Religion O' Peace

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 22:40:53 GMT

A keen eye for the obvious

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:56:09 GMT

CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say

Oh, just read the rest.

What it doesn't say is that CBS News has concluded that it made a mistake in not paying attention to the obvious problems with the documents that would have caused any news organization that wasn't hopelessly biased to actually investigate their provenance and legitimacy.

But one small step at a time.

Courage.

It's a matter of character

Fri, 07 May 2004 12:26:44 GMT

Like this.

Thursday, May 6, 2004

Bush pauses to comfort teen

'This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11'

By Kristina Goetz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

During his visit to the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, President Bush stops to hug Ashley Faulkner, who lost her mom in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Photo by Lynn Faulkner

In a moment largely unnoticed by the throngs of people in Lebanon waiting for autographs from the president of the United States, George W. Bush stopped to hold a teenager's head close to his heart.

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "

"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."

Special for Lynn Faulkner because the Golden Lamb was the place he and his wife, Wendy Faulkner, celebrated their anniversary every year until she died in the south tower of the World Trade Center, where she had traveled for business.

The day was also special for Ashley, a 15-year-old Mason High School student, because the visit was reminiscent of a trip she took four years ago with her mother and Prince. They spent all afternoon in the rain waiting to see Bush on the campaign trail. Ashley remembers holding her mother's hand, eating Triscuits she packed and bringing along a book in case she got bored.

But this time was different. She understood what the president was saying, and she got close enough to see him face to face.

"The way he was holding me, with my head against his chest, it felt like he was trying to protect me," Ashley said. "I thought, 'Here is the most powerful guy in the world, and he wants to make sure I'm safe.' I definitely had a couple of tears in my eyes, which is pretty unusual for me."

The photo has been circulating across the country, Faulkner said. Relatives have passed it on to friends, bosses and acquaintances. As they tell the story, they also share in Wendy Faulkner's legacy, which her family continues through the Wendy Faulkner Memorial Children's Foundation.

"I'm a pretty cynical and jaded guy at this point in my life," Faulkner said of the moment with the president. "But this was the real deal. I was really impressed. It was genuine and from the heart."

Mark Steyn nails it

Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:07:02 GMT

You should, of course, read the whole thing.

But:

So the choice for pluralist democracies is simple: You can join Bush in taking the war to the terrorists, to their redoubts and sponsoring regimes. Despite the sneers that terrorism is a phenomenon and you can't wage war against a phenomenon, in fact you can – as the Royal Navy did very successfully against the malign phenomena of an earlier age, piracy and slavery. </p>
Or you can stick your head in the sand and paint a burqa on your butt. But they'll blow it up anyway.

The Bush Ad I'd like to see

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 20:05:48 GMT

There's been more tempests in a teapot over a brief flash of September 11th on the first national Bush ad. I think it should be criticized.

Here's what I think that ad should have been:

"BUSH IN 2004"

FADE IN FROM BLACK TO:

September 11th -- the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

NARRATOR
On September 11th, our world changed.

Quick montage of other September 11th scenes: people running; debris falling; other planes hitting. Wreckage at Ground Zero and the Pentagon.

FADE TO BLACK

FADE IN FROM BLACK TO:
Second montage: firefighters dragging people to safety; Don Rumsfeld helping carry wounded people out of the Pentagon; fighters scrambling.

NARRATOR
America responded quickly.

FADE TO BLACK

FADE IN FROM BLACK TO:
Third montage: Sheikh Omar and OBL laughing and smiling; Palestinians dancing in the streets, while merchants pass out candies to the crowd in celebration; Saddam Hussein smiling, firing a rifle over the heads of a cheering crowd.

NARRATOR
And while we worked and mourned, our enemies celebrated. That was their second mistake.

CUT TO:
Fourth montage: Bombs dropping from B52s; tanks rolling in Afghanistan intercut with tanks rolling in Iraq; followed by quick intercuts between house-to-house action in Iraq and Afghanistan, interchangeably. Gradually, the montage resolves in a series of shots of soldiers accepting surrender, of detainees at Guantanamo being guarded by female Marines, and being wheeled on carts, while strapped down.

FADE TO:

Fifth montage: long shots at the UN Security Council of talking heads, followed by intercuts of Jacques Chirac, Helmut Kohl, Kofi Annan, and John Kerry.

NARRATOR
There were those who thought talk was enough. They were wrong.

Sixth montage: long shots of terrorists sneaking around in the highlands of Afghanistan, seguing into the aftermath of car bombings in Afghanistan, and Iraq.

FADE TO BLACK, FOR A LONG BEAT, THEN CUT TO:
George Bush standing on the rubble at Ground Zero, talking to the crowd. The firefighter near the President shouts, "You get 'em, George."

CUT TO:
George Bush sitting in the Oval Office.

BUSH
My name is George Bush, and I approved this ad, because it isn't over.

CUT TO:

GEORGE BUSH: STEADY LEADERSHIP IN A TIME OF WAR

More on the Adbusters smear

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:50:06 GMT

Yup:

[David Bernstein, 2/24/2004 11:47:47 AM] (See posts that link to this one)
Making Adbusters Happy: No misrepresentation here. Don't worry, Adbusters, your readers will not be taken in by me any longer. I'll just keep my i.d. badge handy.

A while back, I read a book called The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, by Prof. Benjamin Ginsberg. The provocative thesis of the book was that much of modern anti-Semitism was a result of Jews, out of stateless necessity, allying themselves with the powers that be for protection. When the powers that be were overthrown, the rebels took their vengeance out on the Jews, whom they saw as collaborators with the former regime.

The book had much interesting historical detail, but ended on a rather hysterical note. The book was published in 1993, and Ginsberg wondered whether the Jewish alliance with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, so obvious in the Clinton Administration, was about to cause a massive anti-Semitic backlash among religious conservatives. As we know, no such thing happened. Jews were never more influential in American politics than in the Clinton Administration, and nary an anti-Semitic peep was heard from the mainstream right.

Flash-forward to the George W. Bush Administration. Bush receives less than 20% of the Jewish vote. There is not a single Jewish cabinet official. Most of the leading Jewish "neocons" supported McCain and are not especially welcome in the White House. The two highest ranking Jews near the president, Ari Fleischer and David Frum, both leave after short stints in the administration. Direct Jewish influence on the administration is as low as its been in any administration for as far back as my memory reaches; perhaps Eisenhower's is the last administration with as few Jews in high-level positions. The result? An orgy of anti-Semitic calumny from the Left accusing the Jews of dictating Bush's foreign policy on behalf of Israel.

[UPDATE: Perhaps the Left feels especially threatened when part of one of its traditional constituency groups "leaves the reservation?" The Adbusters piece has a strong subtext of "Progressive Jews=Good; Conservative Jews=evil, evil of a sort that cannot be explained by simple intellectual error but rather by parochialism and selfishness of the sort that traditional anti-Semitism attributed to all Jews. Black conservatives, I've noticed, also get tarred with the sort of anti-Black stereotypes that "progressives" would never apply to Blacks in general. Consider how frequently Clarence Thomas is said to be a slavish, foolish lackey of Nino Scalia. This would not explain, however, why the anti-neocon anti-Semitism comes as much or more from Europe, where Jews are generally not a significant force in politics on any side, as from the U.S.]

Amazingly clueless

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:40:32 GMT

... piece here.
Neoconservatives? Gary Bauer, a rightwing fundamentalist Christian conservative, is a neoconservative? How? What's "neoconservative" about Jonah Goldberg? Richard Mellon Scaife?

This is a "carefully researched list"?

Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite

And anyone who figures that they can engage in some classic antisemitism without having that pointed out is not only engaging in a "tricky game," but a clueless one.

More from the peaceloving "Palestinians"

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:46:47 GMT

A "Palestinian" boy flashes the victory symbol in front of the Egged bus, blown up, murdering 8 human beings and injuring dozens more, last Sunday.

High Court to Mull 'Enemy Combatant' Rule

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:06:25 GMT

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether the Constitution forbids the Bush administration from holding U.S. citizens indefinitely and without access to lawyers or courts when they are suspected of being "enemy combatants."

Good.

It's clear that the one SCOTUS case on point allows the US to not only hold US citizens, but try and execute them as "enemy combatants," but it's worth rethinking every now and then. The Quirin case is worth reading, and thinking about -- and do remember, the convictions and executions were upheld 9-0.

Still, while there's always the slippery slope argument, do remember that we're not talking about rounding up hundreds of thousands of folks and shipping them off to concentration camps, as the US did to the Nisei. Jose Padilla, the subject of the present case, is the single US citizen captured on US soil being treated as an "enemy combatant," and he's about as disgusting a figure as you'll find this side of Ted Bundy.

Sure: the principles are the same, and it's best to hash them out. But let's not go all Howard Dean about this, okay?

Kingdom Warns US Against Imposing Reforms

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:00:29 GMT

The rulers of the Saudi entity are nervous about this whole "democracy" thing.
Understandable, really.

Not an urban legend

Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:18:28 GMT

From Snopes:

This picture of the statue was made by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam that dotted Baghdad. This artist was so grateful that the Americans liberated his country, he melted 3 of the fallen Saddam heads and made a memorial statue dedicated to the American soldiers and their fallen comrades. Kalat worked on this night and day for several months. To the left of the kneeling soldier is a small Iraqi girl giving the soldier comfort as he mourns the loss of his comrade in arms. It is currently on display outside the palace that is now home to the 4th Infantry division. It will eventually be shipped and shown at the memorial museum in Fort Hood, Texas.

Status: True.

A Look Into the Mind of the Beast

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 03:46:21 GMT

Last week, the in Iraq, the Coalition found a big one.

No, not Saddam; he's still in the bag. Not Bin Laden; he's still hiding in some cave in Pakistan.

It was a letter by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Al Qaida bigshot.

Let's take a look at it.

1. The foreign Mujahidin: Their numbers continue to be small, compared to the large nature of the expected battle. We know that there are enough good groups and jihad is continuing, despite the negative rumors. What is preventing us from making a general call to arms is the fact that the country of Iraq has no mountains in which to seek refuge, or forest in which to hide. Our presence is apparent and our movement is out in the open. Eyes are everywhere. The enemy is before us and the sea is behind us. Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother; however, they will not allow you to make their homes a base for operations or a safe house. People who will allow you to do such things are very rare, rarer than red sulfur. Therefore, it has been extremely difficult to lodge and keep safe a number of brothers, and also train new recruits. Praised be to Allah, however, with relentless effort and searching we have acquired some places and their numbers are increasing, to become base points for the brothers who will spark war and bring the people of this country into a real battle with god's will.

[Translation by JR: "We're in deep shit. We don't have enough terrorists, and there's not enough places to hide. Fly food just isn't all that photogenic; no good recruiting posters."]

2. The present and future: there is no doubt that American losses were significant because they are spread thin amongst the people and because it is easy to get weapons. This is a fact that makes them easy targets, attractive for the believers. America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes. It is looking to a near future, when it will remain safe in its bases, while handing over control of Iraq to a bastard government with an army and police force that will bring back the time of (saddam) Husayn and his cohorts. (headquarters comment: it is not clear to whom "it" is referring, but it appears to mean the united states.) There is no doubt that our field of movement is shrinking and the grip around the throat of the Mujahidin has begun to tighten. With the spread of the army and police, our future is becoming frightening.

["And it's looking worse."]

3. So where are we? Despite few supporters, lack of friends, and tough times, god has blessed us with victories against the enemy. We were involved in all the martyrdom operations — in terms of overseeing, preparing, and planning — that took place in this country except for the operations that took place in the north. Praised be to Allah, i have completed 25 of these operations, some of them against the Shi'a and their leaders, the Americans and their military, the police, the military, and the coalition forces. There will be more in the future, god willing. We did not want to publicly claim these operations until we become more powerful and were ready for the consequences. We need to show up strong and avoid getting hurt, now that we have made great strides and taken important steps forward. As we get closer to the decisive moment, we feel that our entity is spreading within the security void existing in Iraq, something that will allow us to secure bases on the ground, these bases that will be the jump start of a serious revival, god willing.

["I wish Enron was still hiring. Maybe I could be the Arabic Joe Isuzu? Nah. Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf has that gig."]

4. Plan of action: after much inquiry and discussion, we have narrowed our enemy to four groups:

A. Americans as you know, these are the biggest cowards that god has created and the easiest target. And we ask god to allow us to kill, and detain them, so that we can exchange them with our arrested shaykhs and brothers.

["You know better to believe that crap about the Religion O' Peace forbidding kidnapping and murder, don't you? Yeah, I know the soldiers are hard to get at. Grab some civilians."]

B. Kurds these are a pain and a thorn, and it is not time yet to deal with them. They are last on our list, even though we are trying to get to some of their leaders. God willing.

["Kurd bites can be very dangerous, you know. My sister was bit by a Kurd."]

C. The Iraqi troops, police, and agents these are the eyes, ears, and hand of the occupier. With god's permission, we are determined to target them with force in the near future, before their power strengthens.

["You go ahead and do that, Abdul. I've got to, err, wash my keffiyeh, yeah, that's the ticket."]

D. The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of these Sabeans, i.e., the Shi'a. Despite their weakness, the Sunnis are strong-willed and honest and different from the coward and deceitful Shi'a, who only attack the weak. Most of the Sunnis are aware of the danger of these people and they fear them. If it were not for those disappointing shaykhs, Sufis, and Muslim brothers, Sunnis would have a different attitude.

["Yeah. Let's you and him fight."]

5. Way of action: As we have mentioned to you, our situation demands that we treat the issue with courage and clarity. So the solution, and god only knows, is that we need to bring the Shi'a into the battle because it is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. We need to do that because:

A. The Shi'a have declared a subtle war against Islam. They are the close, dangerous enemy of the Sunnis. Even if the Americans are also an archenemy, the Shi'a are a greater danger and their harm more destructive to the nation than that of the Americans who are anyway the original enemy by consensus.

["Forget that stuff about the brotherhood of Moslems. It doesn't apply to Shi'ites, or Kurds, or anybody who doesn't squat in caves. Trust me."]

B. They have supported the Americans, helped them, and stand with them against the Mujahidin. They work and continue to work towards the destruction of the Mujahidin.

C. Fighting the Shi'a is the way to take the nation to battle. The Shi'a have taken on the dress of the army, police, and the Iraqi security forces, and have raised the banner of protecting the nation, and the citizens. Under this banner, they have begun to assassinate the Sunnis under the pretense that they are saboteurs, vestiges of the Ba'th, or terrorists who spread perversion in the country. This is being done with strong media support directed by the governing council and the Americans, and they have succeeded in splitting the regular Sunni from the Mujahidin. For example, in what they call the Sunni triangle, the army and police are spreading out in these regions, putting in charge Sunnis from the same region. Therefore, the problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood, and appearance to the people of the region. This region is our base of operations from where we depart and to where we return. When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region. What will happen to us, if we fight them, and we have to fight them, is one of only two choices:

1) if we fight them, that will be difficult because there will be a schism between us and the people of the region. How can we kill their cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority. This is the democracy, we will have no pretext.

["Ooops!"]

2) we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like it has happened in so many lands of jihad.

["You know, there's something nice about a cave in Pakistan. Or Afghanistan. Yeah, it's dark and dank, and smells bad after I've been in it for a few days, but you can come out and watch some good buzkashi, every now and then."]

Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases. By god, this is suffocation! We will be on the roads again. People follow their leaders, their hearts may be with you, but their swords are with their kings. So i say again, the only solution is to strike the religious, military, and other cadres of the Shi'a so that they revolt against the Sunnis. Some people will say, that this will be a reckless and irresponsible action that will bring the Islamic nation to a battle for which the Islamic nation is unprepared. Souls will perish and blood will be spilled. This is, however, exactly what we want, as there is nothing to win or lose in our situation. The Shi'a destroyed the balance, and the religion of god is worth more than lives. Until the majority stands up for the truth, we have to make sacrifices for this religion, and blood has to be spilled. For those who are good, we will speed up their trip to paradise, and the others, we will get rid of them.

By god, the religion of god is more precious than anything else. We have many rounds, attacks, and black nights with the Shi'a, and we cannot delay this. Their menace is looming and this is a fact that we should not fear, because they are the most cowardly people god has created. Killing their leaders will weaken them and with the death of the head, the whole group dies. They are not like the Sunnis. If you knew the fear in the souls of the Sunnis and their people, you would weep in sadness. How many of the mosques have they have turned in to Shi'a mosques ("husayniyas")? How many houses they have destroyed with their owners inside? How many brothers have they killed? How many sisters have been raped at the hands of those vile infidels?

If we are able to deal them blow after painful blow so that they engage in a battle, we will be able to reshuffle the cards so there will remain no value or influence for the ruling council, or even for the Americans who will enter into a second battle with the Shi'a. This is what we want. Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions. When the Mujahidin would have secured a land they can use as a base to hit the Shi'a inside their own lands, with a directed media and a strategic action, there will be a continuation between the Mujahidin inside and outside of Iraq. We are racing against time, in order to create squads of Mujahidin who seek refuge in secure places, spy on neighborhoods, and work on hunting down the enemies. The enemies are the Americans, police, and army. We have been training these people and augmenting their numbers.

As far as the Shi'a, we will undertake suicide operations and use car bombs to harm them. We have been working on monitoring the area and choosing the right people, looking for those who are on the straight path, so we can cooperate with them. We hope that we have made progress, and perhaps we will soon decide to go public — even if gradually — to display ourselves in full view. We have been hiding for a long time, and now we are seriously working on preparing a media outlet to reveal the truth, enflame zeal, and become an outlet for jihad in which the sword and the pen can turn into one. Along with this, we strive to illuminate the hindering errors of Islamic law and the clarifications of Islamic legal precepts by way of tapes, lessons, and courses which people will come to understand.

The suggested time for execution: we are hoping that we will soon start working on creating squads and brigades of individuals who have experience and expertise. We have to get to the zero-hour in order to openly begin controlling the land by night and after that by day, god willing. The zero-hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place. As we see we are racing time, and if we succeed, which we are hoping, we will turn the tables on them and thwart their plan. If, god forbid, the government is successful and takes control of the country, we just have to pack up and go somewhere else again, where we can raise the flag again or die, if god chooses us.

["We're royally fucked."]

6. What about you? You, noble brothers, leaders of jihad, we do not consider ourselves those who would compete against you, nor would we ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did. The only thing we want is to be the head of the spear, assisting and providing a bridge over which the Muslim nation can cross to promised victory and a better tomorrow. As we have explained, this is our belief. So if you agree with it and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you, to work under your guidance and yield to your command. Indeed, we openly and publicly swear allegiance to you by using the media, in order to exasperate the infidels and confirm to the adherents of faith that one day, the believers will revel in god's victory. If you think otherwise, we will remain brothers, and disagreement will not destroy our cooperation and undermine our working together for what is best. We support jihad and wait for your response. May god keep for you the keys of goodness and preserve Islam and his people. Amen, amen.
["Hey, Ahmed? You hear something that sounds like fluckettafluckettaflucketta? I think --

"oh, shit."]

Democracy in Iraq

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 03:02:58 GMT

Unsurprisingly, there's some very good discussion over on Jerry Pournelle's website.

I share what I think is Jerry's skepticism about the possibility of democracy in Iraq, or any Arab country. I don't think it's at all accidental in that, in an age in which democracy is breaking out all over the world like a case of benign flu, it's strikingly absent in the Arab world. I don't think it's just a matter of the Arab world being tribal in nature -- although that's certainly part of the picture. (Viz.: Hussein ibn Talal's massacre of thousands and expulsion of tens of thousands more of Arafat's tribe during Black September.)

But the payoff, if it works, would be huge.

Will be? I doubt it. But we'll see.

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:21:47 GMT

Yes, it was their finest hour

"That when dying and bleeding, beset by the flower of terrorism, with pistol to set against automatic rifle and grenade, the Iraqi police did not ask for help from 82nd Airborne. They asked for ammunition."

I don't have a lot to add, except that I wish Gordy Dickson were here. I know what he'd say:

"Shai Dorsai."

Hi there.

Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:54:05 GMT

Well, I haven't been keeping up my blog on this subject up, and LiveJournal both

Enables comments automagically, and
Is a lot easier for me to use.

So I'll try to keep up here, but not necessarily try too hard. Depends, in part, on how much feedback I get.