ANOTHER TEST FOR GREAT BRITAIN

SO HERE COMES THE ACID TEST: is Jacqui Smith, as she proclaims, an enemy of extremism in all its forms, or a cowardly hypocrite?

In October, the Home Secretary announced 'tough new measures' to deny entry to Britain to anybody 'engaged in fostering, encouraging or spreading extremism and hatred.' In recent weeks she has put them to use by banning a Dutch MP with hugely controversial views on Islam, and a notorious anti-gay US preacher. But will she be prepared to apply the same new standards to Islamic extremists who preach a hatred of Jews?

Ibrahim Moussawi, a known hardliner with links to Hezbollah, has been invited to speak at a London university, the School of Oriental and African Studies. His track-record speaks for itself.

He allegedly described Jews as 'a lesion on the forehead of history', and is an editor for the newspaper of Lebanon-based terrorist organisation Hezbollah. He is also former political editor of the Iranian-backed group's TV station, which is banned in many countries including France, Spain and the US, as its output is seen as anti-Semitic.

In short, it is a no-brainer for Miss Smith. He should, as the Centre for Social Cohesion and the Conservatives argue today, be banned from setting foot in the UK, let alone speaking here. Failure to do so must represent double-standards of the very worst kind.

The Far-Right Dutch MP Geert Wilders was banned from travelling to Britain to show his shocking 17-minute film called Fitna at the House of Lords because his views were considered wildly extreme.

His film, which links mainstream Islamic texts with the terrorist attacks on New York in September 2001, was indeed crude and provocative. It begins with the hugely controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb as a turban, and the suggestion that the Koran is ‘a fascist book’ is patently offensive to millions of people.

But so are the odious ramblings of Moussawi.

Miss Smith also banned the Reverend Fred Phelps, founder of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, from entering the UK earlier this month. The 'Reverend', who campaigns under the slogan ‘God Hates Fags’ is fanatical and hateful in equal measure. He had wanted to visit Britain to picket a performance of a play which dramatises the real-life murder of a gay man in 1998. Miss Smith said he had ‘engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a 'number of communities’. So has Moussawi.

Yet Labour has, in the past, been happy to display double standards when the beneficiaries were Islamic extremists. The cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was not just granted a visa to visit the UK in 2005, despite being publicly praised by the then London Mayor Ken Livingstone at City Hall. Al-Qaradawi had been criticized for condoning suicide bombings and for having anti-Semitic and homophobic views.

Will Miss Smith now repeat the past mistakes of a left-wing establishment inexplicably tolerant of Islamic franatics who pass themselves off as scholars or academics? The omens do not look good. During her time as Home Secretary, Moussawi has already been allowed in at least twice—in December 2007 and February 2008.

This is her third—and surely final—chance to show some courage.

GRAY LADY WHISTLES DIXIE

Lo and behold! A miracle has occurred in our midst. The daunted Gray Lady of Big Time Journalism has swept aside the cobwebs, and is now reporting the unvarished truth about what is happening in Gaza. This is a wonderful day, folks. Mark it on your calendars. Verily, I tell you, The New York Times has stepped up to the plate on this one. I'm not sure I can even believe my own eyes. Is the tide finally changing on these ruthless thugs who fight under the pernicious flag of Mohammed the Horrible?

Now if only those folks at the desk will admit that this has ALWAYS been the case, that with each subtle and not so subtle encroachment, each lob of a Iranian-suppled missile, each cry of forlorn victimhood from these very same so-called "Palestinian" pan-Arab rebels, it has not been Israel who has been the instigator, the culprit, the cold blooded murderer of civilians but the rebels themselves who wear this badge of disgrace.

But after all, that's how Mohammed taught his followers to make war. It's right there, word for word, in their book. And for fourteen hundred years Mohammedans of every stripe have agreed that war is deceit, and that old adage all is fair is love and war, is as Islamic-sounding as it is old school Western (before we went all soft, weak, and multiculturalist). Except, of course, as many commentators have mentioned, the Qur'an does not mention the noble word "love" even once in all its ferocious pages.

This reportage does beg the question of why this leftist newspaper has suddenly shifted its tone. I'm figuring it has less to do with clarity of thought at the editor's desk or in Israel and thus America finally having its fill of stop gap measures. No. It appears that all it took was the election of the Chosen One, Barack Obama, to the office of presidency, for the leftist media to draw different conclusions on the same batch of details. Mustn't let the messiah fail is the order of the day, and since Obama's hands are pretty much tied at this point, the shift of perspective had to come in the reportage of the facts. Pin this one on dirty playing Hamas. Must keep the messiah clean.

That works for me in this case. But it does show to what lengths the leftist media will go to protect its own.

So, to that end, the NYT has reported that the most important strategic decision the Israelis have made so far, according to senior military officers and analysts, is to approach their incursion as a war, not a police operation. Civilians are warned by leaflets, loudspeakers and telephone calls to evacuate battle areas. But troops are instructed to protect themselves first and civilians second.

JERUSALEM—The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks.

Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the last two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership’s war room is a bunker beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say.

Unwilling to take Israel’s bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire.

In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the building’s main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building.

Read it all.

ASCENDANT ENEMIES

From the Washington Times, more evidence that a major showdown with the enemies of liberty and religious sanity—as articulated in the West—is in the making. There is nothing wrong with noting the reality on the ground, and preparing for the inevitable. A common sense defense and retaliation strategy does not make one a baby-killing hawk, any more than battening down the hatch and boarding up those windows in preparation against an identified hurricane barreling into one's path makes one a thrillseeker.

Islam proves itself every day across this planet as nothing more than a totalitarian ideology which delights in its function as a thrill-kill machine, and somebody on this planet must take a stand against it. Unfortunately, all the US and Israel seem to be capable of doing is painting ourselves into a corner from which there is no escape,

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, the quick, brutal display of raw military power by Hezbollah in the past six days is a window into the grim future of Lebanon and the broader Middle East: a future in which Iran and Syria are ascendant and have lost much of their fear of the United States and Israel. It sends a message to President Bush, who arrives in Israel Wednesday to commemorate that nation's 60th birthday: that Tehran and Damascus can project power whenever they want in places like Lebanon, and the United States and it's allies can't do anything about it.

At least 44 people were killed and another 128 wounded in the fighting—the worst outbreak of sectarian violence inside Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war. Although domestic Lebanese issues played a role in the violence, they are inseparable from the larger geopolitical issues. Ever since the Feb. 14, 2005, assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which eventually forced Damascus to remove its occupation troops, Syrian President Bashar Assad has wanted to reclaim power in Lebanon. So, on Friday, after several days of street clashes between pro-government forces and opposition forces, all-out warfare broke out between street gangs loyal to Hezbollah and gangs funded by Saudi Arabia and loyal to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni Muslim. In less than seven hours of fighting, Hezbollah forces routed the pro-government side, occupied much of Western Beirut, and plastered walls with pictures of the Syrian dictator. Government security forces, equipped and trained by the United States but paralyzed by sectarian differences, stayed out of the fighting.

Lebanese newspapers are filled with pictures of bound, blindfolded members of the defeated loyalist forces who were captured by the Hezbollah side and masked Hezbollah gunmen swaggering through Beirut, boasting how they had forced members of the losing side to beg for their lives. After capturing West Beirut, Hezbollah relinquished the area to the Lebanese Army—for now. Hezbollah (and by extension, its backers in Tehran and Damascus) have demonstrated that they and not the Lebanese government control Lebanon. Do not be surprised if very soon, an emboldened Hezbollah steps up its harassment of the United Nations peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon, laying the groundwork for another battle with Israel.

US SECURITY AND ISLAM

We continue to read that Defense officials involved in waging the global war against Islamist extremism are increasingly frustrated by the apparent failure of senior military and civilian officials in distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys. In fact, as far as most of us who aren't fixated on celebrity sightings and other useless pursuits of happiness are concerned these so-called community outreach efforts have helped legitimize some U.S. Islamic groups with covert or overt ties to extremists, a problem that also is occurring at the FBI and Justice Department.

The Pentagon's problem was highlighted by a recent Marine Corps ceremony marking Ramadan. The little-noticed "iftar," or fast-breaking, was held Sept. 26 at the Washington Navy Yard in Southeast and was hosted by Marine Corps Deputy Commandant Gen. Robert Magnus. Among the guests was Agha Saeed, national chairman of the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), a political group that has been linked to Muslim organizations that continue to voice support for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. In rare candor, several Pentagon and military officials have stated to the media that official Pentagon backing for the Marine Corps event and a similar Pentagon iftar celebration on October 1 were demoralizing.

"During the Cold War, we at least had the brains to recognize Soviet front groups and didn't invite them to the Pentagon for vodka and caviar," one defense official said. "Now, the Islamic militant front groups are [the Department of Defense's] guests of honor."

According to the Web site—DiscoverTheNetworks.com—AMA is a political group that works to get Muslims elected or appointed to senior influential positions in the U.S. government.

"AMA is an active member of the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council," DiscoverTheNetworks stated. "It also is affiliated with Muslim groups—such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council—whose members have publicly supported Hamas and Hezbollah, or have been linked to the funding of terrorist activities."

Stephen Coughlin, a counterterrorism analyst on the Joint Staff, has warned in a recent memorandum that U.S. government efforts to work with front groups for the extremist Muslim Brotherhood had increased the danger that instead of countering Islamist extremists, the government is helping to legitimize groups that are potential terrorist and insurgent support groups. Officials said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has been among the least careful in associating with various suspect Muslim groups and their leaders. But that's not all.

This report is an outrage. The same groups who do everything they can to thwart investigations, impede police surveillance activity, and hamstring the judicial process when dealing with jihadists then cite statistics about prosecutorial success as evidence that there is no threat. That the report apparently does not acknowledge these impediments, and does not cite any rationale for ignoring them, means that the authors are agenda-driven. And their agenda is denial.

Morgaan Sinclair in a slightly different take, writes:

I have had Muslim friends for about 35 years, and have worked with Muslims from some 18 countries. So I have a very personalized picture [of the general Muslim public in the West] over almost four decades now.

My theory is that about 85% of Muslims are actually practicing a spiritual (not orthopraxic) Islam that is NOT part of any of the eight formal schools of fiqh. This is rather best exemplified by the Soheib Bencheikh, the former Mufti of Marseilles. It would nice if you would sometime read up on this fellow, and there are quite a number of others as well.

They are headed as fast as they can toward the Ninth Mahdhab. And this is likely the only way that we can pull this off. Only if there is a formalized Ninth Mahdhab—certainly a possibility since the 8th was created only in 2003 (a mystery that!). There is the real possibility, given the creation of a mahdhab so recently, that another may be created, the joining of which, will start to draw immense amounts of energy OUT OF the radical system.

The only way to fight a bully is to get off the gameboard. That means that WE ought to be getting off oil as fast as possible, refusing admission to people from countries supporting terrorism, shutting the borders, refusing trade, et cetera. Especially stop training them in our universities.

Adopt Israeli rules of border crossing: You cross into Syria and you never get to come back. You go to Pakistan, you don't come home.

BUT THEN, the Ninth Mahdhad becomes the energy drain off of radical Islam. Just back away. The problem right now is that the Mufti of Marseilles, et al., have no formal mahadhab but are trying to create one. That is something we should support. Otherwise we're left with people like you bitching about it with no solutiosn whatsoever EXCEPT a world conflagration in which we do hand-to-hand combat with 1.6 billion angry Muslims.

And so it goes. Forty years ago things were different. Times have changed, and allianaces and impetus change. But this much is self-evident. The enemy continues to thwart our collective and personal visions of world peace without bloodshed. But we, in our sinister resolve, haven't completely lost our dignity (which ain't never been photographed by the way) as we crawl about on our hands and our knees searching for solutions to God's own mystery dance in the fair calling meant only for those two or three gathered...

Duh Swami elsewhere says, "This reminds me a little of fishing. Where the guys in the boats are trying to cast close to the shore, while the fishermen on the shore, are trying to cast out where the boats are. Terrorists train here for fighting over there. While terrorists over there are training for fighting over here. It only makes sense if you are a fisherman or a terrorist..."

Time of the Assassins. The marching, the wincing, the evidence, the plea. Guilty, filthy, frothing as sin, there's you, oh yes, and me...

GT

US JUDGE FINES IRAN FOR 1983 BOMBING

Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the family members of the 241 U.S. servicemen killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge ruled in Washington on Friday, calling it the largest-ever such judgment against another country.

Iran has been blamed for supporting the militant group Hezbollah, which carried out the suicide bombing in Beirut. It was the worst terrorist act against U.S. targets until the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Hundreds of people crowded a federal courtroom to hear Friday's ruling. "These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter century for justice to be done," U.S District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said as families embraced.

The crowd, many of them weeping, stood and erupted into applause as Lamberth left the bench. The ruling allows nearly 1,000 family members and estates to try to collect Iranian assets from various sources around the world.

Read more...

LEBANESE ARMY FIGHTING THE JIHADISTS

An excerpt from the Spirit of 1683 found on Jihad Watch:

And our so-called 'men of the cloth' were just as bad. But the wicked got what they wanted from a West that is easily duped because it chooses to be easily duped, and this is so because it chooses to be violently anti-semitic. The spirit of Nazism has been resurrected in 21st Century Europe, and has sadly been exported to the US.

Another aspect of this was the marches in dozens of Western cities. Tens of thousands of brain-dead Leftist and Islamist rabble-rousers carried banners showing solidarity with Hezbollah. Contrast this with the size of the rally in Glasgow last week, which had a few hundred attendees, with half of them carrying "Stop The War" placards—and half being non-Muslim. Of course, the Left pretend to be against racism and for civil liberties if their banners are to be believed but salivate over the worst racists and vilest regimes on the planet. What a depressing picture this creates of a Britain that seems to care more about the lives of Hezbollah terrorists than of London pubgoers and Glaswegian holidaymakers.

And today there is a different battle going on in Lebanon—between the Lebanese Army and terrorists in a refugee camp. The protestors, who only a year ago slandered Israel on our streets are strangely absent. There's no Green Helmet Man around today, nor a Red Cross ambulance in sight. No bellowing has been heard from the obnoxious Galloway and his ilk. Our press and media remain strangely silent. The so-called 'peace activists' have suddenly decided Lebanon isn't the place for them. What a stunning lack of morals from a bunch as deficient in guts as they are in ideals.

TIPPING THE BREAKPOINT

The following are excerpts from an address by Abdallah Safialdeen, Hizbullah's representative in Iran, which aired on Iranian Channel 4 on March 4, 2007.

Abdallah Safialdeen: The day that Hizbullah won the war shaped the future of the region. It led to what we are witnessing today: America's actions, the domestic problems of the Zionist regime, the confusion of Europe. The Europeans are very confused now, and don't know what to do. The horse that they put their money on—Israel—can no longer fulfill the role it played in the past.

America has not had any success anywherein the region. In our opinion, the harbinger of this lack of success was the victory of Hizbullah, the bitter defeat of the Zionist regime, and its incompetence in the region. You should know that. Do you know what an American withdrawal from Iraq will mean? It will mean that Israel will lose its support. It will mean that the Lebanese Hizbullah will not need a large-scale war in order to enter Palestine. Hizbullah will be able to simply walk into Palestine.

Rest assured that the day the American forces leave Iraq, the Israelis will leave the region along with them. What was one of the reasons for Olmert's recent visit to America? He went there in order to say to the Democrats: "Don't say that the American army will leave Iraq, because this would mean the annihilation of the Zionist regime." This is because the annihilation of the Zionist regime has begun.

Like some of our friends say, Palestine is no longer a problem for us, because the Americans will be forced to leave Iraq. With or without a war against Iran, they will be forced to do so. The moment they leave Iraq, you, the Muslims of the world, can
walk into Palestine, because Israel will no longer exist. It will be over and done with. Even with America's [help], Israel could not do a thing.

The Americans will be kicked out of the region, without accomplishing anything. The American forces will be kicked out of the region, in disgrace, humiliation, and defeat. Therefore, this victory was very important. It was a landmark in the history of the Islamic world and the entire region.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP: click here.

BOXER STAYS THE COURSE

In the last gasp of the recent Boxer-CAIR affair, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and officials from a Muslim advocacy group said Wednesday they have resolved to move forward on improving interfaith relations after smoothing over a skirmish over an honor rescinded by her office.

“I’m putting it all behind me, and we’re moving ahead to work with the civil rights community to better relations among people of all faiths,” Boxer said in an interview. But a spokeswoman for the California Democrat said she does not intend to give back the certificate honoring Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The senator also said the concerns prompting her to rescind his service award this month haven’t changed. At the time, Boxer and her staff cited concerns about CAIR’s positions on terrorist groups, contending that CAIR had refused to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. Boxer had been criticized on conservative Web sites for giving the award to Elkarra; she said she did not know her office had done so.

CAIR officials met with Boxer and her staff Tuesday. “We have addressed the issues related to this unfortunate and unnecessary incident, and have agreed with Senator Boxer that we should all move forward to build a nation in which people of all faiths work together to promote respect and tolerance,” CAIR said in a statement.

Oh sure. But since when has Islam ever worked together with other faiths to promote respect and tolerance? A Muslim is forbidden to even be friends with the kafir, or infidels, except to deceive them until the day they've grown strong enough to subjugate them to the Islamic ideology. Working together with other faiths to promote respect and tolerance is anathema to Muslims.

Such niceties as respect and tolerance for others outside the cult are not part of Allah's program for his brave new world. The kafir's very existence is an affront to Muslim reflexive airs of superiority. Note Osama bin Laden's rage against the presence of the US base in Saudi Arabia during our defense of Kuwait. Segregation is a primary in the Muslim belief system—EXCEPT WHEN—Muslims are invading foreign lands wearing the mask of victimhood.

CAIR-Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said the group condemns all acts of terrorism. But as usual, the facts portray a different picture, one in which apparently CAIR does not condemn certain terrorists—more accurately, jihadist—groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, which is precisely why the award was rescinded.

It is certain that CAIR applied pressure to Senator Boxer with their "action alerts" and "calls for more understanding." Yet, to her credit, she did not capitulate and will not issue this member of CAIR an undeserved award. Kudos to Senator Boxer. CAIR's refusal to condemn Hezbollah and Hamas while recently in the news for condemning the fictional terrorists on the television show "24" shows the true profile of their boisterous hypocrisy.

Armed and dangerous bonafide terrorists are killing Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the real world while a whipped up CAIR concerns itself with fictional television terrorists.