Peggy Noonan has decided that "standing for principles" and not voting for them is ... "grown-up."

Having written a book like this, them's fightin' words. Avoiding consequences, taking shortcuts, shirking responsibilities -- all comprise the m.o. of the hopelessly immature, a category fit for any US senator who, believing Justice should be blind and not a perpetual grievance avenger, votes to confirm Sonia Sotomayor. This remains true no matter how many soothing adjectives -- "serious," "calm," "judicious" -- Noonan intones  to cloak such undutiful irresponsibility.

What she and others such as Charles Krauthammer are advocating is nothing less than Taxidermy Conservatism--all stuffed shirts, hot air and no action. No blood, either. Just plenty o' "calm" as Peggy's GOP votes itself into an airless and dusty oblivion.       

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Good news from the Thomas More Law Center about its extremely important lawsuit accusing the US government of using taxpayer money to promote Islam and sharia (Islamic law) through its AIG bailout:

In his well-written and detailed analysis issued yesterday, Judge Zatkoff denied the request by the Obama administration’s Department of Justice to dismiss the lawsuit.  The request was filed on behalf of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve Board – the named defendants in the case.  In his ruling, the judge held that the lawsuit sufficiently alleged a federal constitutional challenge to the use of taxpayer money to fund AIG’s Islamic religious activities. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “It is outrageous that AIG has been using taxpayer money to promote Islam and Shariah law, which potentially provides support for...

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...and the moral of this week's Sotomayor column is, Please, Conservatives, don't Roll Over and Play Dead.

This week's syndicated column

Frank Ricci is "just" a fireman, and not, like Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a federal judge. He is "only" a white male, and not, like Sotomayor, a "Latina." And while he works in New Haven, Conn., he certainly didn't attend Yale Law School as Sotomayor did. For one thing, he's dyslexic. That's why Ricci spent more than $1,000 to pay an acquaintance to make recordings of the educational materials Ricci needed to master in order to pass a 2003 test that was specially drawn...

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The Washington Post's Dana Milbank found Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs' tongue-tie-ups over questions about Sonia Sotomayor's supremacist race theories -- namely, that the "rich experiences" of the "wise Latina woman" make her a better judge than the "white male" -- worth reporting more or less verbatim. The questions carommed off Newt Gingrich's contention that the Supreme Court nominee should withdraw.

Milbank writes:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich joined the chorus. "A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw," he wrote on his blog. "Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

Yesterday afternoon, the matter spilled into the White House briefing room. "Are you familiar with Newt Gingrich's blog?" asked CBS News's Chip Reid.

White House...

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From Defeating Political Islam by Moorthy Muthuswamy, some excellent new, concrete ideas about fighting global jihad.

My favorite: Dump our supposed "allies" from what Muthuswamy calls the Axis of Jihad -- namely, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (the other A of J country is Iran) -- and decisively bond with our natural allies already fighting jihad such as India and Israel. While we have good relations with the latter countries, we minimize their roles, or even exclude them altogether, from openly aiding in "war on terror" out of fear of offending Islam. (This is part of our wholly misguided, if so far regrettably victorious War on Muslim Alienation.)

Here is my book review, which ran in yesterday's Washington Times:

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"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life." -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001.

BH Obama has nominated a race- and sex- supremacist to the Supreme Court.

Marriage is on the rocks. And I'm not talking about the Supreme Court, acts of Congress, "civil union," or Miss America. By personal fiat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just sounded yet another death knell for what we must now categorize as "traditional marriage" by extending benefits reserved for the spouses of State Department employees "to all unmarried domestic partners -- both same-sex and heterosexual." 

These include, according to yesterday's A6 Washington Post story, "paid travel to and from overseas posts, shipments of household effects, visas and diplomatic passports, emergency travel to visit ill or injured partners, and evacuation in case of a security emergency or medical necessity."

Since when does the Secretary of State legislate domestic...

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I don't who gets to play the Dotty Lamour part, but this has got to be a buddy movie/road picture in the making. What laughs! What chemistry!

Only problem is, of course, four's a crowd. That is, there's no room for the US in this story. The points of this love triangle -- Hamid-Mahmoud-Ali -- are all clearly taken.

Which is a good thing. If Hamid hearts Mahmoud hearts Ali, this is one foreign affair the US should keep its men and $$$ -- its tens of thousands of men and it billions and billions of $$$ -- out of. Get it?

Had lunch with a Marine officer who has served three tours in Iraq. He remains extremely disturbed about the ROE (rules of engagement), which he said grew increasingly constricting. He talked, for example, about the insanity of repeatedly arresting and releasing (and arresting and releasing again) enemy fighters, and noted "you can't shoot someone setting an IED...."

Why not? Why couldn't the US have announced that IED-booby-trappers would be shot? The message could have been broadcast in mosques, through leaflets, the works. It seems like the grossest act of US civilian and US military negligence not to have done so, particularly looking back on all  our (Iranian-made) IED casualties in Iraq. Such a common-sense policy, however, isn't PC, and PC always comes first.

My Marine friend thinks if...

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1. When Obama says, "We're out of money," what is he really doing? View from the Right ventures a good guess.

2. How do you explain California's crack-up without mentioning illegal immigration? Answer: You don't. Nicholas Stix explains.

3. The London Telegraph may find the British National Party "comical," but I'm starting to doubt they're going to feel like laughing come Election Day.

AP Photo: Afghans railing against a January 2009  U.S. strike that killed 15 Taliban forces "but," as the AP caption put it, "village elders who quickly traveled to speak with government officials said the dead were all civilians." Shakedown time? Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen says these are the people whose "trust" our troops need to win. As I wrote earlier, how's about if he goes first? ---

This week's column examines the mindless logic of pursuing "victory" in Afghanistan through waging what is looking more and more like a "war on civilian casualties." Our leadership, military and civilian, has decided that eliminating Afghan civilian casualties (bogus or not) is the surefire way to win Afghan hearts and minds. They don't say "hearts and minds," of course; they say "trust." But it's the same darn, stupid thing....

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This is a photo of Moaz Esther, an Israeli outpost that was demolished by Israeli security forces this morning at the behest, media say, of Barack Obama.

This, apparently, is only the first of many. As Haaretz reports (via IMRA):

Ministers, including those from Likud, said Wednesday that Netanyahu probably promised United States President Barack Obama in their meeting that Israel would dismantle outposts soon....

Evacuating illegal outposts in the West Bank is expected to be the Netanyahu government's first gesture toward Obama and the Palestinian Authority.

What next? Self-immolation? This is part of the "price" Netanyahu paid Obama in exchange for the latter's statements about Iran's nuclearization, the sources said.

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AP Photo: Some of the thousands of Afghans who protested an American strike on the Taliban/"civilian casulaties," East of Kabul, in January 2009. Admiral Mullen has ordered US forces to win their "trust." Idea: How's about if he goes first?

--- Afghanistan is already dubbed "Obama's War," but there's another possible father to this misbegotten conflict: David Kilcullen, the Australian former aide to Gen. Petraeus in Iraq.

(Kilcullen, of course, is infamous for the following, utterly mindless, equal parts stupid and putrid comment: "If I were a Muslim, I'd probably be a jihadist. The thing that drives these guys -- a sense of adventure, wanting to be part of the moment, wanting to be in the big movement of history that's happening now -- that's the same thing that drives me, you know?")

Kilcullen popped up in today's NYT, toward the end of yet another appalling story about US officials, including the new US ambassador to Afghanistan LTG Eikenberry (ret.), who have been snookered into going to war in Afghanistan ... in order to avoid "civilian casualties." You thought it was to "defeat" the Taliban and win one for our great ally in counter-jihad, the Afghan people (harhar)? Even that idiotic idea is now beside the point.

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Photo: See Rotterdam and see ... the largest mosque in Eurabia

Via Sandro Magister's Chiesa, a website that reports on the Catholic Church and Islamic matters, a horrifying travelogue through the Islamicized, sharia-compliant heart of islam's European capital, Rotterdam.



Photo: "Muslim women in Rotterdam." It is from an exhibition in 2008 by the Dutch photographers Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek.

The article was first printed in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio on May 14, Magister notes, the second in a major seven-part survey on Holland....

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I just read Mark Steyn's Commentary piece, "Israel Today, the West Tomorrow," which surveys the ghoulishly vicious and rising anti-Semitism in Europe that is correlated to the continent's burgeoning Islamic populations. This poison serves to corrode further Europe's support for Israel.

Missing, however, is an explanation for Islamic anti-Semitism that goes deeper than what is commonly misperceived as a mere territorial dispute. In other words, even in the flagship publication of the American Jewish Committee, there is no indication that Islamic anti-Semitism is in fact sacralized within Islam by a copious body of foundational documents that essentially commands Muslims to hate and kill Jews -- and drive the former dhimmis-restored-to-glory...

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This week's column weighs in othe Great Cheney Debate: Are we less safe under Barack Obama? Dick Cheney has been decrying the national security policies of the Obama administration -- closing Guantanamo Bay, ending enhanced interrogations of captured jihadists, even preparing to release some into the United States -- because the former vice president says they leave this country more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. "That's my belief," Mr. Cheney told CBS' "Face the Nation" this week. "I think to the extent that those (Bush-era) policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies ... means in the future we're not going to have the same safeguards we've had for the last eight years." I agree the new policies make...

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In a triumph for  "Palestinianism" -- which Bat Ye'or thumbnails as "a replacement theory whereby Palestine replaces Israel" (her complete definition here) -- Pope Benedict wholly swallowed and regurgitated the PA narrative in his disgracefully contextless lamentation over the separation fence Israel built to keep PA suicide bombers from exploding in Israel's grocery stores, cafes and buses.

"Just yards from the barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians,"  as the New York Times put it, the Pope "expressed solidarity on Wednesday with `all the homeless Palestinians who long to be able to return to their birthplace, or live permanently in a homeland of their own.' "

Sounds as if the pontiff is pushing the Israel-finisher of so-called  "right of return" to boot....

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Photo: From "Make Me a Muslim," an old credit of the BBC's new religious director Aaqil Ahmed.

The BBC has a new religious programming director, and he is a Muslim. An undercurrent of not-quite-articulated consternation seems to flow through many Brit media accounts of this "first," most of which exempts the new director, Aaqil Ahmed, himself. This main line of argument sticks to the plain statistical fact that Britain remains a Christian country, with 70 percent of the population C of E, and only 2 to 3 percent Muslim -- so why should the Beeb put such a post in Muslim hands? The main exception is a piece titled "Hire a Muslim, Just Not This Muslim," but even this piece is a little oblique as to Ahmed's career. That is, what has Ahmed actually done...

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MEMRI today brings us:Swine Flu: the Obama-Rumsfeld-Tamiflu-Zionist Conspiracy, as "reported" on Iranian TV.

In a nut-shell, it goes like this:

"Obama mentioned a medicine called Tamiflu... [Its manufacturer] is none other than Rumsfeld... [An] influential member on the board of directors of Gilead Sciences [Company]... All its shareholders are Zionists...."

Therefore....?!

Further "proof": "It is interesting that last year, [Rumsfeld] bought, if I'm not mistaken, 18 billion dollars worth of new Gilead stocks," said some doctor of some Iranian university.

If he's not mistaken?

Such dada-esque propaganda is laughable but not at all funny, if you know what I mean. It's just more acid unreason with which to further corrode anti-Semitic, anti-American Iranian minds.

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Coalitions hold together when members share a mutually reviled Public Enemy #1. In Afghanistan, ours, I guess, is the Taliban--although, as I have written here, the Taliban per se pose no security threat to the United States that can't be eliminated as needed by implementing what MG Paul Vallely (USA ret.) describes as the "lily pad strategy" (which can also take care of Pakistani nukes, he says). The general's point is, defending American interests wherever threats develop requires no troop presence in Afghanistan.

Tragically, however, we have one and it is getting much bigger.

Meanwhile, however, our putative ally Afghanistan has a different Public Enemy #1 in mind--civiliian casualties incurred in our supposedly shared fight against the Taliban.

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As you might have heard, September 29 -- which, as Andrew Walden points out,  is really September 11 according to the Julian calendar -- is now Happy Islam Day in the great state of Hawaii, supposed birthplace of Dear Leader (but maybe not). Roger Kimball has more here. According to the Washington Post, "the bill seeks to recognize `the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions' that Islam and the Islamic world have made...."

Hmmm. That's "rich," all right.

Maybe they mean the Taqiyya Sunrise ...  Burqini Bingo ... songs by Don...

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Headline dissonance from Automotive News:

Obama halves Chrysler's planned marketing budget

Since when does a president get involved in...oh, I forgot.

What next?

I can see it coming off the assembly line now: The 2009 Chrysler `Coronation'....

Photo: Pretty colors, but almost beside the point

Dick Cheney is speaking out against the policies of the Obama administration, saying they leave this country more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The Wash Times reports:

Mr. Cheney said that [the Obama] administration's dismantling of many of the policies and protections instituted by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — including the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and halting controversial prisoner interrogation techniques — have made the country more vulnerable to future attacks.

"That's my belief," Mr. Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I think to the extent that those [Bush-era] policies were responsible for saving...

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Photo: Comrade Lenin warming up the crowd for Comrades Obama, Rattner and Geithner

War on Capitalism Alert:

News came down Friday that the informal group of creditors balking at the White House shakedown -- I mean, Chrysler bid -- agreed to disband  group oppposition to the deal. I saw a few stories about this, which included this excerpt of statement released by the group's lead lawyer Thomas E. Lauria:

“After a great deal of soul-searching and quite frankly agony, Chrysler’s non-TARP lenders concluded they just don’t have the critical mass to withstand the enormous pressure and machinery of the US government. As a result, they have collectively withdrawn their participation in the court case.”

Yes, that's the same Thomas E. Lauria who publicly charged the White House with threatening client Perella Weinsten last week in a radio interview. I looked around for the full statement and here it from Campaign for Liberty via NY Times DealBook:

...

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Remember  Pro-Koln September 2008?

When the anti-Islamization movement reconvened this weekend in Cologne/Koln, Germany, European supporters, among them Filip Dewinter of the Flemish independence party Vlaams Belang, succeeded in speaking out. I have included his remarkably  bold and astute speech of defiance and reclamation, courtesy Gates of Vienna, below.

Things were different last time around for Pro-Koln when the city's mayor sanctioned mass thuggery-- Orwellianly mislabeled "anti-fascism" -- to shut down the lawful demonstration -- Orwellianly mislabeled as "fascism," also  "Nazism." If we must stick with the old lexicon, forcibly...

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Last weekend's GOP-lite event was packed, so they say, but oh-so-empty as Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor and Mitt Romney prated on about how Republicans--or, rather, non-Democrats, because according the Wash Post, they rarely used the "R" word--need to be "forward looking" and "relevant" and start a "conversation" with voters around the country....zzzzzzzz.

Are they kiddding?

"I'm glad to hear them keep talking about listening," a man described as a "Republican activist" said.

And this was on the level. So was Jeb Bush's comment carried in the Wash Times about the need to drop the "nostalgia" for "the good old days," which the Times quite naturally interpreted as...

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Not enough people smell a rat when it comes to Obama's manipulation of the Chrysler bankruptcy--certainly not with "owned lackeys" making up most of the media. Here are a few journalists and one pol who can explain why the Obama takeover of Chrysler is so bad for our country.

Michael Barone:

Think carefully about what’s happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored [the UAW]. In the process, it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House’s power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.

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A signal moment has come in President Obama's administration: Citizens are beginning to speak out about its thuggish, strong-arm and surreal takeover of the US economy. Why? Because, in the bold words of hedge fund manager Clifford S, Asness, the free enterprise system "is not the owned lackey of the oval office to be scolded for disobedience by the president."

Too bad the media is that owned lackey who won't even cover this kind of thing. From The Business Insider

Unafraid In Greenwich Connecticut Clifford S. Asness Managing and Founding Principal AQR Capital...

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Photo: Harry and Arlen in happier days.

Wonder what John Nance Garner, best remembered for his comment that the vice presidency wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit (or something), would have said about Arlen Specter's new status as Democratic Newbie on all of his former committees?

Seems that Dem leader Harry Reid promised 79-year-old Specter the world--namely, that the 79-year-old senator would retain his 29 years of seniority if he simply changed his mascot from elephant to donkey.But my, my, things look different in the cold light of the Democratic dawn -- even after that "standing ovation" Harry Reid told The Hill Specter received at his first Democratic policy luncheon yesterday. Or was it simply "warm" even "strong" applause, but no standing O, as three (3) senators anonymously...

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The answer comes from GOV's Baron Bodissey writing at the International Free Press Society website:

Not much.

Or, as OIC Pasha, I mean, Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu put it:

I would like to reiterate on this day the OIC’s staunch commitment to the principles of the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press, not merely as fundamental human rights in the broadest sense of the term, but, just as importantly, as noble values and inalienable universal principles so long as they do not breach the freedom of others or dent their right to their beliefs and cultural ideals.

The Baron takes it apart from there.

The latest from Mahmoud Abbas -- PA leader,  Holocaust denier and Obama's first phone call as president -- is that "he will tell US President Barack Obama this month that resuming peace talks with Israel hinges on its approval of a two-state solution," reports AFP.

Meanwhile, back at al-ranch, Abbas is not at all boosting the notion of two states, certainly not in Arabic. Palestinian Media Watch notes that in an address before the Palestinian Youth Parliament broadcast on PA TV on April 27, Abbas derided the very idea of Israel--and to warm applause. He said:

"What is a 'Jewish state?' We call it, the 'State of Israel.' You can call yourselves whatever you want. But I will not accept it. And I say this on a live broadcast... It's not my job to define it, to provide a definition for the state and what it contains. You can call yourselves the Zionist Republic, the Hebrew, the National, the Socialist [Republic] call it whatever you like. I don't care."

I wonder whether future...

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Photo: Look who's moving into the neighborhood.

So, Defense Secretary Gates now confirms for the first time that, yes, the Obama administration intends to release "some" Uighurs into the US--said Uighurs being the 17 Chinese Muslims at GItmo whom Andy McCarthy describes as being "steeped in jihadist ideology, trained in explosives and assassination tactics, and anxious enough to get that way that they high-tailed it from China to Afghanistan to become more lethal terrorists."

Why?

Gates's argument to a Senate appropriations subcommittee went like this: "It's difficult for the State Department to make the argument to other countries they should take these people that we have deemed in this case not to be dangerous if we won't take any of them ourselves," he said.

...

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I wasn't kidding when I wrote in this week's column that "at the end of Swine Flu, Week One, the first line of flu defense at the U.S.-Mexican border are American bus drivers spraying their buses with cans of Lysol."

It's true. See here to read about the Lysol-plus-Clorox defense one Fort Worth company is deploying to prevent its buses from bringing in more flu cases on its Oklahoma-Fort Worth-Austin-Juventino Rosas route (Juventino Rosas is in the Mexican state of Guanajuato), and see here how a Houston company, "one of dozens...

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Check out the wheels: $540 bucks on the hoof. The First Lady's hoof, er, hooves.

The economy contracts at more than 6 percent in the last quarter (not that the "enchanted" White House press corps asked the Celebresident Obama about that); Chrysler declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and many cities are posting  double digit jobless rates; and Michelle goes gauche and garish with metallic pink toed "trainers" by Lanvin.

What next--bling-bling?



 

 

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As the Left in Europe is increasingly characterized by its appeasement of Islam and an acidifying anti-Semitism, Dutch MP Geert Wilders (above, outside the US Senate), an opposition leader on the Right, rallies the Dutch people with his stalwart defense of Western civilization, his opposition to the encroachments of sharia law in his country and the wider West, and his always staunch defense of Jews and Israel, which he rightly sees as a nation on the front lines against the jihad in progress against the non-Muslim world. 

So how come the Anti-Defamation League is condemning Wilders--and, in turn, being commended for doing so by Hamas-linked CAIR?

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Hamas-linked CAIR is calling for Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner to step down from his leadership post for co-hosting a "Free Speech Summit" last weekend honoring Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders.

Jihadwatch has the jaw-dropping details here. As Geert Wilders put it, "If America needs a poster child for the threat to our freedoms from Islamic extremism, no better example than CAIR could be found." Geert's full statement--"Why I Am in America Fighting for Free Speech" is here.

Couldn't resist this fascinatingly banal interview with Bowdoin associate professor of religion Robert G. Morrison, fresh from his Tehran triumph. Here are highlights from a February 13, 2009 account in The Bowdoin Orient:

On Friday evening, Associate Professor of Religon Robert Morrsion shook hands with one of the most controversial figures in the world—Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran....

Calling for Israel's destruction, killing Americans, maintaining Hezbollah--this all makes A-jad "controversial." By such lights, Hitler was "controversial," too.

Morrison said that during the ceremony "you get to chat, but its chit-chat," with the officials who give the awards.

No meaningful dialogue? Gee, that's too bad.

"I was saying things like 'I am so thankful, your generosity is something I will never forget,'" Morrison said.

Hope he sponged up after himself....

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The little guy (above) is A-jad, Iranian thug-in-chief, and he's congratulating an American professor named Robert G. Morrison of Bowdoin College for having written Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, which, it seems, was chosen by Iran as a 2009 International Book of the Year in Islamic Studies.

Jay Nordlinger recently noted the acceptance of this award--horrifying enough in itself--and also linked to the even more bizarro Bowdoin College webpage that trumpets the incident as though it were a garden-variety academic achievement to fly to Tehran and shake hands with a genocidal jihadist terror master who is committed to the destruction of Israel, who possibly...

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About that appallingly callous decision to fly Air Force One around Manhattan to get new publicity shots without telling anyone: From the start I wondered why the new pix couldn't have been engineered on a computer. The jet fuel savings alone--not to mention the hot-pulse panic suffered by thousands of citizens who feared they were under another jihad attack--should have appealed to this administration.

NRO's Mark Hemingway wondered the same thing, and received this gorgeous shot (above) from a reader who spent ten minutes on Photoshop. The reader said, according to his rates, the cost would have come out to $15 for his time. 

Let's double--no, triple--no, dectuple (if that's a word) these rates for a giant retail mark-up, and imagine the new picture costing We the Taxpayers $150....

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Apology guy: Col. Richard Francey said we were "deeply saddened"--but that's not enough.

Seems that an American colonel (above) calling an authorized military raid to secure stinkin' Iraqi territory against violent attack a "terrible tragedy" isn't sufficient. More grovelling, says Iraq, and now. Reuters reports:

The Iraqi government has asked General Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, for an official apology for a U.S. raid this week that killed two people and kicked off a tide of condemnation, an official said on Tuesday.

"The prime minister sent a letter to the commander of multinational forces in Iraq condemning this act. He asked for an official apology and asked that such acts not be repeated," said Major General Qassim Moussawi, Baghdad security spokesman.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting...

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Photo: Iraq's Maliki called the US raid a "crime" that violated the SOFA. Here we go...

After a US raid in Iraq on Sunday left two dead, the word from the Iraqi government is: "Hand over those responsible to the courts." In other words: Hand over the US soldiers who participated in the raid to the Iraqi courts. For prosecution. Oh, and the detainees seized in the operation should be released while we're at it, handing over our solidiers for prosecution.

Ain't nation-building grand?

In fact, this outrageous demand of Herr Maliki presents the pure golden opportunity to pick up our marbles, our Bradley tanks and GO HOME. Leave. Goodbye and lotsa luck, you intractable barbarians, you. But no. My hunch is we will not hand over our troops (please, Lord, no), but we will indeed issue some big, fat, juicy apologies as we prostate ourselves for the fabulous privilege of remaining stuck in the Iraqi sand to fight off the local "al Qaeda" franchise--which, tragically, does nothing to fight off jihad franchises everywhere else, from Pakistan to Gaza to Brussels to Britain to--guess what?--Washington, DC. And then there's always Iran, whose responsibility for American casualties in Iraq goes unmentioned, let alone unpunished, as its centrifuges whir away...

...

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This week's column takes in an interview with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) about how we can axe the Afghan albatross and contain jihad terror at the same time.

Saw an unforgettably stark photo of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's Wardak province, the same province Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen visited this week: Eight robed, turbaned fighters, a sandy ridge, a cloudy sky. All that was missing was the incoming American drone strike to turn the men into dust.

Question: Should the United States call in that strike? How great a security threat to the United States do these eight barbarians pose? How many dollars, how much blood is it worth to our nation to pulverize them into that lunar-like landscape?

I recently read a military e-mail from Afghanistan that marveled over a similar scene: "As far as BDA (battle damage assessment) goes, check this one out. 2 GBU 36's (bomblets) dropped the other day on estimated 6 guys!!!! That is half a million dollars on 6 guys!!!!" The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn't cost close to that.

...

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Photo: Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, Harvard '96

Here, in a Washington Times exclusive, I delved into this story of the Harvard Muslim chaplain who sees "great wisdom" in death for apostasy:

What do Pakistan's Swat Valley and Harvard University have in common?

Their leading Islamic authorities uphold the Shariah (Islamic law) tradition of punishing those who leave Islam with death.

There are differences, of course. For one thing, Shariah actually rules the Swat Valley, while Shariah's traditions, as promulgated by Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, retain a more or less theoretical caste. In a recently publicized e-mail, for example, Mr. Abdul-Basser approvingly explained to a student the traditional Islamic practice of executing converts from Islam.

As the chaplain put it: "There is great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment), and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human-rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand."

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Remember that "war within Islam" we're always hearing about? You know, the war between the "moderates" and the "extremists" that is far, far more important -- indeed, that cancels out and replaces -- any suggestion that a war, or even clash of civilizations, between Islam and the West is taking place? Well, the war's over.

I am referring, of course, to the capitulation of Pakistan to Swat Valley jihad, which scholar and author Andrew Bostom has pointed out occurred basically without a shot despite Pakistani leader Ali Zardari's recent boast of having  "150,000 soldiers fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan — far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan." It also occurred without any assistance to Pakistan from any of the 56 other nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Funny how the OIC doesn't seem...

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Filip Dewinter and Frank Vanhecke spoke before the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen last week. Here, courtesy of Steen, are videos of their speeches. First, Filip (click "Read more") --



Now, Frank:



...

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Despite consensus to the contrary -- as exemplified by Chas. Krauthammer's crowing comment that "the good news is that these [pirates] are not jihadists"-- Josh London, author of the excellent Victory in Tripoli: How America's War With the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, lays out the case that Somali piracy is indeed ocean-going jihad.

Writing in the Washington Times, Josh takes the US government to task for  "treating the matter as a criminal case," arguing that "these `criminals' are jihadist Muslim pirates and must be dealt with in the context of America's larger regional...

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Let's review:



Now, the speculation is that Obama doesn't want to be seen with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu at the upcoming AIPAC conference in Washington. On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post reported:

Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday canceled his plans to attend the upcoming AIPAC summit, after it became clear that US President Barack Obama would not meet him during the conference.

Netanyahu announced that while he will not attend the conference in person, he will send a video-taped message to Washington.

A watershed disgrace if true. Certainly, this notion has been cycling around Israel circles for a while. Last week, the Jerusalem Post reported:

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They knew what they were after--the Gestapo (above), that is. And as Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said last week, the DHS "right-wing extremism" report "would have the admiration of the Gestapo and any current or past dictator in the way it targets political opponens." So, what to do? 

The Thomas More Law Center has decided to take action by filing suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, arguing that the DHS report "violates the civil liberties of combat veterans as well as American citizens by targeting them for disfavored treatement on account of their political beliefs."

This is the same Janet Napolitano, who, by the way, on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday told host John King that crossing the border illegally "is not a crime per se. It is civil." Just FYI: crossing the border illegally is indeed...

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Q: Who is free to smile at a cartoon?

A: Frank Vanhecke and Filip Dewinter, both of Belgium's Vlaams Belang party, and Lars Hedegaard, president of both the Danish Free Press Society (Trykkefrihedsselskabet, if you're in the Danish know) and the International Free Press Society. Frank and Filip recently addressed the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen, where Lars presented them with autographed prints of Kurt Westergaard's famous Motoon.

It is no laughing matter that such smiles are courageous acts of defiance in this Age of the Dhimmi in which cravenness and self-suppression become ever more ordinary.