Are Muslims Infidels?

Paul Eidelberg

It’s always a pleasure reading the lucid and logical Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial. The title of his latest book , Against All Gods: What’s Right and Wrong About the New Atheism (2010), is co-authored with John Mark Reynolds. Johnson writes in the Introduction:

Our position in this book is that the arguments for atheism should be taken seriously and considered both respectfully and critically. One of the healthy aspects of the current atheist movement is that the atheists who are selling so many books say that they want everything to be put on the table for criticism, with nothing held back as too sensitive for such examination. They say that they deplore the fact that in some circles it is considered unacceptable to criticize a religion because somebody might be offended.

Contrast this statement with the attitude of Muslims to any criticism of their religion. Notice the “political correctness” or lack of intellectual integrity or courage on the party of so many pundits, professors, and politicians on the subject of Islam. Despite the awesome threat of Islam to the United States (and to Western civilization as a whole), hardly a word was said about Islam during the 2008 US presidential campaign—and we all know about the religious integrity of Barack. Obama, a Muslim as well as professed Christian who sonorously attended the irreverent sermons of Jeremiah Wright.

We also know about the Danish Cartoons, and how they aroused the wrath and violence of Muslims hither and yon. Contrast Jews who, century after century, have been burned at the stake, whose Torah scrolls and sacred books have been cast into the flames; Jews who, down through ages, have been the victims of vilification and pogroms. And yet, have you ever heard of their taking revenge on their tormentors? Have you noticed Jewish self-restraint against Arab terrorists despite the overwhelming power of the Israel Defense Forces? Nothing like this in history.

So what is there in his psyche that indices the Muslim to wreak the cruelest slaughter of “infidels”— mutilating men, women, and children and even exult in such barbarism?

It’s not enough to say, as the gallant scholar Bat Ye’or has said, that Islam is a “culture of hate.” It’s not enough to say, as the marvelous Brigitte Gabriel has written, Because They Hate—the title of one of her books. Nor is it enough to attribute Muslim hatred to A God Who Hates—the title of a book by the courageous Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan.

Of course, Muslims, having lost their erstwhile imperial glory, are now animated by envy of the Christian West, which has excelled Islam in so many ways. We know of their undying hatred of Western colonialism in the Islamic Middle East. We know how the Jews rejected Muhammad’s pretensions as the prophet of a new religion. Oh, how Muslims hate the Children of Israel—and with an overwhelmingly theological hatred! Which means they hate the God of Israel! That’s why Muslims compulsively intone the words “Allahu Akbar,” to convince themselves that Allah is the “greatest god”!

So let me offer a new and provocative hypothesis. Perhaps what animates the Muslim’s murderous hatred of “infidels” is that he himself is an infidel, meaning, he does not harbor in his soul unwavering belief in Allah and Islam? Perhaps he is tormented by a vague suspicion that all his beliefs or professions about Allah and Islam are a self-delusion. Perhaps this is the most fundamental reason why he loves death and exults in martyrdom.

There is only one way to deal with a mass delusion.

Martin Indyk: A Commentary on Post-Modern Education*

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

To avoid misunderstanding, I must say at the outset that I am not interested in Martin Indyk per se, if only because I do not regard him as worthy of my attention. But since pundits take Indyk seriously, perhaps they may be enlightened if I use him to reveal the basic cause of Israel’s and America’s malaise. Hence, a brief bio of Indyk is necessary, for which Wikipedia will suffice.

Indyk was born in 1951 to a Jewish family in England, but grew up and was educated in Australia. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1972 and received a PhD in international relations from the Australian National University in 1977. He immigrated to the United States and later gained American citizenship in 1993.

He has taught at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He also served as special assistant to U.S. President Bill Clinton (whose administration, according to military theorist and former U.S. Army Colonel Ralph Peters, was “the most cowardly administration in history,” having failed to react vigorously to terrorist attacks on U.S. forces abroad, a failure leading to 9/11.)

Returning to Clinton adviser Martin Indyk, he also served as senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the United States National Security Council. While at the NSC, he served as principal adviser to the President and the National Security Advisor on Arab-Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran, and South Asia. He served two stints as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997 and from January 2000 to July 2001.

Writing in the New York Times, and interviewed by Israel Army Radio on April 22, Indyk blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the rift with the Obama administration. He went so far as to say “Israel has to adjust its policy to the interests of the United States.” Since I am anything but a fan of Netanyahu, this report should not be deemed a defense of Bibi.

Notwithstanding Indyk’s education and his experience in the American executive department, he appears abysmally ignorant of facts documented in American sources and confirmed by U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye and former Chief of U.S Air Force Intelligence George Keegan that dollar for dollar, Israel gives more to the U.S. than the U.S. gives to Israel—to say nothing of the overt and covert U.S. military aid to Israel’s enemies, including the Palestinian Authority.

Like his Washington handlers, Indyk has long advocated a Palestinian state, even though one does not require military expertise to arrive at a former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conclusion that such a state would endanger Israel’s existence. This is why Netanyahu insists that an Arab Palestinian state must be demilitarized and barred from forming alliances with any Arab regime.

Never mind that no Palestinian leader would survive a day if he accepted such terms. Consider only the fact that Indyk wants Israel to negotiate with the PA, whose mentality and behavior have been shaped by Islamic scriptures permeated by murderous hatred of “infidels,” especially Jews. Hence, I am not impressed by Indyk’s academic credentials and experience in the Clinton government, no more than George Orwell was impressed by the British intelligentsia of the 1930s which held posts in the Chamberlain government.

When Indyk served as Clinton’s ambassador to Israel, Israeli conservatives called him a “court Jew.” Such labels are not helpful. We know court Jews in America bend over backwards to avoid the canard of “dual loyalty.” Israel pays a price for this “political correctness.”

For a Democrat like Clinton, whose presidential campaign funding depended very much on Jewish donations, his appointment of Indyk was “religiously” as well as “politically” correct. And since Yasser Arafat was reportedly the most frequent foreign guest at the Clinton White House, Indyk’s endorsement of a Palestinian state made him a virtual ally of Arafat.

But what is “political correctness” if not a label descriptive of someone who willfully avoids taking a candid position on controversial political issues? To put it plainly, “political correctness” is a euphemism to describe a person lacking intellectual integrity or moral courage. But this label short-circuits serious thought about the factors that have shaped Indyk’s mentality.

Would it be proper to regard him simply as ignorant of the bellicose and mendacious nature of Arab-Islamic culture? But how is this possible given his fields of study at various universities? Can it be that his mentors were dominated by moral or multicultural relativism—the same doctrine that has influenced Barack Obama?

Like other “politically correct” democrats, Indyk tends to “mirror image”—sees Arabs as he sees him own peace-loving face in a mirror. This may explain his inability to take the bellicose nature of Arab-Islamic culture seriously. Perhaps he imbibed the academic doctrine of “conflict resolution,” which reinforces the natural bent of diplomats—a doctrine that ignores the enormity of evil in the world? There are legions of such people in academia—especially at Columbia and Tel Aviv universities, where moral relativism and pacifism flourish.

This might explain why Indyk ignored Arafat’s remark that “peace for us means the destruction of Israel.” It might also explain why a person tainted by multicultural relativism cannot factor into his evaluation of Islam the significance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” even though that Muslim leader sent tens of thousands of Iranian children to walk across and thereby explode Iraqi minefields in the Iraqi-Iranian war. (By the way, Ahmadinejad he was a recent guest of Columbia University!)

Hence, it is reckless folly to dismiss Ahmadinejad’s maledictions as mere rhetoric, as smug academics teach their students. The genocidal imprecations of Arabs and Muslims vis-a-vis Israel and America underlie what Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have called the “clash of civilizations"—which means, to any person unaffected by academic obscurantism: It’s either them or us.” Does Indyk deem these renowned scholars ignoramuses or “extremists”?

Even more important on a practical level than Lewis and Huntington is Ralph Peters mentioned earlier. In two books, Fighting for the Future and Beyond Terror, Peters cautions us not to negotiate with terrorists—and the Palestinian Authority is nothing if it not a terrorist organization bent on Israel’s annihilation. I assume the learned Mr. Indyk has read the PA’s genocidal charter. If so, he seems to construe it as mere rhetoric for the masses.

Let me therefore urge him to study the extraordinary erudition and worldwide experience of Michael Radu, especially Radu’s recent book Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis of the West. What’s left of Europe is a “ghost”—nations disembodied by the multicultural relativism of their ruling elites (academics and politicians, judges and journalists). No wonder Barack Obama has been called an “empty suit.”

Of course, my remarks will have no impact on those who take civilization for granted. Like overindulged children, our decision makers and diplomats do not really understand—because they have not been taught to understand—how much hard work and stamina, how much self-sacrifice and heroism, are required in each generation to defend civilization against its enemies. Read Lee Harris to learn why. Or think of how much it cost in blood and treasure to save Europe from barbarism in the wars of the last century—a barbarism no less monstrous than that promised by totalitarian Islam.

Perhaps Ralph Peters, Michael Radu, and Lee Harris are beyond Mr. Indyk’s limited comprehension. I doubt men of their “politically incorrect” views are required reading at Columbia and Tel Aviv universities. I wonder if any academic today—despite all the drivel about academic freedom—can remain at his post if he were to explain, in scholarly terms, using Islamic documents, why it is futile and fatal to negotiate with the self-professed enemies of Israel and America, be they Fatah Palestinians or Iranian mullahs.

Since Martin Indyk surely does not want America and Israel to become mere “ghosts,” I wonder what he would say after reading Raymond Ibraham’s essay on the Islamic art of dissimulation, “taqiyya,” a military doctrine best revealed by Ibrahim in the Winter 2010 edition of the Middle East Quarterly (http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war).

Some readers may accuse me of arrogance by criticizing a man of Indyk’s academic and governmental background. But I feel obliged to do so not because I am a former officer in the U.S. Air Force who studied under Leo Strauss, a classical political scientist without equal in the twentieth century. No: you don’t need to be a soldier or a scholar to discern the enormity of evil confronting America and Israel. So I am not impressed by America’s erstwhile ambassador to Israel. Indeed, he reminds me of Nietzsche’s remark about German intellectuals: “great learning and great stupidity often go well together under the same hat.”

____________________
*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, 26 April 2010,

A WEAK PRESIDENT . . .

Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf, taunts U.S.

from Jihad Watch:

Saber-rattling and thumbing their noses at a weak president whom they know will not act. "Iran begins war games in Persian Gulf oil route," by Nasser Karimi and Lee Keath for Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to Choi):

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard held war games Thursday in the strategic Persian Gulf oil route, the Hormuz Strait, a show of its military strength at a time when the country's leaders are depicting President Barack Obama's new nuclear policy as a threat.
Ahead of the military maneuvers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Washington of trying to dominate the world through its nuclear arsenal and vowed that Iran would not bend before what he called "implicit atomic threats."...

Iran has been holding military maneuvers, dubbed as The Great Prophet, in the strategic waters of the Persian Gulf annually since 2006 to show off its military capabilities -- and serve as an implicit warning of the consequences if the United States or Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities....

On Thursday, the military unveiled a new attack speedboat, describing it as an "ultra-speed and smart" vessel called "Ya Mahdi." Iran also said 313 smaller speedboats with the capability of firing rockets and missiles would participate....

On Wednesday, ahead of the exercises, Khamenei spoke to a conference of nurses and denounced Obama's new nuclear guidelines. U.S. officials have said the changes aim to push Iran into cooperating with the U.N. on its nuclear program, but the supreme leader depicted them as dangling the threat of nuclear attack over his country.

"Implicit atomic threats against Iran will have no effect," he said. "The Iranian people will not submit to such threats and will bring those who make them to their knees." He repeated that Iran is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

"The nuclear powers, particularly the United States, are using their nuclear might to try to impose their authority over the world," he said....

Be sure to read the Comments

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/iran-begins-war-games-in-persian-gulf-taunts-us.html


AND from Israel Commentary, April 21, 2010:

Nuclear posturing, Obama-style - A slump in an insane direction
By Charles Krauthammer

Palm Beach Post, April 14, 2010

Nuclear doctrine consists of thinking the unthinkable. It involves making threats and promising retaliation that is cruel and destructive beyond imagining. But it has its purpose: to prevent war in the first place. During the Cold War, we let the Russians know that if they dared use their huge conventional military advantage and invaded Western Europe, they risked massive U.S. nuclear retaliation. Goodbye, Moscow.

Was this credible? Would we have done it? Who knows? No one’s ever been there. A nuclear posture is just that — a declaratory policy designed to make the other guy think twice. Our policies did. The result was called deterrence. For half a century it held. The Soviets never invaded. We never used nukes. That is why nuclear doctrine is important.

The Obama administration has just issued a new one that “includes significant changes to the U.S. nuclear posture,” said Defense Secretary Bob Gates. First among these involves the US response to being attacked with biological or chemical weapons. Under the old doctrine, supported by every president of both parties for decades, any aggressor ran the risk of a cataclysmic U.S. nuclear response that would leave the attacking nation a cinder and a memory.

Under President Obama’s new policy however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” explained Mr. Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten, to use nuclear weapons against it.”

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is up-to-date with its latest IAEA inspections. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.) However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT non-compliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come. This is quite insane. Ws like saying that if a terrorist uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections.

Apart from being morally bizarre, the policy is strategically loopy. Does anyone believe that North Korea or Iran will be more persuaded to abjure nukes because they could then carry out a biological or chemical attack on the U.S. without fear of nuclear retaliation? The naiveté is stunning. Similarly, is the Obama pledge to forswear development of any new warheads and even to permit no replacement of aging components without the authorization of the president himself. This action is perpetrated under the theory that our moral example will move other countries to eschew nukes. To the contrary, the last quarter-century — the time of greatest superpower nuclear arms reduction— is precisely when Iran and North Korea went hell bent into the development of nuclear weapons.

It gets worse. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S. determination to “continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks.” The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no first use. This is deeply worrying to many small nations who, for half a century relied on the extended US nuclear umbrella. When smaller allies see the United States determined to move inexorably away from that posture — and for them it is not posture, but existential protection — what are they to think? Fend for yourself. Get your own WMDs. Do you imagine they are not thinking that in the Persian Gulf?

This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and by downplaying our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging proliferation. But the opposite is true. Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no greater spur to hyper-proliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

Charles Krauthammer’s e-mail address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com


(Some believe Mr. Krauthammer is being extremely kind to Obama. Rather than calling his “posturing in an insane direction” a “slump” some consider it a deliberate move to weaken the US militarily, weaken our position as the predominant world power and hasten our descent into the level of third world, despotic, dependent nations that Obama embraces with such warmth. Whatever mentality drives Obama in this direction is beyond rational thought. Evidently, analysis will have to be left to the musings of the psychiatrists of the world - just as they have had to muse and disastrously too late, on the mentality of other destructive individuals that have cursed this Earth).

Jsk

Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman
http://www.israel-commentary.org/archives/2010_04.html#001375

What to do about Obama‏

A Message of National Importance

1) First, listen to Barack Obama here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28

2) Second, learn about the Islamic art of dissimulation called “taqiyya” by reading an essay by Raymond Ibrahim which appeared in the Winter 2010 edition of the Middle East Quarterly here:

(http://www.meforum.org/2538/taqiyya-islam-rules-of-war.)

3) Start a local community education program on the founding principles of American Government as articulated in the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and The Federalist Papers. (I can recommend some illuminating books for this education program.)

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Also see http://apathetic-usa.com/articles.htm

Commander: Iran Ready to Demolish US Forces

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian military commander downplayed recent speculations about a possible US attack on Iran, and said that Iranian forces have long been waiting to destroy the US forces and equipments in the region.

"First we should wait and see whether they (enemies) are able to take such a move (attack on Iran) or not since we have been prepared to destroy the US forces and equipments in the region for the last 10 years," Iran's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of an international conference on nuclear disarmament here in Tehran on Saturday.

"As I have already announced, if the US attacks Iran, none of its soldiers will go back home alive," the commander went on saying.

Firouzabadi also said that such war rhetoric by the US indicates that Washington is unable to confront the nations' vigilance and their movement towards restoration of their rights and spread of justice throughout the world.

The remarks by the Iranian General followed a US nuclear threat against Iran. The United States pledged never to use nuclear weapons against the states that comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaties (NPT) as part of a much-anticipated review of nuclear arms strategy released last week.

But the new pledge leaves open a nuclear strike against countries that have signed on to a global NPT but stand accused of violating its terms.

Obama, in an interview with the New York Times, said outright that the loophole would apply to "outliers like Iran and North Korea" that the US believes are developing nuclear weapons.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8901281093

-------------------------------------------
Via: IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

What A Teleprompter May Conceal

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

It is well known that countless college graduates require remedial reading and writing to qualify for higher degrees. This phenomenon, for non-genetic reasons, occurs more frequently among black than among white students. I have had such students. Some may be fairly articulate in ordinary conversation, but their writing and reading comprehension is awful! So how did they graduate college?

If they are black, then, unlike an Alan Keyes or a Thomas Sowell and other black students I know of, their teachers used lower academics standards to grade and advance them in high school and college. This is one consequence of the “affirmative action” policy of the late 1960s. Many professors were (and still are) reluctant and even afraid to flunk black students. This helps to explain why such students graduated college and went on to graduate school. But more is involved here than lowering of academic standards to accommodate disadvantaged students.

It should also be noted that cheating on exams and plagiarism are common among students of all races. One of my students wrote her doctoral dissertation on cheating in colleges and universities. Much to her dismay, she discovered that cheating was not only widespread in democracies, but that many people did not deem it reprehensible!

Cheating aside, legions of inferior students are quite capable of regurgitating the lectures of their professors who feel gratified by such mimicry. But this means that many students who receive good grades are incapable of independent or critical thought, or of relating general principles to facts not discussed by their teachers. Evident here is diminished ability to engage in deductive and inductive reasoning. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. William Bennett, after visiting some yeshivas, said that American schools should adopt the pedagogical methods of these Jewish schools where the logical skills of students barely entering their teens surpass those of American college seniors!

Especially subversive of serious as well as logical thinking is the doctrine of moral and cultural relativism that permeates American “higher” education. Multicultural relativism undermines the incentive of students to take contradictory ideas seriously, having been taught by professors that a person’s opinions or beliefs about the good, the true, and the beautiful are purely subjective or culturally determined. Professors who propagate relativism dominate the social sciences and humanities. They foster the complacent and egalitarian notion that one person’s moral or aesthetic values are no more valid than another’s.

Relativists are agnostics. They deny the possibility of apprehending truths that transcend time and place. They would reject the “Higher Law” doctrine of the American Declaration of Independence, which affirms the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” the touchstone of individual liberty and human dignity.

By the way, what would former black slaves such as Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington say of Muslim rulers who utter the malediction “Death to America”—or of a black preacher that says “God damn America”? They would probably call such people evil or depraved. But this assertion would be deemed subjective or a “value-judgment” by the academic relativists that have corrupted black and white students at Harvard, Columbia and other elite universities during the past five decades.

We should also remember that the labeling of people as “racists” or “right-wingers” or “left-wingers” has long been a commonplace in journalism and public discourse. Such labels stultify the intellect. They enable mediocre minds to dismiss political ideas merely by using political labels. Entering college students, regardless of race, soon become addicted to abbreviated and smug thinking. It’s “cool,” it’s convenient—yes, and it short-circuits serious controversy.

No less significant is the dismal state of historical knowledge among university graduates. This means that students lack the ability to relate current political issues to past experience or to the wisdom of great men. Ignorance of history fosters arrogance, especially among modernists who think the living have a monopoly of wisdom. College students are attracted to “progressive” politicians who disparage the past and exalt Change. Such demagogues use or misuse the instinctive desire of youth for novelty. They also exploit the young person’s natural feeling of justice and revulsion for the many instances of injustice that punctuate history and real life. What is more, if injustice is perpetrated on the scale of colonialism, students can become alienated from their Western heritage.

Also noteworthy is that despite the inferior academic accomplishments of disadvantaged college students, many are quite glib. They can play the “race card” to attract influential sponsors and win scholarships to prestigious universities. They are quite capable of ingratiating themselves with their mentors to facilitate their academic escape from serious work and responsibility. They do not pursue knowledge for its own sake but as a means of self-aggrandizement. Their learning is inevitably superficial—enough to get by—another commonplace known to every teacher.

In such an environment, “successful” students become more arrogant, more cunning, more superficial, and more indifferent to the ideas, dedication, and heroic efforts of the people who have made America a great nation. But what can one expect when so many historians and political scientists inflate their own egos and advance their own careers by belittling the past. These cynics and Lilliputians bring great statesmen such as Washington and Hamilton, Jefferson and Lincoln, down to their own level. I’ve seen and more than enough academics that make a career of debunkmanship. What can one expect from their students even at Harvard? The burgeoning anti-Americanism among academics is indicative of relativists and other half-educated people who take civilization for granted. An adolescent mentality is rampant among anti-American professors.

Thoughtful Europeans, whose economies and social fabrics are being ruined by the influx of indigent, arrogant, ungrateful, prolific, anti-Western immigrants, nostalgically say “God bless America”—the America that saved Europe from Nazi and Communist tyranny and which alone can save the Old World from a new tyranny. Anyone who apologizes for America to nations abroad, especially to Islamic despotisms, is an ignoramus or morally retarded—a despicable wretch that must have been corrupted by anti-American professors ventilating at decadent universities. Alternatively, this wretch, financed by a billionaire, may be a Machiavellian skilled in the Islamic art of dissimulation or “taqiyya.”

We all know of prominent people who, having been educated in America and having prospered in this country, hate America, hate Western Civilization, and identify with the Third World, a world that hunted slaves and sold them to black men a well as white men; but let’s not discuss this in universities, especially with blacks in the classroom. The canard of “racism” is the weapon of choice in the domain of academia as well as in the domain of politics. It might be enlightening as well as embarrassing to investigate the extent to which the “race card” has contributed to the success of various actors in these two domains.

The DANGER OF VIOLENCE

. . . when it is time for Civil Disobedience

First, from The Power of a President :

. . . In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.

***

. . . Hon. Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States issued a writ of habeas corpus commanding the military to bring Merryman [Maryland Secessionist] before him.The military refused to follow the writ. Justice Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney's ruling.

. . . after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.Copyright, 1999American Patriot Network

***

. . . during the Civil War these two policies—summary arrests and military justice—were of a piece. Both stemmed from the emergency of having an armed rebellion in the nation's midst, and they were viewed as two parts of a single policy.

***

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus refers to a common-law tradition that establishes a person's right to appear before a judge before being imprisoned. When a judge issues the writ, he commands a government official to bring a prisoner before the court so he can assess the legality of the prisoner's detention. When the privilege of the writ is suspended, the prisoner is denied the right to secure such a writ and therefore can be held without trial indefinitely. Habeas corpus is the only common-law tradition enshrined in the Constitution, which also explicitly defines when it can be overridden. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution says, "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

***

. . . Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, on Lincoln's orders, suspended habeas corpus across the country and decreed that a range of civilian criminals and dissenters would face arrest and trial before military courts

***

Lincoln's actions at the time were somewhat controversial. Some of his most controversial decisions might actually be considered now to be abuses of the Presidential power. During his terms as president, he suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and upheld the Declaration of Independence above the Constitution.The writ of Habeas Corpus protects Americans from being unjustly imprisoned. Without it, law is a sham. The writ creates the gap between freedom and despotism. Its origin dates back to the formation of our country, and the tenet that all men have equality under the law. The writ ensures that no on can be unjustly imprisoned. Any prisoner feeling this right is being abused has the ability to petition to be seen before a judge, who can declare his arrest unlawful and have him released. Yet, during the initial year of the American Civil War, Lincoln used his power and removed that right, first in Baltimore, New York, and eventually the entire union. He authorized military officers to suspend the writ before he made an official proclamation.

***

. . . "when Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, he clothed himself with more power then any individual had possessed in America before, or since."--Joshua Kleinfeld

***

Lincoln . . . removed the Writ [of habeas corpus] . . . preserved more power for himself and removed a great deal from the United States legislative and judicial branches. The first proclamation to remove the Writ of Habeas Corpus . . . which had no scheduled end, remove the writ, it also established Mar[tial] law. It gave full power to close down "hostile, . . . newspapers," and to arrest individuals for protesting . . . .

Lincoln removed a great deal of power from the legislative branch with this proclamation. He was not empowered under the Constitution to make such a declaration. In fact, that right belonged to Congress alone. Roger Taney, Supreme Court Chief Justice, contended that Article I of the Constitution declares: "a state of rebellion is the only time when Congress could declare the writ removed." He also believed: "This article is devoted to the legislative department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the executive branch.."

***

Lincoln contended that, "It was not believed that any law was violated". The fact that he got away with suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus gave more power to the presidency during a time of war than ever before.

***

By ignoring the rights of the judicial and legislative branches of the government, Lincoln abused the power of the presidency by giving it more power than it was allowed by the Constitution

More, details and references to original sources at
http://islamicdanger4u.blogspot.com/2009/06/power-of-president.html

SO WHAT'S THIS ABOUT "CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?"

from Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs post "AINOS - AMERICANS IN NAME ONLY"

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/03/ainos-americans-in-name-only.html

***

The next seven months are going to be the ugliest this country has experienced in our lifetimes. Any and all opponents of ObamaCare will be branded as terrorists - indeed they are already. The Democrats will look upon their ObamaCare victory as a template, and attempt to ram through via bribes and corruption passage of amnesty for illegals, a carbon tax, a VAT tax, and every other major item on their Marxist Fascist agenda.Given the volcanic rage this will engender in so many people, it will be impossible for there not to be outbreaks and incidents of violence perpetrated upon Democrat politicians. This is exactly what the Democrats want. Their goal is to goad and provoke their opponents into violence so they can demonize them, so they can sic the FBI upon them.

***

Th[e] alternative for immediate personal action is: peaceful civil disobedience. Following TTP's call for a Defund and Disobey movement, Forbes Magazine is now quoting Ghandi - "civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt" - and predicting the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era.

Quote from Dr. Wheeler's column: ARE AMERICANS STILL AMERICANS?

Thanks to--and the whole thing at--Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs

The Smug Smile, the Pursed Mouth of the "Czar of Czars"

AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS IS NEXT!




















We MUST stop this madness now. TALKING about it, is not going to solve the problem. We must unite and defeat the socialist cancer that threatens to kill OUR America. It is easy to call yourself a patriot when there is no danger on your horizon. A TRUE patriot, is a patriot, even when it is dangerous to be so…
Comment by George on February 23, 2009 11:40 AM


. . . Where do we begin?
Comment by barenakedislam on February 23, 2009 12:12 PM

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/sieg-heil-obamas-gestapo-your-neighbors/

?
Comment by Leslie White on March 24, 2010 right here


AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS IS NEXT!

Do not think that this takeover of America can be reversed by elections, that the dictatorship of the people now in power can be overthrown at the ballot box!

Click on http://superstore.wnd.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=108 to see how they will make sure that they stay in power. (I am not connected with Whistleblower magazine.)

But Obama was democratically elected, wasn't he?

Sure, and so was Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (and Hitler in Germany).

http://islamicdanger4u.blogspot.com/2010/01/watch-whats-happening-in-venezuela-if.html

http://islamicdanger4u.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-obama-pull-off-hugo-chavez.html

http://islamicdanger4u.blogspot.com/2009/07/nation-half-socialist-and-half-fascist.html

http://islamicdanger4u.blogspot.com/2008/10/under-obama-you-will-shut-your-mouth.html

THE OBAMA CROWD ARE DETERMINED TO STAY IN POWER AND IMPOSE THEIR SOCIALIST-FASCIST AGENDA ON THE UNITED STATES . . . NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES!

Do not think that you are protected by the Constitution. Obama does not pay much attention to it, except to deride it.

SO, WHAT TO DO?

Right now, support--loudly and financially--those opposed to the looming Obama takeover of all sectors of our country.

What the future holds . . .

http://islamicdangerfu.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-on-way-to-chavez-type.html

?

. . . but think of this, me hearties: Thoughtcrime !

Obama's "Post-American" Foreign Policy

The Worst Case Scenario*

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

On March 19, the day after this report was nearing completion, Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post’s brilliant political analyst, published an article entitled “Obama’s war on Israel.” My present report goes a bit further. No reflection on her perspicacity. I just want to pursue the logic of Obama to its ultimate logical conclusion, even if he is a fraud or an Alice in Wonderland, as some believe.

In deference to Glick, however, who takes Obama seriously—as one should—I will begin by quoting a salient aspect of her timely article. She writes:

On [March 12], Obama ordered his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum. First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo. Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967. Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. Fourth, Israel must agree to negotiate all substantive issues, including the partition of Jerusalem (including the Jewish neighborhoods constructed since 1967 that are now home to more than half a million Israelis) and the immigration of millions of hostile foreign Arabs to Israel under the rubric of the so-called “right of return” …

Only an idiot would fail to see in this ultimatum that Obama, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wants to “wipe Israel off the map.” Seeing this, the Arabs have no need to engage in negotiations, which suggests to me that Obama is tacitly inviting them to eliminate Israel by war! Ponder this: Obama ordered a consignment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions already on its way to Israel to be diverted to the US Air Force base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

Nor is this all.

At the outset of his presidential campaign, I wrote that Obama’s slogan of CHANGE really meant “Regime Change.” A few months after the election, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton reported that Obama is the first post-American president of the United States.

Accordingly, Obama’s policy of distancing America from Israel and drawing the US closer to the Muslim world is a logical, political, and metaphysical consequence of his anti-American mentality. Even if Obama lives in fairyland, the stakes are too high to use ordinary criticism when speaking of such a president—holder of the most powerful office in the world.

Obama’s anti-America and anti-Israel objectives are evident not only in his political statements and policies, but also in the attitude of some of his political appointments and advisers—court Jews as well as non-Jews. Among the latter, suffice to mention former President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, a crypto-Marxist. To this anti-Semite add Obama’s appointment of Samantha Power to the National Security Council, who proposed a US invasion of Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.

Now ponder Obama’s disparagement of the American Declaration of Independence—whose “Higher Law” doctrine is rooted in the Torah. I deem this a war on America metaphysically equivalent to his war on Israel. If we juxtapose his early Muslim upbringing and current Muslim appeasement, logic indicates that Obama’s war on Israel and America is nothing less than a war against Western civilization in favor of Islam’s global ascendancy. Here is further evidence.

Obama’s (absurd) reference to America as a Muslim state, his adulation of Islam at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University (the Harvard of the Middle East), his demotion of Judaism in his Inaugural Address, his indifference to Ahmadinejad’s maledictions “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” his bowing to Saudi King Abdullah—these and other signs are indicative of an insidious global agenda.

It will not do to describe Obama as a closet Communist or to reveal his Muslim sympathies. We know of his anti-American and anti-Israel gurus such as Marxist Saul Alinsky, terrorist Bill Ayers, PLO-supporter and Saudi-connected Rashid Khalidi, “Nation of Islam” Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan, or “God damn America” preacher Jeremiah Wright—to mention only a few of Obama’s charming mentors.

Professor of international relations Angelo Codevilla warns that Obama is conducting a “self-discrediting [hence anti-American] diplomacy toward Iran, Russia, North Korea, and China.” Add Syria, which aids insurgents in Iraq and ships Iranian missiles to Iran’s client Hezbollah in Lebanon. Obama is not only appeasing enemies and punishing friends; he is disarming America morally and militarily. Let me reiterate his “war on Israel.” Israel is not only America’s most steadfast ally, supplier of advanced technology and incomparable intelligence. Israel is the only outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East. The loss of Jerusalem would ignite Islam’s long smoldering ambition to establish a Muslim world order.

Admittedly, every American administration since Nixon and Kissinger has pressed Israel to risk its existence—it’s called taking “risks for peace”—by conceding geostrategic assets to the PLO, the wiliest spearhead of Islam. The American government, conned into believing the PLO represents “moderation,” secretly and openly bankrolled this Fatah-led mafia during the past two decades. Of course, this is nothing compared to the Carter-Brzezinski subversion of the Shah of Iran, which facilitated the Iranian Revolution the return of the Parisian-exiled Ayatollah Khomeini to Teheran.

America’s ruling class—its policy-making, opinion-making, and military elites—is now being led by an Islamophile, an enemy of America. This ruling class, thanks to America’s misnamed “higher” education, is not only ignorant of the true nature of Islam; it is also ignorant of, or has never internalized, the classics of statecraft and war. Tainted by multicultural relativism, this backward ruling class cannot even see that while there are “moderate Muslims,” Islam is anything but moderate. This ruling class cannot address the fact that what it misleadingly calls Muslim “extremists” increasingly dominates Islamdom. Indeed, these Islamic-true Muslims are spreading throughout American democracy where they exploit a mindless liberalism or tolerance of “diversity.”

Thus, to paraphrase Codevilla, when a Muslim shouts “Allahu Akhbar,” as did U.S Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan as he shot 51 colleagues as Fort Hood, Texas, the official reaction revealed the stupefied and pusillanimous character of America’s ruling class—politicians and journalists and even high-ranking military officers. After the shootings, President Obama warned against “jumping to conclusions,” and Army Chief of Staff George Casey added, “it would be a greater tragedy if diversity became a casualty here.” Codevilla comments: “Never mind that Hasan identified himself on his business card as “SoA” (a soldier of Allah).

Official obscurantism makes Obama’s appeasement of Iran all the more fearful. Armed with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles, Iran could control the oil resources of the Middle East, emasculate Europe, totally collapse the American economy, and even resurrect the Persian Empire—the startling conclusion of Robert Baer, former CIA operative in the Middle East.

An American president who praises Islam and displays contempt for America’s Founding Fathers now constitutes an existential threat to Western Civilization.

This worst case scenario will be dismissed as scare-mongering. But whoever thought PLO chief Yasser Arafat, an Arab terrorist expelled from Lebanon, holed up in Tunis, without Iranian oil or arms, without even a minute fraction of Iran’s population and territory—who ever dreamed that this villain would become a mortal threat to Israel by gaining worldwide support for a PLO state in Israel’s heartland—and with the endorsement of Binyamin Netanyahu?! If the despicable PLO could accomplish this objective, it would be foolhardy to dismiss my worst case scenario.

As many scholars have warned, the West is involved in a clash of civilizations with Islam. We are in a world war having metaphysical significance. This war will not be won or even waged by democracies steeped in multicultural relativism. The trial of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders exemplifies the decadence of such democracies. Recall how they treated the gallant Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who dared tell the truth about Islam in her book The Rage and the Pride. Recall how a Swiss judge issued an arrest warrant for her alleged violations of the Swiss criminal code and requested the Italian government to either prosecute or extradite her. Recall how an Italian judge ordered Fallaci to stand trial on charges of "defaming Islam" in her book The Force of Reason, most notably for her reference to Islam as "a pool that never purifies." But there is more.

Note Europe’s permissive immigration laws, the influx of millions of prolific anti-Western and economically ruinous Muslim immigrants—a sociological disaster documented by Michael Radu, Europe’s Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis of the West (2009). Fearful of the canard of “racism,” and animated by a perverted humanitarianism that permits the immigration even of Muslim terrorists expelled by Arab countries, England and Europe are committing national and cultural suicide.

This madness is invading the United States and it has anti-Semitic consequences for Israel. A countermovement to preserve Western Civilization is urgently needed. I will discuss this matter in a future article. Some people may want to send this article to Caroline Glick.
____________________

*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, March 22, 2010.

Paul Eidelberg
http://futureisrael.org/
http://www.foundation1.org/
http://thejewinyellow.blogspot.com/2008/04/urgent-public-message-from-prof.html

Caroline Glick's article A revolutionary proposal

Soros Group Preparing to Steal 2012 Election.

. . . important enough for me to shamelessly copy it from Israel Commentary
http://www.israel-commentary.org/archives/2010_03.html#001357


(This is one of over a dozen articles appearing in Whistleblower Magazine, March 2010. For those interested in seeing that our country and way of life is not indeed stolen, please read
Whistleblower )

Redacted from article By Matthew Vadium

copyright 2009 The American Spectatorm

History’s most notorious Georgia turned-Russian, the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” The lesson has not been lost on the increasingly notorious Hungarian-cum-American George Soros.

A group backed by Soros is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for President Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation. From such posts, secretaries of state can help tilt the electoral playing field. This is, of course, the same Soros, the same hyper political left-wing philanthropist, who makes no secret of his intention to destroy capitalism. In an interview with Der Spiegel last year, Soros said European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now. I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful — but also very harmful to our society.”

The vehicle for this planned hijacking of democracy is a below-the-radar non-federal “527” group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn’t have to disclose them publicly until well after the election. It was revealed during a panel discussion at the Democratic Party’s convention last year that the Democracy Alliance, a financial clearinghouse created by Soros and Progressive insurance magnate Peter B. Lewis, approved the Secretary of State Project as a grantee. The Democracy Alliance aspires to create a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups — a kind of “vast left-wing conspiracy” to compete with the conservative movement. It has brokered more than $100 million in grants to liberal nonprofits, including ACORN.

The latest fundraising appeal from the SoS Project warns: “In the 2000 and 2004 elections, we saw the results of extreme Republican tactics to intimidate voters steal the presidential election — the disastrous presidency of George W Bush. Today, we watch as Republicans go to even greater extremes — even carrying guns to town hall meetings. If they are willing to go to such extremes now, how far will they go on November 2012 to steal the election from President Barack Obama?

At the top of the SoS Project’s slate of candidates for level secretary of state positions in 2010 is Minnesota’s radical left-wing Mark Ritchie, a former community organizers cavalier attitude toward electoral fraud and whose shamelessly partisan conduct during the recount process cleared the way for Al Franken to steal last year’s U.S. Senate election then-Senator Norm Coleman. R-Minn. Ritchie was first elected Minnesota secretary of state in 2006. Franken and Obama, by the way, were endorsed last year by ACORN Votes, ACC federal political action committee.

In 2006, the Minnesota ACORN PAC endorsed Ritchie, a longtime ACORN ally, and donated to his campaign. According to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disc Board, contributors to Ritchie’s campaign included liberal philanthropists Soros, Drummond Pike and Deborah Rapp along with veteran community organizer Heather Booth, Alinsky disciple who co-founded the Midwest Academy, a radical ACORN clone that breeds Marxist agitators. One article in Ritchie’s 2006 campaign website brags about the fine work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to raise that state’s minimum wage.

The 2010 slate also includes California Secretary of Debra Bowen, whom the group describes as “one of the progressive Secretaries of State in the nation.” California ACORN PAC endorsed Bowen, in her previous run. SoS Project is also endorsing Jocelyn Benson, candidate for secretary of state in Michigan, whom it lauds as an election law “scholar and community organizer.” Benson is a candidate ACORN would love. Assuming the desperately mismanaged Michigan continues to exist through Election Day next year, count on the desperately evil ACORN endorsing Benson.

To the Secretary of State Project, Republican secretaries of state are always snidely whiplashes trying to undermine progressive Dudley Do-Rights. SoS claims to advance “election protection” but only backs Democrats, and religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 (Katherine Harris) and in Ohio in 2004 (Ken Blackwell).

The secretary of state candidates the group endorses all sing the same familiar song about electoral integrity issues that we routinely hear from ACORN: Voter fraud is largely a myth, vote suppression is used widely by Republicans cleansing the dead and fictional characters from voter rolls should be avoided until embarrassing media reports emerge, and anyone who demands that a voter produce photo identification, before pulling the lever, is a racist, democracy-hating fascist.

The group was co-founded in July 2006 by James Rucker, formerly director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action. Rucker is also a co-founder of Color of Change, a race-baiting left-wing hate group. Its website claims, “A modest political investment in electing clean candidates to critical Secretary of State offices is an efficient way to protect the election.” Indeed. Political observers know that a relatively small amount of money can help swing a little-watched race for a state office few people understand or care about.

The strategic targeting of the SoS Project yielded astounding results in 2008 and 2006. In 2008, SoS Project-backed Democrats Linda McCulloch (Montana), Natalie Tennant West Virginia), Robin Carnahan (Missouri) and Kate Brown (Oregon) won their races. Only Carnahan was an incumbent. The Center for Public Integrity reported that the group performed this electoral feat in the 2008 election cycle with a mere $280,000.

In 2006, along with Minnesota’s Ritchie, SoS Project-endorsed Jennifer Brunner (Ohio), who defied federal law last year by refusing to take steps to verify 200,000 questionable voter registrations, trounced her opponent 55 percent to 41 percent. Democrats supported by the group also won that year in New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa. The group claims it spent about $500,000 in that election cycle.

Talk about return on investment! Stalin would be impressed.

Matthew Vadium is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a Washington, D. C, think tank that studies the politics of philanthropy. The preceding first appeared on The American Spectator website at spectator.org and is reprinted with permission.

Posted by Jerome S. Kaufman
from:
Israel Commentary
http://www.israel-commentary.org/archives/2010_03.html#001357

How Obama's Healthcare Opens the Floodgates . . . to Government Takeover!

The Healthcare Bill Would Be Obama’s ‘Enabling Act’
By Michael Zak

Article printed from Big Government: http://biggovernment.com/

Why are Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders so intent on passing a government takeover of healthcare now…Now…NOW?





















They must know that costs will rise and the quality of care will fall, right? They must know that Obamacare would destroy the economy, right? Of course they do. But, they also know that the federal government would tighten its grip on the nation. They know that Obama’s czars and other appointees would be authorized to bypass Congress in enacting sweeping regulations on nearly every aspect of a person’s life. And, they know that these new powers of the federal government would be concentrated in the hands of the Democratic Party and the President.

Here’s what else they know. History affords many examples of regimes whose motto was “Never let a crisis go to waste.” In 1933, having campaigned for “hope” and “change,” the National Socialist Worker’s Party forced through the German parliament a Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation, also known as the Enabling Act.

This new law enabled the German chancellor and his appointees to bypass parliament in imposing sweeping regulations on the people:

“In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich [i.e., the Cabinet].”

The constitution of the Weimar Republic became so irrelevant that the new regime never saw a need to actually repeal it.

By this vote, the National Socialist Workers Party assumed absolute power and the Chancellor made history. [1]

Article printed from Big Government: http://biggovernment.com/

URL to article: http://biggovernment.com/mzak/2010/03/13/the-healthcare-bill-would-be-obamas-enabling-act/

Copyright © 2009 Big Government. All rights reserved.

ALSO

see

The Joining Together of Islam and the Left: The Perfect Death Machine
In Obama, Islam and the Left (socialists, marxists, communists) have found their perfect instrument.

"Forbidden Thoughts" Burst Out...Let the Shi--"Chips"--Fall where It May!

.
Comment by Fjordman at "Gates of Vienna"

Fjordman's THIRD Comment there, where he quotes

Lawrence Auster:
from http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/015463.html

"I think it's reasonable to say that Obama's paramount objective in the health care bill and his other initiatives is to bring down white America, by punitively taxing middle class whites in the health care bill and transferring their money to nonwhites and illegal aliens; by siding with Islam against the United States ('I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear'); by sending U.S. soldiers to die for the sake of Afghans who are not our friends (see Diana West on this); by appointing the blatantly anti-white Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court and numerous anti-whites to posts in his administration; by supporting vastly expanded nonwhite immigration and amnesty (though he may not move forward with that this year); and by declaring, in his March 2008 race speech, that whites deserve to be hated by blacks with Jeremiah Wright type hatred until they make blacks equal to themselves in all outcomes and goods. He said this very clearly in that speech, as I've explained, but your typical conservatives were so awed by his criticisms of blacks and his nuance and his 'thoughtfulness' that they didn't notice it."

***

Later on, in this SAME Comment, after making the same case for "Eurabia," Fjordman finishes with:

"I suspect that future historians will refer to the early twenty-first century as a low point in the history of the white race, when hostile outsiders such as Muslims can abuse us in our own countries with impunity. We can probably get a little bit lower still, unfortunately, but we are approaching a low point. And a turning point, too?"

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/02/mohawk-model.html

Lawrence Auster, in the cited article, also makes the following statement:

"The health care bill is the main initiative of his presidency. Since it would be financially ruinous to the white, wealth producing, independent part of America for the sake of the nonwhite, non-wealth producing, dependent (and illegal alien) part, while also subjecting free Americans to a paralyzing bureaucracy from which they could never escape, it is his main way of breaking the back, crushing the independent spirit, of white America, of slaying the White Whale. That's why he must succeed and cannot compromise or accept defeat."

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/015463.html

Marching Toward Martial Law

Obama is quietly building a coalition of forces within the U. S. A. (06:14)

From http://www.theobamafile.com/

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A CAPTURED TALIBAN?

Two ways of looking at counterinsurgency warfare:

From Islamabad Boys

During his December visit to Afghanistan, Mullen*--who strongly supports Obama’s troop surge--held a shura with a group of local elders on a U.S. base in Kandahar. "I would rather listen than speak," said the admiral, who wore a tan desert camouflage uniform. "Tell me what you think I need to understand that I may not understand." Mullen sat patiently as the men, grizzled under their turbans and dusty robes, bombarded him with rambling complaints about corruption and unemployment. He didn’t flinch when one tribal elder, upset that some Taliban detainees were being released by corrupt Afghan security forces, made a suggestion: In the future, he said, "just kill them on the ground. Do not turn them over to the Afghan forces." At the session’s end, Mullen assured the men that he’d heard their concerns, especially on corruption. Of the detainees, he added diplomatically, "The solution to just kill them on the street probably won’t work for us."

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/islamabad-boys?page=0%2C1

Whose way is better? Who's to say?
_________________________
*Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff

Getting Away With Murder - the Saudi Relation with the United States

by Hugh Fitzgerald
from his "66 Suitcases"
at The Iconoclast
[truncated]
***
Saudi Arabia is not and never has been, and never could be, a "close ally" or an "ally" or a "friend" or anything at all except a mortal enemy, of the United States, as the most powerful of Infidel countries. Occasionally the Saudis find that their interests, and those of the Americans, may overlap -- the Saudis wanted the Red Army defeated in Afghanistan, because it was an army of Infidels suppressing Muslims, and the Americans wanted the Red Army defeated in Afghanistan because it wanted the Soviet Union defeated everywhere it chose to project its military power. The Americans wanted to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait because they feared the aggressive nature of his regime and his pretense of becoming King of the Arabs; the Saudis wanted to push Saddam Hussei out of Kuwait because they feared his designs on Saudi Arabia and the appeal of any rhetorical attacks by his regime on the corrupt Al-Saud.
[see my footnote regarding this. lw]

Saudi Arabia has spent nearly $100 billion over the past three decades on the Jihad to spread Islam. That money has paid for mosques, both buildings and maintenance, and madrasas, and propaganda disseminated in those mosques and madrasas that preach hatred and violence toward all Infidels; that money has paid for a vast army of Western hirelings, deployed in the capitals of the West to present Saudi Arabia as, precisely, a "close ally," with the real Saudi Arabia, the one described by J. B. Kelly in his essay "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies," hidden from view -- as for decades it was hidden from American view by incessant Aramco propaganda. That money has also been used to buy influence to prevent any sensible energy plan that might diminish reliance on oil from being adopted by the government.

Saudi Arabia (and Kuwait and the Emirates as well) needs to be read the riot act. Its rulers should be told they can no longer send money to this country to spread hatred through the kind of propaganda disseminated in the mosques it pays for -- or at least, not without severe consequences. They can no longer be allowed to send money to pay for campaigns of Da'wa, targetted at the most vulnerable citizens in this country (if Muslims want to conduct missionary work, local Muslims will have to do it, not as part of a geopolitical campaign by Saudi or other rich Arabs). Any monies that come from Saudi Arabia should be carefully monitored, and those who receive those monies publicized -- so that all those influence-peddlers, those writers of Op/Ed articles and deliverers of lectures about "our friends the Saudis" and "America's real interests in the Middle East" -- given by those who cash their Saudi-generated checks even as they mutter darkly about "the Israeli lobby" -- and of course those who pay, directly or indirectly, for such groups as the "Council on the National Interest" -- which "National Interest" seems to be defined in one way only. Any such monies will be monitored, and the sums given public attention, or if a way can be found to do it, seized. There is no sense in regarding Saudi Arabia as anything other than an enemy, the chief provider of the Money Weapon for the world-wide Jihad. pay for these mosques, madrasas, or to such groups as do their bidding in lobbying the government. There is nothing that the Saudis can do to us. But the Al-Saud depend on us, in the end, for their own family's security. They depend on the West for petroleum engineers, and doctors, and every sort of expert to run their country. They depend on the West for medical care, education or at least the receipt of plausible-sounding degrees (a different thing), for the children of the ruling family's princes and princelings and even, here and there, possibly a princelette or two, and also for the children of the courtiers and middlemen and fixers who have made money from their connections to the Al-Saud, all essentially creatures of the oil bonanza, that is to say, of unstoppable torrents of money, where once there were only seasonal rivulets from wadis, that are the result only of an accident of geology.

Saudi Arabia depends entirely on the Western world for that medical care, that access to education, that fun-fair-cum-brothel-cum-gambling-den that Monte Carlo, and Las Vegas, and Marbella, and London, and even McLean, Virginia, and Aspen, Colorado (see that conduit for BAE bribes, Prince Bandar). The Al-Saud think they are above the law, and the British government, in choosing not to follow through on the BAE investigation’s results, has shown that at least they are above British law. Now we shall see if the scandal of the 66 suitcases, stuffed with heroin (or was it cocaine?) and brought into France, on a plane owned by a Saudi prince who now claims diplomatic immunity, will be dropped, which means that the Al-Saud would also be above French law.

And the final question remains: will the Al-Saud continue to get away with murder, that is to say with funding those who are hostile to, and who wish to undermine in every way, our own legal and political institutions because these institutions flatly contradict both the letter and spirit of Islam?

When will Saudi Arabia be re-dimensioned? When it will be seen as the primitive kingdom, ruled by Johnny-jump-ups who happen to have driven out the Hashemites, and to have defeated the Shammar tribe, and rule because they stand by the mutawwa, stand by the worst Wahhabis who, in turn, provide them, despite their enormous corruption and theft of national wealth, with the legitimacy that so far has allowed them not only to stay in power, but also not merely to dare to bully, but also to hire Western hirelings who help mislead the American public as to the supposed power of Saudi Arabia.

Cut it down to size, but begin by calling in Adel Jubeir and telling him not only that the “ally” business is long over, but the Saudi Arabian rulers, and Saudi “stability,” are dispensable as far as the American government and people are concerned. After all, in the end, if the oil wells of al-Hasa were to fall to those who are even worse, even more open, about their Islam-inculcated hatred of Infidels, we can – and would – seize those oil wells. And if the Saudis reply, as they will, with some blague about how they have “mined” the oilfields, don’t believe it. And if they further allude to all the money they can pull out of the American market, then they can be told that a great deal of Saudi wealth, especially of individuals, can be located and seized; that the corrupt behavior of Saudi princes can be easily tracked, filmed, and put on the Internet which would not make the lives of those princes any easier at home, and that there is a great deal more that can be done –unless they stop funding campaigns of Da’wa, not only here but elsewhere.

Posted on 01/31/2008 1:07 PM
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_months.cfm/m/1/y/2008
_____________________
Footnote
Ever wonder why George W. Bush chose to attack Iraq--after he attacked Afghanistan, the seat of bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership that planned and executed 9-11)? G.W. attacked Iraq, which was not the source of Al Qaeda and the 19 who crashed planes into U.S. buildings and one pasture, to divert our attention from Saudi Arabia, from whence came the financing for 9-11. Saudi should have been punished for 9-11, its oil fields taken from it, and its incursion of Islamic propaganda and literature into the U.S. stopped. As G.W. had connections to the Saudi "royals," he directed all attention to their rival Saddam and Iraq. --lw

The "Goldstone Factor" in Modern Warfare

Fight a "just" war against those who have attacked and threaten to attack you again until you are destroyed, and you run the risk of raising the spectre of "Goldstone."

Yaakov Kirschen of Dry Bones hit a bullseye with that one:






















To clarify, I'll let "Bones" explain:

the latest from Canada's Globe and Mail:

NATO strikes kill 12 civilians in Afghanistan "NATO rockets missed their target and killed 12 civilians in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, as NATO and Afghan forces continued a massive attack on two Taliban-held regions.

U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, apologized to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the accident.

In a statement released by NATO, Gen. McChrystal said he regrets that innocent lives were lost in Nad Ali district.

Mr. Karzai issued a statement minutes earlier saying 10 members of the same family died when a rocket hit a house. Before the offensive began, Mr. Karzai pleaded with Afghan and foreign military leaders to be extra careful to avoid civilian casualties.

About 15,000 coalition troops are involved in Operation Moshtarak, named for a Dari word meaning "together" and launched before dawn Saturday. It’s one of the West’s biggest attacks since the start of the war in 2001." -more

So what's with the "Goldstone Factor?"

Caroline Glick explains:

"Late last week, the Zionist student movement Im Tirtzu published a detailed report demonstrating that 16 anti-Zionist NGOs funded by the post-Zionist New Israel Fund worked hand in glove with the UN Human Rights Council and Richard Goldstone to bring about the establishment of the Goldstone committee and give credibility to its allegations that Israel committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead.[*] According to the Im Tirtzu report, 92 percent of Israeli allegations that Israel committed war crimes in its campaign against Hamas came from these 16 NIF-funded organizations." -more

[emphasis and color mine. lw]
__________________________
*Israel's operation in Gaza
__________________________

http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/

Troops Held Back by Rules of Engagement

Pier Paolo Cito / The Associated Press

U.S. soldiers and an Afghan soldier exchange fire with insurgents during a patrol in the Badula Qulp area, west of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, on Feb. 14. In the fight, one soldier was wounded and at least one insurgent was killed. The soldiers are operating in support of a Marine offensive against the Taliban in the Marjah area.

Troops: Strict war rules slow Marjah offensive

By Alfred de Montesquiou and Deb Riechmann - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 15, 2010 15:08:51 EST

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Some American and Afghan troops say they’re fighting the latest offensive in Afghanistan with a handicap — strict rules that routinely force them to hold their fire.

Although details of the new guidelines are classified to keep insurgents from reading them, U.S. troops say the Taliban are keenly aware of the restrictions.

“I understand the reason behind it, but it’s so hard to fight a war like this,” said [a] Marine Lance Cpl. . . . . “They’re using our rules of engagement against us,” he said, adding that his platoon had repeatedly seen men drop their guns into ditches and walk away to blend in with civilians.

If a man emerges from a Taliban hideout after shooting erupts, U.S. troops say they cannot fire at him if he is not seen carrying a weapon — or if they did not personally watch him drop one.

What this means, some contend, is that a militant can fire at them, then set aside his weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location. It was unclear how often this has happened. In another example, Marines pinned down by a barrage of insurgent bullets say they can’t count on quick air support because it takes time to positively identify shooters.

“This is difficult,” [another] Lance Cpl. . . . said Monday. “We are trained like when we see something, we obliterate it. But here, we have to see them and when we do, they don’t have guns.”

NATO and Afghan military officials say killing militants is not the goal of a 3-day-old attack to take control of this Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. More important is to win public support.

They acknowledge that the rules entail risk to its troops, but maintain that civilian casualties or destruction of property can alienate the population and lead to more insurgent recruits, more homemade bombs and a prolonged conflict.

But troops complain that strict rules of engagement — imposed to spare civilian casualties — are slowing their advance into the town of Marjah in Helmand province, the focal point of the operation involving 15,000 troops.

“The problem is isolating where the enemy is,” said . . . . a Marine company commander from Stillwater, Okla. “We are not going to drop ordnance out in the open.”

That’s a marked change from the battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004. When Marines there encountered snipers holed up in a building, they routinely called in airstrikes. In Marjah, fighter jets are flying at low altitude in a show of force, but are not firing missiles.

Politically, it’s not the best time to campaign for relaxing the rules in Afghanistan. On Sunday, two U.S. rockets struck a house and killed 12 Afghan civilians during the offensive in Marjah, NATO said. On Monday, a NATO airstrike accidentally killed five civilians and wounded two in neighboring Kandahar province.

It was public outrage in Afghanistan over civilian deaths that prompted the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, last year to tighten the rules, including the use of airstrikes and other weaponry if civilians are at risk.

Afghan civilian deaths soared to 2,412 civilians last year — the highest number in any year of the 8-year-old war, according to a U.N. report. But the deaths attributed to allied troops dropped nearly 30 percent as a result of McChrystal’s new rules, according to the report.

Under the current rules of engagement, troops retain the right to use lethal force in self defense, said U.S. Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the international force.

The rules seek to put the troops in the “right frame of mind to exercise that right,” Shanks said. They require troops to ask a few fundamental questions:

• Even if someone has shot in my general direction, am I still in danger?

• Will I make more enemies than I’ll kill by destroying property, or harming innocent civilians?

• What are my other options to resolve this without escalating the violence?

On Monday, Marines in the northern part of Marjah followed the rules of engagement, but a civilian still ended up dead.

As troops fought teams of insurgent snipers throughout the day in heavy gunfights, a young Afghan man ran toward the Marines. More than once, the troops warned him to stop, but he kept running.

Following the rules, the Marines uttered a verbal warning, and fired a flare and a warning shot overhead. Still the man didn’t stop. Marines shot him dead.

Afterward, Marine officers said the victim appeared to be a mentally ill man who had panicked during the gun battle.

“Sadly, everything was done right,” said Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. “The family understood.”

Christmas said his troops might be frustrated, but understand the reasons behind the strict rules. As he spoke, Cobra attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles nearby. Ground forces under intense fire had requested the air support 90 minutes earlier, but it took that long to positively identify the militants who were shooting at the allied forces.

“We didn’t come to Marjah to destroy it, or to hurt civilians,” Christmas said.

That message was drilled into the troops in the run-up to the offensive.

“What are we here for?” Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan, would shout to his troops.

“The people!” was the troops’ refrain.

Afghan forces cite examples of the restrictions too.

Col. Shrin Shah Kohbandi, commander of the new Afghan army corps in Helmand province, told reporters that his troops saw militants running away from the battlefield toward a village in Nad Ali district where they disappeared among villagers. “They hid their weapons so they became ‘civilians,’ ” under the rules, he said. “We didn’t kill them and we weren’t able to arrest them.”

Khan Mohammad Khan, a former Afghan National Army commander in neighboring Kandahar province, said being able to use heavy weapons and conduct air strikes only in selective situations has hamstrung troops in Marjah.

But Brig. Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of Afghan troops in the south, said there is no plan to revise the rules.

“The aim of the operation is not to kill militants,” he said. “The aim is to protect civilians and bring in development.”

———

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Helmand province, and Heidi Vogt and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.

All content © 2010, Army Times Publishing Company

SEE Fighting a War With Our Hands Tied--Once Again!

Taliban Attack Troops in Marjah

Taliban steps up attacks on troops in Marjah

By Alfred de Montesquiou - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 15, 2010 15:09:26 EST

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters stepped up counterattacks Monday against U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers in the militant stronghold of Marjah, slowing the allied advance to a crawl despite Afghan government claims that the insurgents are broken and on the run.

Taliban fighters appeared to be slipping under the cover of darkness into compounds already deemed free of weapons and explosives, then opening fire on the Marines from behind U.S. lines.

Also Monday, NATO said five civilians were accidentally killed and two wounded by an airstrike when they were mistakenly believed to have been planting roadside bombs in Kandahar province, east of the Marjah offensive.

The airstrike happened one day after 12 people, half of them children, were killed by two U.S. missiles that struck a house on the outskirts of Marjah. Afghan officials said Monday that three Taliban fighters were in the house at the time of the attack.

On the third day of the main attack on Marjah, Afghan commanders spoke optimistically about progress in the town of about 80,000 people, the linchpin of the Taliban logistical and opium poppy smuggling network in the militant-influenced south.

Brig. Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of Afghan troops in the south, told reporters in nearby Lashkar Gah that there had been “low resistance” in the town, adding “soon we will have Marjah cleared of enemies.”

Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said many insurgent fighters had already fled Marjah, possibly heading for Pakistan.

In Marjah, however, there was little sign the Taliban were broken. Instead, small, mobile teams of insurgents repeatedly attacked U.S. and Afghan troops with rocket, rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Insurgents moved close enough to the main road to fire repeatedly at columns of mine-clearing vehicles.

At midday at least six large gunbattles were raging across the town, and helicopter gunships couldn’t cover all the different fighting locations.

Allied officials have reported only two coalition deaths so far — one American and one Briton killed Saturday. There have been no reports of wounded. Afghan officials said at least 27 insurgents have been killed so far in the offensive.

Nonetheless, the harassment tactics and the huge number of roadside bombs, mines and booby traps planted throughout Marjah have succeeded in slowing the movement of allied forces through the town. After daylong skirmishes, some Marine units had barely advanced at all by sundown.

As long as the town remains unstable, NATO officials cannot move to the second phase — restoring Afghan government control and rushing in aid and public services to win over inhabitants who have been living under Taliban rule for years.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved the assault on Marjah only after instructing NATO and Afghan commanders to be careful about harming civilians. “This operation has been done with that in mind,” the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said Monday.

Despite those instructions, NATO said two U.S. rockets veered off target by up to 600 yards and slammed into a home Sunday outside Marjah, killing 12 people. Six children were among the dead, a NATO military official confirmed Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been formally released.

In London, Britain’s top military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, called the missile strike a “very serious setback” to efforts to win the support of local communities, who are from the same Pashtun ethnic group as the Taliban.

“This operation ... is not about battling the Taliban. It is about protecting the local population, and you don’t protect them when you kill them,” he said in an interview with the BBC.

NATO said the Kandahar airstrike was ordered Monday after a joint NATO-Afghan patrol saw people digging along a path “and believed that the individuals” were planting a roadside bomb. When they realized their mistake, troops flew the wounded to a NATO hospital, the statement said.

“We regret this tragic accident and offer our sympathies to the families of those killed and injured,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Regner, the NATO command’s deputy chief of staff for joint operations. “Our combined forces take every precaution to minimize civilian casualties, and we will investigate this incident to determine how this happened.”

About 15,000 U.S., Afghan and British troops are taking part in the massive offensive around Marjah area — the largest southern town under Taliban control. The offensive is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The main attack began before dawn Saturday when dozens of helicopters dropped hundreds of Marines and Afghan soldiers into the heart of the city. Ground troops began moving just before sunrise, using makeshift bridges to cross the irrigation canals ringing the town because the main bridge was so heavily mined.

Although there was only scattered resistance on the first day, Taliban fighters seem to have regrouped, using hit-and-run tactics to try to prevent the Americans and their Afghan allies from gaining full control of the area.

The Taliban snipers appeared highly skilled at concealing themselves.

“I haven’t seen anything, not one person, not a muzzle flash,” said . . . a former Marine and retired police officer embedded with the Marines as a law enforcement professional. “And I’ve been looking a lot.”

———

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Lashkar Gah.


All content © 2010, Army Times Publishing Company