February 08, 2006

Newspaper Staff Walks When Mohammed Cartoons Are Pulled

From The Politicker:

The editorial staff of the alternative weekly New York Press walked out today, en masse, after the paper's publishers backed down from printing the Danish cartoons that have become the center of a global free-speech fight.

Editor-in-Chief Harry Siegel emails, on behalf of the editorial staff:

New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization. Having been ordered at the 11th hour to pull the now-infamous Danish cartoons from an issue dedicated to them, the editorial group—consisting of myself, managing editor Tim Marchman, arts editorJonathan Leaf and one-man city hall bureau Azi Paybarah, chose instead to resign our positions.

Unfortunately, these guys are the exception to the rule. Damn shame about the testicle shortage in the mainstream media these days.

Via The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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February 07, 2006

ACLU Wants National Security 'Transparent'

This press release is further proof that the American Civil Liberties Union's leaders are either spectacularly clueless or actually in league with America's enemies [emphasis added]:

WASHINGTON -- Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales failed to answer direct, yet simple questions from senators surrounding the warrantless surveillance of Americans by the National Security Agency. The American Civil Liberties Union condemned that lack of transparency, noting that part of the role of the executive is to provide the legislative branch with ample information for proper oversight.
The Attorney General actually refused to describe details of a secret program vital to our national security in an open, televised meeting?

I'll go with the "spectacularly clueless" hypothesis, but only because I believe that the ACLU is such an intellectually challenged group of pathetic morons that no enemy of the US would want their assistance.

Via Stop the ACLU.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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February 06, 2006

CNN: Yes to Dung Covered Mary, No to Cartoon Muhammed

It's not so much that I blame CNN for not running the controversial Muhammed cartoon, as much as I wish they'd be just a tad bit more honest about it. They claim they won't run the picturs out of religious sensitivities, yet the same organization had no problems running images of the dung covered Mary. No, it's not hypocrisy. It's called fear.

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February 04, 2006

It's The War, Stupid

WWII Pay Back_gif.jpgI'm so sorry, but does that image offend your sensibilities? It should, because it clearly depicts one of our most staunch allies, Japan, and its citizens in a decidedly negative light.

Of course, that poster was created in the 1940's, during World War II. After 3 of the 8 airmen of the Doolittle raid captured by the Japanese were executed. During a time when their executions would have been accepted by the American public as a cost of waging war.

We now live in the post 9/11 world. An attack, incidentally, which has exhaustively been compared to Pearl Harbor. And we're at war.

Unlike WWII, we aren't rounding up Arab muslims and placing them in internment camps. Muslims today even serve in our armed forces. The U.S. Army soldier in the now famous picture of the capture of Saddam was an American Muslim.

But, even with the internment camps, Japanese Americans served with distinction in the European Theatre. They fought and died and bled just like any other soldier.

Yet that poster, and others like it, were still printed and distributed. Posters and other forms of media that were distributed about the country concerning Germans was even worse, in some cases, and German-Americans weren't relegated to internment camps.

The people that Rusty mentioned are free to wring their hands over what I and the other Jawas have depicted graphically here lately. Commenters are free to decry that we are pushing our moderate Muslim friends away, validating the Christophobia and the Judeophobia that even so-called moderate Muslims harbor latently in their minds.

Frankly, I could care less. I consider the recent depictions of Mohammed that I have made in the same vein that I view the creators of the poster to the right.

We are in a war. We didn't declare this war, they did. They are Islam. Like Rusty said, Islam is not just a religion, it's an ideology, indistinguishable from Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese Militarism, even Conservatism and Libertarianism.

Rusty has repeatedly posted on propaganda. I know, like he does, that propaganda is a valuable wartime asset. And since our own government and media won't rise to the challenge, the rest of us will. If I offend those normally disposed to help us, that's their problem, not mine. If Japanese-Americans could fight with honor against the Nazis despite the poster depicted above, then moderate Muslims should have no problem continuing to help us eradicate the festering sore of Islamofascism that is defining their religion.

Not only that, as Rusty's partner-in-agitation, I want the first official fatwa.

UPDATE: Hey! I post here too ya know.

SURE, WHY NOT: Grow up Islam. Patrick al-kafir says the same thing in not as many words.

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Interpreting the Embassy Fires

They speak, Jeff G. translates:

“Free speech is good so long as it tolerates our right, as an identity group, to dictate which free speech is authentic and allowable. Otherwise, y’know, we get to torch shit.”

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Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism

johnny-ramone-kill-a-commie-for-mommy-shirt.jpgI'm glad that the U.S. State Department condemned cartoons which offended many Muslims. That's their job. They are the official face of the American government to the world. And kudos to President Bush for condemning them. Again, he is America's chief diplomat. The business of diplomacy is to reduce conflict.

Luckily, I am not a diplomat. My responsibility as an online writer is to tell the truth as I see it. And the truth, as I see it, is that Islam is the cause of a great deal of evil in the world today.

So, when I see prominent bloggers that I respect saying that the above statement is based on a kind of phobia, I take humbrage. And when other prominent bloggers equate that sentiment with antisemetism, I take offense.

Many of us would like to think that Islam is just another religion. That sentiment comes from a good place. Most Americans want to believe that about our fellow Americans. In fact, I would argue that America has always had a national ecumenical spirit. But such thinking is also ignorant of Islam as it is, and not as it should be. I would like Islam to be just another religion which asks only for the soul of the Muslim and not his political fealty, but that is not the case.

As the vast majority of Muslims will readily admit to you, Islam is not simply a mode of worship, it is a total way of life that demands every aspect of a person's being. In other words, there is no render unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser's. There is no assumption of the separation of individual duty to God, and a society's duty to God. Thus, it proscribes not only what I should do as an individual, but what we should do as a society.

As such, it is not, strictly speaking, a religion. It is also a coherent socio-political system.

We normally call such socio-political constructs ideologies.

Islam as a religion I can accept, it is Islam as an ideology that I cannot.

The criticisms of those of us who are suspicious of Islam are sometimes valid. Frankly, part of the reason that I blog is to unleash my jeuvenile side. So, any accusation that The Jawa Report is often jeuvenile is spot on.

However, many recent comments by Left, Right, and Center are so far off and misinformed that they represent a kind of ideology of their own. That ideology confuses religious tolerance with religious acceptance. To tolerate Islam simply means to accept it as fact of life, but tolerance does not imply that I embrace it on equal terms with other religions.

I expect the Left to confuse tolerance and acceptance. They have always confused the two. But for the Right to do it is oddly out of place.

The Right has always been critical of ideologies which were antithetical to Liberty. We tolerated the Communist Party USA for 50 years, but were on the forefront of calling the ideology espoused by it what it was: inherently totalitarian.

I personally tolerated the head of the CPUSA as I listened to him speak on a square in front of Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in the mid-1990s. Believe me, it took all the strength I could muster to not jump on that stage and pop him one in the mouth as he cheered the old Soviet system and lied to the Russian people that they had been far better off under Communism than Americans ever were under democracy.

I tolerated him, but did not embrace him. That is how tolerance works.

We on the Right were correct in saying that Communism was an inherently totalitarian system. It subsumed the individual to the collective, the will of the me to the you.

During that time, and even today, Communist 'fellowtraveler' apologists liked to distinguish between 'Marxism' or 'true Communism' and 'Stalinism' or 'Soviet Communism'. In their minds, it was unfair to criticize Marx or often even Lenin.

Marx and Lenin, they would say, were trying to help people, but Stalin was in it just for the power. They found it easier to believe that Stalin murdered 40 million people for the sake of his own megalomania than because he believed he was doing it for the sake of building Communism. Oddly, they could see that Hitler killed the Jews because he believed it was helping build the uber race, but it eluded them how it could be that Stalin could murder the kulaks for the sake of collectivization.

A great deal of academic work was produced during this time as a way for the followers of Marx to distinguish themselves from Communism as it was actually practiced in the Soviet Union or in China. Such work was meant to separate 'true Communism' from the Communist states.

These Communist 'fellowtravelers' we on the Right could tolerate. They made it clear that they rejected much of the heavy-handedness of the Soviet system and were often equally critical of it.

But we never embraced even the watered down version of Communism offered by these so-called fellowtravelers.

None of us cowered at the notion of saying that it was Marx's ideology itself that was evil. None of us feared offending them or alienating them by saying that Stalin was the direct and logical outcome of Marx. That the gulags were in fact started by that heroic icon of the Left, Lenin. That Communism itself was totalitarian in nature and evil.

Despite expressing our opinion about the inherent flaws of Communism and its ideological founder, Marx, we still tolerated Communists among us. And despite cries of 'McCarthyism', we attempted to boldly declare that which we truly believed.

During all of this the Left loved to bring up the fact that the vast majority of Soviet citizens would love nothing more than to live in peace. Our rejoinder was, "so what." How is that relevant to a discussion over whether or not Communism is inherently totalitarian and that Marx is responsible for it?

The Left also liked to point out states like Tito's Yugoslavia as examples of what they liked to believe were more open societies which were Marxist in orientation. Again, we replied, they may not be as bad as the USSR, but the citizens of Yugoslavia were also not free in any liberal sense of the word. To point out that there is a difference between Communism in Yugoslavia and the USSR is only show that one is less totalitarian than the other, not that neither are totalitarian.

It was also obvious to every one that there were different factions within the greater community of Marxists. Some of these factions had rehabilitated Marx to the point that they were no different than non-Marxist social-democrats. We didn't really care if they called themselves Marxists. That was fine. As long as they rejected the core ideas of Marxism. For instance, the last time I checked, Christopher Hithchens was calling himself a Trotskyite-Marxist. No accounting for ideological labels, I guess.

During all of this nobody said that the individual American Communist was a threat to our civil liberties. We did not think of individual Communists as bad people. We did not fear that our Communist neighbors would commit acts of terrorism. We had them over to our houses for dinner. Our kids played with their kids.

We were mature enough then to call Communism evil, while recognizing that the individual Communist was the kind of person we could go to a baseball game with. That is to say, one's ideology has little to do with how that person acts on a day to day basis. One's ideology only tells us how that person believes society ought to be organized, not how one ought to act now in the society we have today.

I am a libertarian. Nevertheless, rarely am I tempted to open a brothel, grow pot, or exceed the speed limit as political protest.

I hope the foregoing analogy has made itself clear by now. If it hasn't, I'm sorry. Allow me to explain why all of this is relevant.

Today, some on the Right wish us to remain silent on the topic of Islam. Some wish us to remain silent for strategic reasons--we need moderate Muslims to fight radical Muslims. This is a valid concern.

But the same concern existed in Europe during the Cold War. We did not wish to alienate European Marxists who opposed Soviet Aggression. Yet, we understood that these Socialists were mature enough to accept our criticisms while taking our aid.

Alliances are made out of mutual interests, not necessarily out of mutual ideologies. If Muslims are not able to accept our criticisms without rejecting our aid in the mutual fight against a form of Islam we both abbhor, then I would suggest we have an even deeper problem than even I would like to admit.

Some wish us to remain silent because they are just too lazy to open up a Koran and the traditionally accepted hadiths (sayings and traditions) and find out what the roots of the core ideology of Islam really are. To say that some branches of Islam reject many of the more odious hadiths and interpretations of the Koran, that some are fully committed to a very liberal form of Islam, or that most Muslims simply do not contemplate these doctrines on a day to day basis is all well and true, but begs the essential question which we were willing to ask in the case of Marx, but seem to be unwilling to ask about Muhammed: is there something inherent in these teachings that is incompatible with the liberal tradition?

That the vast majority of the victims of Islamic violence are fellow Muslims also is telling, but not in the way that some wish us to believe. The Muslim victims of terrorism are no less victims of Islam than the countless number of true-believing socialists murdered by Communism.

The vast majority of the victims of Communism were people living in Communist states. 40 million Soviets were killed because of Communism. Tens of millions of Chinese citizens were killed because of Communism. That the victims of Communism were largely members of socialist societies says a great deal about the ideology itself. So too with Islam and its victims.

To criticize Islam is no more to criticize the individual Muslim than criticizing Marx was an attack on the character of an individual Marxist. To criticize Islamic societies is no more an attack on Muslims than criticizing Soviet society was an attack on Russians.

What I think about Islam has absolutely nothing to do with what I think about Muslims. I hate Islam, yet in two hours a close Muslim friend will be over at my house. What I think about Communism has nothing to with what I think of Communists. So much so, in fact, that I spent nine months of my life hanging out with pro-Stalin Russian Communists!!

To say that there is a direct connection between the teachings of Muhammed, Islam, and the terrorism that it so often breeds is no different than saying that there is a direct connection between Marx, Communism, and the totalitarianism that it bred.

Islam is the root cause of Islamic terrorism, just as Marxism was the root cause of international Communist aggression.

Islam is the root cause of Islamic authoritarianism in every single nation that has a Muslim majority, just as Marxism was the root cause of authoritarianism in every single nation that adopted the Communist system.

Muhammed is the man responsible for creating the ideology of conflict and tyranny that is Islam, every bit as much as Marx is the man responsible for creating the ideology of conflict and tyranny that is Communism.

To ask me to say anything less of Islam is to ask me to lie for the sake of political expediency or political correctness. I cannot, and will not, muzzle my criticisms of Muhammed simply because it may alienate some of our allies in the war on terror, nor will I be silent about Islam simply because it may offend.

We were able to win the Cold War without resorting to such nonsense. I hope and pray that we can win the war against radical Islam under those same terms.

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February 03, 2006

The 'Mother of All Downing Street Memos' Nonsense (Updated)

The tin-foil brigades are at it again. This time with a Downing Street memo which is supposedly "bigger, longer, and uncut". In fact, this one is another non-starter for the conspiracists who would like to believe that George Bush and Tony Blair are the modern incarnations of evil.

To the conspiracy theorists all absence of evidence is evidence of kabal and silence is nothing more than cover up. Thus, the conspiracist is left grasping at straws and then calling such straws evidence--or worse, proof.

So, what is in this "mother of all Downing Street memos" which David Corn believes is evidence that Bush and Blair are "conspiring to create a modern-day version of the sinking of the Maine"? Yes, Corn actually uses the word conspiring--you know, as in "to be involved in a conspiracy", Here is the Channel4 'exlusive':

President Bush to Tony Blair: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach"
Corn calls this the equivalent of the sinking of the Maine, which is telling since he seems to believe that was a 'conspiracy' as well.

But, what exactly is the big deal here? The fact of the matter is that Saddam Hussein was doing this on a nearly daily basis already! With or without the Bush-Blair conspiracy, Iraqi forces fired on U.S. and British planes patrolling the no-fly zone thousands of times before U.S. troops ever invaded Iraq.

How does one conspire to create an incident that is already happening on nearly a daily basis? Is Corn and the American Left acually so ignorant as to have not read the hundreds of press reports of Iraqi forces firing on Coalition airplanes for years and years before the invasion?

Saddam had been in breach for a dozen years, the majority of which were under the Clinton administration. Was Bill Clinton somehow involved in this conspiracy too?

Corn seems to rest his hopes on that single point. But there is more in what he calls 'the mother of all Downing Street' memos:

Bush: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated."
I'm not sure which part is more not shocking. An Iraqi defector had come forward and presented his case about WMD. It was during the Clinton Administration. It turned out that defector's information was accurate. Despite intelligence that claimed Iraq had no WMD, it turned out that the intelligence was wrong. Iraq did have an active WMD program despite what the CIA was saying. That defector was Saddam Hussein's son-in-law and it was the Clinton Administration's intelligence community that had the WMD prediction wrong. But I'm sure that was part of the conspiracy, right?

So, what is the big deal about wanting an Iraqi to talk publicly about Iraq's WMD program? It had been done before and used as pretext to invade Iraq's sovereignty before.

Assassinate Hussein? File under: mother of all not-shocking ideas.

What else is so 'shocking' in the papers?

Blair: "A second Security Council Resolution resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected and international cover, including with the Arabs. "
That's not a revelation, that's just history. News flash: Bush and Blair wished U.N. would back invasion! Don't want Arabs pissed!
Bush: "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway.''
News Flash: U.S. believes it does not need U.N. backing to use military force to protect its perceived vital national security interests! How shocking is that. I seem to recall that John Kerry had the same position, before he didn't.
Blair responds that he is: "solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam."
Er, and this is significant because??
Bush told Blair he: "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."
Okay, so Bush was wrong. Being wrong doesn't make one part of a conspiracy.

The conspiracy minded doesn't stop there. People like Corn were convinced there was a conpiracy long before the Downing Street Memo. The DSM was used as 'evidence' that their preconceived notions were correct. So this 'evidence' simply corraborates what they already believe. Just like moon landing nuts who believe that a photo which shows a shadow where they don't think it should be is 'proof' of the conspiracy, Corn and the far Left believe any statements from Bush or Blair that they were planning for war before they had publicly stated that they had made up their minds is 'proof' of a neo-Imperialist agenda.

But it gets worse. While rational people will see these statements as ambigious at worst and innocuous and obvious at best, people like Corn think the smoking gun has been found. They are so convinced that they know 'objective reality' as it really is, that any disregard for the memo is simply to deny the obvious. Hence, when the media doesn't pick up on the story Corn and the Left believe the media is part of the conspiracy too! Corn:

Will members of the press corps at 1600 Pennsylvania press the point? This revelation--which is more shocking than anything in the Downing Street Memos--should be major news here. But will it?
Zebra, meet stripes.

Hat tip: payer of bills.

dKos:

The new smoking gun reveals a flagrant violation of international law. Waging war under such circumstances constitutes a breach of the Nuremberg and Geneva codes and the UN Charter, which legitimize such action only in clear and present danger situations involving self-defense.
Bwahahaaa!!!

The Political Pit Bull has an excellent analysis of this shocking new memo, too.

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Bin Laden, Kanye West and Beatles Bigger than Christ

binladenchrist.jpg

Upside down bin Laden as Christ

When will the riots and death threats begin? Perhaps we should boycott New York? More from Michelle Malkin and Chad at ITB.

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February 02, 2006

Okay, it's not illegal...

...but it should be. Cindy Sheehan receives apology from Capital Police. When do we get an apology from Lynn Woolsey for bringing a tin-foil wearing Zionist conspiracy America-hater to Congress? A woman who just a week before was kissing a modern Peronist fascist? Pleeeaase!

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More Deranged Raving From The Left

Stop the ACLU chronicles two of the latest examples of the deterioration of the anti-American Left. Cindy Sheehan (if anyone is still listening) goes all Ward Churchill on the President:

George Bush, a few weeks ago, said “oh I don’t know, 30,000″, innocent Iraqis. Well, even if we take his estimation into consideration and say “ok, it was 30,000″ … On September 11, one of the most tragic days in American history that we will all never forget, 3,000 Americans were killed, so does that make George Bush ten times a bigger terrorist than Osama bin Laden? (Applause)
What will Cindy do next, claim membership in an Indian tribe? more...

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Dude, Smoke A Bowl, Chill

This is a comment left on my post here:

I am an avid supporter of free speech. However, anyone can express an opinion,
the real question should be how informed is that opinion or expression.

There is a point where the speech produced has no constructive value to our
society and is nothing but mere baseless and crass vitriol that doesn't befit as
advanced a civilization as the West.

Many Western countries draw a limit on the freedom of speech when it comes to
the identity of child rape victim, slander and libel. Another main exception
that some countries have adopted is hate speech. Hate speech is speech which
condemns or dehumanizes the individual or group; or expresses anger, hatred,
violence or contempt toward them.

Depicting the Muslim's prophet as a terrorist, with absolutely no corroborating
or intellectual support or discourse, is hate speech.

I do not believe Christianity teaches us to dehumanize nor express hatred,
anger, violence, or contempt against an individual or group.

Such behaviour fails to show even the slightest modicum of decorum and civil
behaviour. Jesus would be ashamed.

The commenter's email is appropriate. "despondant." If there is a group that is perpetually despondent, it's the left.

But, I wanted to respond to what I highlighted. Apparently, my happy commenter has never bothered to read the Koran.

Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and hypocrites, and deal sternly with them. —Koran 66:9

God has promised you rich booty, and has given you this with all promptness. He has stayed your enemies' hands, so that He may make your victory a sign to true believers and guide you along a straight path. —Koran 48:20


Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. -Koran 9:29

And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away! - Koran 9:30

Still think there's no corroborating evidence? You still want to discuss "hate speech?"

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February 01, 2006

Does George Bush Hate Women and Black People?

Clinton Taylor says no. Proof? The fact that Bush sent troops in to Liberia and now that country has the first woman president in Africa. Ever. Check out his article at Town Hall. Here's my favorite part, if somewhat unrelated to the rest of the article, still a helluva good point:

The old hippies at Rolling Stone magazine try once again to get a rise out of us Jesus-folk by running a cover photo of rapper Kanye West in a crown of thorns, beaten and bloodied, as if he were the subject of the Crucifixion. Ho-hum. Back when I was a teenager, Madonna’s Like a Prayer video actually attracted some attention. Today, though, Rolling Stone is going to have to work harder to cause a blasphemous splash—perhaps they could run a cover photo of Jewish shock-comic Sarah Silverman dressed as the Prophet Mohammed, and see if that gets some feedback.
Indeed.

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Eric Alterman: Bush = Jill Carroll Hostage Takers

Is Eric Alterman dumb or just evil? To equivocate between U.S. forces detaining women who have ties to terrorists and terrorists who kidnap, hold hostage, and threaten to murder civilians is dumb and evil, so I guess the answer is both.

Such equivocation minimizes the barbarity of hostage taking. Further, it gives aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States who fight us because they actually believe such equivocations are true. Next time bin Laden delivers an audio tape to al Jazeera, I fully expect him to quote Eric Alterman.


Eric Alterman
:

I’d like to congratulate the Bush administration for having the good taste to not make too big a deal about the kidnapping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll by Iraqi insurgents. Since the Bush administration is in the business of politically kidnapping innocent people too, including the wives of people it wants to surrender. I hate to say it because of the all the baggage it carries but it reminds me of the deliberate murder of the innocent Ethel Rosenberg, to try to get a confession out of her husband.
Alterman basis this evil and dumb comparison based on an al Jazeera.com report that he embeds a link to in his post. Alterman is too stupid to realize that al Jazeera.com is not the actual al Jazeera you hear so much about on TV. No, al Jazeera.com is much much worse than al Jazeera. This is an English language outlet for the type of Muslims who think that the al Jazeera satellite television station is far too cozy with the West. These terror supporters simply grabbed the .com domain before the Qatar based station could buy it.

But that goes only to Alterman's stupidity. What about the evil accusation?

As regular readers know, I spend a good deal of my free time watching media produced by terrorists and reading what they say on bulletin boards. Alterman's accusations are identical to those made by jihadis all around the world. They justify the murdering of people like Jill Carroll as simple tit-for-tat.

The Americans murder Iraqi women, therefore murdering American women is justified.

They actually believe this. Why would they not? Their media tells them so. They even have images of crying women making the same accusations. It only makes matters worse that the American Left also seems to enjoy believing the most outrageous accusations made against the U.S.

So, we should not be surprised that when terrorists in Iraq cut off the head of an American civilian that they first dress him up in the orange jumpsuits so familiar from picturs of Abu Ghraib. They justify their actions because they equivocate the abuse at Abu Ghraib with torture and murder.

Just as Eric Alterman equivocates detaining security threats who happen to be women with the kidnapping of civilians.

The views of the people holding Jill Carroll hostage are shaped by the outrageous lies of the Arab, Islamist, and Western Leftist media. For nearly two years now, with every single female hostage that has been taken there has been a demand that all female Iraqi prisoners must be released from prison. These demands came long before Jill Carroll was taken hostage because these media outlets made outlandish accusations that thousands of Iraq women were in prison, being tortured, raped, forced to watch as American soldiers sadistically killed their small children, and murdered.

All of which are lies, and all of which outlets such as the one cited by the ignoramous Eric Alterman--al Jazeera.com--have been running for years.

So, when the U.S. military admits that it occassionally detains women for questioning in a country that has more than its fair share of female suicide bombers, how exactly are we to come to the conclusion that we are guilty of hostage taking? Even when these women are only detained for questioning because their husbands are terrorists, such equivocation is unfounded. The wives of criminals are routinely questioned in the United States, even in peacetime. And charging the loved ones of a criminal is routinely done in the U.S. as leverage against the real target of the criminal investigation--the husbands.

Under war conditions is it surprising that we might need to detain the wife of a terrorist who may know the time and location of the next bombing of a cafe that her husband is planning? That soldiers might occasionally overstep the normal bounds of detention if they think that holding a woman might lead to the arrest of the kind of man that beheads hostages? That the same procedural rules that apply in Chicago don't necessarily apply in Baghdad?

It takes a sick, demented, and perverted mind to come to the conclusion that American soldiers are engaged in the same activities as Islmic terrorists. Eric Alterman has such a mind.

More at Newsbusters who have a similar disdain of Alterman.

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Ted Rall: US Military = bin Laden (updated)

Go see Ted Rall's latest outrage and tell me he doesn't deserve a swift kick in the [insert body part here]. (via Bluto)

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has this offensive cartoon by Tom Toles. The brass is not too happy, and either am I.

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Michael Jackson, Eat Your Heart Out

Sure, we believe you.

"Muscle spasms."

Heh.

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January 31, 2006

Hahahahaha ***UPDATED***

Fox News reports that Cindy Sheehan was led out of the House gallery in handcuffs.

Apparently she tried to unfurl a banner.

From the Corner:

This from Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of U-S Capitol Police.... Cindy Sheehan was arrested in the gallery of the house floor tonight and charged with demonstrating in the Capitol--a misdemeanor. ...Sgt. Schneider says she was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it and was asked to cover it up. Sheehan did not cover it up and she was arrested. ....She is being processed at Capital Police hd and is expected to be released at some point tonight. The misdemeanor charge carries one year in jail.

What a pity she wasn't armed.

UPDATE:

Heh:

Liberal activists -- among them graying leftovers from the Vietnam-era antiwar movement -- plan to gather near the Capitol tonight, banging pots and pans to drown out President Bush's State of the Union address.

SHUT UP, BEDWETTERS, I CAN'T HEAR THE PRESIDENT!!!

Anyone else having a problem hearing?

UPdaTE 2:

Thank you Howie, for posting the transcript.

Due to the cacophonous din of moonbattery banging pots and pans 2000 miles away, I was unable to hear a word of tonight's SOTU. Cursed rabble rousers, they ruined my SOTU drinking game. One shot for every time the Democrats sit while the RethugliKKKans give a standing 'O'. Two shots for every close up of a Hillary "I just ate a raw lemon dipped in Bill's semen" look.

So I'm still sober, dammit.

BTW, did anyone notice the absence, albeit one small reference, of any real mention of North Korea?

Any ideas why? I haven't a clue, to be quite honest.

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Liveblogging The Democrat Response

No, not that Democrat response.

This Democrat response.

Tinfoil hat mandatory

UPDATE:

Good lord, I'm doing lots of updates tonight.

UPDATE 2:

I just clicked on that link and saw this:

We've squandered the goodwill of the nations of the world with the Iraq debacle. How exactly does President Bush propose to engage the nations of the world in combatting this threat? The occupation of Iraq has galvanized radical Islamists in their hatred of the United States, providing a regrettable and powerful recruiting tool to those who would do us harm. How does the President propose we reach out to the Muslim world to build the bridges we must have to become "the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran"?

Our own armed forces are stretched nearly to the breaking point, understaffed and under-equipped because of the Iraq debacle. How does the President propose we rebuild our armed forces to combat the threat Iran poses?

The largest cost of the Iraq debacle is likely to prove to be our inability to respond to the threat of Iran, diplomatically or militarily.

Hey, STUPID! Can you read a freakin' GLOBE? Do you have any idea what country sits between Iraq and Afghanistan? IRAN.

The armed forces you claim are stretched too thin are sitting within spitting distance of the country you claim we can't deal with militarily.

And of course you can't deal with Iran diplomatically, they're under the thumb of a bunch of undiplomatic 7th Century theocrats who believe that once they get DA BOMB, the 12th imam will appear in all his righteous glory.

How about this ignorance:

How does the President propose we reach out to the Muslim world to build the bridges we must have to become "the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran"

Gee, could saving Kosovo be a start? Oh, that was your boy Clinton. How about extending aid after the earthquake that killed 20,000? Tsunami aid? Pakistan earthquake aid?

If anyone wonders why the Daily Kos is so popular, all you have to do is look at the success of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Or the Darwin Awards.

Posted by: Vinnie at 09:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Leftist Idiots on Parade

Via TC Leather Penguin, this from the Washington Times:

"I'm old enough to remember an op-ed you wrote in March 1974 which appeared in the New York Times, saying the military should intervene in getting rid of Richard Nixon," one gray-haired woman told Mr. Raskin. She spoke about "criminals, gangsters and thugs" in the Bush administration.

Mr. Raskin seemed confused. "I don't think I wrote it," he told the gathering. "I'm not in favor of military coup d'etats."

Mr. Clark, the Vietnam-era Democratic attorney general who is an attorney for former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, spoke for 10 minutes.

His voice faltered, and he seemed to lose his train of thought. "President Bush is the greatest threat to peace and human rights," Mr. Clark told the crowd, calling for Mr. Bush's impeachment, which drew applause.

Of course, the moral implications of Clark's words are, if they are taken seriously, that one ought to support a military coup. Because if one believes that Bush is 'the greatest threat to peace and human rights' the one ought to support getting rid of him. With any means necessary.

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If Jessica Alba Was a Danish Free Speech Activist (Updated)

What would happen if instead of the global warming, Hollywood celebrities took on the cause of free speech in Denmark?

UPDATE: Remember, if you don't buy Danish the terrorists have already won!

Jessica-Alba

+

shirt.jpg

=

jessica_alba_reads_mohammed_comics.jpg

Photoshop your own. Bonus points for any photoshop including Angelina Jolie.

Another update: I ask, Aaron delivers. If Angelina Jolie was a hot Danish free speech activist.

UPDATE: What if Nicole Ritchie was a free speech activist instead of a hasbeen socialite that never was? more...

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WaPo Sinks to New Lows: Terrorist Editorial

Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Nevertheless, the Washington Post feels it appropriate to let a convicted Hamas terrorist editorialize in their pages. Isn't there something in the USA Patriot Act against giving material support to terrorists? Isn't giving them free advertising material support?

Mousa Abu Marzook in the Washington Post:

A new era in the struggle for Palestinian liberation is upon us. Through historic fair and free elections, the Palestinian people have spoken.
Yes, they have, and what they have said is 'we hate J-O-Os'.
Accordingly, America's long-standing tradition of supporting the oppressed's rights to self-determination should not waver.
No it should not. We should support the tiny liberal democracy of Israel which is surrounded and oppressed by a billion Muslims eager to drive them into the sea.
The United States, the European Union and the rest of the world should welcome the unfolding of the democratic process, and the commitment to aid should not falter. Last week's victory of the Change and Reform Party in the Palestinian legislative elections signals a new hope for an occupied people.
New hope? Oh, yes, "We really hope that the final solution will finally be implemented correctly."But here is the choicest part
Our society has always celebrated pluralism in keeping with the unique history and traditions of the Holy Land. In recognizing Judeo-Christian traditions, Muslims nobly vie for and have the greatest incentive and stake in preserving the Holy Land for all three Abrahamic faiths.
Right. Is this the same Hamas which has vowed to drive the Jews into the sea? Is this the same Hamas that makes it impossible for Jews to live in the West Bank or Gaza, both of which have become Jew-free zones? Is this the same Hamas that has vowed to implement Iranian style sharia law? Is this the same Hamas that has been terrorizing Arab Christians for decades?

Whether or not Hamas gets rid of corruption in the Palestinian Authority is a secondary concern. Populist movements are often shouldered under the auspices of 'reform'. A 'transparent' PA which supports terrorism is no prize to the civilized society.

Give me a corrupt PA that doesn't support terrorism over a clean PA that does, any day.

Via Captain Ed who has more.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:25 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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January 30, 2006

Smooth Operator

Wow. Look at Venezuelan Socialist strongman and number one fan of Fidel Castro put the moves on newly-back-on-the-market anti-war shrillster Cindy Sheehan. I haven't seen Latin suave done so well since Ricardo Montalban. more...

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January 29, 2006

ACLU Having Another Cow

Jay at Stop the ACLU is covering the latest hissy fit and innuendo campaign from the champions of brave jihadi babyhunters everywhere, cross-posted from ACLU Watch/Republican Voices.

It seems that in one or two cases, the wives of terrorist insurgents were taken in for questioning as possible accomplices and/or material witnesses. The ACLU is trying to conflate this into some sort of organized campaign to kidnap innocent Iraqi women, and has managed to plant a story in that other bastion of objectivity and patriotism, the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in at least two cases have detained wives of suspected insurgents in Iraq in an attempt to pressure the men into surrendering, documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union confirm.

"This is not an acceptable tactic," ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said Friday.

In one instance, members of a military task force seized a mother of three young children "in order to leverage" her husband's surrender, according to an account by a civilian Defense Intelligence Agency officer.

"I certainly had no idea what Mahmoud was doing with those batteries, wires, digital watches, and 155mm artillery shells. He's always loved to putter around in his workshop. And he said that the AK-47s and SAMs were for duck hunting."

The ACLU's attempt to portray these women as innocent lambs being roughed up by the Coalition would be laughable, if the consequences of failure weren't so grave.

The only thing that the military has done wrong is to release these terrorists and terrorist enablers prematurely.

Also posted at The Dread Pundit Bluto and Vince Aut Morire.

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January 28, 2006

Suicide is Painless...

In a particularly lugubrious piece for the LA Times, breathlessly entitled, "Witch Hunt at UCLA", English professor Saree Makdisi whines:

My colleagues and I are being targeted for speaking out on the kinds of urgent social matters and universal principles that it has always — in every society and every age — been the task of intellectuals to address.
This sounds admirable and important.

What kind of "urgent social matters" and "universal principles" does Dr. Makdisi address? Many of them seem to be similar to this: more...

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January 27, 2006

ACLU Hearts Terrorists

Steve Emerson of the Counterterrorism Blog:

The American Civil Liberties Union has sent a letter (Acrobat) to Department of Justice calling for the dismissal of the remaining charges against former University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian. Citing Al-Arian’s acquittal on 8 of the 17 charges against him, the ACLU claims that since “the two most serious charges” were thrown out, that al-Arian should be set free, and that such a move would demonstrate that the United States “welcomes religious and ethnic diversity.”
But there's more:
PIJ is not the only Palestinian terrorist group to find its way onto the ACLU’s docket.

Earlier this month, the ACLU filed an amicus brief on behalf of Abdelhaleem Ashqar, an alleged Hamas operative indicted on racketeering charges along with Hamas’ deputy political chief, Musa Abu Marzook. The ACLU is attempting to suppress evidence by claiming that the FBI conducted an “illegal” search of Ashqar’s home in December 1993.

Stop the ACLU:
The ACLU have opposed every effort our government has tried to fight terrorism, and has defended the enemy at every chance they get. The ACLU carefully walk the line of treason. Many of us think they have crossed that line, and we are sick and tired of nothing being done about it.
Indeed. Via Hyscience.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:05 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Jimmy Carter Advocating Criminal Acts?

From The Jerusalem Post:

"The Palestinian Government is destitute, and in desperate financial straits. I hope that support for the new government will be forthcoming," Carter said at a Jerusalem press conference.

Carter, who has long supported the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, voiced the hope that the Islamic terror group would act "responsibly" now that it had won the elections.

Isn't President Peanut just the soul of kindness, at least when it comes to coddling terrorists? Unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier here, it's illegal for Americans to provide "material support or resources" to designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. And Hamas is so designated by the State Department. more...

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