Posted by Richard on November 27, 2008
Today's events in Mumbai (a.k.a. Bombay), India, are a grim reminder that we who embrace reason, enlightenment, tolerance, and modernity are still at war with the Islamofascists.
Because they continue to wage that war. And they won't stop until they're destroyed. Or we submit.
No amount of wishful thinking or conciliatory talk by our side will change that.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: india, islamofascism, terrorism, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 27, 2008
The retrial of five Holy Land Foundation officials (the first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked) has finally ended. All the defendants were convicted on all counts:
The men, Shukri Abu-Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mohamed El-Mezain, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, could face up to 20 years in prison for their convictions on conspiracy counts, including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The verdicts, read Monday afternoon, ended a two-year saga in what is considered the largest terror financing case since the 9/11 attacks.
After the first trial, I remember lots of criticism of government prosecutors for presenting a very complicated case — with scores of witnesses, lots of complex financial data, and tons of evidence — in a very disorganized and hard-to-follow manner. Someone seems to have addressed that problem effectively this time (emphasis added):
Prosecutors made a series of significant adjustments, from dropping 29 counts each against defendants Mufid Abdulqader and Abdelrahman Odeh, to adding new witnesses who could put the charity support in context. In addition, jurors in this trial saw three exhibits Israeli military officials seized from the Palestinian Authority which showed the PA also considered HLF to be a Hamas financer and that an HLF-supported charity committee was controlled by Hamas.
The result was a much more streamlined case that followed a logical narrative, said Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. Seeing the Palestinian Authority reach the same conclusion as the U.S. government had to have helped, he said.
In addition, prosecutors provided summary exhibits that served as "a road map" to the case and had to help jurors deliberate, Margulies said. "The jury was able to look at the evidence and get past the perceived biases of any of the witnesses and see the evidence as a whole."
That evidence made clear that the defendants knew where the money raised in the U.S. was going despite legal prohibitions against support for Hamas.
The verdict was hailed by M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Prosecutors prevailed because they were able to "connect the ideology of political Islam and the overriding mission of Islamist organizations like the HLF to their desire to contribute to the efforts of terror groups, like Hamas," he said. "When this connection is made we will see the return of a guilty verdict. In future [terrorism financing] cases DOJ will not only have to connect the financial dots but [will have] to demonstrate an overarching common Islamist mission."
Don't forget that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — which the media (and many in the government) routinely portray as the voice of moderate American Muslims — was an unindicted co-conspirator in this case. Because the leadership of CAIR shares that "ideology of political Islam" and "Islamist mission."
BTW, those inclined to see this as just another example of the Bush administration trampling on civil liberties should take it up with members of Congress and the previous administration (it looks like many of the latter will be back on January 20th):
… Support for Hamas became illegal with a 1995 executive order by President Bill Clinton and subsequent congressional action.
HT: LGF
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: hamas, islamofascism, justice, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 15, 2008
Along with the usual ad inserts, my Sunday Denver Post contained something special — something that made me cheer: a DVD of the one-hour version of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. The slick, eye-catching card to which it was attached listed over 60 newspapers in which it was being distributed, so maybe you got one too.
You are going to watch it, right? You are going to pass it along to friends or family, right?
I've written about Obsession several times. I've contributed to the project. And I'm delighted that millions more people will now get the chance to see it.
Film critic Michael Medved called Obsession "one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I've seen this year." You need to see this film. Your friends need to see it, too. It would make a great gift.
Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination. With the help of experts, including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.
A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for. The world should be very concerned.
The DVD in the Sunday papers is the shortened version that aired on Fox News. If you didn't get one, or if after watching it, you want to support the project and get the full-length theatrical release DVD (on sale now for only $14.95!), click here or on the Obsession banner in my right sidebar. If you have broadband access, you can watch a full-screen, high-resolution stereo presentation online for $4.95, which can be applied toward a DVD purchase.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: islamofascism, islamonazism, jihad, movies, obsession, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 11, 2008
Seven years ago today, barbarians with box cutters — primitive savages who could never build a World Trade Center or a 747, but whose insane ideology is dedicated to making the building of such things impossible — murdered 2,996 innocent people in pursuit of their war against Western Civilization.
Never forget that on September 10, 2001, Manhattan looked like this.
Never forget that on September 11, 2001, Manhattan looked like this.
Never forget that we watched people jump from hundred-story buildings to avoid an even worse fate.
Never forget that we were wounded, but our spirit wasn’t broken. We’ve fought back. And we will win.
As I have each of the last two September 11ths, I offer you passage from Gerard Van der Leun’s Of a Fire in a Field — a passage that moves me beyond words every time I read it — in which he recalled 9/11 and its aftermath, when he lived in New York:
Inside the wire under the hole in the sky was, in time, a growing hole in the ground as the rubble was cleared away and, after many months, the last fire was put out. Often at first, but with slowly diminishing frequency, all the work to clear out the rubble and the wreckage would come to a halt.
The machinery would be shut down and it would become quiet. Across the site, tools would be laid down and the workers would straighten up and stand still. Then, from somewhere in the pile or the pit, a group of men would emerge carrying a stretcher covered with an American flag and holding, if they were fortunate, a body. If they were not so fortunate the flag covering over the stretcher would be lumpy, holding only portions of a body from which, across the river on the Jersey shore, a forensic lab would try to make an identification and then pass on to the victim’s survivors something that they could bury.
I’m not sure anymore about the final count, but I am pretty sure that most families, in the end, got nothing. Their loved ones had all gone into the smoke and the dust that covered the end of the island and blew, mostly, across the river into Brooklyn where I lived. What happened to most of the three thousand killed by the animals on that day? It is simple and ghastly. We breathed them until the rains came and washed clean what would never be clean again.
. . .
Read the whole thing — and think about the question he asks you at the end.
And never forget.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, barbarism, heroism, islamofascism, new york, terrorism, war, world trade center, wtc | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 9, 2008
If you live in Michigan, northern Ohio, or northern Indiana, you have an opportunity to see the outstanding film Obsession:Radical Islam's War Against the West for free on the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The screening will take place this Thursday at 6:00 PM at the AMC Fairlane 21 theaters, 18900 Michigan Avenue, in Dearborn, Michigan.
To reserve free tickets, send an email, indicating the number of tickets and the names of the individuals who will be attending, to: ObsessionDearborn@yahoo.com
More information: http://www.myspace.com/obsessionmovie
If you can't go see it for free, why not buy the DVD? And then share it with your friends. It's important.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: 911, al qaeda, islamofascism, obsession, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on July 17, 2008
Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith testified yesterday before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and Power Line posted his opening statement in its entirety. If you think you know all about the Bush Administration's policy decisions regarding enemy combatants and the Geneva Conventions — especially if your information is based directly or indirectly on the allegations of Philippe Sands — you really should read this. Here's a bit from the beginning:
The history of war-on-terrorism detainee policy goes back nearly seven years. It involves many officials and both the law and the facts are enormously complex. Some critics of the administration have simplified and twisted that history into what has been called the “torture narrative,” which centers on the unproven allegation that top-level administration officials sanctioned or encouraged abuse and torture of detainees.
The “torture narrative” is grounded in the claim that the administration’s top leaders, including those at the Defense Department, were contemptuous of the Geneva Convention (which I refer to here as simply “Geneva.”) The claim is false, however. It is easy to grasp the political purposes of the “torture narrative” and to see why it is promoted. But these hearings are an opportunity to check the record – and the record refutes the “torture narrative”.
The book by Phillipe Sands is an important prop for that false narrative. Central to the book is its story about me and my work on the Geneva Convention. Though I’m not an authority on many points in Sands’s book, I do know that what he writes about me is fundamentally inaccurate – false not just in its detail, but in its essence. Sands builds that story, first, on the accusation that I was hostile to Geneva and, second, on the assertion that I devised the argument that detainees at GTMO should not receive any protections under Geneva – in particular, any protections under common Article 3. But the facts are (1) that I strongly championed a policy of respect for Geneva and (2) that I did not recommend that the President set aside common Article 3.
I will briefly review my role in this matter and then discuss Sands’s misreporting. As it becomes clear that the Sands book is not rigorous scholarship or reliable history, members of Congress and others may be persuaded to approach the entire “torture narrative” with more skepticism.
Read the whole thing. I think Feith's account hangs together well, seems to make sense, and is quite plausible — none of that proves it's true, of course, but I'm inclined to believe it.
Feith's discussion of the issue of POW status introduced me to something I wasn't aware of: During the Reagan Administration, the U.S. rejected a treaty to amend Geneva called "Protocol 1" because it would have granted POW status to terrorists. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post praised Reagan (uncharacteristically) for this decision.
Like I said, read the whole thing. Then read something I posted three years ago, They aren't criminal suspects!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: al qaeda, gitmo, human rights, terrorism, torture, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on July 11, 2008
President Bush today signed legislation expanding intelligence agencies' powers to monitor communications involving foreign terrorist suspects.
If you're planning on contacting a bin Laden-backed, Taliban-supported Deobandi madrassa in Pakistan to see if the sons you sent there to be radicalized have been turned into jihadis and are ready to come home to continue the struggle, consider yourself warned.
The bill was passed by the Senate Wednesday 69-28. Twenty-two Democrats voted for the bill, including Senators Bayh, Casey, Feinstein, Inouye, Landrieu, both Nelsons, Rockefeller, Salazar, and Webb. Oh, yeah, and Sen. Obama, who had pledged during the primary campaign to filibuster the bill.
It was another significant victory by the purportedly incompetent and unpopular lame duck:
Even as his political stature has waned, Mr. Bush has managed to maintain his dominance on national security issues in a Democratic-led Congress. He has beat back efforts to cut troops and financing in Iraq, and he has won important victories on issues like interrogation tactics and military tribunals in the fight against terrorism.
Debate over the surveillance law was the one area where Democrats had held firm in opposition. House Democrats went so far as to allow a temporary surveillance measure to expire in February, leading to a five-month impasse and prompting accusations from Mr. Bush that the nation’s defenses against another strike by Al Qaeda had been weakened.
But in the end Mr. Bush won out, as administration officials helped forge a deal between Republican and Democratic leaders that included almost all the major elements the White House wanted. The measure gives the executive branch broader latitude in eavesdropping on people abroad and at home who it believes are tied to terrorism, and it reduces the role of a secret intelligence court in overseeing some operations.
The bill also made it clear just where many leading Democrats — including the presumptive presidential nominee — stand on this "privacy rights" issue: They're unalterably opposed to any compromise on communications privacy, even for foreign terrorists, and even if their opposition threatens national security and the safety of Americans … but not if it threatens their political future.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bush, civil liberties, intelligence, national security, obama, senate, surveillance, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 26, 2007
Four weeks ago, I noted that Hollywood's recent spate of anti-American propaganda films had been singularly unsuccessful:
The bad news is that Hollywood is relentlessly cranking out film after film intended to undermine support for the war against Islamofascism. The good news is that Americans are avoiding these propaganda pieces in droves. Most recently, Babel, The Kingdom, and Rendition have all bombed at the box office.
Add Brian De Palma's execrable Redacted to the list. In fact, put it at the top. According to a NYPost story quoted by JammieWearingFool, it may be the biggest box-office bomb ever. On its opening weekend, it took in about $25,000. No, I didn't accidentally leave off three zeros. Twenty-five thousand dollars. At what — about eight bucks a ticket? That means more people attended your average minor-league hockey game than saw this left-wing turkey.
JWF's post also has the unbelievable story of how De Palma is complaining that he's a victim. You see, his corporate overlords insisted on blurring the faces of dead American soldiers in a "collage of actual bloody bodies at the end of the film." He's been censored! Denied his opportunity to inflict gratuitous pain and suffering on the families and friends of the dead in service of his art (and politics)! Poor Brian!
De Palma is a vile POS, and a pretty sorry director, too — overrated, overblown, and completely derivative. His career should have ended years ago. I remember a great (late 70s?) Saturday Night Live parody commercial for a De Palma film called The Clams — a silly ripoff of Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with clams gathering on a jungle gym. As I recall, the money line at the end was "every couple of years, he picks the bones of a dead director and gives his wife a job."
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: culture, entertainment, hollywood, idiotarian, islamofascism, moral equivalence, movies, propaganda, terrorism, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 31, 2007
The bad news is that Hollywood is relentlessly cranking out film after film intended to undermine support for the war against Islamofascism. The good news is that Americans are avoiding these propaganda pieces in droves. Most recently, Babel, The Kingdom, and Rendition have all bombed at the box office.
But it's not just that film-makers are making anti-war movies. They've also gone out of their way to avoid portraying the most believable and likely villains around today, Islamist terrorists, even if it meant rewriting stories like Tom Clancey's The Sum of All Fears to kowtow to the demands of CAIR (unindicted co-conspirators in a terrorism-financing operation). The film version replaced the Islamist terrorists in Clancy's novel with cartoon neo-Nazis.
Michael Fumento noted the difference between Hollywood then and now:
In 1942, Hollywood went to war. It began pumping out countless movies designed both to entertain the public and bolster its will to fight. A lot of them were cheap, hokey, or both. But even in a nation that seemingly needed little reminder of the dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor or the evils of the Nazis, they kept drilling home the message that we must persevere no matter the costs or the duration.
Well that they did. President Franklin Roosevelt lived in constant fear that the public would turn against the war. Indeed a Gallup Poll taken just five months before Germany’s collapse and long after the American public began learning of the horrors of the Holocaust, showed about one-fourth did not want to drive on to unconditional surrender.
Fast forward that reel to the post-9/11 era. Just how many Hollywood movies (not documentaries) have been made in which the bad guys are Islamist terrorists that do not specifically concern the Sept. 11 attacks? If you have to guess, guess “none.”
Read the whole thing. As Fumento observed, Hollywood seems bent on convincing us that either Islamist terrorists aren't really a threat or that they're no worse than we are.
Also, read Ed Driscoll's Hollywood Nihilism, which argues that the change in Hollywood predates 9/11 and Bush ("who's the real enemy," indeed).
It's really remarkable (and disgusting) that Tinseltown — with its well-known predilection for hedonism, its commitment to feminism, its enthusiastic embrace of alternative lifestyles, and its general "do your own thing" attitude — has consistently sided with the most barbaric, mysogynistic, intolerant, and repressive religio-political movement on the face of the earth, a movement that would, given the chance, behead or stone to death practically every last one of them.
Driscoll be damned, I blame Bush.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: culture, entertainment, hollywood, idiotarian, islamofascism, moral equivalence, movies, propaganda, terrorism, war | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 22, 2007
The more I’ve listened to and read the arguments that there’s no problem with Mahmoud Ahm-a-doin-a-jihad coming to New York (yet again), the more disgusted I’ve become.
As if reasonable people could have a polite discussion with him about stoning women and homosexuals to death (with small stones, Mahmoud insisted, so they would suffer more), and publicly hanging dissidents by the score.
As if it were not craven cowardice for a Jewish mayor to say, in effect, he’d have no problem with a Holocaust denier committed to wiping out Israel visiting Ground Zero if it weren’t for that pesky construction and the security problem.
As if inviting this monster onto an American campus were not an unforgivable slap in the face to the students and faculty of Tehran University who’ve been beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and killed.
As if we don’t have incontrovertible evidence that he’s sent not only his weapons but his soldiers into Iraq to kill Americans, and as if Iran had not been killing Americans and de facto waging war on us for almost 30 years.
Treating this bastard as a respected world leader is giving him — and the other thugs that fill the halls at the U.N. — what evil always seeks and we must stop granting: the sanction of the victim. Dr. Sanity wrote about this a year ago:
Repeatedly over the years (but especially more recently), the world has said to America, “We will give you the honor and privilege of fixing our problems for us; and in return, we get to spit in your face; denounce you as immoral; and generally denigrate your culture, your leaders, and your people.”
The UN’s perverse anti-Americanism is well documented. No other country gives more to this organization than the U.S.; and no other country is on the receiving end of its absurd and childish criticisms more.
…Only by withdrawing the “sanction of the victim,” –i.e., refusing to be manipulated in this manner–refusing to give aid where there is scorn and not even grudging gratitude; refusing to shoulder the burden of all as they beat us upon the back and tell us to go faster, do it better, and jump higher; refusing to pay their debts; fix their problems; or protect them from their own, deliberate, suicidal behavior–only then will the looters and the parasites be forced to recognize reality.
Every time I see our country accept the premises of the insane political correctness promulgated by the political left–a doctrine that claims that, while all cultures and countries are equal; you, America, are uniquely bad and evil and must be punished for your sins. Every time I witness the hysteria mounted when America falls short of its own ideals–and then willingly and honorably acknowledges the fact and takes steps to correct it; every time I witness the granting of moral equivalence between America and the barbaric terrorists who get a free pass from the international community and the MSM for their behavior (being a terrorist means never having to say you’re sorry as far as the left is concerned)– I am appalled.
Me too.
Do we really have no choice under our “treaty obligations,” as some insist? History says otherwise.
In 1983, after the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko canceled a trip to the U.N. after Governor Mario Cuomo of New York and Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey (not exactly rabid right-wingers) both vowed not to allow a Soviet plane to land in their states.
In 1988, the Reagan Administration denied Arafat a visa to speak to the U.N. because he was a terrorist. The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the United States, and then packed up and moved to Geneva, where Arafat was warmly embraced.
In neither case did the world end. In 1988, unfortunately, there was a down side: the General Assembly later returned to New York.
UPDATE: Please sign Brigitte Gabriel’s petition to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: dhimmitude, iran, islamofascism, terrorism, united nations | 4 Comments »
Posted by Richard on September 20, 2007
If there were any justice in the world, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahm-a-doin-a-jihad's visit to the U.N. would culminate in his being taken hostage by a group of Jewish NYU students and held for a year or so, so he could see how it feels. It certainly wouldn't include:
At least there are people who are outraged. Demonstrations are planned. Michelle Malkin and Pamela Geller have lots of info and links (check their home pages, too, for newer posts). If you're in the NYC area, I urge you to help make this POS feel unwelcome.
UPDATE: I suppose that at this point in time, it's entirely unsurprising that Liberal Bloggers Defend Ahmadinejad Visit To Ground Zero.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: dhimmitude, iran, islamofascism, terrorism, united nations | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 19, 2007
A prominent Saudi cleric who in the past praised Osama bin Laden and whose teachings are said to have inspired terrorist attacks has now condemned al Qaeda for all the killing of "innocent Muslims and others." Iowahawk posed an interesting question about al Qaeda's recent tactics and proposed an interesting answer:
The question, of course, is why has al Qaeda turned to killing "innocent Muslims"? As Glenn and everybody else notices, Arab clerics did not bother to denounce terrorism when Americans were the prominent targets, but regard terrorism much differently when it produces Arab and Muslim victims. Al Qaeda turned to a policy that seemed calculated to alienate the Arab "street." Why?
The best answer, or at least the answer that will best withstand the scrutiny of history, is that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, wittingly or not, put al Qaeda in an almost impossible position. …
Naturally, you need to read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: al qaeda, bin laden, iraq, islamofascism, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 17, 2007
The full-length version of the acclaimed documentary film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West was released on September 11 and is now available from all the major DVD retailers (although Amazon is already sold out).
I raved about the shortened version when it aired on Fox News, and quoted others who raved as well. For instance, film critic Michael Medved called Obsession "one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I've seen this year." You need to see this film. Your friends need to see it, too. It would make a great Christmas or Hanukkah gift.
Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination. With the help of experts, including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.
A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for. The world should be very concerned.
Click here or on the banner below to order the DVD for $19.95, or to watch a full-screen, high-resolution stereo presentation online (broadband required) for $4.95, which can be applied toward a DVD purchase.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: islamofascism, islamonazism, jihad, movies, obsession, terrorism | Leave a Comment »
