RECKONING THE RAINBOW PRESIDENT

Ever get that sinking feeling that some people would rather spend their entire life chasing rainbows than accept the reality that a rainbow is merely an arc of colored light in the sky caused by refraction of the sun's rays by rain. There is no distinction to the rainbow whether this is caused by clean rain or polluted rain caused by a myriad of human and geological events.

This immense, curved spectrum of light appears only when both the elements of sunshine and rainfall present. As the sunlight enters the falling raindrops, it breaks up into its true colors of red, orange, yellow, blue, and violet. These colors are always arranged according to their wavelengths, with red being at one end of the spectrum, and violet at the other. Once inside the droplet, the particles of colored light bounce from side to side, reflect off of the far side of the droplet, exit the droplet, and reassemble, according to their wavelengths, to form a rainbow.

Simply because one happens to be standing in the right place at the right time, when both elements necessary to form a rainbow are present, does not mean that one will actually see a rainbow dazzle. For the human eye to see these multi-colored bands, ranging from red to violet, her body must be strategically positioned between the sun and the rain, with his back to the sun.

If the sun, the eye, and the center of the rainbow's arc are not in a straight line, the show is over, before it began. This explains why we only see rainbows in the early morning or late afternoon...

it is physically impossible for us to align our eyes with the sun at other times of day, as it is high above our heads! Logically, a morning rainbow appears when the sun shines in the east, and the rain falls in the west, and an afternoon rainbow appears when the sun shines in the west, and the rain falls in the east. Interesting stuff.

From Dr. Daniel Pipes:

POTUS BARACK OBAMA'S assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, "A New Approach for Safeguarding Americans."

To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has an unusual tenor. "Sycophantic" is the word that springs to mind, as Brennan ninety times in five thousand words invokes either "President Obama," "he," "his," or "the president." Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One. This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader.

Specifics are no better. Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one wonders, does he think Al-Qaeda represents?

Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qaida and its allies" and the other "violent extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire analysis.

He also rejects any connection between "violent extremism" and Islam: "Using the legitimate term jihad, which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself."

This passage regurgitates a theory of radical Islam that, according to Lt. Colonel Joseph C. Myers of the U.S. Air Command and Staff College, "is part of a strategic disinformation and denial and deception campaign" developed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Discredited in 2007 by Robert Spencer, the theory distinguishes between good jihad and bad jihad and denies any connection between Islam and terrorism.

It's a deeply deceptive interpretation intended to confuse non-Muslims and win time for Islamists. The George W. Bush administration, for all its mistakes, did not succumb to this ruse. But Brennan informs us that his boss now bases U.S. policy on it.

As has been pointed out many a time in many a place, the problem is "The One." Right at the top, Barack Obama, that is. As a candidate, in discussing foreign affairs, he used endless platitutes. On Iran, for example, he could not get beyond "carrots and sticks," which he repeated again and again. He made extraordinary comments about Hezbollah and Lebanon that even caught the attention of David Brooks of the New York Times. He sounds a all times like a moderately adept debater who thrives on the fruits of platitude, chasing rainbows in the false churlish world of his own imagination.

Read the remainder of the report from Dr. Daniel Pipes.

We at the Bellicose Augur agree that Obama and Brennan are up to no good with their soporific notions of appeasing the enemy, or worse, in conducting pure acts of treason to gum up the works for future service, but we strongly disagree that the Bush administration stayed free of such conflated and confused thinking themselves. Did the Bush White House stop or place a moratorium on Islamic immigration onto our shores? No, it did not. Instead, it flung open the doors to Islamic immigration from around the globe, cocksure that once on American soil, followers of Allah would morph into Joe and Flo Crossbearer, and play peacefully with its infidel neighbors. Oops, didn't happen.

Did the Bush White draw distinctions between our system and the system of Islamic nations in terms of human and natural rights, as diminished as these rights are becoming even here with the encroachment of government from both ends of the sledge hammer? No, it most certainly did not. A martial code of silence was in full effect. Echoes of Bush's "Islam is a Religion of Peace" non-sense still bounce like bricks with a painful thud inside my head. Lies. More lies. And those damned lies.

Bush was obviously in bed with the Saudis who are spearheading massive spending ventures, funding Wahhabi schools from kindergarten upwards, erecting virilent and robust mosques in a neighborhood near you, and in a slick move politician types of every stripe master with a wink and a nod, these Saudi princes pour concrete and glass into new Islamic Studies wings at universities in every state of this formerly great nation of ours while the Bush administration did nothing but fire whistleblowers who dared contradict its standing (and sitting) policy of soft appeasement of this very real enemy. All in the name of oil and business as usual. To now hold Scotland accountable for its release of the Lockerbie bomber is a joke.

FREE SPEECH IN DISTRESS

"The refusal of the Western elite class to protect their nations from jihadist infiltration is the biggest betrayal in history."

—Serge Trifkovic

Another ambitious article by the American Thinker:

ON JULY 19 , A CONFERENCE entitled "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam" took place as scheduled at the Hilton Hotel in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. There, in the heartland of a post 9/11America, Hizb-ut Tahrir, an international organization outlawed as a terrorist group in several European and Middle East countries, sponsored sessions focusing on strategies to end free enterprise and replace it with Shari'ah law.

Hizb-ut Tahrir is no academic think-tank simply examining public issues. It is an international group reported to have over a million members, including cells in more than 40 countries. It supports the Taliban and Hamas, sanctions suicide bombing and has called for the killing of nonbelievers. It has spawned terrorists for Al Qaeda, Hamas and Jemaa Islamiya; subscribes to the mantra that "jihad has to continue till the Day of Judgment;" and endeavors to replace existing governments with a worldwide Khilafah (Caliphate) or Islamic government under Shari'ah law.

It is remarkable enough that a conference of this nature by a group that advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government actually took place in an American city. Perhaps even more disturbing is the growing number of cancellations of events and conferences that feature the opposite point of view with material and speakers that seek to educate the public about the threat of radical Islam. Increasingly, our country's prized right to freedom of speech seems to operate in only one direction, providing plenty of opportunities for our enemies to speak openly against us, yet, placing a gag over any discussion about the radical Islam threat.

Here are some disturbing recent examples.

New English Review Symposium

In December 2008, the New English Review, a non-profit organization dedicated to the defense of Western values, had scheduled and signed a contract to conduct a symposium, "Understanding the Jihad in Israel, Europe and America" at the Loew's Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Three days before the symposium was to begin, the hotel manager cancelled the event citing concerns about "the safety, welfare and security of hotel guests and employees." Subsequent investigation disclosed that the manager summarily disagreed with the politics of the event and responded to pressure from prominent Muslims and Leftists in the community. A local paper went so far as to refer to the conference speakers as "agents of intolerance."

American Library Association Panel

Just this week, the American Library Association cancelled a panel, "Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping," at the behest of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR sympathizers who objected to the participation of Islamic scholar and author Robert Spencer.

Spencer has studied Islamic doctrine for close to 30 years and quotes directly from traditional Islamic sources in his efforts to shed light on the myriad facets of the global jihad. He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the U.S. intelligence community and other government organizations. Spencer is the author of eight books on Islam and the jihad and has appeared on CNN, BBC, FoxNews, PBS, MSNBC and other networks.

CAIR, which presents itself as a benign civil rights organization for American Muslims, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful prosecution of Muslim charity founders who illegally funneled millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. CAIR officials are known to have terrorist ties and the organization has actively fought to repeal the Patriot Act, eliminate military tribunals and even defended convicted terrorists. The group is well known for its pursuit of individuals who expose its links to terrorist funding and support activities. In 1994, one of CAIR's co-founders, Nihad Awad, publicly asserted that he was a Hamas supporter.

In 1998, co-founder Omar Ahmad declared, "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant." He added, "The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

People's Truth Forum

In 2005, The Georgetown Marriott refused to host a symposium on counterterrorism sponsored by America's Truth Forum (ATF), formerly known as People's Truth Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Americans about national security threats. The ATF hosts a website featuring articles from mainstream media sources and had planned a series of panels featuring top experts in the field of counterterrorism. ATF's conference was rejected by the Georgetown Marriott Conference Center on the grounds that the organization was too controversial, the venue was inappropriate for the topic and heightened security would be necessary to protect hotel guests. The following statement was issued by Marriott's corporate office: "Due to the high density of Muslim students on campus, we're afraid of the potential for violent protests, injured employees and damage to the facility."

Shortly thereafter, CAIR hosted its 11th Annual Banquet at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia. Not only have several CAIR officials been convicted and deported by the United States for terrorist activity, but a 2005 invited speaker, Siraj Wahhaj, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the first World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Apparently, a group with established connections to terrorism is a non-controversial organization for the Marriott Corporation.

Conclusions

It is unconscionable in 2009 that an acceptable forum in America today is a conference entitled, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam," with a goal of strategizing the demise of the bedrock of our democracy—the free enterprise system—and the replacement of our constitution with a theo-political-legal system that subjugates women, murders homosexuals, confers non-person status on non-Muslims, permits slavery and kills apostates. At the same time, attempts to discuss Islamic doctrine and educate the American public about this very threat are increasingly verboten. In many recent instances, accurate speech is being deemed inflammatory due to fear of retaliation by those who want to silence critics of Islam who engage in legitimate discussion of a serious threat to our nation.

How this threat plays out in everyday life can be illustrated by the city of Nashville, Tennessee, which provides an interesting example of the exercise of one-way free speech and the accompanying extreme accommodation of those with whom we disagree. Thanks to the largesse of the State department's Refugee Resettlement Program, which offers housing, jobs, welfare and an abundance of social services for program recipients, at least 50% of whom are Muslim, Nashville has over 20,000 Muslims from Iraq, Somalia and the Sudan. Six known mosques exist in Nashville, a doses a Muslim graveyard, a madrassa, a Muslim Boy Scout troop and chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Muslim Student Association and Muslim American Society. According to a local psychiatrist, the Nashville Muslim community has evidenced polygamy, child marriage, female genital mutilation and wife beating. Crimes such as drug-dealing, money-laundering, murder, rape and Medicare and grant fraud are occurring at alarming rates. Many of these behaviors are grounded in value systems that are contrary to our own, yet anyone pointing this out would be subject to accusations of "intolerance."

In this and other ways, attempts to curtail the speech and assembly of critics of Islam portends a grave threat to the First Amendment protections that are vital to preserving our cherished liberty and freedom and safeguarding us from totalitarianism and tyranny. If we are unable to speak freely and openly about the radical Islamic threat presently confronting our country while Islamists are given the freedom to gather and plot the overthrow of our system of government and spout hateful rhetoric and propaganda, an Islamic government under Shari'ah law will surely be our fate.

Read it all.