There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.
Terrorism
Dan Senor: An Open Letter on the Ground Zero Mosque – WSJ.com
Someone who rejects the link between Islam and the brand of radicalism and violence espoused by al Qaeda and like-minded groups should be wary of helping to further, even inadvertently, the rhetoric and propaganda of those groups. Indeed, we believe that such a person should take an active role in opposing any measure or message that might be seized upon by those whom he considers to be the blasphemers of his own faith.
via Dan Senor: An Open Letter on the Ground Zero Mosque – WSJ.com.
Ex-CIA chief: Obama risks national security – CNN.com
Hayden said he called several senior White House officials to express his opposition before the president released the documents. Hayden also noted that four previous CIA directors, as well as current agency director Leon Panetta, opposed the release.
Obama & Crew: Excellence Versus Nothing – HUMAN EVENTS
It is no wonder to me why President Obama believes and does what he does: he has zero experience in the private sector, zero executive experience, and even very limited experience in government.
Muslims in China Rioting
Unemployed Muslim youth seem to be such a blessing to every community where they live.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090706/ts_nm/us_china_xinjiang
Islam: a Religion of Peace?
“Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of God with their goods and their persons. God hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in faith) hath God promised good, but those who strive and fight hath he distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward – ranks specially bestowed by Him and forgiveness and mercy. For God is oft forgiving, most merciful.”
– Koran, Sura 4:95,96
“Only those are believers who have believed in God and His Apostle [Mohammad], and have never since doubted, but have striven [jihad] with their belongings and their persons in the cause of God.”
– Koran, Sura 49:15 (True believers spend all in God’s cause.)
“Do ye make the giving of drink to pilgrims, or the maintenance of the Sacred Mosque, equal to (the pious service of) those who believe in God and the last day, and strive [jihad] with might and main in the cause of God? They are not comparable in the sight of God, and God guides not those who do wrong. Those who believe, and suffer exile and strive [jihad] with might and main in God’s cause with their goods and their persons have the highest rank in the sight of God. They are the people who will achieve (salvation). Their Lord doth give them glad tidings of a mercy from Himself, of His good pleasure, and of gardens for them, wherein are delights that endure. They will dwell therein for ever. Verily in God’s presence is a reward, the greatest (of all).”
– Koran, Sura 9:19-22 (Jihad is greater than other service, and of the highest rank in the sight of God)
“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust.” [In the early days in Mecca the enemies were the pagan Quraish while Jews and Christians were respected. In Medina, after the Jews rejected Mohammad’s claim of prophet-hood, the enemies of Islam grew to include the Jews and Christians.]
– Koran, Sura 5:54
THE LAW OF ABROGATION: [According to the Quran itself (Sura 2:106, 13:39 and 16:103) God sometimes substitutes a “better” verse or passage for one previously given, thus superceding the first one. Sura 2:106: “None of our revelations (verses) do we abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but we substitute something better or similar. Knowest thou not that God hath power over all things?”; Sura 13:39: “God doth blot out or confirm what he pleaseth. With Him is the Mother of the Book.”; Sura 16:101: “When we substitute one revelation for another, – and God knows best what He reveals (in stages), – they say, ‘Thou are but a forger’ but most of them understand not.” Although all Muslim scholars believe that God replaced some earlier verses by substituting later verses, there is a great difference of opinion among them as to which verses supercede which verses. Nevertheless, most are agreed that Sura 9:5, (called “the verse of the sword”) supercedes most of the previous verses regarding jihad. Some believe it supercedes as many as 111 previous verses. In spite of this general agreement, many today quote the previous replaced verses in order to validate their perception of Islam being a peaceful religion. Thus modern, liberal Muslim leaders, especially here in the west, are teaching what could be called “the Islam of Mecca” with its emphasis on non violence and tolerance. At the same time, “the Islam of Medina,” with its more aggressive, totalitarian nature is what is being practiced and taught by orthodox, fundamentalist Muslims in most parts of the Muslim world.]
This is not an inspired religion. By it’s own book, it is a religion of cultural unification in violence against those who rejected them. That is not what God wants.
See all of the jihad verses in a through study by Rev. Richard P. Bailey here…
German View of Islam
There’s an email going around that, while anonymous, has some really good points. Nothing we haven’t heard necessarily, but something we should hear on a regular basis. Well put.
A German’s View on Islam by Paul E. Marek
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates.. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
“Very few people were true Nazis, ‘ he said, ‘ but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.
Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come .My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories”.
We are told again and again by ‘ experts ‘ and ‘ talking heads ‘ that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘ silent majority, ‘ is cowed and extraneous…
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.
China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don ‘ t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world wide, read this and think about it, and send it on before it ‘ s too late.
The first thing the fanatics will do to the silent majority is to disarm them.
The President Ties His Own Hands on Terror – WSJ.com
It makes me so thrilled to know that the new administration is doing everything in its power to make us less safe. Idiots.
UK Parliment Surrenders To Muslims
Here’s an article in David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine about a disturbing thing going on in the UK right now. Read the full article here… excerpts below…
British Parliament Surrenders
By Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, February 06, 2009The place where Winston Churchill once so eloquently and forcefully rallied the British people to defeat the Nazi threat is now under siege from a new tyranny.
Islamic intimidation achieved a new high last week when it forced the British Parliament, one of Western civilization’s most venerable institutions, to quietly surrender its most basic of freedoms.
Almost unreported in the Western media, including Britain’s, a Muslim member of the House of Lords, Nazir Ahmed, showed the advanced state of Britain’s dhimmitude [the Islamic system of governing populations conquered by jihad wars] when he threatened to mobilize 10,000 fellow Muslims to block Dutch parliamentarian and filmmaker, Geert Wilders, from entering Westminster. Wilders had been invited by another House of Lords member to show his controversial film, Fitna, last Thursday in a Westminster conference room. Invitations had been sent to all House members to attend the screening that was to be followed “by discussion and debate in true parliamentary fashion.”
But Baron Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Britain, forgetting he is part of a liberal democratic system that cherishes freedom of expression and association, reacted with familiar jihadi-style tactics to Wilders’ announced appearance. Along with his threat to mobilize 10,000 demonstrators to block Wilders’ path, it was reported Ahmed also intended to sue the House of Lords member who had invited the Dutch politician.
However, that all proved unnecessary.
After Ahmed and representatives of several British Muslim organizations met with the leader of the House of Lords and its chief whip, the Wilders visit was cancelled and British democracy suffered a crushing defeat. And while the British elites and media may have wanted to keep the British people in the dark regarding the scale of this debacle, Ahmed had no qualms about publicising it. Labelling it what it truly is, Ahmed told Pakistani media outlets that the British parliament’s retreat was “a victory for the Muslim community.”
…Regarded as a “moderate” Muslim, Ahmed led the first British government-sponsored delegation on a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. He has opposed international terrorism, women wearing the veil and forced marriages in Britain. Risking his personal safety, Ahmed has also supported the expulsion of violent Islamic radicals from Great Britain.
But there is another, more disturbing side to Ahmed’s political character. He opposed Salman Rushdie’s receiving a knighthood, because Rushdie had “blood on his hands.” In 2005, Ahmed also hosted a book launch of a Swedish anti-Semite, Joeran Jermas, in the House of Lords. Jermas’s speech, titled ‘The Jews and Empire’, as reported in The Times, contained such niceties as “Your newspapers belong to the Zionists…”; “The Jews like an empire…”; and “This love of Empire explains the easiness Jews change their allegiance…”
And while Jermas said the “Jewish supremacy drive” is the only reason for “wars, terror and trouble” in the Middle East, his next statement probably accounts for Ahmed’s inviting this extreme racist to use the House of Lords to spread his repulsive message of hate.
“Now, there is a large and thriving Muslim community in England…they are now on the side of freedom, against the Empire, and they are not afraid of enforcers of Judaic values, Jewish or Gentile. This community is very important to turn the tide.”
Well, there you have it. While Wilders, a democrat who wanted to warn Britain about the anti-civilizational hatred spreading within its borders and across Europe, was denied access to the House of Lords, the doors were opened wide to a neo-Nazi ally of that hatred.
Disgracefully, the representatives of the democracy that gave the world “the most powerful pro-liberty culture within the Western tradition” did nothing. As one observer commented: “There were no meetings with whips or leaders. There were no demonstrations. The meeting was not cancelled.”
Contrast this with the Labour government’s energetic reaction in the Damian Green case that has been described as authoritarian. Green, a Conservative Member of Parliament, was arrested by anti-terror police last month for leaking information to the press that, according to one report, “exposed government incompetence.” He was held nine hours while his home and office were searched, the latter without a warrant. As it turns out, Green will not face an anti-terror charge, but rather a more ambiguous one concerning his having conspired “to commit misconduct in a public office.”
It is obvious that Ahmed intends to set himself up as the arbiter of all things Islamic regarding the British parliament. His control of free speech, stifling of debate and threatening of parliament if one does not conform to his views is the antithesis of the British democratic tradition. It makes one fear for its future if more Muslim politicians of Ahmed’s ilk are elected or appointed to Westminster.
Just as worrying is the fact that the government did not disown Ahmed and let him get away with his intimidation tactics. Even worse, it may have set a precedent for submissiveness that will leave it open to future, Islamic blackmail attempts.
Ahmed’s fellow politicians also did not express any outrage or mount a counter-offensive to protect their ancient rights and privileges. Which, in the end, is the saddest statement regarding the state of Churchill’s cherished British democracy today.
By way of continuation, read this subsequent article on how they sent Wilders back to Holland. Unbelieveable.
Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil
Article in the WSJ by Judea Pearl, father Daniel Pearl the reporter who was murdered by islamic cowards in 2002.
By JUDEA PEARL
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today’s world emerged after his tragedy?
Reuters/Corbis
Jimmy Carter.
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of “the resistance.” Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny’s murder would be a turning point in the history of man’s inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of “resistance,” has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words “war on terror” cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism — the ideological license to elevate one’s grievances above the norms of civilized society — was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable “tactical” considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man’s second nature. “In an unfair balance, that’s what people use,” explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel.” Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter’s logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas’s rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: “They should end the occupation.” In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society’s role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera’s management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn’t seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a “resistance” movement, together with honorary membership in PBS’s imaginary “cycle of violence.” In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that “each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man’s terrorism becomes another’s resistance to oppression.” He then stated — without blushing — that for readers of the Hebrew Bible “God-soaked violence became genetically coded.” The “cycle of violence” platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror’s victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas — the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains — to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, “Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza,” to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph — another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny’s picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.
We’ve let the liberals/democrats have a say in the world. That’s what we’ve done that brought us to this. Funny, Jimmy Carter was nearly the worst president we’ve ever had, and he’s most similar in intellect and goals to Obama. God help us.