Remember when "Operation Infinite Justice" -- the post-9/11 US military build-up -- was quickly  changed  to "Operation Enduring Freedom" because Islam believes only Allah dispenses "infinite justice"?

Well, now that as many 50 Pakistani imams in the Sunni Ittehad Council --  Facebook page here -- have declared jihad on the US, they have also declared that it is haram (forbidden) to call the U.S. a superpower because only Allah deserves the title.

Of course, Pakistan has been fighting a jihad against the American Superdumbpower (is that ok???) for a long time -- even as it has been collecting billions in backsheesh -- US taxpayer dollars. This week, we learned about one skirmish in that jihad -- the deliberate and concerted...

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Five British soldiers shot and killed by a 'rogue' Afghan policeman in Helmand province in November 2009. In all, at least 37 40 Western troops have been killed by Afghan "allies" in the past 22 months.

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London Telegraph: "Commanders ignored warnings that British troops were at risk from attack by Afghan allies: carry a loaded pistol whenever working alongside them, secret Nato report warned"

The report, ordered after a rogue Afghan policeman shot dead five British servicemen, recommended that British troops should be armed with 9mm pistols at all times - even when sleeping - because of the high risk of being attacked.



...

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This week's syndicated column:

Only the U.S. military could build a defensive wall of words -- "dismounted complex blast injury" (DCBI) -- around the bare fact that single, double, triple, even quadruple amputations are up sharply among U.S. forces on foot patrol in Afghanistan. So are associated pelvic, abdominal and genital injuries, according to a newly released report.

But even the antiseptic language of the report is excruciating, as when it calls for "further refinement" of "aggressive pain management at the POI (point of injury)," or highlights the need to train more military urologists in "phallic reconstruction surgery."

It isn't management but prevention that is called for.

These grievous injuries have increased because more U.S. forces are on foot patrol in Afghanistan. More Americans are on foot patrol in Afghanistan...

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My upcoming column this week takes off from a new report on the continuing spike in amputations among US troops in Afghanistan. The AP reports: 

The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries.



The number of U.S. troops who had amputations rose sharply from 86 in 2009, to 187 in 2010 and 147 so far this year, military officials said Tuesday, releasing the report on catastrophic wounds.

Of those, the number of troops who lost two or three limbs rose from 23 in 2009 to 72 last year to 77 so far this year. ... The soldier on foot is at greater risk for severe injuries, Tuesday's...

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My title today conjures up all the wrong imagery because "the doors of perception," which comes to us from William Blake, was taken by Aldous Huxley as the title of his book of reflections on mescaline, which was taken by Jim Morrison as the name of his band. My concern with "the doors" is not at all psychodelic, although I suddenly find that this is likely the one opportune moment I will ever have  to drop the fact that in the mid-1950s, Aldous Huxley invited my late father, Elliot West, a Hollywood writer and novelist, to take mescaline with him.

Dad declined, although he did do what he could to help Huxley in his surprising quest to get a television writing job -- surprising as in: The great Aldous Huxley, author of the genius "Brave New World" and crackling novels such as "Point Counter Point," essays, poetry, and even co-credit on the excellent 1940 screenplay of "Pride and Prejudice," can't get a lousy TV job just  by clearing his throat? Apparently not, and my mother still recalls how Huxley broached the subject while examining the cover of an LP (record, kids) of the musical "Kismet" at such close range that it was half an inch from  his eyeballs. Huxley was very nearly blind; hence, his desire for mescaline, a drug said to intensify color and landscape.

...

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From the Guardian, an essay by Naina Patel, a 30-year-old barrister who spent last year bringing law to Afghanistan. Only what kind, pray tell?

During the year, I began to understand how fortunate we are to have only one set of laws in Britain. Afghanistan is really three legal systems within one: the state system, dating back to the reign of King Amanullah, inspired by the codes of Turkey and Egypt; sharia, founded on ancient religious texts and their interpretation; and customary law, such as Pashtunwali, the strict honour code of the Pashtuns. Only the first two of these are explicitly recognised in the country's constitution. Still, the result is a confusing labyrinth of rules and norms, which only heightens the challenge of providing high quality and consistent justice.

The problem...

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This week's syndicated column:

Having passed the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I can now say with certainty that something major was missing from all of the ceremonies, the symbolism and the media coverage. It was something that not only captures the meaning of the attacks themselves, but better defines our response to them than any other single thing. It is the face of the age itself, and it is not Osama bin Laden's.

I refer to the most familiar of the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, the one by Kurt Westergaard. I always think of this world-famous drawing as "Bomb-head Muhammad," for the lit bomb that serves as Muhammad's turban. (This is no fantastical image, as we learned last month when Afghan President Hamid Karzai prevailed upon local imams to implore their flocks to stop putting bombs in their turbans after three separate assassinations via turban bombs...

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If a tree falls in a forest  -- no, if a bunch of al Qaeda and Hezbollah "flickers" seize power of the ninth largest oil state with NATO and US support -- will anyone take notice?

Not the New York Times and pals -- until it's too late.

From today's Old, Grey (Blind) Lady, Page One:

"Islamists' Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya"

TRIPOLI, Libya — In the emerging post-Qaddafi Libya, the most influential politician may well be Ali Sallabi, who has no formal title but commands broad respect as an Islamic scholar and populist orator who was instrumental in leading the mass uprising.

The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.

"Once believed"? What a deceptively fuzzy term to use given that the US State Department, in its 2008 rundown of terrorist organizations, describes a 2007 "merger" between Belhaj's "hard-line group" (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) and al Qaeda!

...

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News from Vlaams Belang -- and, if Western-style liberty is your bag, it isn't good. A sharia court now presides in beautiful Antwerp. Of course, NATO and the US have enthusiastically supported the ascension of sharia in Libya, so will this news be welcome in the capitals of Europe and the US? The answer is two-fold, It will be welcome because it will be willfully, suicidally misunderstood, as the insipid response of Anwterp's "Alderman for Diversity" (below) attests. The dhimmification of the West is nigh complete. Thanks to resolute parties such as Vlaams Belang, however, resistance continues. The flame of liberty still flickers.

But for how long?

In a press release, the VB lion Filip Dewinter writes:

As we announced yesterday, a sharia court has been established in the north of Antwerp. This ‘court’, located within the so-called ‘Center for Islamic Services’, is an initiative of the extremist Muslim group Sharia4Belgium. The opening of a sharia court in Antwerp...

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The Daily Mail today reports:

Libya's interim leader has said Sharia law will be used as the basis for new legislation as the country removes all traces of the Gaddafi regime.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, making his first public speech in Tripoli in front of 10,000 people, warned against reprisals by rebel forces against elements of the Gaddafi regime.

And he said that 'extremist ideology' would not be tolerated under the new regime.

Under a sharia regime, "extremist ideology" includes freedom of religion, freedom of speech, equal rights for women and non-Muslims -- that kind of thing. The Daily Mail story continues:

The National Transitional Council chairman said: 'We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where sharia is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions.'...

Back in 2005, it occurred to me that the US "war on terror" was in fact all about "making the world safe for sharia." Our interventions in the Islamic...

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Coming soon to Doha, Qatar: the political offices of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan -- Taliban HQ.

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On September 10, the Islamic jihadists of Afghanistan, commonly known as the Taliban, massively struck at a US military outpost with a truck bomb that left a 20-foot-deep crater, wounding scores of Americans, mainly with concussions.

On September 11, President Barack Hussein Obama read Psalm 46 at Ground Zero: "Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has wrought desolations in the earth." As Robert Spencer pointed out, "The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are...Islamic jihadists."

On September 12, the Times of London reported...

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If you want to know what anniversary we celebrate (or should) for the 328th time today (and the meaning of the above illustration by Lars Vilks), go to the aptly named Gates of Vienna for the good news.

During a semi-bi-annual clean-up of my study, I came across an undated scrap of Washington Post on which Brookings' Robert Kagan briefly but thoroughly excoriated George Will for advocating US withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. It apparently dates back back two years to columns Will wrote in September 2009.

Nothing could be more "disastrous" than such a "double surrender," Kagan wrote. His reason:

The consequences of such a retreat would be to shift the balance of influence in the region decidedly away from pro-US forces and in the direction of the most radical forces in Tehran, as well as toward al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, to name just the most prominent beneficiaries.

That's bitterly funny. Two years later, the balance of influence in the region is ever more clearly with these same "radical forces" that our very presence, Kagan wrote, was supposed to counter.

Take Iran. Now revealed (but not by the US Government but by private attorneys in court)...

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This week's syndicated column:

It is something to have gone 10 years without an Islamic attack of similarly gigantic proportions to those of Sept. 11, 2001, but it is not enough. That's because the decade we look back on is marked by a specifically Islamic brand of security from jihad. It was a security bought by the Bush and Obama administrations' policies of appeasement based in apology for, and irrational denial of, Islam's war doctrine, its anti-liberty laws and its non-Western customs. As a result of this policy of appeasement -- submission -- we now stand poised on the brink of a golden age.

Tragically for freedom of speech, conscience and equality before the law, however, it is an Islamic golden age. It's not just the post-9/11 rush into Western society of Islamic tenets and traditions on everything from law to finance to diet that has heralded this golden...

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John Rosenthal provides a cheat sheet on Al Qaeda in Libya -- US-supported Al Qaeda in Libya -- at Hudson New York. It is shocking evidence of how far off course we have drifted since September 11, 2001.

Abdul Hakim Belhadj -- today, "commander of Tripoli"; yesterday, founder of the Al Qaeda affiliate called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) -- wins Quote of the Day (via MEMRI), even if it does date back to the 1990s:

"The LIFG opposes all who advocate democracy or believe that Islam's victory can be achieved by any means other than jihad."

Ah, jihad. That little thing.

Oh, but he renounced such jihadist ways in exchange for his release from Libyan prison last year, did he not?

You bet. But he also renounced violence against Qaddafi -- and that pledge didn't exactly prove to be rock of ages.

Still, Belhadj does seem to have found a new obsession...

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The face of a drug and organ smuggler? Kosovo Prime MInister Hashim Thaci

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An update on this story.

"US prosecutor to probe to probe Kosovo organ trafficking"

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A U.S. prosecutor will investigate claims that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci allegedly led a criminal network that sold organs of civilian captives during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, the EU's mission in Kosovo said Monday.

John Clint Williamson was named lead prosecutor in a task force set up to investigate allegations raised in a report last year by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty, the mission said...

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Deputy District Gov. Mohammad Akbar Khan (left) sits with Navy Lt. Asif Balbale (center) and Lt. Cmdr. David Todd in the district governor’s compound in Sangin, Afghanistan, Sept. 3.

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Asif Balbale is a Muslim Navy chaplain and imam. He spent the past month visiting Afghanistan " to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan through religious outreach engagements across Helmand province," the Pentagon reports (gushes) at DVIDS. Sangin -- bloody, Taliban-riddled Sangin -- was his last stop.

Was he there to minister to US Muslims in uniform? Hardly. As Balbale himself notes in this interview, he ministers to US Muslims in uniform  only "sporadically." Instead, this was a dog and pony show for Afghan...

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The English Defense League has released a long, passionate and patriotic statement regarding the arrest of EDL leader Tommy Robinson. It is a testament to the state of crisis ordinary British people endure on the streets of British cities and towns where they are forced by anti-democratic, sheltered elites to live State Islamization. The statement is also an explanation: Tommy Robinson protests; Tommy Robinson inspires protest. Therefore, Tommy Robinson must be jailed.

Here is an excerpt from the post at Gates of Vienna.

In Tower Hamlets Tommy made a very clear statement: “When you let me out of court with any bail conditions that restrict my democratic right to oppose militant Islam, I will break them the minute I walk out of that court room.” The question then becomes: is Tommy Robinson being held captive because he has dared to challenge the authority of the court...

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Why is this man being arrested?

After giving this speech  about democratic rights and political freedom in Tower Hamlets, East London, English Defense League leader Tommy Robinson was deprived of both his rights and his freedom by the British state.

He is now on a hunger strike in prison in Bedford -- the "Bedford Lubyanka," as Gates of Vienna is calling it.

Keep an eye on this breaking story at Gates of Vienna, Vlad Tepes, and Here's the Right Side of It.

The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports (links in the original):

Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels.

Looks as if the  "flickers" have...

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Hard to tell.

So why not teach a class in how to fire rocket propelled grenaades?

This week's syndicated  column:

Beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms another signal date in the annals of global jihad. That date is Sept. 20, when the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas is expected to petition the United Nations for statehood.

What would a U.N.-ordained Palestinian state have to do with global jihad? Practically everything, because such statehood would mark a major victory in the long war on Israel's existence. And, whether unadmitted or unimagined, it is Israel on which the axis of Islamic jihad turns.

I've never been more convinced of this than after reading four, clarifying pages of Bat Ye'or's new book, "Europe, Globalization, and the Coming Universal Caliphate" (Lexington Books). In a first-chapter primer on the relationship between the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, much of which revolves around mutual animus toward Israel, Ye'or revisits the hateful perversion that passes for political normal: the relentless...

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No chemistry here as Mahmoud Jibril of Libya's Transitional National Council posess with Italy's Silvio Berlusconi after receiving Italy's pledge to unfreeze about $500 million -- read: tribute -- held in Italian banks on August. This apparently loveless match took place one day after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy (below). Still, Italy's ENI oil subsequently signed a memo with the NTC to resume oil activity -- activity that was ever so briefly in doubt given Italy's relationship with Qaddafi.

Here's the real thing -- at least on Sarkozy's part. Notice that glow of gleaming Euros about him. Could it be that sweet deal with the rebels...

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France: "I'm shocked, shocked, that blood is being exchanged for oii in Libya."

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Via ANSAmed (with thanks to Baron Bodissey):

PARIS, SEPTEMBER 1 - France reportedly finalised an agreement with the National Transitional Council (NTC) at the beginning of the conflict in Libya on the basis of which the rebels would sign over 35% of Libyan oil to Paris, according to this morning's issue of the French daily Liberation, which noted that Foreign Minister Alain Juppe' ''was not aware'' of the agreement.

Right.

The newspaper has obtained a letter dated April 3 of the NTC and addressed to the Qatari emir, in which the rebels' organisation claims to have signed ''an agreement...

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