4 October 2006 @ 9:42AM >> Apparently, Osama and his deputies have been having a tough time lately. Al Qaeda commanders describe their organization as being “weak” and in “a state of paucity.” The laments of the terrorists were communicated to the now-dead leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a letter that originated from bin Laden and his inner circle, PowerLine reports.

Perhaps there are better ways to fight al Qaeda. (Although I have yet to hear them.) Still, if al Qaeda’s leaders are complaining of weakness and a lack of recruits, then we must be doing something right.

3 October 2006 @ 8:52AM >> A headline from the more-true-than-they’d-like-to-admit department: “Al Qaeda Increasingly Reliant on Media“.

28 September 2006 @ 3:08PM >> There have been a lot of press reports lately claiming that by waging a vigorous campaign against terrorists, we’re simply creating more terrorists. Leaving aside the fact that the alternative would seem to be surrender, a recent poll of Iraqis indicates that the press speculation isn’t based on reality:

Overall 94 percent [of Iraqis polled] have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

If our military actions in the Middle East are creating more terrorists, you’d think the place you’d see this most is in Iraq. But I guess not.

13 September 2006 >> In the London Telegraph, Anne Applebaum looks at Europe’s perception of the United States, and how it has changed—and stayed the same—since the days after the September 11th attacks:

Within a couple of days [after the attacks,] a Guardian columnist wrote of the “unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world’s population”. A Daily Mail columnist denounced the “self-sought imperial role” of the United States, which he said had “made it enemies of every sort across the globe”.

That week’s edition of Question Time featured a sustained attack on Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain - and a man who had lost colleagues in the World Trade Centre - who seemed near to tears as he was asked questions about the “millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation”. At least some Britons, like many other Europeans, were already secretly or openly pleased by the 9/11 attacks.

And all of this was before Afghanistan, before Tony Blair was tainted by his friendship with George Bush, and before anyone knew the word “neo-con”, let alone felt the need to claim not to be one.

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for - capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald’s, depending on your point of view - was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America’s “war on terrorism” actually preceded the “war on terrorism” itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

After some future terrorist attack, we’ll hear lots of hand-wringing from people who say that our aggressive foreign policy invited the attack—in effect, we deserved it. But just as Europe’s disdain for America predates our response to 9/11, the hatred of the Jihadis was forged long before we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq.

During the quarter century that preceded the September 11th attacks, U.S. foreign policy towards the Jihadists was quite passive. From President Carter’s helplessness as dozens of Americans were held hostage for 444 days by Islamic revolutionaries in Iran, through the tail-between-the-legs pullouts in Beirut (President Reagan) and Somalia (President Clinton), the default bi-partisan American response to Jihadist provocation was to ignore it or to turn and run. And on the rare occasion that we strayed from that norm, whatever military response we did launch tended to be quite feeble. During this time, Jihadist attacks only grow more frequent and more deadly. Our passivity invited more attacks from people who were trying to get our attention.

And now that the Jihadists got our attention, many in Europe seem to wish they hadn’t. (Or, more accurately, that we’d continue to ignore them.)

I’m afraid that Europe will discover in the coming years that this is not an option. Since 9/11, the American homeland has remained free from attack, but there have been bombs in London and Madrid, riots all over France, a murder over a documentary film, and mass violence over cartoons. These events all have one thing in common, but Europe refuses to see it.

If we do suffer another attack on American soil, it will not be because our foreign policy invited it, but because our military campaign has not yet defeated the enemy. But if Europe is attacked again, it will likely be because they have not yet learned the lesson that we did five years ago.

I think Europe will come closer to America’s point of view...eventually. But unfortunately, it probably won’t be until after the Jihadists get the attention of Europe the way they got ours.

11 September 2006 >> Remember.

5 September 2006 >> On a remarkably clear morning five years ago, New York City came under attack. This video memorial, taken from footage shot by eyewitness David Vogler, shows New Yorkers waking up to that grim reality. Crystal Morning tells the story of September 11th, 2001 through fire and ambulance radio calls, the 911 call of a trapped World Trade Center worker, and the lens of local resident who saw an explosion while walking to work. Video >>

1 September 2006 >> The Inverted Logic Award goes to Hammasa Kohistani, “[t]he first Muslim to be crowned Miss England”:

“Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway.”

Makes sense. No better way to disprove the stereotype than by blowing some people up.

Ms. Kohistani added that “there is this hostility” which comes “mainly from the Government.”

Someone should remind the beauty queen that last summer’s London bombings suggest that “this hostility” might be coming from somewhere besides “the Government.”

Thankfully, there are a number of Muslims far more sensible than Ms. Kohistani:

“This sentiment of denial, that sort of came as a fever to the Muslim community after 9-11, is fading away,” said Muqtedar Khan, a political scientist at the University of Delaware and author of “American Muslims.” “They realize that there are Muslims who use terrorism, and the community is beginning to stand up to this.”

Muslim leaders point to two stark examples of the new mind-set:

A Canadian-born Muslim man worked with police for months investigating a group of Islamic men and youths accused in June of plotting terrorist attacks in Ontario. Mubin Shaikh said he feared any violence would ultimately hurt Islam and Canadian Muslims.

In England, it’s been widely reported that a tip from a British Muslim helped lead investigators to uncover what they said was a plan by homegrown extremists to use liquid explosives to destroy U.S.-bound planes.

[...]

Salam al-Marayati, executive director of Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles, says working closely with authorities underscores that Muslims are not outsiders to be feared. It also gives Muslims a way to directly air their concerns about how they’re treated by the government.

“We’re not on opposite teams,” al-Marayati said. “We’re all trying to protect our country from another terrorist attack.”

In 2004, his group started the “National Anti-Terrorism Campaign,” urging Muslims to monitor their own communities, speak out more boldly against violence and work with law enforcement. Hundreds of U.S. mosques have signed on, al-Marayati said.

[...]

Imam Muhammad Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said he has tried to address this problem in the eight mosques he oversees in the Orlando area.

He regularly invites law enforcement officials to speak with local Muslims and encourages mosque members to come to him with any suspicions, even if they overhear something said in jest. Musri says he also speaks regularly with local FBI and police to establish a relationship in case a real threat emerges.

“Here in Central Florida, talking to most people, they are literally upset by the actions of Muslims—or so-called Muslims—overseas in Europe and the Middle East, because they say, ‘We wish they would come and see how we’re doing here,’” Musri said. “We know who the real enemy is—someone who might come from the outside and try to infiltrate us. Everybody is on the lookout.”

28 August 2006 @ 2:02PM >> Item 1: Despite the fact that a previous U.N. resolution ordered the disarmament of all non-governmental militias in Lebanon, Secretary General Kofi Annan says that the U.N. will not disarm Hizbollah. “Troops are not going in there to disarm — let’s be clear,” the U.N. leader said. Lebanon’s army is expected to disarm Hizbollah, the U.N. says, even though Lebanon’s own president says that his government will do no such thing. So, in other words, Israel settled for a cease-fire in which the U.N. gives Hizbollah more leeway than it had before the war. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Item 2: A United Nations group called UNIFIL, the same group whose positions were used by Hizbollah to launch rockets into Israel, broadcast real-time Israeli troop and armaments movements during the recent war. Oddly, the U.N. group offered no such level of detail about Hizbollah’s operations, even though Hizbollah has a history of operating within several yards of UNIFIL. Anyone with an Internet connection could find this treasure-trove of military intelligence, but the information was really only valuable to people interested in fighting the Israeli army. Who wants to bet that UNIFIL is in Hizbollah’s bookmarks folder?

Long ago, the United Nations passed the point of being a joke. Now it’s a tragedy.

17 August 2006 @ 7:30AM >> Today’s issue of Los Angeles Times carries a manifesto in the form of a full-page ad signed by 85 Hollywood bigwigs.

I know what you’re thinking: maybe they’re complaining about low-thread-count linens for the prisoners Guantanamo Bay or the hurtful stereotyping of people named Osama.

Well, sit down and prepare yourself for a shock. This group of not-quite-100 honchos has issued a political statement the likes of which I’ve never seen from Hollywood: they’ve actually managed to point their fingers at a culprit that isn’t America or its evil, chimp-like leader.

Believe it or not, the people behind this ad argue that we need to “stop terrorism at all costs”, and they place the blame squarely on “terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”

The folks lending their signature to this startling declaration include Nicole Kidman and:

Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Danny De Vito, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton and William Hurt.

Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names.

Other Hollywood powerplayers supporting the ad included Sumner Redstone, the chairman and majority owner of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul, Haim Saban.

Hats off to all of them for recognizing terrorism for what it is, and that it must be stopped “at all costs” or “chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.”

Acknowledging that there are millions of people who want to kill you just because you want to live differently from them is an uncomfortable leap for a lot of people, one that’s much easier to ignore...especially for people whose careers require them to live in a fantasy world.

I don’t know if Hollywood as a whole is waking up to reality yet, but more and more sensible Westerners are, and there are bound to be some entertainers among them.

Frankly, it gives me a little hope that we might someday find the fortitude required to face this enemy directly and act relentlessly to defeat it.

Unfortunately, that day is still very far off.

16 August 2006 >> Think there aren’t any supporters of terrorism right here in the United States? Think again.

Unfortunately, this scene is quite familiar to me.

11 August 2006 @ 8:53AM >> The Quote of the Day, “Should’ve stayed on the weed,” is from Glenn Reynolds, in response to this tidbit about one of the people plotting yesterday’s thwarted terrorist attack:

Neighbors identified one of the suspects as Don Stewart-Whyte, 21, from High Wycombe, a convert who changed his name to Abdul Waheed.

“He converted to Islam about six months ago and grew a full beard,” said a neighbor, who refused to be identified. “He used to smoke weed and drink a lot but he is completely different now.”

10 August 2006 >> Since the attacks of September 11th, many Americans have been wondering when the next big attack would come. This morning, America woke up to the news that a coordinated attack—what intelligence officials referred to as “the big one”—might have been thwarted.

Time Magazine reports that the “U.S. picked up the suspects’ chatter and shared it with British authorities,” who then rounded up 24 people who were involved in planning simultaneous attacks on 9 different planes:

Their plan was to smuggle the peroxide-based liquid explosive TATP and detonators onto nine different planes from four carriers — British Airways, Continental, United and American — that fly direct routes between the U.K and the U.S. and blow them up mid-air. Intelligence officials estimate that about 2,700 people would have perished, according to the official.

Britain’s MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters’ planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group’s communications.

I’m waiting for the media to start demanding answers from our elected officials: Were these intercepts constitutional? Was anyone’s phone tapped? Were warrants necessary and were they obtained properly?

Sure, 2,700 people might have been saved, but at what cost to our principles?

9 August 2006 >> Is there any room in the Democratic Party for a candidate who is strong on defense and aggressive in the War on Terror? Democratic primary voters in Connecticut have answered that question with a resounding no. Senator Joseph Lieberman—one of the few prominent Democrats who understands the existential threat posed by radical Islam—has just been defeated by a left-wing pacifist named Ned Lamont.

Considering Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President just six years ago, this is quite a fall. So he’s ditching the party and running as an independent.

Despite the fact that I disagree with Lieberman on a great many issues, he understands the stakes in the only issue that really matters. We can shy away from this clash of civilizations, but that doesn’t mean our enemies will. And if nuclear bombs start going off in American cities—a very real possibility within the next ten years—then political disagreements on things like taxes are going to be meaningless.

I think this is a great loss for Connecticut, for Democrats, and for America. If we’re going to get serious about dealing with the Jihadists, we need more people like Lieberman in both parties. It’s too bad they’re no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

31 July 2006 @ 11:52AM >> Apropos of this post from last week, here are pictures showing how Hizbollah uses residential areas to launch attacks:

The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.

[...]

The images include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry.

Others show a militant with AK47 rifle guarding no-go zones after Israeli blitzes.

Another depicts the remnants of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket in the middle of a residential block blown up in an Israeli air attack.

The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

“Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets,” he said.

“Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.

“It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more.”

The release of the images comes as Hezbollah faces criticism for allegedly using innocent civilians as “human shields”.

29 July 2006 @ 12:26PM >> The New York Times is reporting that Oliver Stone (”the director of [two] antiwar movies”) is getting praise for his World Trade Center film from some unlikely sources:

L. Brent Bozell III, president of the conservative Media Research Center and founder of the Parents Television Council — best known for its campaigns against indecency on television and for stiffer penalties on broadcasters — called it “a masterpiece” and sent an e-mail message to 400,000 people saying, “Go see this film.”

Cal Thomas, the syndicated columnist, wrote last Thursday that it was “one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.”

[...]

To top it all off, a writer on The National Review’s Web site, Clifford D. May, actually wrote the words “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

This about a filmmaker whose conspiratorial tirades — not to mention his hyperviolent “Natural Born Killers,” polarizing political films “J. F. K.” and “Nixon,” and the lesser-known television documentary on Fidel Castro — have driven conservatives batty for decades. Only last year, The Washington Times, in an editorial, called the hiring of the “conspiracy-addled” Mr. Stone a “maliciously inspired choice” to direct “World Trade Center.”

The film isn’t out yet, so I can’t judge it for myself. But when the project was announced, I do remember thinking that Oliver Stone was a poor choice for a film about September 11th. (Fortunately, I didn’t write about it, so there’s no embarrassing rant to sheepishly recant.)

And that reminded me, we all have our own knee-jerk reactions and personal biases, even those of us who make a hobby out of pointing out the biases that exist elsewhere.

I’ll watch the film, simply because I’d like to be surprised by someone like Oliver Stone. It’s a healthy thing when your prejudices are proven wrong.

28 July 2006 @ 8:54AM >> Earlier this week, four U.N. officials were killed in Lebanon by an apparent Israeli airstrike. Within hours of the event, U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan announced his belief that Israel had deliberately targeted the U.N. personnel. Annan demanded that “any further attack on U.N. positions and personnel must stop.”

Yesterday, strong evidence came to light suggesting that Hizbollah was effectively using the U.N. position as a shield, conducting attacks against Israel, knowing that any Israeli response was likely to hit the U.N. post. The New York Sun reports that one of the U.N. officials killed in the attack had earlier sent e-mails saying that Hizbollah was “all over” his position. The recipient of those e-mails, a former major-general in the Canadian military named Lewis MacKenzie, described their contents:

“What he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them, and that’s a favorite trick by people who don’t have representation in the U.N. They use the U.N. as shields knowing that they cannot be punished for it.”

To Hizbollah, civilians and U.N. positions are strategic assets. The terrorist group routinely launches attacks from residential areas and near U.N. posts. Hizbollah knows that this puts Israel in a bind: if Israel decides to respond, that response will provide a tear-jerking scene for the evening news where the headline will be “Israeli Bomb Kills Civilians,” or “U.N. Officials Killed in Israeli Airstrike.” But if Israel backs down out of a fear of how the media will report the story, then Hizbollah gets a safe haven where they can launch attacks with impunity. Hizbollah wins either way, with a propaganda victory or a military one.

Of course, to any fair-minded person, it is obvious that Hizbollah bears the responsibility for the deaths of those U.N. officials. It’s too bad the U.N. doesn’t have a leader who understands that.

22 July 2006 @ 4:21PM >> Sheesh. I can’t even take a week off without war breaking out.

Of course, to those who’ve been paying attention, this is not a new war. Israel has been under siege since the founding of the modern state in 1948. The war has never been about the plight of Palestinians. If the Palestinians wanted to live side-by-side with Israel in peace, then the Oslo peace accords would have worked. When Oslo didn’t stick, and Israel offered virtually everything Yassir Arafat demanded, the Palestinian leader instead rejected peace and launched an intifada. If Israel’s neighbors truly wanted peace, then why didn’t Israel’s retreat from Palestinian territory secure it? Why is every Israeli compromise and concession followed by more war?

Because Israel’s enemies will not be satisfied with anything less than the country’s complete destruction. They believe Israel is an illegitimate state and that no infidel has a valid claim to what they believe should be Muslim land. But to any fair-minded person, a cursory look at history settles that debate quite easily, as Judith Weiss points out:

Half of Israel’s Jewish population is Arab Jews, not European Jews. How come there are Arab Jews? Because they were in Israel/Judea before Arabs became Muslim. In fact, they were the Jews before various historical events scattered and exiled some of them, one destination being Europe. [...]

The earliest verifiably Jewish artifacts in Israel date to 1500 years before it was conquered by Islam. Contemporary documents and archeological finds verify some Biblical history, and show evidence of Jews in Persia 1000 years before it was conquered by Islam, in Babylonia (later Iraq) 1000 years before it was conquered by Islam, and in Egypt (especially Alexandria) during the Roman Empire, before Egypt was conquered by Islam. Even the Koran acknowledges that Jews were living in Arabia before Mohammed decided to create a new religion, and there is evidence for Jewish residence in what are now Arab countries dating back to Solomonic times.

Don’t expect any of this to satisfy the likes of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These facts won’t sway Hamas, the terrorist organization that the Palestinians recently elected to govern them. Nor will these facts stem the never-ending volley of rockets that have been raining down on Israel from Hizbollah-controlled areas in southern Lebanon.

Yes, in the two years since the U.N. flaccidly ordered militias like Hizbollah to disarm, the group has inexplicably failed to do so. It’s almost as if terrorists have no respect for the authority of the United Nations! Shocking, I know; I assumed the threat of more speechifying from Secretary General Kofi Annan would be enough to cause even the most militant fanatic to lay down his arms. But I guess the U.N. isn’t as potent as I thought.

Which leads to the current problem. After Syria—Hizbollah’s terror co-sponsor with Iran—withdrew its occupation forces from Lebanon last year, optimism abounded in that newly-independent state, but the state proved too weak to secure its own southern territory. So Lebanon became a broken nation. And, just as the failed state of Afghanistan made it succumb to the Taliban and al Qaeda, Hizbollah succeeded in turning southern Lebanon into its terror playground.

With the backing of Syria and Iran, the playground bully has become quite strong. Hizbollah has already fired thousands of missiles into Israel, and thanks to weapons from Iran, the group now appears capable of hitting every major Israeli population center. And now that Iran looks to be on a fast track to becoming a nuclear power, within the next five or ten years, Hizbollah—if it still exists—could be dropping Iranian nukes on Israel.

When Hizbhollah operatives recently ventured into Israeli territory to kidnap two soldiers, they weren’t just violating the borders of a sovereign nation, they were trying to show the Israeli people that not only was their military incapable of protecting civilians, they weren’t even capable of protecting themselves. Against the backdrop of the missile attacks, Israel interpreted this as what it was: yet another act of war. And this time, Israel responded with a forceful attack on Hizbollah positions inside Lebanon.

But many are now criticizing Israel, saying that the country’s response is not proportional to the provocation, as if the provocation hasn’t been ongoing for years. Pretending that Hizbollah’s only crime is capturing two Israeli soldiers requires quite a bit of historical amnesia. But to the wishy-washy handwringers at the U.N., that amnesia is required; without it, they might actually be forced to take a stand. They might actually have to do something besides laundering money for Saddam Hussein and selling 12-year-old girls into sexual slavery. But, of course, the U.N. will do nothing useful; what do you expect from a world body where terror regimes like Iran and Syria get the same vote as Canada and Finland?

Cease-fires and negotiated peaces have been tried. Throughout history, world opinion repeatedly forces Israel into bargains with adversaries who use “peacetime” to build strength. No matter how many handshakes, strained smiles and photo ops each new peace deal yields, Israel’s enemies invariably come back and attack later. And no matter how much land Israel gives up—and they’ve given up quite a bit of strategically-important land in their many futile attempts to buy peace—groups like Hizbollah will not be satisfied with anything less than the destruction of the Israeli nation.

That’s why a cease-fire, the proposed solution of people who see no moral distinction between the actions of Hizbollah and Israel, has the effect of undermining Israel’s security. Hizbollah won’t perceive a cease-fire as a cooling-off period before joining Israel on a road towards peace, they’ll just see it as a brief pause in a continuing war, a time-out they can use to start rolling more Iranian rockets towards the Israeli border. And if Hizbollah manages to hold on to southern Lebanon until Iran can produce a nuclear weapon, is there any doubt that they’ll use it? Terrorists aren’t usually known for their restraint. And yet the world is demanding restraint from Israel, which is merely trying to prevent that day from coming.

You can’t negotiate peace with an enemy whose only goal is your destruction. The end result of a cease-fire will not be peace. A cease-fire merely puts off the inevitable for a future day when the stakes are higher. If Hizbollah is not destroyed, and if the current regimes in Iran and Syria maintain power long enough to produce a nuclear weapon and a way to deliver it to Israel, you can be damn sure that weapon will be used. Iran’s president has virtually guaranteed it.

So when the rest of the world demands restraint from Israel, it makes me wonder: would any other country put up with living like the Israelis have for decades? If suicide bombs and lobbed rockets were exploding all over France with such regularity, would we expect the French to sit by and do nothing? Okay, bad example. But you get my point.

As long as the mullahs control Iran and the Baathists control Syria, they will use proxies like Hizbollah to wage war on Israel. Unfortunately, the reality is, this war is inevitable. And it goes beyond Hizbollah. Ultimately, Syria and Iran must be confronted. It can happen today, next year, or sometime after Iran has acquired nukes. As far as the fate of Israel is concerned, this war better play out before the mullahs get the bomb. After that, it’ll be too late.

When will the world wake up and realize that ignoring the Jihadists does not make them go away? People don’t seem to learn until the bombs start blowing up their own cities. And even then, the lesson is quickly forgotten. But if the last five years has taught the world anything, it’s that the hatred of the Jihadists isn’t limited to Israel. And this bone-deep hatred won’t magically vanish if Israel disappears under a mushroom cloud. No, if you’re an infidel, you’re on the list. The only question is how long it’ll take them to get to you.

7 July 2006 @ 3:06PM >> Although former Taliban spokesman Rahmatullah Hashemi has been rejected from Yale’s Eli Whitney Students Program, the current Yale student is being invited back for another year in Yale’s non-degree studies program:

Hashemi, 27, spent last year studying at Yale through the Nondegree Students Program. He can return to Yale and remain in that program next year if he wishes, Tatiana Maxwell — president of the International Education Foundation, which was created to fund Hashemi’s schooling at Yale — told The New York Times. Hashemi gained national attention when The New York Times Magazine ran a profile of Hashemi as its cover story in February.

[...]

John Fund, a Wall Street Journal columnist who has been covering the Hashemi controversy, said the decision seems to placate all parties involved.

“It is a purposefully muddled end,” Fund wrote in an e-mail. “I think everyone here is trying to save face ...Yale can claim they didn’t bend to pressure, sponsors can claim he can still get his U.S. education.”

[...]

While some students and teachers — including many of those who interacted directly with Hashemi — supported his presence at Yale, others did not view the issue as favorably. Two alumni, Clint Taylor ‘96 and Debbie Bookstaber ‘00, launched a campaign and Weblog called NailYale — a name that makes reference to the rumored Taliban practice of removing the nails of women who wear noticeable nail polish — encouraging alumni to forego donations to Yale until the University’s decision to admit Hashemi was more fully explained. Members of Yale’s Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Taliban man, go home!” for their year-end TANG competition this spring.

[...]

Taylor, who has been critical of Yale’s decision to allow Hashemi on campus from the start, said Yale likely felt the pressure of the building dissent about Hashemi’s presence at Yale.

6 July 2006 >> The New York Times’s publishing the details of our efforts to track terrorist finances seems to have struck a nerve with Americans. Nearly two weeks after the story broke, it is still a hot topic of discussion on political chat shows and the Internet. There is even a protest planned outside the Times headquarters next Monday.

Brain Terminal readers are also weighing in. Mike Thorneburg writes:

I just read your 30 June ”The Times and the Spy Loophole” post on Brain Terminal. In reference to your hunch that the public will be calling for some heads to roll at the publishing of The Times’ next treasonous diatribe, my suspicion is that we’re already sharpening the axes.

We should have demanded from our legislators a full accounting of the Times’ expose of the phone database program which is (was) a completely legal and successful method of monitoring the nature of calls placed to and received from terrorist countries by persons living in the United States. Moreover, I think many of us have missed the really big picture here and that is: WHO INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION OR ACROSS THE AISLE IS LEAKING THIS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO THE PRESS? That’s what I really want to know.

Given their track record, I certainly wouldn’t dismiss desperate liberals and Dems, anxious to regain their political power, from abandoning our country’s security in order to attempt to discredit the administration and have it appear that President Bush and his appointees are abusing their power and usurping the general rights of the citizenry. After all, The Times’ story said nothing of this program being illegal nor did it allege any wrongdoing by the program’s developers or administrators. The article was simply a cheap shot at oneupmanship by an arrogant New York elitist culture hell bent on shoving its own particular leftist agenda down our throats. We should press our leaders for a full investigation of the story and demand they find out WHO is leaking information about these classified programs so that they can be hauled into court and prosecuted.

[...]

As for the Bill Kellers of the world, fortunately, we have long been a few steps ahead of them. We’re not so naive that we can’t smell the stench coming from the press barn. Mr. Keller has proven himself time and again an adversary to most mainstream Americans and part of the problem, not the solution. In my book, he’s a traitor and a pig, more concerned with selling papers and stroking his own ego than keeping America informed.

John adds:

I’m over here in Iraq and read your article today and have one question that I’m sure has been asked before (but I’m asking it again): If the NYT received classified information in advance of the operation that killed [Abu Musab al-Zarqawi], would they have published it, thus letting [Zarqawi] make his getaway, set up an ambush, or worse, both?  Yet, in a roundabout way, that is exactly what they are doing in the publishing of these stories.  And not only are they hiding behind the first amendment, but there doesn’t seem to be any investigation that I’ve heard of to prosecute their source(s).

Yesterday I witnessed the immediate aftermath of an [improvised explosive device].  Thankfully, no one was killed, yet one soldier was injured.  These attacks, as you point out, were made possible because of the financing.  It takes money to make even a terrorist’s world go ‘round.  Sure, the terrorists know there are programs designed to track their finances.  But I’m sure they don’t have as detailed a picture as they’d like so as to counter and change their tactics.  The NYT was happy to accomodate them, however.  And, in that same roundabout way, one of our soldiers is now in the hospital.

All the muck that’s fit to rake.

Lastly, “DiggaFromDover” sums up the situation with:

Freedom without responsibility is journalism.

Other than Dan Rather’s bogus memos, I can’t recall any other media action that caused this level of anger among e-mailers. While Dan Rather’s memos were intended to defeat a particular politician—President Bush—the actions of the Times put the entire country at risk by making it harder to identify and track terrorists as they move around the globe. And you don’t have to be a fan of President Bush to be disgusted with that.

30 June 2006 >> If you as a private citizen came into the exact same information that the Times eventually published, but instead of publishing it, you passed it along to an al Qaeda operative in a dark alley somewhere, you would be guilty of treason and could be executed. Yet, Bill Keller seems to think that “freedom of the press” amounts to one huge legal exemption—the espionage laws do not apply to him!—and by being chosen by a handful of old-money New Yorkers to edit a newspaper, he is somehow in better position to decide what is in the public interest than the government officials that we the people elected to act on our behalf. More >>

26 June 2006 >> A letter to The New York Times:

Your recent decision to publish information about a classified program intended to track the banking transactions of possible terrorists is not only detrimental to America but also to its fighting men and women overseas. I know because I am a sergeant in the army on my second tour to Iraq. As I am sure you don’t know because you aren’t in Iraq, and I am sure never will be, terrorism happens here everyday because there are rich men out there willing to support the everyday terrorist who plants bombs and shoots soldiers just to make a living. Without money terrorism in Iraq would die because there would no longer be supplies for IEDs, no mortars or RPGs, and no motivation for people to abandon regular work in hopes of striking it rich after killing a soldier.

Throughout your article you mention that “the banking program is a closely held secret” but the cat is out of the bag now isn’t it. Terrorists the world over can now change their practices because of your article. For some reason I think that last sentence will bring you guys pleasure. You have done something great in your own eyes-you think you have hurt the current administration while at the same time encouraging “freedom fighters” resisting the imperialism of the United States. However, I foresee a backlash coming your way. I wish I had a subscription to your paper so I could cancel it as soon as possible.

Well, one prominent L.A. blogger exacted that punishment against the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, an interesting observation:

Because the war on terror is fought in a peacetime atmosphere, treason can be presented as dissent, and you can get away with it.

And finally, on a ligher note, a little mockery.

21 June 2006 @ 5:57PM >> Last week, I posted some e-mails received in response to “Why Do They Hate Us?” Although those e-mails took issue with my article, it’s always refreshing to read an argument that is literate and informed, even if it is tinged with bit of condescension.

Unfortunately, most of the arguments that end up in my inbox don’t quite live up to that standard. Case in point, this note from an Australian e-mail account listed only as “LDupont2”:

Dear Mr. Coyne,

I read your article on Why do They hate us? and would wish to point out to you that they hate us because we are hypocrisy. The rest of the World used to look to the United States for leadership. I remember during Clinton leadership that yes I would gladly acquiesce to America being the leader of the free world Clinton was so statuesque so intelligent, so charismatic then he leaves office and what do you present me with a Bush cabal of mental midgets. Sadam as you know had no WMD yet our troops are locked in a battle to the death with the Iraqis and the Iranians are licking their lips. They hate us because we can no longer command their respect. Our soldiers like the Jews bomb people’s houses murder innocent women and children. They hate us because despite our 500lbs bombs we couldn’t even kill Zawquari. He lived long enough to embrace death and his martydom 52 minutes and the cause of his actual demise is arbituary

Thanks for that healthy round of hearty guffaws.

The fact that the United States was so respected during the Clinton Administration must explain all these terrorist attacks that didn’t happen during his presidency.

23 May 2006 >> First, let’s define “they.” For the purposes of this article, “they” refers to Jihadists: a radical subset of Muslims who believe it is their duty to kill anyone who refuses to abide by their religious law. Coincidentally, “they” are responsible for a disproportionate share of the terrorist attacks around the world, as un-politically-correct as this might be to recognize.

Now that we know who “they” are, who’s “us”? Even though the “us” that “they” hate pretty much amounts to all of Western society, I will take “us” to mean the United States, since in the eyes of many in the non-Western world, the U.S. symbolizes Western society. But as the ongoing terrorist attacks worldwide prove, people are grossly misinformed if they believe the United States is the only country the Jihadists wish to destroy. More >>

22 May 2006 @ 7:31PM >> A few links worthy of reading:

• The website TimesWatch says that New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger apologized to graduates of SUNY New Paltz for failing to stop the Iraq war. (And here I was naively thinking that the purpose of a newspaper was to report the news, not to prevent the implementation of American foreign policy.)
• German magazine Der Spiegel reports that Latin America is becoming increasingly dominated by organized crime.
• According to this report from ABC News, the Palestinian Territories may be on the verge of civil war.
• The London Times reports that al Qaeda is specifically targeting Christian children for kidnapping. The children are then sold into domestic slavery and the sex trade, with al Qaeda pocketing the profits.
• As the Mexican government threatens to sue the United States for enforcing immigration laws, it is banning non-Mexicans from being employed within the country.
• Meanwhile, nearly 15% of the Mexico’s labor force is now working within the United States.

3 May 2006 @ 6:56PM >> Convicted September 11th co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was spared the death penalty. His reaction:

“America, you lost. I won!” Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left.

There are those who believe that the fight against Jihadist terrorism should be handled by law enforcement, as though al Qaeda were the mafia. To me, that’s naive and dangerous thinking.

You can’t win a war in court. Just ask Zacarias Moussaoui.

20 April 2006 @ 10:40AM >> Blogger Meryl Yourish takes an extensive look at the innards of the bombs used by Palestinian suicide bombers. She quotes one article that discusses x-rays of suicide bombing victims:

[Dr. Michael] Messing said one of the victims he saw while in Jerusalem had around 300 individual metallic fragments within his body. The metal fragments, measuring from millimeters to centimeters, were imbedded in the young man literally from head to toe, he said.

“Several of the fragments penetrated into his vital organs. He sustained a punctured colon, a collapsed lung, and a lacerated liver and kidney. I could actually feel the nails under his skin where they had burrowed and lodged,” Messing recalls.

Yourish cites the recent Palestinian suicide bombing in Israel, which killed nine and injured many dozens.

Shrapnel is what killed Phillip Balhasan, who stayed alive long enough to realize his children had survived, and to hug them tightly before he collapsed.

But even this is not enough for the terrorists. They also soak the shrapnel in rat poison, because it causes hemorrhaging — victims may bleed to death before they can get to the hospital.

The new Palestinian government, run by the terrorist group Hamas, actually endorsed the recent suicide bombing, thereby making it clear that terrorism is an official state policy of the Palestinians, something I predicted would happen shortly after the election of the Hamas government. (Terrorism has been an unofficial tactic of Palestinian leaders for years, but for purposes of plausible deniability, the old government of Yassir Arafat never stated it publicly. That’s what kept the aid money coming in.)

Yourish concludes:

Remember all of this, when you hear the world tell Israel to “use restraint” in responding to this attack. [...]

Remember all of this, when Israel is the nation that is demonized by the blind, hateful people who wear checked kaffiyehs at anti-war protests, and call Israel an “apartheid state” for building a separation barrier — to keep out the monsters who would use bombs like I have just described.

Remember this, when you look at the pictures of the results of the bombing, and notice the thousands of dents in the metal surrounding the bombing area — the mark of the ball-bearings and other metal shrapnel.

These are the people with whom the world sympathizes: Those who create and set off the bombs. Not the victims. The bombers.

And that’s the worst evil of all.

I would just correct Ms. Yourish that not all the world sympathizes with Palestinian terrorists. The United Nations does, much of the European Union does, the American left does. But not everyone. There’s still some hope left.

24 March 2006 @ 12:01PM >> At the same time that Yale was petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the school to continue its ban on military recruiters visiting campus, the university was also educating the unrepentant former spokesman for the Taliban at a 40% discount.

Yale’s argument against the recruiters was that, because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards gays, the military is a discriminatory institution that violates the school’s non-discrimination policy and therefore can’t be allowed on campus.

It would be a lot easier to believe Yale was standing on principle if the school wasn’t simultaneously hosting an official of the Taliban, a regime that executed people for being gay and cut off the fingers of women who wore nail polish.

I guess we now know: if given the choice between supporting gay rights or supporting America’s enemies, Yale will choose the latter.

Of course, it would be nice to get the school’s perspective on this, but beyond a brief non-statement, the Yale administration isn’t talking.

So yesterday, I went to Yale to see if I could entice any university officials to speak on camera. Not surprisingly, I was met with silence, a door slammed in my face, and eventually, the police.

The video will be released in the upcoming film Indoctrinate U. In the meantime, we’ve posted a write-up and some pictures at the On The Fence Films website.

17 March 2006 @ 11:40AM >> One of the reasons the nation is so divided politically is that we can’t even agree on the exact nature of the War on Terror. Some people recognize it as a war, others see it as a law enforcement matter, and some believe the whole thing is a sham. More >>

14 March 2006 @ 10:29AM >> The Washington Times reports that Saddam Hussein sure talked a lot about a weapons program he supposedly didn’t have:

Audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and his aides underscore the Bush administration’s argument that Baghdad was determined to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction once the international community had tired of inspections and left the Iraqi dictator alone.

In addition to the captured tapes, U.S. officials are analyzing thousands of pages of newly translated Iraqi documents that tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s.

The documents also speak of burying prohibited missiles, according to a government official familiar with the declassification process.

[...]

“The tapes show that Saddam rebuilt his program and successfully prevented the U.N. from finding out about it,” he said.

There also exists a quote from the dictator himself, who ordered the tapings to keep a record of his inner-sanctum discussions, that Mr. Tierney thinks shows Saddam planned to use a proxy to attack the United States.

“Terrorism is coming ... with the Americans,” Saddam said. “With the Americans, two years ago, not a long while ago, with the English I believe, there was a campaign ... with one of them, that in the future there would be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.”

[...]

So far, the tapes do not shed light on what ultimately happened to Saddam’s large stocks of weapons of mass destruction. None were found by the ISG, whose director, Charles Duelfer, filed a final report in 2004.

Some pundits and recently retired military officers are convinced that Saddam moved his remaining weapons to Syria. They cite satellite photos of lines of trucks heading into the neighboring country before the invasion and the fact Saddam positioned his trusted Iraqi Intelligence Service agents at border crossings.

This news reminds me of a little-noticed Chicago Tribune analysis released at the end of last year:

After reassessing the administration’s nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of “the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq.” We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

13 March 2006 >> Dr. Wafa Sultan has tremendous courage. And she’ll probably be killed for it.

The New York Times reports that a fatwa has been issued against this psychiatrist from southern California for “blaspheming Islam.” And now, her answering machine is filling up:

One message said: “Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see.” She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, “If someone were to kill you, it would be me.”

Her crime? Criticizing radical Islam.

She knows to take these threats seriously.

Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood.

But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ ” she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”

She recently found the spotlight on herself for speaking out against terrorism:

An angry essay [on an Islamic reform web site] by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.

In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. “Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?” she asked. “In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched.”

But it was a February appearance on Al Jazeera that led to her present danger:

Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”

She went on, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.”

She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

This is not the sort of criticism that certain people take lightly. And with modern communications carrying Dr. Sultan’s words around the globe, we see that Sharia law is in effect even against this woman in southern California. It doesn’t matter whether the aggrieved are in Egypt, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. To them, Sharia law applies anywhere. That’s the lesson of the cartoons.

Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we are currently in the middle of a war that could last 50 or 100 years. Or much less, depending on who gets their hands on nukes. That’s the chilling future Western civilization faces. Unless, of course, there are more brave people like Dr. Sultan who are willing to stand up, be heard, and—most likely, unfortunately—sacrifice themselves for a more hopeful future, one in which the power center of Islam is driven by people of peace.

Maybe there are a billion Muslims who want to peacefully coexist with the rest of the world, but a billion pacifists can’t defeat a million fanatics if the peace-loving among them won’t stand up for what they believe is right. True pacifism means sacrificing yourself for peace, not keeping your mouth shut and hoping the fanatics magically disappear. Pacifism is laying down your life to increase the chances of peace for those who remain. Outside the facile pacifism of the flabby West, the way of the true pacifist is no easier than the way of the warrior.

Dr. Sultan is a warrior for peace. She understands that her words may have committed her to death. Yet she spoke, because she knew it was right, and she hoped that it would encourage others to stand up and do the same. We’ve seen a shocking number of Muslims sacrifice themselves by blowing themselves up or flying themselves into buildings. Let’s hope there are more Dr. Sultans in the Muslim world than Mohammad Attas. Only Muslims can reform Islam. And only Islamic reform or Western submission will end this war. What’ll it be?