going on trial for murdering his daughter, and attempting to murder her boyfriend’s mother.

Presumably the couple were going to see what the authorities could do for the girl.

Well, as it turns out – nothing. But now she’s dead, they can do something.

Make sure the son-of-a-whore dies for this. And while we’re at it, can we try her mother as an accessory? That’s almost always the case in these “honor killings.”

I’m putting “honor killings” in scare quotes because this culture, these people, have no honor. They foul the word by uttering it. Murdering your daughter proves your culture is worse than barbaric, it is an obscenity that we cannot, must not EVER tolerate in our land.

An innocent girl, willing to live by our laws, trusted herself to the protection of our law. We failed her. But we can avenge her.

And before he dies, stuff his mouth with bacon and wrap his body in pig skin. Inject pigs blood into him with a syringe. Bury him in a pig yard.

We know he has no honor. The question is, do we?

No tags

A discussion list I sometimes participate in had a comment from a retired English military officer, who thinks holding the prisoners at Guantanamo is our national disgrace.

The discussion veered into torture, and whether waterboarding is torture or not, and whether it was justified. I mentioned waterboarding had been used on a handful of subjects for a combined total of six-and-a-half minutes, which allegedly produced lifesaving information.

His reply was, “Some limited means may be justified in some circumstances – but never include torture. Principles are not selective.”

A friend at the RiteOn blog posted parts of my reply and urged me to post it here.

My reply:

A nuke on a timer or remote detonator is hidden in a city. We have one of the conspirators in custody. (Timeline: 5-10 years I’d say.) How many millions are to die to protect your delicate sensibilities?

A child is kidnapped and in the hands of people who would willingly rape, torture, murder her. We have one of the confederates in custody. (Remember the two little Belgian girls who starved to death in a pedophile’s hidden dungeon while he was in prison on another charge? What if the authorities had known while they had him?)

During the post-Munich Olympics Mossad operation to assassinate Black Septembrists, an apparently innocent bystander was gunned down in Lillehammer, Norway in front of his pregnant wife. (Later reports indicate he may not have been clean, but no matter.)

A Mossad agent was arrested and confined in a small cell. As a child he’d been hidden from the Nazis by nuns in a small closet for prolonged periods and as a result was intensely claustrophobic. He cracked and blew the operation. (But I wonder how someone with such a conspicuous weakness got into the Mossad…)

Was this torture?

I’ll add this: if your answer that torture, or “enhanced interrogation” is never, ever justified, even in the above circumstances, please forward this message to all of your immediate family:

“Dear Family, I love you very much, but I thought you should know that I’d rather see you dead, from nuclear incineration or slow torture, than give a moments discomfort to a terrorist or pedophile psychopath and violate my principles.”

And might I request you CC me? I’d like to lurk on the discussion.

No tags

There’s something interesting going on in the ongoing right/left debate these days.

One Anwar al-Awlaki has made Obama’s Hit Parade – to be terminated with extreme prejudice as soon as located with a reasonable degree of precision. Precision defined by the blast radius of the explosives a cruise missile can carry. Not a good idea to be standing next to Mr. al-Awlaki when his translation to the garden of delights awaiting the martyrs is effected.

What makes this terminate-on-sight order interesting is, al-Awlaki is technically an American citizen.

So? Then he’s a traitor and deserves death, right?

Nobody is arguing that. Conservatives complain Bush would have been crucified while Obama gets a free pass, and of course they’re right. But that’s not the point.

What’s interesting, and what shows a lot about the place each side is coming from is, conservatives are objecting to the process and procedure involved in making one measly traitor dead.

Kevin D. Williamson commented, “The penalty for treason is not assassination without trial, and there is nothing in our Constitution or tradition to suggest that it is.”

Williamson elaborated in National Review “If Awlaki were to be killed on a battlefield, I’d shed no tears. But ordering the premeditated, extrajudicial killing of an American citizen in Yemen or Pakistan is no different from ordering the premeditated, extrajudicial killing of an American citizen in New York or Washington or Topeka — American citizens are American citizens, wherever they go. I’m an old-fashioned limited-government guy, and I am not willing to grant Washington the power to assassinate U.S. citizens, even rotten ones. The three most powerful people in government at this moment are Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, a fact that should give pause even to the most hawkish conservative. I would hope that other conservatives see this at least as a matter of prudence, if not a burning moral question.”

David Harsanyi in The Denver Post said, “At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I have to wonder: If a president — any president — has the authority to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without oversight, what exactly can’t a president do?

There is no doubt, in fact, that Awlaki is a despicable character, a member of radical Islamic networks, dangerous and deserving of a most gruesome fate.”

Now see Jonah Goldberg.

“Does Anwar al-Awlaki deserve to die? Would it be good for America and the world if, through some combination of fate, luck, justice, and the arsenal of democracy, his heart stopped beating tomorrow? Does Barack Obama have America’s best interests at heart when he endeavors to make that happen?

So, let’s have Congress and the president come up with some clear, public rules. Better to start the debate over an easy case than a hard one.”

Good point Jonah. There’s a legal saying, “Hard cases make bad law.”

Now here’s the point, all these guys want to see al-Awlaki dead (me too.) It’s how he gets dead that matters.

So what? Dead’s dead, right?

That strikes me as a crucial part of the left/right divide. The importance they place on how it gets done.

The right thinks power is dangerous when unchecked by formal processes and procedures. The left thinks unchecked power is a jim-dandy thing to have, if you’re the right sort with the right intentions.

That’s why they are neither inconsistent nor hypocritical when they remain mute or actively justify Obama’s exercise of power they’d (rightly) crucify Bush for.

And note this: the above-quoted conservatives and libertarians (Harsanyi could be described as a “libertarian hawk”) are concerned about what could happen if they were on the receiving end of that policy. That implies they consider the change of political power to be normal, natural, and by and large a good thing.

What does it say about someone who is not worried that a grant of power of that sort would ever be used against them? That once granted, they’d never give it up?

No tags

I experienced an interesting piece of synchronicity this morning as I was mulling over the news of the Peace Flotilla to Gaza.

I came across this hilarious parody produced in Israel, “We Con the World.”

It was evidently put together, released by PM Netanyahu’s office, then retracted with an apology. I found it on a hostile comment to a column by Caroline Glick. The commenter thought it was outrageous. I thought it was a hoot!

It also underscores what a lot of us are wondering these days. Why should Israel give a damn about “international public opinion” (which means in effect, Arab and European opinion) since it’s never going to change no matter what they do or don’t do?

At about the same time I received a comment on a years-old post, “Observations on Arabs.”

Of course, the poster called me a racist. Then followed with a racist insult.

One Earl J said, “I don’t know how I reached this site (curse you, google!), but this racist hatchet job made me throw up a bit in my mouth. The most sinister kind of racist is the one who coats his hatred with a fake gloss of objectivity. I checked some of your other posts and I see you’re either a Zionist or Jewish. No surprise there.”

I replied, “Actually I’m mostly Scottish and Irish, with some exotic touches on my mother’s side.

“Have you tried Gaviscon? Best non-prescription thing for acid reflux I’ve found.

“My good friend Ali Alyami, founder of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, hasn’t noticed I’m a racist yet. Please don’t tell him.”

I forgot to add a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien. When a German publisher interested in a translation of ‘The Hobbit’ asked if Tolkien was an Aryan name, he replied that none of his family were speakers of Sanskrit, Hindi, or Romani. But, he said, if they were asking if it was Jewish, “I regret that I have none of the blood of that talented people in my veins.”

Then I came across an article about how senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas has been dropped by her agency over her remarks that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back to Germany and Poland.

She evidently got caught on record and immediately apologized.

First impression, it’s interesting to see that remarks perceived as anti-Semitic are still un-PC. It kind of puts a crimp in conservative claims that anti-Israel sentiments have been mainstreamed.

Secondly, what’s ironic is I kind of agree with Thomas – except I’d like to bring them here.

In a nuclear age, Israel is just too vulnerable. Ahmedinajad is a moral monster, but he’s also right. A country that small equals a “one-bomb state.”

And as I’ve said before, I think we should consider taking in White and Colored South Africans and Zimbabweans. Eventually we may be taking in indigenous Europeans fleeing the Islamicization of the continent as well.

And by the way, does anybody in the Middle East realize that when Israel is incinerated in nuclear fire a whole bunch of Palestinian Arabs become radioactive ash as well? Are Hamas’ Palestinian buddies even concerned about this?

Oops, gotta go now. I have to pick up my white sheets at the cleaners for the cross-burning tonight.

No tags

“May Allah kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker and burn them in Hell for all eternity. They insult our prophets Mohammed, Jesus, and Moses.” - Zachary “Abu Talhah al-Amrike” on Revolution Muslim website, now taken down.

Well as I said before, whenever jihadists start threatening cartoonists for images that offend them, and craven media types cave in, we bloggers should make it a point to post the images.

That’s the image. In case you’ve been on vacation in Antarctica, it’s supposed to be Mohammed in a bear suit. The bear suit is South Park’s clever way of satirizing Comedy Central which previously censored images of the Prophet on the show.

Now to be fair, preliminary reports indicate Revolution Muslim is a fringoid group of perhaps a dozen members. Our boy Zachary was evidently born Zachary Adam Chesser and appears to be a convert.

He insists he didn’t threaten them when he posted on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, “will probably end up” like Theo van Gogh.

And to make his point clear, he reportedly posted pictures of van Gogh’s butchered body.

Chesser/Abu Talhah al-Amrike told FoxNews.com, “It’s not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome. They’re going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It’s just the reality.”

Oh that’s all right then. He wasn’t threatening, he was predicting. And from what has been found out about him by FOX, he doesn’t seem like the kind with the huevos to carry out a threat.

FOX news reported:

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, characterized Revolution Muslim as a loosely-organized group with such outrageous beliefs he believes it may be a “setup” to smear Islam.

“They say wild and irresponsible things periodically,” Hooper told FoxNews.com. “There’s a strong suspicion that they’re merely a setup to make Muslims and Islam look bad. They say such wild and crazy things that you have to wonder.”

Me, I think that’s BS. CAIR appears to be the aboveground legal face of jihadist terrorism in the U.S. A common strategy for terrorists operating in more-or-less democratic countries is to have such an aboveground arm as their spokesman, vis-a-vis the IRA and Sinn Fein in Ulster.

But I concede they might think of the Revolution Muslim group as a loose cannon bad for their image. The group reportedly published a poem about killing Jews on their website in October, for example. That’s not good for the we-aren’t-anti-Semites-just-anti-Zionists line.

However, they have now moved their online operation to the Revolution Muslim blog.
I urge you to have a look. The article on the South Park controversy is articulate, well-written, and not at all raving. I’d say it’s the work of a native English speaker, or someone who speaks English with near-native fluency.

It discusses with calm rationality, citing precedent as an academic writer would cite his/her sources, the scholarly justification for murder

“Many are proclaiming that the South Park episode’s insult was minimal and some might inquire about a situation where the insult is not that great. The renowned scholar Imam Malik said, “If someone says that the button of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is dirty, then he should be executed!”…

“In the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) two key events stand out that provide evidence for the permissibility and indeed preference for retaliation against those that insult him. In the first, a blind Muslim man who had a Jewish wife (and some say servant) assassinated his wife when she continuously cursed and mocked Muhammad (peace be upon him). In the other, a Jewish poet by the name of Ka’b bin al-Ashraf was killed for his poetry insulting the Prophet even though he was living under peaceful covenant with the Muslims and was within his own territory. If anyone is in need of details and sources for these occurrences feel free to contact us and we will forward them to serious inquirers. At this point, it must be known that this is the position in Islam, that there is consensus in it and that for those that argue the harm coming as a consequence exceeds the benefit, then they should know that this is at best an argument that entails a difference of opinion although the evidence suggests that adopting the platform that we ourselves have taken is best.

“The law, known as shariah, in Islam is sacred and it is for no man to change, alter, or disregard when reacting to events like the recent degrading of the Prophet Muhammad (saws) on South Park. Indeed there is an Islamic ruling on nearly every affair and Muslims must seek their response in the religion and not in the personal desire and false manipulation of subjective introspection via philosophy or, as in most cases, emotional attachment to socialized norms.”

And note this:

“Thus the postings that have caused so much controversy on revolutionmuslim.com with regard to this matter were actually not the publication of the opinion of some Muslims but a referral and deferment to Islamic Law, thus fulfilling our divine obligation to command the good and forbid the evil by teaching and preaching the religion of Islam no matter how strange that way of life may seem to some. This is a divine order, obligatory for at least some Muslims in any community to fulfill. Allah says,

Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity. (3:104)”

But do read the entire piece. Among other reasons, I’d like to know if anybody else sees something familiar in this. This reads like a lot of post-60s Marxist rhetoric to me. They were good at scholarly suport for murder too.

And while I suppose I could spend time debating a lot of specific points in the post, I’m not going to.

My reply: We are enemies. I concede you have legitimate grievances mixed with the sophistry, but I’m not interested. In the long-but-growing-shorter run, I’m only interested in the judgment of battle.

Gentle readers, read the post. Know what you’re up against.

I will address one point. Early in the post, the author said, “Free speech is a vital tool in the staving of oppression, but this function has its limits.”

Nope.

No tags

Note: My weekend op-ed. Spiked.

The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah*, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
-Sahih al-Bukhari Hadith 846 A.D. (Sayings of the Prophet collected by Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, 810-870) incorporated in the charter of Hamas.

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met twice on Tuesday in an atmosphere somewhat strained.

Contrary to customary protocol, reporters were not invited to see them shake hands and begin talks, and the White House did not issue a formal statement afterwards.

What’s going on?

Two weeks ago, during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, a low-level bureaucracy announced the building of 1,600 new apartments in east Jerusalem. Though it doesn’t appear to be a deliberate provocation, Biden, a strong supporter of Israel, was miffed enough to show up late to a formal dinner. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later called Netanyahu to cuss him out for 45 minutes – and Madam Secretary is said to be a formidable cusser.

Netanyahu isn’t budging on the apartments.

Angry Palestinians have delayed new U.S.-sponsored peace talks over the issue. So what else is new? President Obama was described as “furious.”

So why aren’t the Israelis cooperating with us? Aren’t we their biggest supporters?

Short blunt answer, the Israelis aren’t cooperating because they get nothing from it – and they don’t trust us.

That Israel gets nothing from concessions is easy to show, if anyone has eyes to see. Harvard law professor Alan defender-of-the-rich-and-guilty Dershowitz, wrote a book, ‘Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge.’ You can dismiss it as special pleading if you like, but what you can’t ignore is the heart of it. It’s a table he created by listing all concessions made over 30 years to the Palestinians in one column, and in the other a list of terrorist acts and attempts.

In every single case, concessions have been followed by escalating terrorist acts. Simple, obvious, ignored. Like it says, terrorism works.

Why don’t the Israelis trust us?

Because they shouldn’t.

Biden is known as a strong supporter of Israel, which won’t matter unless and until the “vice” is removed from his title.

Secretary of State Clinton has been known to drop the “fucking Jew bastard!” bomb when angry and was a strong supporter of Palestinian statehood, until she publicly embraced and kissed Yassir Arafat’s wife Suha. After the subsequent backlash she discovered her “unrelenting support of Israel.”

There is no direct evidence President Obama is an anti-Semite, but he is undeniably comfortable with anti-Semitism. (Hint: 20 years in the front row of Rev. Wright’s church. Somebody forgot to tell him you’re supposed to stand up and walk out when a preacher starts racist rants from the pulpit.) And his reaction to Iran’s nuclear program has been tepid at best.

You may have missed all this but I assure you the Israelis haven’t.

But isn’t White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel a Modern Orthodox Jew who spends a lot of time in Israel?

I don’t know where Emanuel fits in all this, but he may share the same illusion most Americans cling to, that Israel’s enemies want peace.

Every American president for decades has known bringing permanent peace to the Middle East would assure his place in history. So far only Jimmy Carter has had any success, and only because Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat came to want peace more than he wanted his own life. Carter is now openly, bitterly anti-Semitic.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for another Sadat. More likely, there will be no peace until something indescribably horrible happens in the Middle East.

* “O Abdullah” probably doesn’t refer to someone named Abdullah, but to the meaning of the name, “slave of God.”

No tags

And it just keeps getting weirder.

From the Washington Post: “Authorities are inching toward an agreement that would secure cooperation from the suspect in the failed Detroit airliner attack, according to two sources familiar with the case, even as fresh details emerged about the intense and chaotic response to the Christmas Day incident.

Seizing on the near miss, GOP lawmakers have mounted a sustained attack on President Obama and the Justice Department, saying they may have lost out on valuable intelligence by charging Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in a federal court rather than under the military justice system.

The incident has provoked criticism that federal agencies missed intelligence signals that might have prevented the attack, and has reignited a fierce debate about the adequacy of traditional law enforcement tools to combat terrorist threats.

Well, duh. To coin a phrase.

Now here’s what occurred to me. They had this guy in custody and talking, in what has to have been terrible pain from setting his own crotch on fire, and they gave him an anesthetic?

I personally think the self-inflicted nature of the guy’s injuries makes the issue of torture moot.

What was it Batman said to Ras Al-ghul?

“I can’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.”

No tags