It’s been a rough week (and year) for them. I expect Obama to want no-conditions negotiations with them any minute.
Category Archives: War Commentary
Hezbollah’s Apologists
It’s been a rough week (and year) for them. I expect Obama to want no-conditions negotiations with them any minute.
Hezbollah’s Apologists
It’s been a rough week (and year) for them. I expect Obama to want no-conditions negotiations with them any minute.
Dhimmification
Sam Harris has a long piece at (of all places) the Huffington Post on the unwillingness of western civilization to stand up for its own values against radical Islam. And as others have noted (and he notes himself), this is particularly ironic:
In a thrillingly ironic turn of events, a shorter version of the very essay you are now reading was originally commissioned by the opinion page of Washington Post and then rejected because it was deemed too critical of Islam. Please note, this essay was destined for the opinion page of the paper, which had solicited my response to the controversy over Wilders’ film. The irony of its rejection seemed entirely lost on the Post, which responded to my subsequent expression of amazement by offering to pay me a “kill fee.” I declined.
Creeping Sharia
Bruce Bawer, on the cultural surrender of the west, aided and abetted by our own media, and the multi-culturalists in both academia and government.
Not exactly a new theme, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat or remind, for those who haven’t seen things like this, or have gone back to sleep.
It’s a long piece, but this is really the nut of it:
What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, KhoÂmeini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies’ basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies.
The cultural jihadists have enjoyed disturbing success.
Sadly, he makes a good case.
Rest In Peace
Pamela Bone, who broke with the Left over the common cause that so much of it found with radical Islam, has died of cancer.
A New Member?
Since Saddam was removed from power, there’s been a vacancy in George Bush’s three-nation “axis of evil.” It looks like Syria has decided to apply for the position (and did so long ago, and even at the time was no doubt an unindicted co-conspirator–one wonders why Bush didn’t include it in the beginning). Now, Austin Bay discusses the disturbing relationship between the two dictatorships of Syria and North Korea, and their increasingly evident first-strike posture.
Given Nancy Pelosi’s idiotic visit with Assad earlier, and the dictator-soothing noises coming from the Obama campaign, Israel has to be very nervous about the Democrats running both the executive and legislative branch. Don’t be surprised to see more strikes on Syria, and on Iran itself, this fall, if it looks like Obama is going to win, or does win–they won’t want to wait until it’s too late, after he’s taken office in January.
Naming The Enemy
Are we at war with Jihadism?
Of course it is true that Islamic reformers are trying to redefine the very troubling concept of jihad as a positive: viz., an internal struggle for personal betterment. Much as I’d love them to succeed, it is a well-intentioned folly — largely because of modern culture, which puts such a premium on authenticity. If you want to encourage the reformers, then encourage them to drop the concept of jihad altogether. As a matter of history, jihad is a military obligation. As long as it is accorded a central place in Islam, the militants are always going to be deemed more authentic, more true to the faith of Mohammed, than the reformers.
If correct, this makes the latest State Department policy all the more idiotic.
I still prefer the term Hirabis myself.
Actually Reading The Report
One of the prevailing myths (though that’s a generous term–perhaps Big Lie would be more accurate) of the left was that Saddam had no ties to terrorism prior to his removal (Obama has used it as a central theme, in fact, of his campaign). Many in the media reported a few days ago that a recent Pentagon report had substantiated this template. However, as Ed Morrissey notes, they could have done this only by not reading the report, relying instead on spin and leaks from the Pentagon. Those who did actually read it would come to an opposite conclusion:
The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no “smoking gun” linking Iraq operationally to Al Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known Al Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.
And why would anyone be surprised that this was the case? He hated the US, and Israel, and was rewarding Palestinian suicide bombers’ families with cash. Other than the other myth (that he was secular, and they were extreme Islamic fanatics, and would have nothing to do with each other), why wouldn’t he collaborate and cooperate with them against a common enemy?
If the McCain campaign is smart, they’ll use this to school Obama again. Particularly since his proposed solution–to not have invaded Iraq–involves the need for a time machine.
Beware The Experts
Michael Totten has a report from an interesting area of Iraq, with some cautionary words:
Be wary of any “expert” who says they know what’s going on everywhere in Iraq. It’s impossible to have both a general and a granular understanding of that country in real time. You can know one area well, or you can know several areas superficially, but you cannot have an intimate understanding of the entire country while it’s in upheaval and flux. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been there or how how many articles and languages you read.
One of the reasons I don’t pay much attention to the trolls in the comments section.